Growing criticism of the EU in Poland after the re-election of Tusk

Clara Weiss

Leading representatives of the ruling party Law and Justice (PiS) in Poland and many Polish media outlets have reacted with outrage at the re-election of Donald Tusk as president of the European Council at the EU summit on March 9.

For months, the PiS-government had tried to prevent Tusk’s reelection. Tusk led neo-liberal opposition party Civic Platform (PO) from 2003 to 2014 and was the Polish prime minister from 2007 to 2014. Last year, PiS even began legal actions against Tusk. One day before the EU summit, the current Polish Prime Minister, Beata Szydło, published an open letter calling for the replacement of Tusk.

At the EU summit Poland was the only country to vote against the re-election of Tusk. In order to prevent his election, the Polish government advanced a rival candidate, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski. However, with the votes of all other 27 EU member states, Tusk’s presidency of the EU council was prolonged until the end of 2019.

The opposition of the PiS-government to Tusk is rooted in differences about both domestic and foreign policy. Even though Tusk gave up his position as head of PO when he moved to Brussels in 2014, he is still regarded as its informal leader. PO is now the largest opposition party in Poland and involved in a bitter conflict with the PiS-government, which peaked last December with an opposition-led blockade of the Polish parliament (Sejm).

The EU supports the PO’s criticism of the authoritarian measures of the PiS-government, especially the latter’s de facto stripping of power from the constitutional court, and has even threatened Poland with sanctions.

At a press conference in February, the head of PiS, Jarosław Kaczyński, accused Tusk of violating the “basic principles of the European Union”. According to Kaczyński, Tusk is violating the principle of neutrality and even “goes so far as support an opposition that calls itself totalitarian and seeks to overthrow the government by extra-parliamentary means.”

In foreign policy, PiS is oriented primarily toward the United States, whereas PO is advocating close collaboration with the EU and particularly Germany. The Polish government has repeatedly described Tusk as a “German candidate.”

In his first term as president of the European Council, Tusk has supported the line of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in basically every question. In an article from last year, the journal Politico cited an advisor to the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) as follows: “You can trust him, he is reliable, he can keep secrets to himself. Everyone knows that Merkel desperately needs Tusk to keep the Eastern European countries quiet and under control. She will never let him fall.”

The so called Visegrad countries—Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic—which usually ally in the EU against Berlin, were split over the election of Tusk. Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic declared their support for Tusk early on.

According to media reports, the right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose party maintains friendly relations with PiS, had tried for some time to find a compromise with Poland on the issue, but apparently to no avail.

The election of Donald Trump as US president has escalated the conflicts within the Polish bourgeoisie, which finds itself in a dilemma. While it has worked closely with the US in restoring capitalism in 1989 and the military build-up against Russia, the Polish bourgeoisie is also dependent on the EU and especially Germany, which is by far Poland’s most important trading partner.

The Trump presidency has dramatically sharpened the conflict between the US and the EU and Germany. At the same time, it is not clear to what extent Warsaw will be able to rely on the support of Washington in foreign policy matters in the future. Under these conditions, tensions in Warsaw about foreign policy are running high.

Remarkably, right after the inauguration of Trump in January the PiS-government undertook an effort to improve its strained relations with Berlin. During Merkel’s visit to Warsaw in February, both sides tried to downplay the sharp conflicts of the past one and a half years.

Regardless of these efforts, however, there still remain fundamental differences between the PiS-government, which fears a German dominance of Europe and Berlin. One moot point between PO and PiS was that the former had, like Berlin, advocated a “hard Brexit.” By contrast, PiS has been trying to strengthen Polish-British ties.

For these reasons, Polish politicians reacted with anger and outrage to the re-election of Tusk and regard it as a turning point in relations between Poland and the EU.

Thus, Polish defense minister Witold Waszczykowski said in an interview with the Polish Sunday Express, Tusk had been elected because of “dictates from Berlin.” Now Poland had to expect an “enormous wave of blackmail and pressure” and “a coalition against Poland”.

He threatened that Poland would now pursue a more independent policy within the EU. In his words, Warsaw had “to dramatically lower its level of trust in the EU” and start blocking initiatives of other member states. At the same time, Waszczykowski rejected the idea of Poland leaving the EU as “nonsense..We are in the Union. We are still part of the game.”

While media outlets close to the liberal opposition such as the Newsweek Polska greeted the re-election of Tusk as a “defeat for Kaczyński”, the conservative Rzeczpospolita published a commentary under the title “The ugly face of the union”. The commentator of the influential newspaper assessed the election of Tusk as a deliberate “humiliation” of Poland and concludes: “We often hear that the European Union is one big family. Perhaps it is, but above all a dysfunctional one.”

The Polish president Andrzej Duda congratulated Tusk on his election only after 24 hours—an unusually long period of time.

In a press conference after the summit, prime minister Szydło openly attacked Germany and France. She declared that the election of Tusk marked a “sad day” and was in violation of EU principles. She demanded that the rules for the election of the president of the European Council be changed so that no candidate could be elected without the approval of his or her own country.

Then, Szydło attacked the concept of a “Two-speed Europe” propagated by Paris and Berlin and called for strengthening the rights of national parliaments within the EU. The PiS government is particularly opposed to the building of an EU army, a plan pursued by Berlin, and a “hard Brexit.”

The fierce reactions in Poland against the re-election of Tusk are yet another symptom of the crisis of the EU which is disintegrating under the pressure of deep economic crisis and growing national tensions.

In a commentary, the German newspaper Die Welt warned that Poland would “take a bitter revenge for its defeat.” The issue, so the newspaper said, would have far-reaching consequences for Poland and the European Union. “Poland is of enormous significance for European cooperation. And Warsaw has means to pressure the European Union—as a veto power.”

Europe-wide demonstrations in defence of migrants and refugees

Robert Stevens

Protests took place across Europe Saturday to coincide with United Nations (UN) Anti-Racism Day.

This year, what is known as “International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination” falls on March 21. The day was proclaimed by the United Nations in 1966 to mark the anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa in 1960. Marches were held in 10 countries across 45 cities.

Up to 30,000 people demonstrated in London, with protesters assembling in Portland Place before marching to a rally in Parliament Square. Around 3,000 marched in Glasgow, Scotland and 1,000 in Cardiff, Wales.

Up to 15,000 people reportedly marched in Athens, Greece, which only has a population of 11 million. The march was organised by the United Movement Against Racism and the Fascist Threat, which is backed by various pseudo-left groups and sections of the trade union bureaucracy. Many were refugees from the various camps built by the Syriza government. Many of those demonstrating attacked the Fortress Europe policy of the European Union (EU) and demanded the rescinding of the EU deal with Turkey that seals off Europe’s borders to the millions of refugees fleeing war zones in the Middle East and North Africa and facilitates the mass deportation of refugees arriving in Greece.

Protesters demanded the opening of borders across Europe and chanted slogans including “Asylum and housing for refugees” and “No to deportations.” Protests were also held in Greece’s second city, Thessaloniki, and in Patras, Ioannina, Heraklion, Chania, Volos, Xanthi.

Several thousand attended protests in Amsterdam in the Netherlands and the Austrian capital, Vienna. Thousands marched in a number of Danish and Polish towns and cities.

The London protest was significantly larger than those held in other European capitals. It was organised by Stand Up to Racism (SUTR), a coalition that has the backing of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), a number of national unions and Labour MPs. Yet here, the organisers, including the pseudo-left Socialist Workers Party and Counterfire, ensured that there was scarcely a reference to the reactionary anti-immigration policies of the EU that their co-thinkers in Greece were busily protesting.

To do so would cut across the narrative of the main trade unions that continued EU membership provides a progressive alternative to Brexit and Prime Minister Theresa May’s alliance with Washington.

Instead, announcing the march, SUTR wrote that it was “Taking place in the wake of the election of Donald Trump and as Theresa May makes the moves to trigger Article 50 and the UK’s Brexit from the European Union, a progressive movement is growing to turn back the tide of racism.”

The SWP, for its part, dutifully backpedalled on its previous anti-EU pro-Brexit position and insisted, “To defend freedom of movement, we need unity no matter how people voted.” The unity they speak of preserving is not the unity of the working class, which would mean opposing both the pro-and-anti-Brexit wings of the British bourgeoisie and the labour and trade union bureaucracy, but their own unity with the TUC.

Those speaking offered no perspective to defend immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. While there was no end of outrage emanating from the platform condemning the reactionary policies of May and Trump, the organisers glorified a UN initiative that has, from its inception in 1966, carefully avoided criticism of any government, including the main European powers.

While calling for the “Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,” the UN resolution allows signatories to do exactly as they please. It states, “This Convention shall not apply to distinctions, exclusions, restrictions or preferences made by a State Party to this Convention between citizens and non-citizens.”

The resolution adds, “Nothing in this Convention may be interpreted as affecting in any way the legal provisions of States Parties concerning nationality, citizenship or naturalization, provided that such provisions do not discriminate against any particular nationality.”

Frances O'Grady speaking at the London rally

Speakers, including Trades Union Congress leader Frances O’Grady, were happily able to declare token opposition to the treatment of refugees by May and Trump, which commits them to doing absolutely nothing.

Particular focus was placed instead on a moral appeal to the May government for special treatment for unaccompanied children. The Dubs Amendment—a parliamentary amendment put last year by Labour peer Lord Alfred Dubs aimed at allowing into Britain a few more lone child refugees from the “Jungle” camp at Calais in France—was universally hailed.

The reality is that such was the public outcry at the height of Europe’s refugee crisis at the plight of thousands of children and teenagers living unaccompanied in terrible conditions in the Calais camp, that Lord Dubs proposed an amendment to the Immigration Act 2016. This proposed bringing just 3,000 of the Calais children to Britain. In the end, just a few hundred were allowed in by the May government under the amendment clause, before the scheme was scrapped entirely this year.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn did not attend the march, instead sending in a video message in which he once again cited a series of commonplaces. He solemnly declared, “It’s the United Nations Anti-Racism day,” adding it was necessary to “redouble our efforts in fighting racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination.”

Corbyn told the audience, “We will not be divided. In place of division, we must all come together to celebrate our diverse communities and shared heritage.” The “Labour Party knows this and it’s at the heart of what we do,” he stated, adding, “This week I met with Alf Dubs and met with young refugees who thanks to his efforts now live safely in Britain.”

Corbyn said the May government had “thwarted Alf’s efforts at every turn.”

The focus of the speakers at the rally, including Corbyn, on the Dubs Amendment also provides a political amnesty for the broader militarist agenda of British imperialism.

One would never have known that Corbyn is the leader of a party which has supported every single war waged by the US and Britain over the past three decades. Or that Corbyn is fully complicit in allowing this to continue. In November 2015—just two months after being elected Labour leader on a platform that included opposition to war—he capitulated to Labour’s right wing by agreeing to their demands for a “free vote” on military action in Syria. This was specifically aimed at reversing a 2013 vote against the war in parliament. Corbyn’s action gave then-Tory Prime Minister David Cameron the majority he sought—reversing the defeat he suffered two years before—with UK bombing in Syria beginning just hours later.

As for defending the rights of EU nationals living and working in Britain, in January, in yet another capitulation to the Labour right, Corbyn reversed his previous opposition to limits and quotas on immigration numbers. He stated in a speech in Peterborough, a city that voted strongly in favour of leaving the European Union in last year’s referendum and has a large Eastern European migrant population, “Labour is not wedded to freedom of movement for EU citizens as a point of principle.”

In line with their refusal to address the predatory role of Britain and the European powers, there was not a single reference to the crisis of capitalism or imperialism—which is responsible for the wars that have resulted in the creation of tens of millions of refugees globally—in the material produced by Stand Up to Racism for the event. Stand Up to Racism instead urged only, “Yes to a world free of racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. Yes to a world where refugees and migrants are welcome. Yes to a world where black lives matter and we build bridges not walls.”

Pakistan’s Economy: Significance of MSCI Elevation and FTSE Inclusion

Amita Batra

Two positive developments that have been announced and will see implementation in the coming week and in the month of May augur rather well for an economy that has for long shown below average economic performance and weak macroeconomic fundamentals. Six companies listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange have been included by FTSE in its Global Equity Index Asia Pacific Series for the first time, on 17 March, and Pakistan will be upgraded to the MSCI Emerging Markets (MSCI EM) index from the earlier higher risk Frontier Market index category later, in May. Pakistan was downgraded from the MSCI EM in 2008 following a temporary closure of the Karachi Stock Exchange. So, while this is not a first for Pakistan, when combined with other developments it contributes to positive investor sentiment, both domestic and foreign, and potential for a more economically sound Pakistan economy.

The MSCI indices provide a broad measure of equity market performance. MSCI EM is a free float adjusted market capitalisation index that is designed to measure equity markets’ performance of emerging markets. Index inclusion may have positive consequences in terms of increased integration with global financial markets, diversification of risk, and hence reduced capital costs. Essentially the stock market developments will give Pakistani firms the benefit of greater visibility and potentially positive returns. As an economy, this will imply easier access to global finance and foreign direct investment. This is a huge advantage for an economy for which financial constraint has been an overriding concern in its growth process. In the last decade, within a span of five years, Pakistan borrowed twice from the IMF. In 2008, Pakistan was given a loan of US$ 7.5 billion, and then US$ 6.6 billion in 2013 for economic stabilisation and growth. The situation may be in for a positive change now.

The other development that has initiated the build-up towards economic strength is the expansive investment plan towards infrastructure and energy sector as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The CPEC, which is a part of China’s ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative, a network of highways, railways and pipelines to connect Western China to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port on the Arabian sea, is expected to contribute to growth by reducing transportation and electricity bottlenecks. Owing to the US$ 46 billion investment by China in CPEC, Pakistan has shown a surge in investment since 2015 as against the deceleration in investment observed on an average in South Asia since 2011 (Global Economic Prospects, 2017). Also, power outages and electricity cuts have been major constraints in Pakistan’s growth process. Many studies have pointed towards the loss of GDP on account of energy shortage in Pakistan. Across these studies the economic costs on account of power and electricity shortage are estimated in the range of 4-10 per cent of GDP. The CPEC will help overcome these infrastructural constraints to growth in Pakistan.

In addition to the investment surge, the CPEC is expected, through its connectivity projects, to facilitate people, resource and goods movement. Put together, this is likely to translate into more employment and trade opportunities for Pakistan. Though, undoubtedly, the CPEC projects are at a nascent stage and there are doubts about their completion given the domestic and regional political equations as also the security situation along the corridor. But, reports of evident progress are also seen. In November 2016, China started operating the Gwadar Port by dispatching ships with goods brought by trucks from China to West Asia. Other projects, including the second phase of upgrading the Karakoram Highway and the highway linking Karachi to Lahore as also in the energy sector, have also reportedly progressed.

Improved economic health is further evident from the conclusion, by Pakistan, of the SDR 4.393 billion IMF Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme specifically aimed at supporting reform and fiscal consolidation. Pakistan has been credited with undertaking reforms in easing out the energy constraint and it is expected that improvements in infrastructure will contribute to growth. Over the past three years the macroeconomic fundamentals have improved, fiscal and trade deficit reduced, and forex reserve position enahnced though largely on account of global oil price movement. The stock market has increased by 50 per cent since 2015. Growth projections for Pakistan are higher for both the fiscal year (FY) 2017 and 2018 relative to its FY 2016 performance. Notwithstanding the downside risks of political instability and slide back in the pace of reforms, Pakistan, with a projected rate of growth of over 5 per cent (Global Economic Prospects, 2017) for both years, is now expected to contribute to regional growth in South Asia.

Put in perspective, it is not that Pakistan has not seen episodes of high growth earlier in its economic history. There have been positive growth periods in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s when Pakistan was among the faster growing economies in South Asia. However, growth has been in spurts and economic policy more ad-hoc than sustainable. Alternating between political regimes, democratic and military, meant frequent policy reversals and political and economic instability. Growth slowed down in the 1990s and over the last decade with increasing debt burden characterising the Pakistan economy. As geostrategic and geopolitical factors came to dominate economic policy and functioning, there was a steady deterioration in governance and institutions in the country.

However, the turnaround in Pakistan’s economic health this time appears to hold more promise given the simultaneity of positive developments. The potential for investment that the MSCI elevation and FTSE inclusion holds is significant. The weakness of repeated borrowings from the IMF is claimed to be diminishing with the loan facility having been concluded and tangible progress in domestic economic reforms. The underlying support from the Chinese investment in CPEC with its manifold beneficial implications is unprecedented.

So, anchored to the CPEC investment and supplemented by positive stock market and domestic liquidity developments, there is potentially an opportunity for Pakistan to strengthen its economy. On a stronger economic footing, will Pakistan make for a more stable South Asia or a more aggressive opponent to India? It may be time to reflect on the possibilities.

Nuclear Ban Treaty Conference and Universal Nuclear Disarmament

Manpreet Sethi

A nuclear weapons free world (NWFW) has been on the global agenda since 1945. Only, it has never been a global priority. In 2009, when the president of the militarily most powerful country talked about it in Prague, there was a brief upsurge of hope. But, the moment passed all too quickly and by the time President Obama demitted office, he had been persuaded to approve an unprecedented modernisation of the US nuclear arsenal and infrastructure. President Trump is likely to stay the course. Not surprisingly, Russia is keeping nuclear pace. And, China is keeping them company with the induction of new conventional, nuclear and dual-use capabilities. All three are also experimenting with newer technologies ranging from hypersonics to underwater nuclear drones.

Ironically, it is at this juncture that a conference to negotiate a treaty prohibiting the possession, use, development, deployment and transfer of nuclear weapons is scheduled to be held in the last week of March 2017. Engaged as all the nine nuclear-armed states are in nuclear modernisation, it is not surprising that this initiative is being led by a set of non-nuclear weapons states (NNWS), mostly from Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and some from Europe. The conference is the outcome of the UNGA resolution 71/258 that was adopted on 23 December 2016. The Resolution itself arose out of three meetings in 2016 of the Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) on disarmament. The OEWG was the result of the three conferences that were held as part of the Humanitarian Initiative (HI) since 2013. The HI brought focus to the fact that any nuclear detonation would be a catastrophic disaster beyond human handling capability. It also highlighted the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons given that the NPT itself does not delegitimise these weapons, certainly not for the five recognised NWS. It only prohibits their possession by the NNWS parties to the treaty. The nuclear ban treaty plans to plug this gap.

While the organisation of a conference to conclude such a treaty is by no means a trivial event, there are still many a slip between the lip and the cup of disarmament. For one, except for North Korea, none of the other eight nuclear-armed states has accepted the idea of the treaty. While China, India and Pakistan abstained on the UNGA resolution, France, Russia, UK, US (as also NATO allies and other states under the nuclear umbrella) opposed the Resolution. One of their major reservations arises from what such a ban would mean for extended deterrence. How will NNWS that join such a treaty but are in alliance with NWS reconcile both sides? Will the treaty restrict such an arrangement? Will states enjoying the benefit of extended deterrence be forced to choose between remaining in the alliance or joining the treaty? But, for them to join the treaty and abandon the nuclear umbrella without resolving their security concerns from nuclear weapons of adversaries would not be feasible. Japan and ROK face this dilemma. North Korea may have supported the Resolution, but whether it will join the treaty that outlaws its strategic assets appears unrealistic for now. So, what do Japan and ROK, and others like them, do?

A second limitation of the treaty is that it pitches itself as a normative treaty, rather than one that is able to enforce dismantlement of nuclear stockpiles in a verifiable manner. It only prohibits nuclear weapons without worrying about what happens to the existing stockpiles. This then is a less than optimal approach and certainly of a much lesser order than the more comprehensive, proposed model Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC). The NWC obliges NWS to destroy their nuclear arsenals in five phases – take the weapons off alert; remove them from deployment; de-mate them from the delivery vehicles; disable warheads; remove and disfigure pits and place fissile material under international control, besides prohibiting production of weapon-grade fissile material. It also envisages a dedicated agency to oversee the process and ensure compliance.

A third related problem comes up on how the nuclear-armed states themselves join the treaty. The treaty makes their nuclear holdings illegal, but the possessors are under no obligation to dismantle and destroy them. To have a treaty without verified dismantlement cannot be a serious move towards disarmament since it will not provide the requisite confidence to the nuclear possessors to downgrade nuclear weapons in their national security strategies. Banning the weapon without resolving these issues of insecurity will have its limitations. In contrast to this, in fact, is a far more practical Indian proposition that calls for a ban on the use or threat of use of the weapon. So, while the possession remains legal, the weapon serves no useful purpose since its use is illegal. Such an approach undercuts the salience of nuclear weapons and can be far more effective a step towards disarmament.

Given the above limitations of the proposed instrument, India has reservations about its ability to achieve the objective of an NWFW. While India wholeheartedly supports the cause of universal nuclear disarmament, it is not convinced that this is the way to do it. In fact, India believes that the means are as important as the end and this kind of a sledgehammer approach might not be the optimal way of doing so.

Nevertheless, India is maintaining an open mind on the issue, as was evident from its participation in the organisational meeting of the conference in February. It might not be a bad idea for India to sit in on the conference too. This would not only showcase India’s credentials regarding its steadfastness in exploring all avenues that can lead to an NWFW, but also provide it with a platform to voice its own concerns about the treaty, instead of the instrument being presented as a fait accompli. Disarmament is too important a matter to either be left alone, or be left to only a few.

Forecast 2017: India-US Strategic Partnership

Chintamani Mahapatra

The nature, intensity and direction of the US' relations with friends, foes, partners and the marginalised countries entered a period of unprecedented uncertainty with Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 US presidential election.

That Trump’s foreign policy approach would be drastically different from that of his predecessors’ was amply clear from the days of the election campaign. Trump fought the election on a platform that raised questions about the relevance of long-standing alliances; portrayed possibility of redefining the country’s adversaries; and held mere hopes of continuity of policy as far as Washington’s emerging strategic partnerships with some countries are concerned. 

India fits in the last category of nations. Since the post- World War II era, US-India relations have always been marked by highs and lows, and convergences and divergences. The Cold War calculations - and not the merits of bilateral relations - shaped the US' policy towards India during the approximately four decades of the Cold War era. However, the end of the Cold War too witnessed ups and downs in the relationship. 

It was only in the early years of the 20th Century, with the then US President Bill Clinton's visit to India that a new paradigm of US-India relations began to emerge. Months after Clinton’s India visit, the Democratic Party lost the 2000 presidential election and George W. Bush of the Republican Party became the US' president. For a brief while, it appeared that the new paradigm of US-India ties would die in its inception.

However, such apprehensions were misplaced and short-lived. Eight years of the Bush White House witnessed a carefully nurtured US relationship with India that cemented a strategic partnership with the conclusion of the Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement. Defence and security cooperation between the two countries too tremendously improved with bilateral military exercises, trade in sophisticated arms and ammunitions, and defense technology transfer from the US to India.

The Obama Administration picked up the thread where his predecessor had left and the Indo-US strategic partnership witnessed vertical growth and horizontal expansion. There were several hiccups in the process but those were deftly handled and the strategic relationship did not get derailed.

Significantly, there was no indication at all during the 2016 election campaign that the outcome of the election would in any way negatively affect US-India ties. After all, bipartisan consensus on sustaining and improving Washington’s relationship with India has existed in the US for years. 

While Trump was by and large an outsider to the beltway foreign policy consensus and was not a mainstream Republican Party leader, even his statements and remarks displayed no sign that a Trump Administration would alter the US' policy towards India in any significant way. In fact, candidate Trump had aired many views against Pakistan, China and many other countries, but not against India.

Soon after Trump’s victory, the Indian government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonstrated activism to engage with the new US Administration. India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval landed in Washington to connect with the Trump transition team. While Prime Minister Modi and President Trump exchanged views over a phone call, news leaked that they invited each other to visit their respective countries. More recently, India’s Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar visited Washington to exchange notes with various branches of the US government with a view to further strengthen the India-US bilateral. Despite all these efforts, there are critical issues that may adversely shake the India-US strategic partnership, unless handled dexterously and in a timely manner. 

First, the economic nationalism of the Trump White House should not come on the way of Prime Minister Modi's “Make in India” initiative. Second, the Trump Administration's job creation and retention measures should not excessively hit the Indian workforce employed by American and Indian IT companies. Third, the Trump Administration’s Afghanistan policy should not clash with India’s core interests in that country. Fourth, the Trump Administration should keep the Kashmir issue outside his political bargaining with Pakistan. Fifth, the Trump Administration’s disproportionate confrontation or measured cooperation with China should not outshine or overshadow Washington’s policy towards this region. Last but not least, Trump’s immigration policy should in no way hamper the interests of the Indian-American community. A series of attacks on the Indian-Americans in the US threatens to weaken the very constituency that has become a social bridge linking peoples of both the countries. 

It must be noted that the above menu of issues is for both the US Administration and Indian policymakers to work on to manage the difficult political and bureaucratic transition in Washington and ensure that the India-US strategic relationship does not get negatively impacted.

A new wave of job cuts at Australian universities

Mike Head 

As the academic year gets underway this month, students and staff at Australian public universities face deteriorating conditions. Starved of funds by one government after another, university managements are decimating full-time jobs, reducing face-to-face teaching and driving up class sizes.

Deep funding cuts imposed by the last Labor government have been compounded by multi-billion dollar cuts inflicted by the current Liberal-National administration. This is forcing universities into further restructuring as they desperately compete with each other to enrol students, particularly full fee-paying international students, and attract corporate investment.

Toward the end of last year, a new wave of job cuts began across the country, mainly via so-called voluntary redundancy or retirement programs that are used to get rid of targeted workers. These schemes have the full agreement of the two trade unions that cover university workers, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU). What follows is only a partial list:

• Last November, the Queensland University of Technology said it would “purge” about 90 “underperforming” staff “whose aspirations no longer align with those of the university” because they were “not bringing in enough money.” Employees would be offered up to a year’s salary to quit with the help of a retirement tax package.
• A week later, Curtin University in Western Australia confirmed 100 to 150 staff were expected to be axed for 2017. Blaming the former mining boom state’s economic slowdown, the management said it planned to allow fixed-term, casual and sessional staff contracts to expire in humanities to offset decreased research and contract income in the science, engineering and humanities faculties.
• Later in the month, the University of Newcastle unveiled an “organisational review” that would involve about 170 redundancies—some 10 percent of its full-time and casual workforce. It was the 15th review or restructure in three years for what the vice-chancellor called “a changing academic enterprise.”
• Meanwhile, Western Sydney University (WSU) unveiled a “voluntary early retirement” package, through which it ultimately secured the departure of more than 200 selected academics and administrative workers.
• In early December, leaked documents revealed that over 400 job cuts were being planned at the University of NSW in Sydney as part of a further revamping of the university’s business model. A document called UNSW Strategic Initiatives Operational Excellence Business Cases Summary, sent anonymously to the NTEU, outlined annual cuts of $47.3 million, with severance pays calculated to reach $30 million.
• Just days into 2017, the University of Canberra College (UCC), an offshoot of the university, released a restructure plan that would “disestablish” unspecified numbers of jobs, in order to be “adaptable” and deliver “world class quality outcomes.” The changes stem from the sale of 51 percent of UCC to private education provider Navitas in 2015. Since then, many cost-cutting measures have been implemented already, leading to redundancies, vacant positions remaining unfilled, and significant increases in workloads.
• This week, Victoria University in Melbourne confirmed it would eliminate 115 jobs throughout the year as it establishes its planned First Year College.

Over the previous three years hundreds of full-time jobs have been axed nationally with the assistance of the NTEU and CPSU. While sometimes making token protests, the unions have stifled resistance, often securing deals with management to help impose marginally fewer retrenchments.

These cuts are escalating the casualisation of the workforce. According to the NTEU’s own estimates, only 2 out of 10 recent new employees have been employed on a permanent basis. By the union’s calculations, 63.8 percent of university staff are now working under insecure conditions. By 2015, 44.2 percent of contract research staff were employed on contracts of one year or less, and more than half the academics who taught undergraduate students were casuals.

This casualisation has serious impacts on the ability of teachers and other university workers—living from semester to semester and contract to contract—to survive financially, let alone plan for their futures. It also makes them highly vulnerable to demands for increased workloads and to acquiesce to the ongoing cuts and underlying transformation of universities into corporate institutions serving the needs of business and the political establishment.

Domestic and full-fee paying overseas students all face decreased availability of staff for consultation and guidance, combined with the replacement of lectures and tutorials by on-line presentations, and larger classes. Adding to these pressures is the soaring enrolment of international students, whom the systematically underfunded universities treat as cash cows.

According to recent official statistics, 712,884 international students were enrolled in Australian universities, vocational colleges, intensive English-language courses and schools in 2016, up by 11 percent from 2015 to a new record. Higher education enrolments rose by 12.9 percent to 306,691, making up more than a quarter of the students at some universities. Universities, private education companies and related operators raked in $22 billion from these students in 2016, while slashing their workforces.

The complicity of the NTEU in these processes is typified by an email sent to its members at WSU on January 31, in which it reported that more than 200 jobs had been eliminated via the “voluntary” retirement scheme. It emphasised: “Just to remind and to clarify: the NTEU does not contest the right of WSU Management to restructure its workforce, so long as it follows the provisions of the Agreements. Effective change management requires the contribution of frontline staff in decision-making.”

In other words, the union supports the job destruction. Its only demand is that the university executives consult with it, as specified by the unions’ enterprise agreements, to ensure “effective change management.” For the past two decades, enterprise agreements have served as mechanisms to contain and suppress the opposition of university workers, with the unions continually “trading off” essential protections against job cuts and casualisation.

During 2017, a new round of enterprise bargaining will occur, with universities demanding the further elimination of job security and other basic conditions. At WSU, where the NTEU has previously agreed to new employees being placed on two-year probation periods, the administration wants to speed up procedures for sacking staff on grounds of misconduct, ill health, poor probation assessment or “unsatisfactory” performance. At Melbourne’s Deakin University, the proposed agreement would increase academic teaching loads by up to 80 percent and require academic staff to teach every trimester. Melbourne University is demanding a “performance pay” regime for general staff.

While collaborating with university managements, the unions are stepping up their efforts to sow illusions that the return of a federal Labor government would reverse this downward spiral. In fact, it was the last Greens-backed Labor government of 2007 to 2013 that imposed the “education revolution,” laying the foundations for the intensifying assault on staff and students.

Garbage dump landslide kills over 110 in Ethiopia

Eddie Haywood 

In the early morning hours of March 11, a devastating landslide swept through the Koshe Garbage Landfill located on the outskirts of the capital city Addis Ababa, burying a number of makeshift homes under tons of refuse, claiming scores of lives and leaving many others injured.

On Thursday, emergency workers at the landfill told reporters that the death toll had reached 113 and was expected to climb. As many as 150 people are believed to have been at the site at the time of the landslide. Several days after the catastrophe, rescue efforts were still ongoing.

The landfill at Koshe has been the dumping ground for Addis Ababa for over five decades, and is home to some of the poorest residents of the city. Makeshift houses for these residents were constructed from cardboard and other debris found in the dump. On any given day, as many as 500 people make a living scavenging through the garbage dump.

The slums surrounding the massive garbage dump are home to the most economically marginalized and poorest Ethiopians.

Survivors of the landslide reported that the government was slow to organize a rescue operation. When rescue workers were finally dispatched to the landfill residents began to voice their outrage at the government’s slow response, pushing and shoving rescue workers.

“Nobody is helping us. We are doing all the digging ourselves. It is shameful,” Kaleab Tsegaye, a relative of one of the landslide victims, told Reuters.

Werknesh, a mother who had resided at the landfill for 30 years, told Voice of America that she had lost six family members to the landslide, including her pregnant daughter and three grandchildren.

“Our children are covered under the soil,” she said. “It sounded like an explosion, and then covered everyone with soil. There are bodies that have not been found until now.” Werknesh criticized the governmen’s slow response, saying, “The government didn’t even order an excavator. I had to pay for an excavator out of my own pocket.”

Excavation operations at the dump have recovered many of the dead. Tebeju Asres, a resident at the landfill observing a backhoe moving a mass of refuse, told the New York Times, “My house was right inside there. ... My mother and three of my sisters were there when the landslide happened. Now I don’t know the fate of all of them.”

The likely cause for the landslide appears to be the development of the site as a source for alternative energy. Construction of a biogas plant near the dump has involved the laying of pipe around and underneath the large landfill, causing massive destabilization underneath the location of many of the makeshift shanties where most of the landfill dwellers reside.

The city government is now moving to utilize the tragedy of the landslide to forcibly relocate the landfill’s surviving residents. Decades-long squabbles between residents and the city have resulted in occasional violent clashes between the landfill dwellers and city officials, who have given the landfill over to wealthy interests wishing to develop the site as a source for the production of methane gas as an alternative fuel for electricity.

UK-based Cambridge Industries, the corporation that owns the biogas plant, is under a government contract to develop the site as a source of methane gas, making the claim that methane produced from the dump can give electrical power to as much as 25 percent of Addis Ababa’s four million residents.

Cynically, the national government of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn declared a three-day nationwide mourning for the victims of the landslide. Desalegn, briefing members of the Ethiopian parliament, expressed his “deep condolences” to the victims of the landslide.

Koshe, which in local slang translates to “dirt,” perfectly encapsulates the government’s callous outlook toward the denizens of the landfill.

The deplorable economic conditions for the informal residents at Koshe are by no means isolated. The majority of Ethiopians live under conditions of extreme poverty, with some 78 percent of Ethiopians subsisting on $2 a day or less. According to Oxford University, Ethiopia ranks number 10 out of the world’s 10 poorest countries.

According to the nonprofit organization the Borgen Project, life expectancy at birth in the country is at an extremely low 59 years. Only about 34 percent of Ethiopia’s rural population has access to improved water sources. Preventable diseases, including malaria, account for 60 percent of all health problems. Illiteracy grips two-thirds of Ethiopians, underscoring the lack of social spending on education for the masses.

At the other end of the scale, there has been an obscene accumulation of wealth for the richest Ethiopians. Just one man, Ethiopian businessman Mohammed Hussein al Amoudi, has amassed a personal wealth of over $10 billion. Additionally, Ethiopia has one of Africa’s highest rates of GDP growth. According to the World Bank, national output grew by $60 billion between 2004 and 2014. Ethiopia, like most of Africa, is rich in vast economic resources, but those resources are controlled by a handful of the wealthiest Ethiopians.

The Ethiopian elite have been faithful servants to Washington and its agenda for the Horn of Africa, deploying the country’s military forces to wage bloody wars in Somalia and South Sudan, two countries that are integral to Washington’s aim of isolating China’s growing economic influence on the continent, which is seen as a threat by the US elites.

The landslide tragedy at Koshe demonstrates that the capitalist government in Addis Ababa is unable to guarantee safe housing, let alone provide even the paltriest relief for the victims of the latest disaster. In a world driven by capitalism’s unquenchable appetite for profit, such disasters will remain a permanent feature of everyday life for the world’s working class and poor.

Amid economic disaster, Brazilian unions promote Lula da Silva 2018 presidential bid

Miguel Andrade

On Tuesday, March 7, the Brazilian Statistical and Geographical Institute (IBGE), the country’s official demographic and economical metrics organ, published its comprehensive annual economic report on fiscal year 2016, revealing the deepening extent of Brazil’s economic crisis.

The GDP fell 3.6 percent, compounding the 3.8 percent fall of 2015, bringing the country’s economy back to its 2010 level. The two-year fall is also the sharpest since the IBGE began keeping records in 1948, confirming the current crisis as the worst in a century.

It was also the first time since 1996 that industry, agriculture and services had simultaneous declines, with a combination of a fall in international demand and severe draughts in the north as well as frosts in the south bringing agricultural output down by 6.6 percent. The 3.8 percent drop in industrial output follows a 6.6 percent drop in 2015. Against this backdrop, Brazil’s investment rate stands at 16.4 percent of GDP, the worst figure since current metrics were adopted in 1995, with a fall of 28.6 percent since 2013.

Nonetheless, most revealing is the acceleration of the fall in household consumption, from a 3.9 percent drop in 2015 to a 4.2 fall in 2016, a sharp exposure of the long-term effects of the crushing unemployment level, which officially has reached a record of 13 million workers, or 12 percent of the workforce. The category of “broad unemployment,” according to a January Credit Suisse report which includes workers who have abandoned the search for a job due to persistent unemployment, includes 23 million workers.

The fall in consumption brought inflation to its lowest level since 2000, at the end of the government of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC), which followed the prescriptions of the International Monetary Fund, waging a class war against workers with a policy of currency devaluation, privatizations and mass unemployment that shattered wages and buying power across the board and led to the electoral victory of the Workers Party (PT) in 2002.

The dismal economic figures will almost certainly accelerate the drive by the current government of President Michel Temer to sell off the country’s assets, an increasingly difficult task in the face of the sharp drop in expected profits amid the ongoing crisis. On March 15, Folha de São Paulo reported that three companies had dropped their bids in the privatization of northeastern airports previously considered “highly lucrative” due to the possibility of concentrating the linking of flights between South America and the northern hemisphere. The public sale of management rights over four major airports was completed on Thursday, March 16.

The Temer government is compounding sweeping attacks on social rights in the form of Labor and Pension “reforms” aimed at raising retirement age and casualizing work relations with radically pro-imperialist measures, such as the sale of key energy and transport infrastructure and allowing foreign companies to own land. The Brazilian bourgeoisie is rapidly dispensing with even the pretense of the “national independence” policies touted by the Workers Party government during the heyday of the commodity boom of the early 2000s.

After breaking the monopoly of the state-run oil giant Petrobras over the unexplored deep-extraction (so-called pre-salt) oil fields off Rio de Janeiro’s and São Paulo’s coast, in late February, the Temer administration imposed upon the government of the state of Rio the sell-off of its water and sewage infrastructure under the threat of financial strangulation, later hailing the maneuver as a model for the whole country.

But as a matter of fact, virtually every measure imposed by the Temer administration had already been initiated by the Workers Party governments of presidents Dilma Rousseff and previously that of Lula da Silva.

The privatization of all the commodity-oriented infrastructure—ports, railways, channels—initiated by the Workers Party government faces challenges similar to those in the airport sector. On March 8, the influential financial daily Valor Econômico ran a lengthy interview with the former transport and ports secretary under Rousseff, Cesar Borges, in which he complained about the reluctance of the current Temer administration to include pension funds and public banks in the privatized infrastructure expansion as had previously been decided under the PT government.

The nationalist, and at times even “anti-imperialist,” pretenses of the Workers Party policies are further exposed by the fragility of the economic growth under its rule. The PT’s policies amounted to little more than putting the whole state apparatus behind a handful of “national champions”, or private Brazilian monopolies such as the building company Odebrecht and its oil subsidiary Braskem in order to beat the competition for Chinese demand and, during its heyday, in securing projects from Africa to the Caribbean and South America.

As many of these companies’ CEOs are now in jail awaiting trial on corruption charges, the combination of economic crisis following the deceleration of the Chinese economy and ongoing corruption investigations into the criminal methods employed by these companies is considered “a major risk” in several Latin American countries by the Eurasia Group think-tank, Valor Econômico reports. Local governments are now trying to compensate with their own funds for the abandonment of projects by Odebrecht, and the think-tank estimates that the impact of the Odebrecht crisis and withdrawal on Peru’s economy alone could amount to 1 percent of the country’s GDP.

A further study made public by Credit Suisse on March 7 in the wave of reports that followed IBGE’s announcement points to the fragile base of the economic growth under the PT: all the productivity gains of the Lula presidency were reversed under Rousseff, and workforce productivity in Brazil is today the same as in 1980. The annual rate of growth under Lula between 2002 and 2010 was furthermore even lower than under FHC in the 1990s, a period of mass unemployment and deindustrialization.

Nonetheless, as anger grows in the working class with the state of the economy, with the unions forced to call a one-day partial general strike on Wednesday, March 15, all the PT-aligned press has switched to full “volta Lula” (come back, Lula) mode, all but launching his 2018 presidential run. Widowed in early February after his wife Marisa Letícia suffered a stroke, Lula da Silva is now due to return as president of the PT and inaugurate his 2018 presidential bid. To that end, the whole PT-aligned apparatus is now preparing a sharp turn to the right and setting up an opposition to Temer almost exclusively along fraudulent nationalist lines.

The PT-aligned Carta Capital magazine is leading the charge. The tone of the PT’s criticism of Temer was made clear in a high profile interview published by the magazine last October with the economist and historian Pedro Cezar Fonseca, a scholar specializing in the period of the fascist dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas—often described as the Brazilian Peron—with the title “The Temer project shakes the foundations of capitalism”. The interview amounted to a recipe for the PT to “save Brazilian capitalism from itself”, to paraphrase the infamous words of former Greek Syriza finance minister and pseudo-left star Yanis Varoufakis.

Linking together Rousseff, Lula, the overthrown 1960’s president João Goulart and Vargas, Fonseca says: “the breadth of the political and economic building of Vargas shows a conscious development project”. Temer’s policies, on the other hand, are compared to the entreguista (subordinate to foreign and particularly US foreign capital) economic policies of the military dictatorship of 1964-1985 and the bourgeois opposition to Vargas in the 1940s and 1950s.

Along similar lines, on January 19, PT economist Marcio Pochmann declared that Donald Trump’s election in the US demanded the ability exhibited by the dictator Vargas to engage in “brinksmanship,” which he said Temer lacked. The references are even clearer if one considers that Lula himself has for a long period flirted with the image of Vargas and other caudillos like the Argentine Juan Domingo Perón, and has stepped up the comparison following his detention in 2016 and later Rousseff’s removal.

On the other hand, disapproving references to the 1964 coup didn’t stop the same Carta Capital from lining up with the military, on February 16, opposing the Temer government in the name of “national sovereignty” in the land owning rights debate, and later on March 3, opening up its pages to the vice-president of the São Paulo Industrial Federation (FIESP) to defend the Workers Party industrial policy.

The drumbeat reached its highpoint on March 15 when the “united front” of unions and pseudo-left parties summoned delegations of workers from throughout the state of São Paulo in a 100,000-strong demonstration after the partial general strike to listen to Lula’s demagogic speech in São Paulo city’s main thoroughfare, Paulista Avenue.

The Brazilian pseudo-left has also in this process abandoned any pretense of opposing the PT. It’s chief demand since 2016 has been a united front of the union federations tightly controlled by the PT, the Stalinist Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), the Morenoite United Socialist Workers Party (PSTU) and the bourgeois Democratic Labor Party founded by Getúlio Vargas in the 1940s.

This policy is all the more criminal in face of the PT’s sharp turn to the right and the deep international crisis, which is producing gains for the far right in country after country. These gains are the direct outcome of the disorientation produced in the working class by the warfare against it carried out by the official “left”, be it the PT and the “chavista” or “Bolivarian” governments of Latin America, the Social-Democratic and Socialist parties in Europe or the pro-Wall Street Democratic party in the US.

Netherlands: Following elections, estabablishment parties shift to the right

Peter Schwarz

Leading European politicians welcomed the election results in the Netherlands as the end of the series of successes by right-wing, nationalist movements that began with the Brexit vote in the UK and continued with the election of Donald Trump as US president.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker described the result as an “inspiration.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel called it “very pro-European,” and French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron said the feared victories of the right wing could be stopped.

Others emphasized how important it was to sharply oppose right-wing populists. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader in the German parliament, Thomas Oppermann, said, “Rudeness needs to be answered with more rudeness. We must directly confront demagogues like [Geert] Wilders.” Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) leader Horst Seehofer said it was worth something when a head of government took a stand “against incitement and right-wing extremism.”

In reality, the rise of nationalism and xenophobia has not been halted in the Netherlands. It is only developing through a different form. Instead of primarily proceeding through right-wing populist parties, it is now developing within the establishment parties—both those on the right as well as those nominally on the left.

The neoliberal Peoples Party of Freedom and Democracy (VVD) of Prime Minister Mark Rutte has “defeated” the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) of Wilders by adopting its xenophobic programme. Britain’s Guardian wrote of a “pyrrhic victory”: “Rather than challenge racists, Rutte has boosted their confidence, pouring arsenic into the water supply of Dutch politics.”

Other Dutch parties have similarly moved far to the right. For example, the conservative Christian Democrats (CDA) conducted their election campaign with the demand that the school day start with the singing of the national anthem while standing. In the election, the CDA finished in third place, just behind Wilders’ PVV. It is expected to join the next government.

The ex-Maoists of the Socialist Party also supported these nationalist and xenophobic sentiments.

Even the right-wing British tabloid the Daily Mail remarked, “If this stuff had been peddled by Mr. Trump, there would have been howls of liberal anguish from the usual quarters. But it is now part of mainstream Dutch discourse.”

It is above all this shift to the right that, besides Rutte’s support for the European Union, is being met with enthusiasm and support in other European countries.

In Germany, the Süddeutsche Zeitung cited Rutte’s deliberately provoked conflict with the Turkish government as proof “that liberal European democracies cannot be straitjacketed by autocrats.” Rutte had shown himself to be a statesman “who sets limits on Erdogan.”

It is undeniable that Rutte’s provocation against the Turkish government was an attempt to stir up nationalist sentiments and to overtake Wilders from the right just three days before the election. He denied entry to the Turkish foreign minister and had the Turkish family minister forcibly escorted to the border to prevent her speaking to an audience of fellow Turks about the constitutional referendum in Turkey.

This deliberate provocation was greeted with enthusiasm throughout Europe, also by Greens and supposedly left-wing politicians. For example, the former German Green Party Chairman Claudia Roth spoke in favour of banning Turkish politicians: “Now it is important that we clearly define the rule of law.”

Left Party parliamentary group chair Sahra Wagenknecht called on the German government to “finally show its true colours.” Merkel and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel had the ability to stop Erdogan’s propaganda tour, she said, “just like the governments of Austria and the Netherlands have done for their countries.”

Many observers have now concluded that after the election in the Netherlands, Marine Le Pen “still has a good chance of becoming French president,” as Spiegel Online writes. “Her Front National [FN] is anchored much more deeply in many social layers in France, is politically friendlier and more capable of winning a majority than the one-man party of the shrill Wilders in the Netherlands.”

Large banks and fund managers have apparently also drawn similar conclusions, since they assess politics according to their future profit prospects. Yesterday, the Financial Times reported that “global financiers line up to engage with Le Pen.”

Analysts from UBS, BlackRock and Barclays, among others, have met with representatives of the FN to discuss its economic plans. The same applies to representatives of several dozen governments, including the US, Argentina, Sweden and Denmark. The chief strategist of the FN, Florian Philippot, has spoken recently with diplomats from five European and three Asian countries.

Wilders and other right-wing demagogues are only a symptom, not the cause of the turn to the right by bourgeois politics. The cause lies in the deep crisis of the capitalist system. Decades of welfare cuts and the enrichment of a tiny minority at the expense of the majority, along with increasing global conflicts, have generated economic and social tensions that cannot be overcome by democratic methods.

This finds its sharpest expression in the collapse of parties that had earlier preached social conciliation and then organized massive social cuts. The Dutch Social Democratic Labour Party (PvdA), the former coalition partner of Rutte’s VVD, saw its vote collapse. It lost 29 of its 38 seats, and now only has just 9 deputies in the new parliament.

Those that have benefited from this collapse and the losses of Rutte’s VVD (-8 seats) include the Christian Democratic CDA (+6) and the liberal D66 (+7), as well as a number of smaller parties. Wilders’ PVV was also able to increase its seat total from 15 to 20.

With the exception of the ultranationalist Forum for Democracy (2 seats), the smaller parties all advanced social demands or opposed xenophobia. For example, the immigrant party Denk (in Dutch: Think!, in Turkish: Equality) won three seats, the Pensioners’ Party 50+ won two seats, and the animal rights party PvdD three seats.

The Greens (Green-Left) increased the number of its deputies from 4 to 10. Under its 30-year-old leader Jesse Klaver, who has Moroccan and Indonesian roots and is compared alternately with the US Senator Bernie Sanders and Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau, the Greens have sought to present a more cosmopolitan appearance.

But none of these parties has an answer to the social crisis. They all support the capitalist system and seek to prevent an independent socialist movement of the working class. The Greens might even become part of the next government, in order to lend a more “youthful” face to the right-wing policies of the old parties.

Saudi king postpones visit to Maldives

Rohantha De Silva 

As part of a month-long tour of Asia, the Saudi monarch, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, was due to visit the small Indian Ocean archipelago of Maldives this weekend, accompanied by an entourage of more than 1,000, including 25 princes and 10 ministers.

In this first-ever visit by a Saudi King, Riyadh was to announce investments of $US10 billion, three times the Maldives’ gross domestic product (GDP), underscoring the importance Riyadh places on its ties with Maldives.

The trip was cancelled yesterday on the pretext of an outbreak of influenza. The decision, however, reflects deep divisions in the ruling elite in the Maldives and mounting geo-political tensions in the region.

Sharp differences emerged over the Saudi investment, mainly between President Abdulla Yameen and the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) led by former President Mohammed Nasheed. The tensions relate to geo-political rivalry between the US and India on one side and China on the other. Maldives is strategically located southwest of India, near important sea lanes from Middle East and Africa to Asia and Australia.

According to unconfirmed reports, the Saudi government plans to buy one of Maldives’ atolls, Faafu—a collection of 19 low-lying islands, 120 kilometres south of the capital Malé and home to 4,000 people. Since a constitutional amendment in July 2015, foreigners can buy Maldivian land, rather than lease it for up to 99 years, if the investment is at least $1 billion. Yameen has denied selling an entire atoll to the Saudis, but no details of the negotiations have been released.

With US imports of oil from Saudi Arabia declining by 40 percent during past 15 years, Riyadh is keen to boost its sales of oil and gas to China and other East Asian countries, and increase the security of the trade route. Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan and China were also part of the king’s Asian tour.

To placate Riyadh, Malé severed ties with Iran last May and joined the Saudi-led Islamic military alliance. Riyadh plans to develop a Special Economic Zone in Faffu, to help reduce its dependence on oil revenues. The projects reportedly include a sea port, airports, state-of-the-art facilities, sophisticated medical infrastructure, educational institutions and tourism-related centres to attract thousands of tourists from the Gulf States.

With these investments, Yameen is trying to strengthen his hand against his political rivals, including Nasheed and Yameen’s half-brother and long-time Maldives ruler Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Though they were bitter enemies a few years back, Gayoom and Nasheed joined hands last September against Yameen.

Nasheed, working as a stooge of the US and other Western powers and also India, criticised the Faafu deal, saying it was “disturbing.” Saudi Arabia wanted “a base” in the Maldives, he said, to safeguard its trade routes and locate “strategic installations.”

Having been ousted in 2012, Nasheed is trying to return to power by overthrowing Yameen with the support of the US, UK and India. The US and its allies are hostile to Yameen because of his close ties to China, not his anti-democratic record.

In 2015, Nasheed was sentenced to 13 years in jail for arresting a criminal court judge while in office. He was released in January last year under pressure from the US and Britain. After travelling to London, supposedly for medical treatment, Nasheed launched a campaign against Yameen, mainly denouncing his links to China.

Still in exile, Nasheed plans to contest the 2018 presidential elections. In an interview with the Times of India on February 19, he said: “We believe that India has a moral obligation to facilitate inclusive, free and fair elections in the Maldives.”

Though New Delhi is concerned about the increased Chinese presence in the region, it is moving cautiously, worried that more pressure may push Male closer to Beijing. On a visit to Maldives on February 22, Indian Minister of State M. J. Akbar voiced his appreciation for the Yameen government’s “India First” policy.

Sections of the Indian capitalist class are concerned that Saudi Arabia’s relations with Maldives will cut across its interests. A report by Fristpost.com analyst Shantanu Mukharji on March 6 noted: “Saudi-Maldives collaboration leads to suspicion that Islamic forces may see a visible reinforcement or there may be a renewed radicalisation within the Maldives.”

Published by the industrial conglomerate Indian Reliance Industries, Fristpost proposed: “Perhaps a time has come for Maldives to accept one who can oversee the issues and whose advice comes handy to address matters of security,” as in Mauritius, which “has an Indian national security advisor with an intelligence background.” Mukharji added: “Nasheed is the only pro-India leader who can scuttle such deals and keep Indian interests paramount, but chances of his coming back to the political arena look remote.”

Relations between India and Maldives were strained when in 2012 Male cancelled a $271 million contract granted to Indian company GMR group to develop and operate the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport, saying it compromised national security and sovereignty. The contract was granted by Nasheed’s government in 2010 for 25 years, extendable for another 10 years.

India first tried to work with Yameen and signed a military pact, “Action Plan for Defence Cooperation” last April. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi then boasted about India’s role as a “net security provider” in the Indian Ocean region, but New Delhi’s attempt to bring Maldives into its orbit failed.

While trying to maintain diplomatic ties with the US and India, Yameen’s government is more oriented toward Beijing, and depends heavily on Chinese investment and concessionary loans. Chinese firms leased the Feydhoo Finolhu Island for 50 years for $4 million to develop a tourist resort, close to Malé, with plans to increase annual tourist numbers to 1.5 million.

Chinese Exim Bank granted a $373 million loan to develop Malé airport in 2015 and build a bridge between Malé and the Hulhulé islands, to be completed in 2018. The $210 million project is being constructed by Chinese CCCC Second Harbor Engineering Company, despite protests that it could destroy waves in this popular surfing area.

Chinese ambassador Wang Fukang told a New Year news conference in Malé: “Maldives is an important partner in the Maritime Silk Route project.” He added: “Maldives supports the ‘One-China’ policy and Chinese policies regarding the South China Sea.”

Beijing sees Maldives as part of its “String of Pearls” strategy that, together with the land-based “Silk Road Economic Belt,” seeks to link the Eurasian landmass, as well as Africa, both by land and sea, to counter the US strategic offensive against China.

The principal US Indian Ocean base, Diego Garcia, lies 1,000 kilometres south of Malé, making Beijing’s growing influence a serious concern in Washington. With these tensions aggravated by President Donald Trump’s belligerent “America First” program, the region has entered into an explosive situation.