Why ICE Raids Imperil Us All

Andrew Moss

A restaurant worker and father of four daughters in Southern California is arrested while dropping his youngest daughter off at school.  A young woman in Mississippi is taken into custody after speaking at a news conference about her fears of being deported; she is released on unspecified terms only after attorneys, including lawyers for the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Immigration Law Center, intervene.  A popular restaurant owner is apprehended near his home in a small town in Illinois and released on bond only after an outpouring of local support, including letters from local law enforcement officials.  A woman with whom I serve on a committee for a civic organization breaks down in tears at a recent meeting, revealing her “undocumented” status and her fears of being deported after raising her family in the U.S.

This is the face of the new Trump policies dealing with the 11 million undocumented people in the United States, policies that vastly expand the threat of deportation to anyone living in the U.S. without documentation.  No longer do certain priorities, such as felonies or “significant misdemeanors” take precedence; now anyone who entered the country without documents, including a person who lived here for many years, is vulnerable to deportation.  Millions of people who have been living and working in the U.S., contributing to their communities and to the economy, are now at risk simply for who they are:  people “without papers.”

The policy doesn’t simply threaten specific individuals, families, or communities.  It imperils all of us, not simply because it emerged from the racialized rhetoric and scapegoating promulgated by candidate and President Trump – and not simply because it enacts these evils in official government policy.  It imperils us because it places into question our very identities as Americans. Is citizenship only a matter of status and category, i.e. the possession or non-possession of a birth certificate, green card, or certificate of naturalization?  Or does it mean something deeper:  a responsibility to one’s fellow human beings?

In describing the values energizing his quest for social justice, Martin Luther King Jr often referred to what he called the “beloved community,” a vision of society that recognized the interrelatedness of all life and the moral obligations that follow from those interrelations.  As he said, “To the degree that I harm my brother, no matter what he is doing to me, to that extent I am harming myself.”  King understood that people could also harm themselves by failing to act, by engaging in forms of complicity that corrode the conscience and diminish one’s own sense of humanity.

For these and other reasons, many people have stepped up to their responsibilities to the fellow members of their communities – neighbors, employees, students, co-workers, employers – rejecting an invidious documented/undocumented binary to give new meaning to American citizenship.  They are growing the sanctuary movement in their churches, communities, municipalities, and states.  They are attending and supporting “know your rights” workshops, signing up for “rapid response” networks to be present when people are detained, and working at the local and state levels to support policies that resist federal intimidation.  The “know your rights” workshops are particularly important because they affirm that all people in the U.S., no matter whether they are citizens or not, have rights, including the right to remain silent.

These actions point to another motive beyond personal conscience for resisting Trump’s deportation policies.   You may recall the opening lines of Pastor Martin Niemöller’s chilling poem:   “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist.” Niemöller, a Lutheran minister who initially supported and then resisted Hitler, and who was held captive in Nazi concentration camps for seven years, closed his poem with these words, “Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”

In choosing the general pronoun “they” over a specific historical reference to Nazis, Muller offered a stark warning transcending time and place:  crushing the rights of individuals in any society ultimately means crushing the rights of all.  When silent complicity prevails, the gates to authoritarianism are opened wide.  Yet the choice to speak on behalf of the other can still be exercised if citizens act in time.  In such choosing we can see not only the movement of the individual conscience.  We can also see how democracy itself – the culture and institutions sustaining human rights – can be kept alive as well.

The Futility of the Electronics Ban

Binoy Kampmark

Security measures are often exercises in futility.  Resembling placebos, they are the reassurance authorities make as acts of intrusive inconvenience.  Queues are increased at airports in the vain hope that an elusive gel carrier will be nabbed before the next detonating device is activated on a flight.  Shoes are checked to see if they pass muster.  Devices are scrutinised.

Now, depending on certain routes, an electronics ban on carry on items has been imposed, most notably directed by the United States and United Kingdom. This latest exercise in Anglo-American futility has again done its bit to cause disruptions in the name of the questionable.  A security “source” claimed that the ban was occasioned by a plot that would have involved the use of a fake iPad, amongst other factors.

The argument for such measures never changes: they might happen because of one incident that was an exception proving the rule.  Such a case took place on a Somali plane in February 2016, involving a bomb possibly concealed in a laptop. It hardly justifies such electronic measures across eight countries in North Africa and the Middle East.

The other aspect of such responses is that it falsely layers a policy of supposed soundness with thoroughness.  Prohibitions of such order, by their nature, tend to require a certain fanatical dedication to vigilance.  Such vigilance is never going to be effective in the way asymmetrical lateralist thinking is.  A potential terrorist might be a doctrinaire in thought, but not necessarily in method.

Airport security, whatever the delays, the piousness and the faith shown by officials to make the life of a passenger harder, is never able to entirely patch or plug gaps in what is so charmingly termed the architecture of the enterprise. Cheek and daring will out.

A look, then, at these measures, suggests unevenness.  For one, the devices can be simply relocated to checked-in luggage, leaving the business classes irritated at a long-haul flight where work might be done.  It also flies in the face of other aviation safety rules.

Another point is made by Shashank Joshi, defence and intelligence specialist at London’s Royal United Services Institute. Having such restrictions on “a tablet-sized, non-metallic bomb” might be sound (he, at least, believes the British officials might be on to something), but the scope would have to measure up.

Intelligence officials in other countries differ on this point, throwing various cats amongst flocks of pigeons.  The restrictions between Britain and the UK, for instance, also vary, suggesting a postmodernism of sorts in the intelligence fraternities of the countries.  “This raises questions,” notes Joshi, “about why they have arrived at different conclusions, and specifically suspicious as to whether unstated political factors may be influencing the Trump administration.”

There was little surprise that the actions of the United States targeted eight countries, following the travel ban effort by the Trump administration which initially went for seven, then revised the number to six.  It covers flights from 10 airports in Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

The UK ban is specific to tablets, laptops, games consoles and devices larger than a mobile phone.  Routes covered include inbound flights from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Turkey.

This ban was an exercise that had the notable ancillary outcome of affecting the highly competitive Gulf carrier market and airlines that have been doing rather well over the last few years in a cut throat aviation market.

Western counterparts have been shrunk and shunned off those routes, with the US market receiving considerable interest from the airlines of the Gulf Cooperation Council.  “The billions of dollars in illegal Gulf carrier subsidies,” protested American, Delta and United in recent an open letter to Donald Trump, “are brazen violations of our Open Skies agreements and a perfect example of the type of trade cheating that President Trump abhors.”

The US Department of Homeland Security was attempting to advance another rationale, claiming in a press release that, “Evaluated intelligence indicates that terrorist groups continue to target commercial aviation, to include smuggling explosive devices in various consumer items.”

Members of the legal fraternity and some policy makers have already noted a lukewarm, rather than enraged response, to the ban on large electronic devices. Trump’s March 6 executive order seemed to be considered of a different order, while an administrative and security measure of daft content is deemed more comical than a threat to liberties per se.

In the words of Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin, this suggests that the claim that Trump’s “hands are tied” by legal challenges is far from the case.  A lawyer retained by Hawaii, Neal Katyal, has similarly observed that, “Policies like that one, justified with respect to a particular (even if unspecified) new threat, implemented without accompanying statements of animus towards Islam, and in harmony with Congressional policies and the policies of our allies, raise no constitutional concerns.”

As long as you keep Islam off the books of derision and criticism, and tailor nonsensical responses to the temper of Congress, such orders and actions are bound to sail through.  Forget, however, the merit of logic in whether these are necessary, let alone effective, to begin with.

We’ve Let Capitalism Kill the Planet

Christian Sorensen

The headlines in the first three months of 2017 have made one thing clear: capitalism is killing the planet. Capitalism, the governing structure of nearly every society on Earth, puts profit above all other considerations. The consumer cycle is indifferent to proper disposal or reprocessing of discarded resources because such actions do not maximize profit.

Oceans suffer greatly. They cover over seventy percent of Earth’s surface and are integral to the prosperity of all known life. Anthropogenic climate change is killing fish stocks and fundamentally changing marine ecosystems. Human activity is depleting oxygen in the oceans. Plastics are everywhere. Humans route roughly 150 million tones of plastic into the oceans each year. Microplastics from the likes of synthetic fabrics and vehicle tires choke ocean life and thwart marine diversity. Approximately 46,000 pieces of discarded plastic of varying sizes occupy any given square mile of ocean. They work their way up the food chain.

Extinctions are commonplace. Critical areas of land, including wetlands and forests, are vanishing at astonishing rates. Earth has lost roughly ten percent of her wilderness since the 1990s. Humans threaten over sixty percent of the world’s primates with extinction. Harsh agriculture practices, tourism, and construction are rapidly killing grasshoppers across Europe, a critical food source for many animals including reptiles and birds. The middle class is going extinct as well. The world’s richest eight humans have as much money as the poorest half of the world’s population, and the richest one percent of the entire human population possess as much wealth as the rest of humanity.

The aforementioned examples are just a drop in the bucket. These are not anomalies. Pollution is capitalist routine. Pollution is profit. Razing forest for profit is humdrum. Extinction is progress. Asphyxiating Earth is good for big business. Capitalism, the maximization of profit at the expense of animal and planet, is a plague of our own creation. The planet will eventually recover after humanity is gone or once humanity collectively agrees to prioritize the health of our only home. Humans are ill and capitalism is our collective infection. It must end.

ISIS Attacks Bangladesh: Denial, Deceptions, And Delusions

Taj Hashmi

It has happened again! In the wake of the latest rounds of ISIS terror attacks in Bangladesh, authorities in the country have again started denying the existence of any ISIS terror network there. Rejecting any ISIS involvement in terror attacks in Bangladesh as “propaganda”, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Kamal poses the question: “Why will the ISIS come here?” One wonders if leaders in any terror-infested country would ever ask a similar question! We know ISIS is a global terrorist outfit waging a total war against everyone, Muslim or non-Muslim.

It’s noteworthy, politicians and law-enforcers in Bangladesh either cry wolf about “impending terror attacks” in the country; or they cry hoarse denying the existence of any international terrorist group in the country. One recalls as to how the Government’s alarmist statements about the existence of al Qaeda operatives in Bangladesh led to the cancellation of a scheduled road-trip from Dhaka to its outskirts by the visiting US President Bill Clinton, in early 2000. Lest his motorcade came under terrorist attack!

One also recalls coloured printed pictures that appeared on Dhaka city walls, days after 9/11 attacks and on the eve of the Parliamentary Elections in Bangladesh (held in October 2001). Pictures of a leading opposition leader and Osama bin Laden appeared side by side, as if both of them represented al Qaeda and terrorism!

Then again, one recalls as to how the authorities here reacted to al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri’s podcast about Bangladesh in mid 2013. He urged Bangladeshi Muslims to avenge the killings of “thousands of Islamic scholars by their Government”. The authorities in Bangladesh claimed the podcast was fake, not made by al Zawahiri. This ambivalence is silly, counterproductive, and unacceptable!

After the well-publicized July 1st (2016) ISIS attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery Café in Dhaka, which killed 29 people – including the five gunmen – the Government flatly denied any ISIS involvement in the attack. Interestingly, the ISIS owned the attack, and published pictures of several dead victims while the gunmen were still holding hostages inside the café, in its propaganda news website Amaq al-Akhbariyah. And despite ISIS claims, the Government again denied any ISIS involvement in the recent terror attacks in the country since March 17th.

Two days after two militants had blown themselves up to evade arrest at Sitakundu in Chittagong, a suicide bomber – believed to be an ISIS activist – on March 17th, blew himself up near a camp of the Rapid Action Battalion at Ashkona in Dhaka. On March 24th, another suicide bomber attacked a police box and blew himself up in Uttara, near Dhaka Airport. On the same day, the army, police, and RAB begun operation at a suspected den of banned Islamist militant Jama’atul Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB) at a house in Shibbari area of Sylhet city in northeastern Bangladesh. By March 26th, six people, including two policemen, got killed in terrorist bomb blasts and grenade attacks in Sylhet; and later two terrorists blew themselves up. The ISIS has owned all these attacks.

Meanwhile, the RAB had done what members of this elite force do quite frequently. RAB claims, it arrested one Hanif Mridha, near the Ashkona camp soon after the suicide attack on March 17th, and he died in custody the next day. His family members claim, he was an innocent victim of extortion, picked up by RAB on February 27th, three weeks before he died in custody [DS, “‘Hanif picked up on Feb 27’: Claims Family”]. This incident suggests as to how law-enforcers stage false flag operations and “cross-fires”, in the name of counterterrorism, grossly violating human rights with absolute impunity.

Contrary to popular assumptions, neither the police nor armed forces are the most effective antidotes to terrorism. Since the police are mainly trained to maintain law and order, and prevent crime; and the military to defend the country from internal and external enemies, they have very limited understanding and role in counterterrorism (CT) operations. Even insurgencies, which are apparently war-like, are different from warfare. However, the police and military in most countries work as auxiliary elements to help CT and counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. Countries where the police and military play the main role in CT/COIN operations, fail in the long run.

Law-enforcers can neither be the main CT/COIN operators, nor can they decide whether particular genres of terrorists are homegrown, or in cahoots with transnational terror groups like al Qaeda and ISIS. The Inspector General of Police (IGP) AKM Shahidul Haque believes any claim about ISIS presence in Bangladesh is “baseless propaganda”. “What we call militants are actually homegrown who might have been embodied with IS philosophy and ideology. But they don’t have any link with the IS”, he insists. Rejecting security analyst Rohan Gunaratna’s claim that the ISIS was behind the Gulshan café attack last year, the IGP asserts: “Rohan is not a police officer, nor a military officer. He does not deal with any security issue. He is an academician, a professor of a university…. does not have experience of the real issue of Bangladesh” [DS, March 14].

However, we know security analysts and academics can be CT and COIN experts as well; and at times, they know much more about terrorism and insurgency than what the brightest police or military officers have any clues about. While the police deal with crime and criminals, the armed forces deal with war and war-like situation. Neither terrorism is similar to violent crime – armed robbery, arson, or killing of victims for some personal reasons – nor is it synonymous with warfare. The so-called “War on Terror” is a grotesque, simply a grossly misleading concept developed by George W. Bush and his surrogates. And terrorism and insurgency are ideology-driven political problems, can only be resolved politically, not merely by police or military action.

We know the JMB is in league with the so-called Islamic State, which is a transnational terrorist-cum-insurgent group, mainly based in war-torn Syria and Iraq. By now the ISIS has spread its tentacles in all the continents. Khalid Masood, the 52-year-old British terrorist who on March 22 killed several people in London and got killed by police, was an ISIS recruit. Unlike Bangladeshi politicians and law-enforcers, their British counterparts didn’t challenge the ISIS claim. BNP’s State-Minister for Home Lutfozzaman Babar rejected the presence of any Islamist terror group in Bangladesh soon after the JMB had detonated 500 bombs at 300 locations in Bangladesh in 2005. He, however, later apologized for his misstatement. Some Bangladeshi politicians frequently denigrate their political rivals as “terrorist sympathisers”.

Of late, various sources have revealed the strength of the JMB, which by 2007 had more than 10,000 members across Bangladesh [Adam Stahl, “Challenges Facing Bangladesh”, International Institute for Counter-Terrorism”, 16/07/2007]. The JMB is also closely linked with the ISIS; its support is growing; and according to some Bangladeshi intelligence report, is also capable of making improvised explosive device (IED). In this backdrop, one wonders, if we could be as complacent as the Home Minister seems to be. He claims: “The militants are under our control” [ Bangla Tribune, March 27].

So far so good, but there’s no room for any complacency. We can’t be fully secure without the elimination of the root causes of terrorism. Unaccountable governance, corruption, and massive youth unemployment – around 40 per cent of Bangladeshi youths don’t have any regular employment – lead to social unrest, which is the mother of terrorism. In sum, Bangladesh will have to learn to live with terrorism, which is the “new normal” across the world. While hundreds of Bangladeshi youths, including girls, have joined the ISIS in Syria and Iraq – on March 16th one Neaz Morshed Raja of Bangladesh died as a suicide bomber in Tikrit, Iraq – denying any ISIS threat in Bangladesh is an extravagant denial of the truth.

Australian private health insurance premiums soaring

Michelle Stevens

As of April 1, private health insurance premiums will rise by an average of 4.84 percent—3.3 times the official inflation rate. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, conscious of the rising animosity to the yearly premium hikes authorised by successive governments, said it was the lowest annual rise in a decade. He failed to mention the cumulative increases of 28 percent since 2012 and 54.6 percent since 2009.

Premiums have risen above inflation every year for the past 17 years, making it increasingly difficult for working class people to afford private insurance. Already struggling to make ends meet, and with average wages now falling, many are being forced to consider dropping their coverage, despite fearing they will not receive appropriate care through the seriously-underfunded public healthcare system.

Official statistics show private health fund membership began to decline from June 2015, from a peak of 47.4 percent of the population covered by hospital insurance to 47 percent in June 2016. The number of people covered fell by 2,958 during that year, the first drop in 15 years.

Data from health insurance broker iSelect also showed a drop off in the number of new people aged under 40 joining health funds. This means that the average age of those covered will increase, and this will inevitably drive up premiums further because older people tend to need more healthcare.

Premiums are soaring despite more procedures being excluded from coverage or subjected to “excess” payments that require patients to pay a portion of the bills. According to market researcher IPSOS, private health fund products that exclude treatments such as obstetrics or hip replacements have grown from 1 percent to 30 percent over 20 years. And 80 percent of policies now have an excess or exclusions, up from 20 percent two decades ago.

Each year private health insurance companies are required by legislation to submit proposed premium increases to the federal health minister for approval. The latest rise is estimated to increase the average cost of singles’ cover by $100, to between $1,500 and $2,000 a year. Family cover is expected to rise by an average of $200, to around $4,500 to $5,000 annually.

Together with the profits raked in by private health corporations, two other factors are driving up premiums—Lifetime Health Cover (LHC) loading and changes to the private health insurance rebate. They receive little attention in mainstream media coverage. Both factors point to the enormous government subsidies handed to the profiteering health funds.

In 2000, the Howard Liberal-National Coalition government introduced the LHC loading to coerce people into buying private health insurance at an earlier age and maintaining it for life. The LHC financially penalises those over the age of 30 years by charging a 2 percent loading on their insurance premium for every year a person is over 30. For example, a person taking out hospital cover at age 40 will pay 20 percent more than someone who first took out hospital cover at age 30. The maximum loading is 70 percent and the loading is charged for 10 consecutive years.

The health insurance rebate, first introduced in 1999, was portrayed as another “incentive” for people to purchase insurance. However, the “rebate,” which was 30 percent on its introduction, is paid by the government to private health insurance companies. This provides a massive annual injection of money into their coffers, estimated last year at $6.4 billion.

In 2012, the last Labor government, which maintained both the LHC loading and the rebate, started to curtail the rebate as part of its austerity program to slash social spending as the mining boom began to implode. It introduced means-testing based on income and age, and indexed the rebate to the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

As premiums have continued to rise well beyond the CPI, the rebate has decreased. Combined with the means-testing, this has added to the cost of insurance for many working class households. From April 1, the rebate will be 25.9 percent for those under 65 years earning less than $90,000 (or $180,000 as a couple), adding an estimated $163 a year to the cost of insurance. Consumer organisation CHOICE says those in this tier will see premiums rise by an average of 6.1 percent this year, rather than the 4.84 percent announced by the government.

Private health insurance has become a multi-billion dollar industry. News Corp reported that gross profits rose 15 percent to $1.73 billion in 2016, from $1.51 billion in 2015. Company executives receive multi-million dollar salaries, some of which have doubled since 2012. Medibank CEO George Savvides’s salary climbed from $1.4 million in 2014 to $2.4 million in 2016, when he quit. His successor, Craig Drummond, signed on for a base salary of $1.5 million with incentives that could net him a further $4.5 million.

Even greater wealth is generated by private hospitals, into which the private health funds feed patients. As one example, Australian health industry magnate Paul Ramsay, whose Ramsay Health Care operates more than 150 hospitals and day surgery facilities in Australia, Europe and Asia, was worth an estimated $US3.4 billion when he died in 2014.

The Medicare public insurance scheme is meant to provide free public hospital treatment and subsidised access to general practitioners, specialists and diagnostic testing. But Labor and Coalition governments alike have frozen or cut Medicare payments and slashed public hospital funding, deliberately pressuring people into taking out private insurance in the hope of securing decent medical treatment.

At the same time, these governments have poured billions into the rebate scheme and other incentives to further push patients into private insurance and fatten private health industry profits. Before the LHC loading and rebate were introduced, private health fund membership had fallen to about one-third of the population. After driving the coverage up to over 47 percent of the population, or about 13 million people, government cuts are now starting to see households abandon their insurance policies, and this will intensify the healthcare crisis.

Australia has a two-tier health system. There is an ever-widening gap between those who can afford private insurance and those who are left to navigate the under-resourced public health system which leaves many stranded on waiting lists, endangering their health, as documented recently by the Australian Medical Association.

Access to free and first-class health care, including diagnostic tests and treatment, is a basic social right. But to achieve it, the health industry—along with the banks, financial institutions and major corporations—must be placed in public ownership, under the democratic control of the working class. Only then would the necessary billions of dollars be poured into building hospitals, training and employing healthcare workers on decent wages and conditions and providing preventative care programs.

Australian government withdraws “omnibus” bill but cuts childcare

Mike Head

Confronted by mounting popular opposition to its plans to slash welfare and other social programs, the Liberal-National Coalition government last week abandoned its “omnibus” bill unveiled in February to try to impose more than $13 billion in “zombie” cuts that have remained deadlocked in the Senate since its 2014 budget.

This represents an intensification of the crisis of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government. The corporate and media establishment is increasingly frustrated with the Coalition’s failure to push through deep cuts in social spending and lower company taxes. Media opinion polls show it would be defeated in a landslide if an election were held now.

With opposition and “crossbench” senators terrified of a public backlash if they voted for the omnibus bill, the government last week de-coupled the bill from childcare measures that deliver about $2.4 billion in budget cuts over two years. This is less than a fifth of the value of the planned inroads into unemployment benefits, pensions, family tax benefits and other entitlements stalled since 2014.

In a bid to prove to the ruling class it could ram some cuts through parliament, the government worked with right-wing populists in the Senate, particularly Senator Pauline Hanson’s anti-immigrant One Nation Party and Senator Nick Xenophon’s South Australian-based protectionist Nick Xenophon Team, to stage two late-night sittings last week to pass the childcare package.

Turnbull was installed more than 18 months ago—in September 2015—to replace Tony Abbott as Liberal Party leader and prime minister claiming that he would be able to provide effective economic management. But he has proved no more capable than his predecessor of gutting welfare benefits and inflicting the other measures demanded by the financial elite to slash the budget deficit.

Turnbull’s bid to break through the parliamentary impasse by calling a double dissolution election last July backfired, leaving the government with a one-seat majority seat in the lower house and a minority of only 30 seats in the 76-member Senate (reduced this year to 29 by the defection of Cory Bernardi to form the Australian Conservatives). Since then, the government has relied on the votes of the Hanson and Xenophon groups, which falsely postured as anti-establishment parties, to get most of its legislation passed.

Last week’s childcare manoeuvre underscored both the political crisis and the reactionary character of all the budget measures, which seek to make the working class pay for the deteriorating situation facing Australian capitalism. The government struck deals with Hanson, Xenophon and two other right-wing senators, Liberal Democratic David Leyonhjelm and “independent” Derryn Hinch, to get the numbers for a package of two bills.

The first bill will cut the incomes of about 1.5 million households by freezing the rate of the family tax benefit for two years. This will hurt working families, already struggling with soaring utility and housing costs, falling wages and losses of full-time jobs or part-time working hours.

The second bill will marginally increase childcare fee subsidies for some families where both parents are working but will drastically cut the number of hours of childcare available for some of the poorest households, hit by rising unemployment and under-employment. The number of subsidised hours will be halved from 24 to 12 per week for families earning $65,710 or less per year, unless both parents pass an “activity test.”

The test requires them to be working, training, studying or undertaking a “recognised activity” for at least four hours a week—barring parents who are out of work or unable to secure four hours’ work a week. An estimated 100,000 families will be affected. Education Minister Simon Birmingham arrogantly declared that unemployed parents could meet the test by volunteering for activities “that can be as simple as coming and reading to children at your pre-school.”

Aware of the widespread discontent, the government attempted to present the package as a “fairness” measure by raising the maximum childcare subsidy to 85 percent for households on $65,710 or less, who meet the activity test, up from their current rate of 72 percent. The maximum rate will taper down from 85 percent to 20 percent for households on between $65,710 and $350,000, then cut out altogether.

For all the “fairness” rhetoric, many wealthier households will benefit. For families earning more than $185,000 a year—among the top 10 percent of income recipients—the subsidy cap will be lifted from $7,500 per child, per financial year to $10,000.

Turnbull last week visited a childcare centre to promote the bill as the “biggest reform” in childcare for many years. “This package backs hardworking Australian families—those with the greatest need and working the most hours get the most support,” he said.

In reality, the package seeks to push more working class parents into low-paid work, while appearing to address the concerns of millions of families where both parents are forced to work to make ends meet, leaving their children in day care centres for up to 50 hours a week. Another aim is to fatten childcare profits.

With parents paying up to $190 a day for childcare places, and fees rising by almost 7 percent a year, childcare is big business. Profit-making operators and their landlords are now making more than $1 billion in profits annually, with childcare workers among the lowest paid in the country.

Eight years after the collapse of ABC Learning, once the biggest childcare provider in the world, corporate interests are expanding in the sector. Research analysts rate childcare “an investment-grade asset.” About half of all childcare services (including out of school hours care and family daycare) are provided by for-profit businesses, according to the Productivity Commission. In long day care, where 660,000 infants are, nearly two-thirds is delivered on a for-profit basis.

At the end of last week, under growing criticism from big business, Turnbull affirmed his government’s intention to try to push sweeping company tax cuts through parliament this week, which is the final session before the federal budget, due on May 9. However, there is speculation that the government will do another “fairness” deal in the Senate and initially only legislate the tax cut for businesses turning over up to $10 million a year.

Corporate chiefs are complaining that since the Coalition took office in 2013, following the heavy defeat of the previous Labor government, the budget deficit has blown out to nearly $40 billion a year and the net government debt has more than doubled from $152 billion to $317.2 billion. Large areas of the country, including former mining-dependent regions, are in recession, reducing tax revenues.

Monday’s editorial in the Australian sounded another demand for the government, and the entire political establishment, to impose harsher austerity measures. “Politicians on all sides must accept that current government spending is unsustainable,” it declared. “Ahead of the May budget, that reality needs to be central to the national political conversation if expectations of what governments can provide are to be reduced.”

If Turnbull cannot satisfy these demands, the future of his government is highly uncertain.

German state election: Setback for a red-red-green coalition

Ulrich Rippert 

Sunday’s state election in Saarland was expected to be a political litmus test following the recent takeover of the leadership of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) by Martin Schulz and a systematic campaign for cooperation with the Left Party and the Greens.

Many media outlets wrote of a political sea change in the Saar in recent weeks. The “Schulz effect” had enabled the SPD to recover ground in the state after trailing in polls 12 points behind the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at the beginning of the year. The SPD and the CDU, which had previously led the state government in a grand coalition, were said to be on equal footing.

The result of the election, however, told a very different tale. Electoral participation rose significantly by 8 percent, from 62 to almost 70 percent, but the increased number of votes did not benefit the SPD, the Left Party or the Greens, but rather the CDU.

“The Martin Schulz effect did not manifest itself,” was the comment in SpiegelOnline. The CDU gained over 5 percentage points and won over 40 percent of the vote. The SPD lost nearly 1 percent and fell below 30 percent. The Greens also lost 1 percent and failed to reach the necessary 5 percent to remain in the state parliament.

The most striking loss was suffered by the Left Party and its leading candidate in the state, Oskar Lafontaine. The Left Party, which had firmly committed itself to a government alliance with the SPD, lost over 3 percent compared to the last state election and received only 13 percent. In the summer of 2009, when it ran for the first time as the Left Party in the state, it won 21.3 percent.

The Left Party was also unable to profit from the complete collapse of the Pirate Party. The Pirate protest party had won a surprising 7.4 percent of the votes four years ago, mainly by appealing to young voters on the basis of opposing political corruption, while promoting greater transparency and civil rights. On Sunday the party won less than 1 percent of the vote.

For its part, the xenophobic Alternative for Germany (AfD) was able to enter the state parliament with over six percent. However, this figure was far behind its predicted result of 10 percent or more. The far-right party is now represented in 11 out of 16 state parliaments.

Most of the media accredited the vote for the CDU as a vote of confidence in the party’s leading candidate and state premier, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. However, such a conclusion is entirely superficial. There was nothing progressive in Saar government policy that could explain such result.

The small state with its population of just under 1 million is highly indebted and has been implementing drastic austerity measures for years.

The vote was less a signal of support for the CDU administration and much more a clear rejection of the SPD, Left Party and Greens. All of the parliamentary parties maintain close links and agree on all important political issues. They work together in various coalitions at a state and local level and impose the same reactionary, anti-social policies up and down the country.

The Left Party and Oskar Lafontaine are well known for their policies in the Saarland. During his 13 years as state premier (1985-1998), he worked closely with the trade unions to ensure the rundown of the state’s coal and steel industry. In the coalmines, where 60,000 miners once worked, none remain. Lafontaine combines his anti-social policies with nationalist tirades and appeals for trade warfare. In the election campaign, for example, he demanded that the steel industry in the Saarland be protected by tariffs “comparable to those of the US.” At the same time, he agitates against refugees and calls for a faster and more consistent deportation policy.

The electorate in Saarland have made clear they do not expect any improvement in their situation from a government alliance of the SPD, Left Party and Greens. The election result confirms the warning of the WSWS: The broadly propagated “renewal of the SPD” following the change of party leadership from Sigmar Gabriel to Martin Schulz does not reflect growing popular support for the SPD. The electorate recognises the SPD for what it is: the party of Hartz IV and Agenda 2010, which has dramatically worsened working and living conditions.

The media hype surrounding Schulz is a deliberate campaign launched by influential circles of the ruling class. They are of the opinion that the Merkel government is too weak and discredited and the conservative union parties too divided to respond to the challenges of the Trump government in the US, growing transatlantic conflicts and the break-up of the EU.

The Saarland election was aimed at shifting the balance of power towards a red-red, or red-red-green coalition at a state and federal level. The plan has failed. On Sunday evening, a visibly surprised and perplexed SPD leader Schulz stood in front of cameras and announced that he would continue his campaign in the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia in May as preparation for this autumn’s federal election.

Saudi Arabia pivots to China

Jean Shaoul

Beginning on March 15, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman initiated a month-long visit to China, Japan, Malaysia, and Indonesia by a massive 1,000-strong entourage of Saudi business executives.

His aim is to strengthen the Saudi monarchy’s relations with East Asia and counter the rise of Iran, Saudi Arabia’s main regional rival.

Salman is seeking to promote investment in the kingdom, including the sale of a 5 percent stake in the giant state oil firm Saudi Aramco, and to increase revenue from exports and non-petrol income—following the fall in oil prices that has led to acute political, economic and social tensions within Saudi Arabia, threatening the kingdom’s stability.

His visit to Beijing unfolded amid worsening relations between Washington and the kingdom that has—since 1945—constituted an essential prop of US imperialism in the region and a bulwark of reaction and repression in the Arab world. The US-led interventions in Iraq and Syria to assert Washington’s hegemony over the Middle East’s vast energy resources have destabilised the entire Middle East, threatening Saudi Arabia.

China’s President Xi Jinping, who is anxious to boost China’s profile in the Middle East, on which it depends for its energy supplies, visited Saudi Arabia last year in the first state visit by a Chinese leader in seven years. Last year, Beijing hosted talks over Syria in an apparent effort to mediate the conflict.

Xi said, “For a long time, China and Islamic countries have respected each other and had win-win cooperation, and have created a model of the peaceful coexistence of different cultures.”

Salman told Xi he hoped China could play an even greater role in Middle East affairs, saying, “Saudi Arabia is willing to work hard with China to promote global and regional peace, security and prosperity.”

Xi is also promoting China’s “One Belt, One Road” policy, designed to increase trade and transport links between China and Europe via Central Asia and the Middle East, based loosely on the ancient “Silk Road” trading network.

Saudi ambassador Turki Bin Mohamed Al-Mady, in an interview with Xinhua, China’s state-owned news agency, stressed Saudi Arabia’s potential role in the “One Belt, One Road” project. He said, “In terms of strategic location, Saudi Arabia serves as the central hub connecting three continents—Asia, Africa and Europe—and has been an important part of the initiative.”

On the first day of his visit to Beijing, Salman presided over the signing of deals worth $65 billion, including a memorandum of understanding between Saudi Aramco and China North Industries Group Corp (Norinco), to examine building refining and chemical plants in China.

The most ominous of these deals was revealed on Monday: Saudi Arabia has agreed to import hunter-killer drones from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), which will set up production lines in Saudi Arabia for provision of the weapons to the kingdom and other nearby monarchical regimes. IHS Janes, which reported the deal Monday, said that the unmanned aerial vehicles are capable of carrying AR-1 laser-guided missiles and FT-9 guided bombs.

Saudi Aramco has hired HSBC to help raise a $2 billion bond sale as the first part of a $10 billion bond package ahead of an IPO in 2018 to be placed in Hong Kong, New York or London. Later, the Chinese 3D printed housing company WinSun announced a deal worth $1.5 billion with Saudi construction company Al Mobty to build 1.5 million “affordable” new homes in the kingdom.

In the last 25 years, Saudi Arabia has diversified its trade away from the US and towards Asia. In 2009, for the first time, Saudi Arabia exported more to China than the US. Its exports to five Asian countries—China, Japan, South Korea, India and Singapore—are more than three times the total to Europe and North America combined. By 2030, it is estimated that China’s demand for oil will exceed 16 million barrels per day, while US demand falls and its oil imports dwindle because of fracking.

Speaking a few years ago about China’s oil needs, Saudi Aramco’s CEO said that “the writing is on the wall” and that China is the future growth market for Saudi petroleum, although Russia has supplanted it as China’s main supplier, and Iran is an important competitor after the lifting of sanctions.

Saudi Arabia’s “pivot to China” positions it alongside other major Muslim powers in Asia and Africa—Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan and Turkey—that have also deepened their economic ties over the last decade.

Salman’s visit to Japan is the first ever visit by a Saudi king. Japan is another vital market for Saudi oil, which again now faces stiff competition from Iran.

Salman’s visit to Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, important Muslim countries, is aimed at securing their support for its Islamic military alliance, created in 2015 and directed against Iran, although publicly promoted as fighting terrorism. This is crucial since nuclear-armed Pakistan, which for decades has provided military support for Riyadh and recently took part in a military parade with Chinese and Saudi forces, has refused to join the anti-Iranian alliance or support the kingdom’s costly and disastrous war in Yemen.

In another major shift, Salman recently sent his foreign minister, Adel al Jubeir, to Baghdad, the first visit by a senior Saudi official to Iraq since 1990, when the then-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, sought to mediate the growing tensions between Baghdad and Washington in the spring of 1990.

For years, Riyadh refused to open an embassy in Baghdad to avoid giving the Iraqi government any legitimacy. Last year, Iraq demanded Riyadh recall its ambassador, the first after 25 years, just months after the ambassador had presented his credentials, for criticising its Shi’a militias fighting ISIS and other Sunni opposition forces in Iraq.

The Saudis now appear to be trying to engage with the government of Haidar al-Abadi in Baghdad in a bid to weaken his ties with Iran.

Riyadh’s relations with Washington became strained following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, which served to strengthen Tehran’s influence in Iraq by removing Saddam Hussein’s largely Sunni-based regime and installing the Shi’ite majority in power.

Riyadh was furious over Washington’s support for the pro-Iranian governments in Iraq and Lebanon, and sought to undermine them through direct or covert military interventions, the use of Islamist fighters as proxies, and economic aid. Relations deteriorated further following the US’s failure to sustain its support for Hosni Mubarak against the Egyptian masses in 2011. Relations soured following the Obama administration’s subsequent pragmatic manoeuvrings, including the retreat on its promise to intervene decisively in the war to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria in 2013—allowing Russia to intervene to shore up the regime—and its deal with Iran in 2015.

While Riyadh hopes that relations will improve under President Donald Trump, who has said that Iran poses a security threat to the region, it is taking no chances. It has noted with some concern the Islamaphobic rhetoric of some of Trump’s inner circle and the call for Saudi Arabia to be included in Trump’s travel ban, since 15 of the 19 hijackers in the 9/11 terror attacks were from the kingdom. In addition, 800 families of 9/11 victims and 1,500 first responders, along with others who suffered as a result of the attacks, have filed a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia over its alleged complicity in the 2001 terror attacks.

On the domestic front, the House of Saud faces mounting social and economic tensions as the fall in oil prices, upon which the government depends for 70 percent of its revenue, has led to a drastic cut back in public expenditure and the imposition of a value-added tax.

This month, the government tightened restrictions on foreign workers who constitute about 12 million of the country’s 33 million population in a bid to reduce unemployment among Saudi nationals. While unemployment is officially 12.1 percent, a senior Aramco official has said the unemployment rate was closer to 27-29 percent, rising to 33 percent among young people between 20 and 24 years of age and 38 percent for 24- to 29-year-olds, in a country where two thirds of the population are under 30.

Growing debate in Beijing over North Korea

Ben McGrath

The Trump administration is exploiting the growing confrontation with North Korea to significantly boost pressure on China. Trump himself has scathingly referred to Beijing’s failure to use its economic muscle to assist the US in forcing Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear and missile programs.

During his visit to Asia this month, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that “all options” were on the table, including military strikes against North Korea, heightening the dilemma confronting the Chinese regime.

On the one hand, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) apparatus has been hostile to North Korea’s nuclear tests and missile launches as they provide a convenient pretext for the US military build-up in Asia in preparation for war with China. They also fuel moves towards a nuclear arms race in North East Asia, with Trump suggesting during last year’s US presidential election, that Japan and South Korea could develop their own nuclear weapons.

At the same time, Beijing has resisted demands that it cut-off key exports to Pyongyang such as oil, fearful that it would rapidly lead to an acute economic and political crisis that could be exploited by the US and its allies. China has always regarded North Korea as a useful strategic buffer and does not want a unified Korea aligned with the US on its northern border. Beijing has pushed for a restart of stalled six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia as a means of defusing the stand-off. Tillerson bluntly rejected talks.

The US threat of war on the neighboring Korean Peninsula has further fueled the debate in Beijing over its policy towards Pyongyang, with a vocal minority suggesting that China abandon its longstanding ally. Nanjing University professor Zhu Feng told the New Yorker last month: “Beijing’s patience is running out. The Kim [Jong-un] regime has done absolutely nothing that is good for China’s national interest.”

Deng Yuwen—former editor of the Study Times, the prestigious journal of the CCP’s Central Party School—wrote in a recent blog that North Korea had long overdrawn on “the friendship formed in blood” during the Korean War of 1950-53. He stated that it was time for Beijing to abandon its “appeasement attitude” towards Pyongyang, saying, “The North Korean issue is no longer its domestic affair; being a great threat to China and East Asia, it has become an international affair.”

Deng was removed as Study Times editor after writing a comment in 2013 for the British-based Financial Times entitled “China should abandon North Korea.” He argued that “Beijing should give up on Pyongyang and press for the reunification of the Korean peninsula” in order to “undermine the strategic alliance between Washington, Tokyo and Seoul” and “ease the geopolitical pressure on China.”

More recently, others such as Professor Zhang Liangui, also of the Central Party School, have called into question Beijing’s relationship with the North as well. Professor Zhu told the New Yorker, “There is no other issue that divides China’s foreign-policy community more than the DPRK [North Korea].” The fact that the debate is public points to an intense discussion underway behind closed doors in the Chinese bureaucracy.

China’s relations with North Korea have already deteriorated markedly as Beijing has supported punitive UN sanctions and imposed them. In February, the Chinese regime suspended coal imports from North Korea, provoking a rare public criticism of Beijing as “dancing to the tune of the US.” After coming to power in 2011, Kim Jong-un sought to consolidate his grip through a series of purges, including the execution of his uncle, Jang Song-taek, who had close ties with Beijing and sought to implement pro-market restructuring.

Since assuming office in 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping has not met with Kim Jung-un. Nevertheless, there is no indication that Beijing is ready to abandon Pyongyang. A March 10 Op-ed piece in the state-owned Global Times placed much of the blame for the current situation at Washington’s feet. “In the eyes of the Chinese people, the North Korean nuclear issue was not created by Pyongyang alone. The country's insistence on developing a nuclear program is without doubt a wrong path, yet Washington and Seoul are the main forces that have pushed North Korea to this path,” it stated.

Xia Yanmei, an analyst at the China-based research company Gavekal, told the Australian: “[T]he reality is that Beijing is far more suspicious of Washington and its allies in Japan and South Korea than it is of North Korea… Its determination to help the Kim regime survive remains intact despite North Korea’s provocations.”

The Trump administration’s decision to begin the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery in South Korea has only added more fuel to the debate in Beijing, which fears that the anti-ballistic missile system and its radar will be used to peer deep inside Chinese territory.

Those advocating that Beijing abandon North Korea argue that THAAD demonstrates the failure of the CCP’s current policy. “The U.S. decision to deploy THAAD in South Korea is a disaster for China and it is time China changes its mindset,” political commentator Zhao Lingmin wrote in a recent Chinese-language article for the Financial Times .

Further increasing the pressure on Beijing, the Trump administration announced new sanctions on 30 companies and individuals including several in China, claiming that they were involved in transferring ballistic missile technology to Iran and violating existing bans on exporting goods to North Korea. The US Congress is expected to pass a bill banning oil exports to North Korea, except for humanitarian purposes, and barring overseas companies from hiring North Korean workers. The bill would also re-designate Pyongyang as a state sponsor of terrorism.

If the US did launch military strikes on North Korea, China would not necessarily support Pyongyang, despite their security treaty signed 55 years ago. “The treaty was a relic of the Cold War which made no mention of specific circumstances under which China would provide military aid,” Professor Shen Jiru from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the South China Morning Post last April.

An article in the Diplomat on March 25 entitled “China’s North Korea debate” stated that there was a “third camp” in the Chinese apparatus that was arguing for more pro-active measures—not simply to abandon North Korea but to “eliminate” it. The article does not make clear what its proponents propose, but it can only have one meaning—for China to pre-empt the US and its allies by carrying out its own regime-change operation in Pyongyang.

The debate going on in Beijing is an indication not only of the sharp tensions with Pyongyang but also the developing sense of crisis in China, which only heightens the danger of a minor incident triggering a catastrophic conflict engulfing the region and the world. While North Korea, South Korea, China and Japan are all contributing to the dangerous situation on the Korean Peninsula, the primary responsibility rests with the US, which under the Trump administration is considering the most reckless and provocative actions.

As Yemen war enters third year, Pentagon moves to escalate slaughter

Bill Van Auken 

The Pentagon has formally asked the Trump White House to lift limited restrictions imposed by the Obama administration on US military aid to the Saudi Arabian monarchy’s near genocidal war against the impoverished people of Yemen.

The Washington Post reported Monday that Secretary of State James “Mad Dog” Mattis, a recently-retired US Marine general, had submitted a memo earlier this month to Trump’s national security adviser H.R. McMaster, an active duty US Army lieutenant general, for the approval of stepped-up support for military operations being conducted in Yemen by both the Saudi regime and its principal Arab ally, the United Arab Emirates.

The memo, according to the Post, stressed that such US military aid would help to combat “a common threat.”

This supposed “threat” is posed by Iran, US imperialism’s principal regional rival for hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East. Both the Saudi monarchy and the Trump administration have repeatedly charged, without providing any significant supporting evidence, that Iran has armed, trained and directed the Houthi rebels who seized control of the Yemeni capital and much of the country, toppling the US-Saudi puppet regime of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi in 2014.

A major escalation of the US intervention in Yemen will be directed principally at provoking a military confrontation with Tehran, with the aim of weakening Iranian influence throughout the region. Trump himself campaigned in the 2016 election denouncing the Obama administration for being too “soft” on Iran and for joining the other major powers in negotiating what he characterized as a “disastrous” nuclear agreement with Tehran. His advisers, including his ousted first national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn, and Defense Secretary Mattis, have all voiced bellicose hostility to Iran.

The immediate impetus for the call for increased US aid to the Saudi-led war is reportedly a proposed Emirati operation to seize control of the key Red Sea port of Hodeida. The effect of such an offensive would be to cut off the large portion of the country and its population under Houthi control from any lifeline to the outside world. Fully 70 percent of the country’s imports now come through the port. Even before the war, Yemen was dependent upon imports for 90 percent of its food. Aid agencies have warned that a military offensive on the port could tip the country into mass starvation.

The proposed US escalation in Yemen coincides with the second anniversary of the Saudi war on the country, launched on March 26, 2015 in the form of an unending bombing campaign directed largely against civilian targets, along with a halting offensive on the ground.

The anniversary was marked in the capital of Sanaa and other Yemeni cities by demonstrations of hundreds of thousands denouncing the murderous Saudi military campaign. The Houthis have won support that extends far beyond their base in the country’s Zaidi-Shia minority because of popular hatred for the Saudi monarchy and its crimes.

As the war enters its third year, Yemen is teetering on the brink of mass starvation, confronting one of the worst humanitarian crises anywhere on the planet. This war, waged by the obscenely wealthy royal families of the gulf oil sheikdoms against what was already the poorest nation in the Arab world, has killed some 12,000 Yemenis, the overwhelming majority of them civilians, and wounded at least 40,000 more.

Saudi airstrikes have targeted hospitals, schools, factories, food warehouses, fields and even livestock. Coupled with a de facto naval blockade, the aim of this total war against Yemen’s civilian population is to starve the Yemenis into submission. A US-backed campaign to seize the port of Hodeida would serve to tighten this deadly stranglehold.

In a statement issued Monday marking the beginning of the war’s third year, the United Nations emergency relief agency reported that “nearly 19 million Yemenis—over two-thirds of the population—need humanitarian assistance. Seven million Yemenis are facing starvation.”

UNICEF, the UN’s children’s agency, reported that roughly half a million children are suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen, while 1,546 have been killed and 2,450 have been disabled by the fighting. The agency said that the rate of child deaths had increased by 70 percent over the past year, while the rate of acute malnutrition had increased by 200 percent since 2014.

The deliberate Saudi bombing of hospitals and clinics has left 15 million people without any access to health care, while the destruction of water and sanitation facilities has led to epidemics of cholera and diarrhea. It is estimated that as many as 10,000 children have lost their lives due to the lack of clean water and medical services since 2015.

Washington, under both the Obama and the Trump administrations, has been fully complicit in the war crimes being carried out by the Saudi regime and its allies against the Yemeni people. Washington poured a staggering $115 billion worth of arms into the Saudi kingdom under the Obama administration, resupplying bombs and missiles dropped on Yemeni homes, hospitals and schools. It set up a joint US-Saudi logistical and intelligence center to guide the war and provided aerial refueling by US planes to assure that the bombing could continue round the clock.

While a part of this decisive military aid was curtailed for public relations purposes following the horrific October 2016 Saudi bombing of a funeral ceremony in Sanaa that killed over 150 people, the US Navy entered directly into the conflict that same month, firing Tomahawk missiles at Houthi targets based on unsubstantiated charges that missiles had been fired at US ships.

Nonetheless, the request by Mattis would mark a qualitative escalation of the US intervention. While the Post reported that an Emirati request for US Special Operations troops to participate directly in the siege of the port of Hodeida was not part of Mattis’s proposal, it went on to warn that the Gulf sheikdom’s military “may not be capable of such a large operation, including holding and stabilizing any reclaimed area, without sucking in US forces.” Indeed, the Emirati army is in large measure a mercenary force, having recruited former members of the Colombian, Salvadoran and Chilean military to do the ruling royal family’s dirty work.

The Post goes on to report: “A plan developed by the U.S. Central Command to assist the operation includes other elements that are not part of Mattis’s request, officials said. While Marine Corps ships have been off the coast of Yemen for about a year, it was not clear what support role they might play.”

As numerous reports have indicated, the Trump White House has essentially given free rein to Mattis and the US military commanders to conduct armed operations as they see fit. The result has been the more than doubling of the number of US troops on the ground in Syria along with an escalation of the US intervention in Iraq, as well as a request for another 5,000 troops to be deployed in Afghanistan.

In Yemen, they are preparing to drag the American people into another criminal war against one of the world’s most vulnerable populations, threatening to hasten the deaths of millions of starving people. The strategic aims underlying this vast war crime are the imposition of US imperialist hegemony over the Middle East through a military confrontation with Iran and the preparation for a global conflict with Washington’s principal rivals, Russia and China.

Manipur: Uncertainty Remains Despite End to the Economic Blockade

Nehginpao Kipgen

One of the major promises made by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during the recently held assembly elections in Manipur was to end the economic blockade imposed by the United Naga Council (UNC) within 48 hours. After taking oath as the new Chief Minister of Manipur on 15 March 2017, BJP's Nongthombam Biren Singh sent the state government’s representatives to the Senapati district headquarters to hold a tripartite dialogue with representatives of the UNC and the Central Government on 19 March.

 

The BJP government of Manipur was represented by Additional Chief Secretary Suresh Babu and Commissioner (Home) Radha Kumar; the central government was represented by Joint Secretary,  Joint Secretary (North East Division), Ministry of Home Affairs, Satyendra Garg; and the UNC was represented by its three former presidents and general secretary. At the end of the meeting, the UNC agreed to lift the four-month-long economic blockade. The participants at the meeting also agreed to non-adherence of the four memoranda of understanding signed between the Nagas and the Government of India. The state government agreed to start consultations with all stakeholders to redress the tensions arising from the creation of new districts and to hold the next round of tripartite dialogue within a month.

 

The positive news has been that the end of the economic blockade will bring tremendous relief to the people of Manipur and will also bring significant improvement in the state’s economy. It will also bring an end to the severe inconvenience faced by visitors and business people from outside the state. Therefore, this is one first major achievement in Manipur for the BJP government.

 

On the other hand, the tripartite agreement could cause a different wave of unrest and tension in the state. Interpreted literally, the tripartite agreement means that the government of Manipur acknowledges that it breached the agreements reached between the Nagas and the Government of India. It can be construed that the Manipur government apologises to the UNC and is now ready to consider the interests of the Naga people.

 

If the agreement is to be implemented in letter and spirit, there are three possible scenarios. First, the state government may have to roll back all the seven new districts the Congress government created on 8 December 2016. According to Congress's Okram Ibobi Singh-led former government in Manipur, the new districts - Jiribam, Kangpokpi (in place of Sadar Hills), Tengoupal, Pherzawl, Kakching, Noney and Kamjong - were created purely for administrative convenience. The Ibobi government also said that the decision was neither in favour of any particular group nor against any community. For former Chief Minister Singh, Manipur is like a ‘mini India’ where different communities reside. Ibobi argued that land belongs to the government and not to any particular community, and therefore, no super power of the world can break up Manipur. Rolling back the new districts could also directly or indirectly mean the acceptance of the UNC’s claim that the creation of the new districts was destroying the ancestral land of the Nagas.

 

Revocation of the new districts will be a terrible blow for the people, particularly those from Sadar Hills who have demanded its creation for over four decades since 1972 when the Indian parliament passed the Manipur (Hill Areas) District Council Act, 1971. According to the Act, all the hill areas were to be divided into six autonomous districts, with the ultimate goal of a full-fledged district each, including Sadar Hills. The five other autonomous districts - Manipur South (Churachandpur); Manipur North (Senapati); Manipur East (Ukhrul); Manipur West (Tamenglong); Tengnoupal (Chandel) - have all been upgraded to full-fledged districts since then.

 

The second possibility is that the boundaries of the new districts will need to be redrawn after consulting all stakeholders, including the Nagas, in line with the UNC’s demand. If this is to be implemented, the UNC will demand the amalgamation of all Naga inhabited areas with the Naga dominated districts, particularly Senapati and Tamenglong. 

The third possibility is that the Indian government will honour the “Framework Agreement” which it signed with the NSCN-IM on 3 August 2015. Although details have not been made public, it appears that the central government might be considering some kind of a supra state or alternative arrangement for the Nagas with a certain degree of autonomy. Alternatively, it can also be a step toward the fulfilment of NSCN-IM’s demand for greater or southern Nagaland.

 

If the first and second probabilities were to come true, there could be several forms of counter agitations, similar to the economic blockade imposed by the UNC. There is a possibility of simmering tension and violence along ethnic lines, particularly between the Kukis and the Nagas in Tengnoupal and Kangpokpi districts. In an event of the third probability, the majority Meitei population of the state are likely to agitate agitations, like in the past.

 

Though finding an amicable solution is easier said than done, both the state government and the central government need to take a judicious step to address this heavily polarised and sensitive issue. The manner in which the UNC demands are handled and addressed will also largely determine the fate of the BJP government in Manipur.