Syrian rebels massacre at least 126 civilians in suicide bomb blast

Jordan Shilton

A convoy of buses evacuating residents from the government-held towns of Foua and Kefraya in Syria’s Idlib province was targeted by a suicide bomber Saturday, claiming the lives of at least 126 civilians. The attack occurred west of Aleppo as the buses made their way to government-controlled areas.

The evacuation of the residents of the two towns began Friday morning and was part of a swap deal agreed between the government of Bashar al-Assad and rebel forces. In exchange for allowing the evacuation of residents from Foua and Kefraya, rebels agreed to resettle the populations of Madaya and Zabadani, two towns they control near Damascus. In total, around 7,250 people were evacuated from the four towns. It was part of a broader plan brokered by Iran and Qatar to move up to 30,000 people over a 60-day period.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is linked to the rebels, 68 children were killed in the blast. Other sources have put the figure as high as 80.

The observatory confirmed the blast was caused by an improvised explosive device carried in a vehicle, backing up an earlier report on Syrian state TV which said the attackers used a van meant for delivering aid to gain access to the area.

An al-Jazeera reporter at the scene described how many of the buses were completely destroyed and dead bodies littered the ground. Ambulances rushed those from the scene who had been injured.

Although no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, it occurred in a rebel-controlled area. Ahrar al-Sham, a conservative Islamist militia, condemned the bombing and called for an international investigation to determine who was to blame.

In stark contrast to the moral outrage expressed by politicians and the media in the wake of the alleged gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun earlier this month, which the Trump administration seized upon to launch an illegal missile strike on a Syrian air base, the death of over 100 Syrians in a suicide bombing—substantially more than the number who died in the alleged gas attack—prompted virtually no condemnation from the Western powers.

The US State Department released a weasel-worded statement which, while condemning the killings, sought to strike a pose of impartiality and refused even to identify the rebel Islamist militias as being responsible. “We deplore any act that sustains or empowers extremists on all sides including today’s attack,” said State Department spokesman Mark Toner.

At a comparable stage in the aftermath of the Khan Sheikhoun incident, just hours after the alleged attack, US government officials had already acted as judge, jury and executioner, and were proclaiming the guilt of the Assad regime without presenting any evidence.

President Donald Trump, who invoked the deaths of “beautiful babies” and the need to defend the “civilized world” in justifying his April 6 cruise missile strike, which killed nine civilians, did not even comment on the bloodbath carried out by forces linked to the American CIA.

For their part, the servile corporate-controlled media reported on the incident, if at all, in a largely routine manner.

The New York Times published a lengthy front-page report concentrating almost exclusively on the crimes committed by Assad during the war, alleging that “the largest number of violations by far has been by the Syrian government.” It criticized the failure to bring government officials before the International Criminal Court in the Hague and blamed Russia for blocking any action by the UN Security Council.

The general indifference shown by the political and media establishment to the victims of this brutal massacre exposes once again the hypocrisy of the crusaders for “human rights” in the United States and the European imperialist powers. It demonstrates the fraudulent character of the propaganda campaign in the wake of the alleged gas attack, designed to conceal the real aims of US imperialist intervention in Syria: regime change in Damascus and the consolidation of Washington’s hegemonic position in the energy-rich Middle East against any challenge from its geopolitical rivals.

The reason for the lack of reaction is not hard to find. While it remains unclear precisely which faction of the rebels carried out the mass slaughter, Washington and its Gulf allies have the main responsibility for arming the collection of right-wing Islamist militias fighting the Assad dictatorship and enabling them to continue the civil war. The opposition is now dominated by the al-Nusra Front, which was formerly affiliated to Al Qaeda.

If any journalist were honest enough to follow the evidence, they would have to apportion a significant part of the blame for the bus convoy bombing to the criminal and reckless policies of US imperialism. More than six years after instigating the Syrian civil war, Washington has the blood of an estimated 500,000 Syrians on its hands.

This does not even take into account the upwards of 1 million people killed as a result of the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, the hundreds of thousands of deaths due to wars either led or sponsored by Washington in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia, and the millions throughout the region forced to flee their homes as a consequence of conflict and societal breakdown.

The highly selective concern shown for “human rights” issues by the representatives of US imperialism is nothing new. Saturday’s bombing came less than a month after a single US air strike launched as part of the ruthless onslaught against Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, claimed the lives of as many as 300 civilians sheltering in a basement. This horrific war crime, coming on top of the thousands of civilian deaths that have occurred since the US-backed offensive was launched last October, was largely buried by the media.

The ruling class considers the deaths of civilians to be collateral damage—a price worth paying in their ruthless struggle to uphold US imperialist interests in the Middle East and around the globe. Barely 24 hours after the bus bombing, Trump’s National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster vowed in an ABC News interview that Washington was ready to escalate tensions with Russia still further, not only over Syria, but over Europe as well.

McMaster said of Russia’s alliance with Assad, “So Russia’s support for that kind of horrible regime, that is a party to that kind of a conflict, is something that has to be drawn into question as well as Russia’s subversive actions in Europe. And so I think it’s time though, now, to have those tough discussions with Russia.”

Ballot dispute erupts as Erdogan declares a “Yes” victory in Turkish constitutional referendum

Halil Celik 

According to results posted last night, the constitutional referendum of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won 51.4 percent of the vote. With 99 percent of ballots counted, the “No” campaign, supported by the opposition Kemalist Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), stood at 48.6 percent. Erdogan, who heads the Justice and Development Party (AKP), declared victory for the sweeping constitutional changes he had promoted.

The referendum was marked by large-scale voting irregularities, however, which immediately raised suspicions of electoral fraud. The High Electoral Board (YSK) ruled that it would count ballots that “had not been stamped” by its officials “as valid unless they could be proved fraudulent,” citing “a high number of complaints that YSK officials at polling stations had failed to stamp them.”

The CHP declared that it would demand a recount of about 6 percent—some 2.5 million—of the votes or about 37 percent of ballot boxes. The HDP, for its part, said the result of the referendum would remain unclear until its appeal to the YSK over voting irregularities had been decided.

The YSK’s decision led CHP’s chairperson Kemal Kilicdaroğlu to declare that the legitimacy of the referendum was open to question. In a short speech to reporters last night, Kilicdaroğlu stated that constitutions should be the result of social consensus. He said he was ready to develop the Turkish constitution on a consensus basis.

Though the referendum was supported by the AKP and the fascistic National Movement Party (MHP), the initial results show that the absolute size of the “Yes” vote was some 10—in some cities 20—percent smaller than the AKP and MHP vote in the November 2015 general election. The HDP also lost part of its vote in some of its majority-Kurdish electoral strongholds, where hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee fighting between the Turkish army and Kurdish nationalist groups.

In Turkey’s largest cities—Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara, Adana, Diyarbakir—the “no” vote carried, while large sections of the population voted “no” in major industrial cities such as Bursa, Kocaeli and Manisa.

As it became clear that the official result would be a “yes” victory, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told a crowd of AKP supporters that the referendum had opened a new page in Turkey’s history. Erdogan then spoke to celebrate his razor-thin victory. “There are people who belittle the results,” he said, referring to his opponents. “Do not beat the air. It is too late now.”

Speaking at Huber Palace in Istanbul, Erdogan claimed that by approving the referendum, which effectively grants him dictatorial powers, Turkey had resolved a 200-year-old contradiction in its administration. “Today is the day when a change, a decision to shift to a truly serious administrative system was made,” he said.

Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the pro-”yes” Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), called the result a “a significant success,” ignoring the fact that some 50 percent of MHP voters voted “no.” Dismissing the issue of vote fraud, he declared, “The great Turkish nation, the sole owner of sovereignty, has given the final word about the future of its country, clinging to its independence and future.”

The constitutional amendment is a reactionary measure replacing Turkey’s parliamentary system with an all-powerful presidency exercising total control of the legislature and the judiciary. It allows the president to issue legislative decrees, draw up the budget, appoint the judiciary, dissolve parliament and nominate the ruling party’s candidates for parliamentary elections. The parliament would become a rubber stamp.

If the “yes” vote is confirmed, the referendum will reshape Turkey’s relations with NATO and the European Union. Erdogan previously vowed to review his refugee deal with the EU after the referendum.

Even though large-scale irregularities are hanging over the vote, the pro-EU Turkish Industry and Business Association (TUSIAD) called on the electorate to support the “yes” result. It called for the population to stand “in solidarity for a stronger Turkey and look to the future without delay.” It also urged “the government and parliament to prioritize the reform agenda that is before our country,” adding, “It is time to progress by preserving freedoms, pluralism and solidarity.”

Though the referendum unmistakably grants the Turkish president dictatorial powers, TUSIAD asked Erdogan to “strengthen the independence of the judiciary” and end the state of emergency imposed after last year’s July 15 failed coup, which was backed by Washington and Berlin.

TUSIAD’s statement also called for closer relations with the EU on issues such as customs duties, media and Internet freedom, security cooperation on refugee policy, visa-free travel, a political solution in Cyprus, and a resolution to the war in Syria.

The Council of Europe made similar remarks, calling on the Turkish government to proceed carefully after its victory. In a written statement, Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland said, “It is of utmost importance to secure the independence of the judiciary in line with the principle of rule of law enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. The Council of Europe, of which Turkey is a full member, stands ready to support the country in this process.”

In Germany, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel urged the Turkish government to proceed in a “level-headed way.” Axel Schaefer of the Social Democratic Party treated the referendum outcome as a disaster, comparing it to the coming to power of Hitler in 1933.

“The Brexit vote is pushing Britain onto the sidelines, the presidential election of Trump is taking the USA on an adventure, the Erdogan referendum is leading Turkey into absolutism like the 1933 German parliamentary election led Germany into the abyss,” he said.

Erdogan’s closest allies were more supportive in their statements on the referendum. Azeri President Ilham Aliyev congratulated Erdogan, saying, “This referendum will undoubtedly mark the dawn of a new era in the history of our sister country and will strengthen the role and place of a stable, strong Turkey in the international arena.”

Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, together with leaders from Pakistan, Hungary, Macedonia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Kenya, telephoned Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to congratulate him on the result.

Australian worker challenges union-company wage-cutting deal

Oscar Grenfell 

A legal challenge to a wage-cutting deal between supermarket giant, Coles, and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA), a trade union that covers many retail workers, has been the subject of nervous commentary this month.

Senior business figures, Labor and Liberal-National Coalition politicians and union officials have warned that an overturn of the agreement threatens the framework of company-union enterprise bargaining which has been central to the decimation of jobs, wages and conditions since the 1990s.

The challenge to the deal, struck by Coles and the SDA in 2011, was brought to the Fair Work Commission (FWC), the federal government’s industrial tribunal, by Penny Vickers, a Brisbane Coles worker and SDA delegate last year. Since then, despite multiple hearings and mentions, no date has been set for the case to be decided.

Vickers, who works night and weekend shifts, is alleging that the agreement, one of a series of pro-business deals between the union and the company, resulted in her weekly pay being slashed to $33 below the mandated award wage for the industry. While the deal contained marginal increases in base pay rates, it cut weekend and night penalty rates for affected workers, eliminating them entirely on Saturdays.

As a result of agreements between Coles and the SDA since 2011, an estimated 43,000 workers, or 56 percent of Coles supermarket employees, have been underpaid. According to Fairfax Media, the average underpayment has been around $1,500 a year, saving Coles between $70 million and $100 million per year. Up to 80 percent of the workforce is casual or part-time, with supermarket workers among the lowest paid. Some have annual wages of as little as $10,000–$15,000.

Vickers has stated that when workers voted on the agreement, they were not informed, by the SDA or Coles, that it contained pay cuts.

Vickers is not the first worker to challenge Coles-SDA wage-cutting deals. In 2015, Duncan Hart, a Brisbane Coles employee, lodged a FWC case challenging the 2014 Coles-SDA enterprise bargaining agreement, which contained substantial cuts to weekend and night penalty rates.

In May 2016, the FWC ruled that the 2014 deal would be invalid, unless the company increased penalty rates. It refused, and instead reverted to the 2011 agreement, which is the subject of Vickers’ case.

In both instances, the SDA has collaborated with Coles in seeking to quash the legal challenges. The alliance of the SDA and the company against the supermarket workers is a graphic expression of the utterly corporatised and anti-working class character of the unions.

Other unions are also implicated in similar wage-cutting. The Australian Workers Union (AWU), the largest in the country, was a party to the 2011 and 2014 agreements. The AWU, formerly headed by Labor Party leader Bill Shorten, signed a host of other deals reducing the pay of cleaners, farm labourers and other low-paid workers.

Unions across the board, including those promoted as “left-wing” and “militant,” such as the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), have established enterprise agreements that contain real wage cuts for workers they falsely claim to represent. In February, for instance, the CFMEU pushed through an agreement covering about 900 workers at the Maryvale paper mill in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, slashing wages by 5 percent.

Such agreements have played a central role in creating the conditions for last year’s national wage growth, across the private sector, to fall to its lowest-level since records began in 1969—just 1.8 percent.

The SDA has vehemently opposed Vickers’ case, citing slight increases in base pay rates, particularly for workers on day shifts. SDA national secretary Gerard Dwyer declared that the “rolling up” of penalty rates at Coles and Woolworths, another supermarket chain, had delivered higher wage rates to some workers.

Under current industrial legislation, however, an agreement must pass a Better Off Overall Test (BOOT), which supposedly requires that no worker be worse off “overall.”

Senator Eric Abetz, a leading figure in the federal Liberal-National government and a former industrial relations minister, called this month for the Labor Party to assist the government to remove the BOOT clauses from the legislation.

The Labor Party has fraudulently postured as an opponent of recent cuts to penalty rates. But Abetz pointed to the central role of Labor governments in creating the enterprise bargaining framework under which company-union wage-cutting deals are struck. “I think the enterprise bargaining system should be supported, it is one of those good things that came from the Hawke-Keating-Kelty era,” Abetz declared.

Enterprise bargaining, as it currently exists, was put in place by the Labor government of Paul Keating in the early 1990s, working hand-in-glove with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and its secretary, Bill Kelty.

The move was part of a broader agenda begin under Keating’s predecessor, Bob Hawke, which included the establishment of Accords between the government, the major corporations and the unions providing for the deregulation of the economy, and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs.

Greg Combet, another former ACTU secretary and a leading member of federal Labor governments from 2007 to 2013, echoed Abetz’s comments this month.

Combet pointed to the pro-business character of the system, stating: “Continuing a system of enterprise bargaining in our economy is extremely important because it allows companies to adjust to competitive circumstances.” In other words, enterprise bargaining allows the companies, working through the unions, to slash the wages and conditions of employees to boost profits.

Underscoring the ongoing company-union-government alignment, Business Council of Australia chief executive Jane Westacott also warned that “no one wanted enterprise bargaining to collapse.” She called for bipartisanship between Labor and the Liberal-National Coalition to defend it.

As these responses indicate, the case launched by Vickers has once again shown that any struggle by workers against the corporate assault on jobs, wages and conditions must be carried out in direct opposition to Labor and the unions.

German football team coach bus hit by roadside bombs

Dietmar Henning 

Four days after the bomb attack Tuesday on the bus of the Borussia Dortmund (BVB) football club there is still no clear information regarding either the identity of the attacker(s) or motive.

On Tuesday evening at 7:15 p.m. three bombs loaded with steel pins exploded as the bus set off from the team’s hotel to the local stadium in Dortmund. The bombs were hidden behind a hedge and detonated by remote control. They had a destructive power of up to a hundred yards.

BVB was due to play AS Monaco in a Champions League quarter-final when the bombs struck.

Despite its reinforced panels the bus was badly damaged. The Spanish BVB defender Marc Bartra suffered an injury to his wrist and was operated on the same evening. One metal splinter only just missed the BVB players and drilled into the headrest of a seat. “We are lucky nothing worse happened,” Frauke Köhler, spokeswoman for the prosecutor generals’ office declared.

Only one day after the attack she declared that the attack had a “terrorist background” and that the federal prosecutor’s office had taken over the investigation. Germany’s highest state investigation authority is responsible for terrorist offences.

Investigators from the Federal Prosecutor’s Office and the Federal Criminal Police Office arrested two men from North Rhine-Westphalia on Wednesday night. Special Forces stormed the apartments of a 25-year-old Iraqi in Wuppertal and a German living in the small neighbouring village of Unna. Both have Islamic backgrounds.

One man was arrested, but on Thursday it was announced that the investigations “had so far no evidence that the accused had been involved in the attack”. The second suspect was not even arrested.

Investigators reported on Friday that they had “serious doubts” that the attack had been carried out by Islamists as initially reported. They pointed to the suspicious character of letters found at the scene, which appeared to be written in an attempt to misdirect investigators.

Shortly after the detonation, police officers near the scene of the crime found three identical letters professing to the attack, presumed to have been left behind by the perpetrator(s). The letter stated that the “Islamic State” (IS) was behind the bombing, but there is much evidence indicating that the claim of responsibility was deliberately aimed at sending a false signal.

This would be the first ever such letter left by an IS attacker at a crime scene. The letter, written on computer, fails to include any oath of allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the IS logo or any other religious formula. The 14-line letter is also written in apparently deliberately faulty German, which gives rise to even more doubts. The letter includes obvious spelling mistakes but at the same time the author has no problem with much more difficult grammatical formulations.

Another new feature of the letter is the way in which the author(s) directly address chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU): “But apparently Merkel, you do not care a jot for your little filthy subjects. Your Tornadoes still fly above the ground of the caliphate to assassinate Muslims.”

The letter specifically demands the withdrawal of German Tornado fighter planes from Syria and the closure of the Ramstein Air Base, the largest American military base in Germany. Until that is accomplished, “all disbelieving actors, singers, athletes and celebrities in Germany and other crusader countries everywhere are on the death list of the Islamic state.”

According to the Nordrhein Westfalen Interior Minister, Ralf Jäger (SPD), the three bombs were professionally constructed. Jäger said that, based on the letters found, there was a high risk of further attacks, and he announced additional personnel would safeguard the public and all major events.

A second letter published on the Indymedia website, is very likely to be spurious. “Neither the content or language point to a left-wing background, so we have already deleted it shortly after its release” the platform said. The investigating authorities drew a similar conclusion. The internet post said that the bus had been attacked as a “symbol for the policy of the BVB”, which had not done enough to combat racists, Nazis and right-wing populists.

Bearing in mind that the BVB spends €300,000 per year for so-called “Nazi Prevention”—it subsidizes trips for pupils and fans to concentration camp memorials such as Dachau or Sachsenhausen—both the investigators and many football fans consider it possible that right-wing hooligans are behind the attack on the BVB.

The football club is currently taking legal action against a group of fans from the club, including many ultra-right thugs, who were involved in provocations against a rival team from Leipzig in February.

One week after the February incident police stopped several busses containing members of the group “0231 Riot” (0231 is telephone dialing code for Dortmund). The “0231” thugs were on their way to an away game of the BVB in Darmstadt. The group recruits almost exclusively from the extreme right-wing scene.

After the BVB banned the group from its stadium, police in Dortmund found graffiti threatening the life of BVB boss Hans-Joachim Watzke.

The investigating authorities also believe that violent supporters of the RB Leipzig—the club at the receiving end of the violence in February—could be behind the terror attack. The demands contained in the alleged IS note calling for the withdrawal of German Tornado aircraft from Syria and the closure of the US air base in Rammstein are almost identical to the demands of the far-right political movement Legida, which is based in Leipzig.

Despite the attack, the football match between BVB and AS Monaco went ahead one day later. Immediately after the explosion, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) decided to allow the match to take place. The Dortmund coach, Thomas Tuchel, expressed his disquiet with the decision at a press conference immediately after the match. “The dates were planned in advance and we have to work,” he said, but the team would have liked more time to deal with the shock of the bombing.

Soon after the terror attack and after the game a veritable storm of solidarity messages for BVB and criticism of the UEFA decision hit the internet and social networks.

Players had also expressed their unease after the game. BVB defender Sokratis said: “The UEFA needs to understand that we are not animals. We are people with a family and children at home. I’m glad all the players and supporters are alive.”

In an interview with a Norwegian TV station, the BVB player Nuri Sahin said: “To be honest I did not think about football until I was on the pitch in the second half.” His teammate, Matthias Ginter, told ruhrnachrichten: “Nobody wanted to play today.”

BVB head Watzke concurred, however, he had agreed with the UEFA on Tuesday in order to send a “signal against terror”. He was supported by Chancellor Merkel, who called him personally Wednesday morning.

The fact that the game was put back a day created many problems for hundreds of Monaco fans who had planned their return home after the match. Many Dortmund fans responded by offering overnight accommodation in their homes for the stranded fans.

Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

Trevor Johnson 

The existence of a secretive unit within London’s Metropolitan Police that uses hacking to illegally access the emails of hundreds of political campaigners and journalists has been revealed. At least two of the journalists work for the Guardian .

Green Party representative in the British House of Lords, Jenny Jones, exposed the unit’s existence in an opinion piece in the Guardian. The facts she revealed are based on a letter written to her by a whistleblower.

The letter reveals that through the hacking, Scotland Yard has illegally accessed the email accounts of activists for many years, and this was possible due to help from “counterparts in India.” The letter alleged that the Metropolitan Police had asked police in India to obtain passwords on their behalf—a job that the Indian police subcontracted out to groups of hackers in India.

The Indian hackers sent back the passwords obtained, which were then used illegally by the unit within the Met to gather information from the emails of those targeted.

The letter was published in part in the Guardian, with its anonymous author writing, “For a number of years the unit had been illegally accessing the email accounts of activists.

“This has largely been accomplished because of the contact that one of the officers had developed with counterparts in India who in turn were using hackers to obtain email passwords.”

The letter continued, “Over the years, the unit had evolved into an organisation that had little respect for the law, no regard for personal privacy, encouraged highly immoral activity and, I believe, is a disgrace.”

As proof of its validity, the letter contained “a list of ten people and the passwords to their email accounts.” As proof that the hacking was directed against spying on political groups and activists, the letter states that four of the ten people work for the environmental group Greenpeace, with one of them in a senior position.

The Bindmans LLP law firm, acting on behalf of Jones, contacted six of those listed to verify their passwords (the others could not be traced). In response, five of the six gave passwords that matched those given in the letter, and the sixth was nearly a match. The BBC noted that one of the 10 activists said “their password may have still been in use as recently as late 2015 or early 2016.”

The Met has claimed such activities were solely aimed at tracking down criminals, even though any evidence obtained through hacking—which is illegal—would not have been admissible in court. Rather, such claims are a cover for a hidden agenda.

Jones writes of the police acting “with impunity.” Exposing her own close relations with the state—while at the same time showing how widespread and intrusive police spying is—Jones writes the following: “The police put me on the domestic extremism database during the decade when I was on the Metropolitan Police Authority signing off their budgets and working closely with officers on the ground to fight crimes such as road crime and illegal trafficking. If someone in my position—no criminal record and on semi-friendly terms with the Met commissioner—can end up on the database, then you can too.”

The Guardian failed to point out in its report that new legislation proposed by the Law Commission would make the author of the anonymous letter, Jones herself, and the journalists at the Guardian, liable for prosecution—with up to 14 years in jail.

The intention to uncover criminal activity by the police could not be used as a defense. It is the aim of the Law Commission’s proposals to prevent whistleblowing activities that reveal the extent of mass surveillance becoming known.

The existence of a group acting illegally within the Metropolitan Police raises several questions that have not been broached by the media:

• When and on whose orders was this group set up? What was the remit of the group?

• Who authorized its use of hackers in India?

• How many people were targeted and for how long? How many of these were journalists?

• Is the group still in operation?

Under existing legislation, hacking—as described by the whistleblower—is unlawful if personal communications were intercepted for any other reason other than to combat major crime or terrorism. The home secretary must approve any such monitoring of personal communications.

The use of illegal hacking by Scotland Yard makes a mockery of the claims made by both the government and the Labour Party that judicial safeguards in the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) can ensure that the police and spy agencies will not misuse the new powers it gives them.

Jones states in her Guardian piece, “Please don’t fall for the old establishment lie that the problem is a few rotten apples. This alleged criminality is the result of a deliberate government policy of using the police and security services to suppress dissent and protest in order to protect company profits and the status quo.”

While true, it is not simply the case that the police and security services are just being used by the government. In fact, the police and security services are becoming emboldened to take a more independent role as direct agencies of the ruling elite, overriding other bodies.

The National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit (NDEDIU), which tracks political activists, illegally shredded documents they had been ordered to preserve over a number of days in May 2014.

This was revealed by another whistleblowing letter to Jones last year, which stated that the shredding began only two months after Theresa May, then Home Secretary, announced the intention to hold the now Pitchford Inquiry into undercover policing.

As a result of the revelation on shredding, in May 2016 the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) was called in to investigate. Almost a year later, nothing has been made public by the IPCC of the results of this investigation, other than to confirm that “a large number of documents were shredded over a period of days in May 2014.”

The more recent letter to Jones confirms that shredding had been taking place “for some time… on a far greater scale than the IPCC seems to be aware of.” The police had destroyed the documents because they “reveal[ed] officers were engaged in illegal activities to obtain intelligence on protest groups.”

This illegal hacking and shredding by the police is part of a pattern. It follows the shooting of innocent man Jean Charles de Menezez by an armed police unit in the aftermath 2007 London bombings, the use of undercover officers who took on the names of dead children and formed long-term relationships with people when they were already married, and the use of a plethora of illegal spying methods against millions of people—as exposed by former US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The law was then changed. The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 put on the statute book the mass surveillance of the UK’s population, previously carried out illegally.

The media in Britain has recently followed the lead of the US media by subjecting people to a daily barrage of propaganda on alleged “Russian hacking”, based on no evidence other than assertions by the intelligence agencies.

Their response, however, to real hacking by the British police, backed up by concrete evidence, has been virtual radio silence, with only two newspapers and the BBC giving the story any coverage at all, which they then dropped from their coverage immediately.

UK: The anti-union laws and the trade union bureaucracy

Robert Stevens

During the ongoing rail workers dispute against the introduction of Driver Only Operated trains (DOO) and in other recent disputes, a regular comment from strikers has been that their struggles are hampered by Britain’s draconian anti-union and anti-strike laws.

Workers have told WSWS reporters that they would support “all out” strikes of drivers and conductors across the many private franchises that operate Britain’s rail network, but then raise that this would be “difficult” and “illegal.”

The extent of anti-strike legislation in the UK is significant. It indicates the degree to which the democratic rights of the working class have been abridged in favour of capital. The Trade Union Act 2016 became law last month—enacted by a Parliament that recently initiated debates aimed at making strikes illegal in key sectors, including transport.

It builds on the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher that enacted the Employment Act of 1980. Under this law the definition of lawful picketing was restricted to an employee’s own place of work. The right to take secondary action (to strike in support of other workers) was restricted. The Employment Act of 1982 imposed further restrictions. With the 1990 Employment Act, all secondary action was made illegal.

But the reality is that this legislation has rarely been legally enforced because the ruling elite have relied on the Labour and trade union bureaucracy to impose their dictates.

Way back in April 1982, the Trades Union Congress Special Conference voted to oppose the 1982 Act. In the 35 years since, no industrial action has ever been called in defiance of the laws. In fact, the unions, with the exception of only a few legal challenges, have effectively policed the anti-union legislation.

In 2002 Unison appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that its right to strike had been subject to unjustified restriction contrary to Article 11 of the European Convention on freedom of assembly.

Significantly, the ECHR threw this out on the grounds that, “While Article 11 includes trade union freedom as a specific aspect of freedom of association, it does not secure any particular treatment of trade union members by the State. There is no express inclusion of a right to strike or an obligation on employers to engage in collective bargaining.”

In 2014, the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) union brought another case before the ECHR. The RMT argued that under UK law, the statutory requirements for a valid strike ballot notice were too strict and imposed an unjustifiable burden on a union seeking to organise industrial action. Those requirements and the ban on secondary strike action were a breach of Article 11, the union claimed.

The RMT’s case was also rejected by the ECHR.

The most devastating indictment of the trade union bureaucracy’s adherence to the anti-union laws—in collaboration with the Blair Labour government—was during and in the aftermath of the 2005 Gate Gourmet workers dispute. Gate Gourmet sacked 670 of its mainly female catering workforce after they walked out in protest when the firm brought in 120 temporary staff as “cover.” This was while the firm was in the process of rolling out a restructuring plan aimed at firing hundreds of full-time staff. The 670 were fired after Gate Gourmet gave them an ultimatum—return to work or be sacked.

In response, 1,000 British Airways ground services staff, who, like the caterers were members of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), began a 24-hour unofficial strike. This led to mass cancellations of flights and the paralysis of Heathrow Airport. The TGWU—a predecessor of the Unite union—opposed the strike and instructed its members to abide by the anti-union laws, thus isolating the striking catering workers and leaving them powerless against their employer.

A few months later the TGWU agreed to a dirty deal with management on a voluntary and compulsory redundancy scheme at Gate Gourmet to cut 675 jobs from the 2,400 strong workforce. Among these were 137 of the dismissed workers, who suffered compulsory redundancy.

Just days before, at the Trades Union Congress annual gathering, delegates had passed an RMT motion calling for the Labour government to enact a trade union freedom bill, endorsing “lawful supportive action,” protection for workers starting from their first day at work and a cut in the notice required to hold a strike ballot.

Chancellor Gordon Brown—the second in command to then Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair—responded to this with a speech in which he confirmed, in line with government policy, that no such changes to the law would be forthcoming. Brown was even more explicit when he told Sky News—owned by arch strike breaker Rupert Murdoch—“There will be no return to the old failed conflicts of the past, or the disorder or the secondary action of the past.”

Finally, Blair himself told the union heads at the TUC’s conference dinner that evening, “It would be dishonest to tell you any Labour government is going to legislate a return to secondary action. It won’t happen.”

The 1997-2010 pro-business Labour government defended and upheld every part of decades of anti-strike legislation, with the unions refusing to oppose them.

The experiences that workers have passed through in the decades since 1979 demonstrate that the unions can no longer be described as working class organisations. They function as an arm of management in enforcing their diktats. In fact, it would be more correct to describe the legislation restricting strikes not as anti-union laws, but as “pro-trade union bureaucracy laws.”

The failure of the nationally based unions to defend the working class is evident on an international scale. The evolution of the unions into entities which serve the capitalist class at the expense of workers is not the product of this or that rotten trade union leader.

Rather, the evolution of the trade unions has objective causes and arises out of fundamental features of this form of organisation.

In his lecture “Marxism and the Trade Unions,” the chairman of the World Socialist Web Site international editorial board, David North, stated: “Standing on the basis of capitalist production relations, the trade unions are, by their very nature, compelled to adopt an essentially hostile attitude toward the class struggle. Directing their efforts toward securing agreements with employers that fix the price of labour power and determine the general conditions in which surplus value will be pumped out of the workers, the trade unions are obliged to guarantee that their members supply their labour power in accordance with the terms of the negotiated contracts. As Gramsci notes, ‘The union represents legality, and must aim to make its members respect that legality.’

“The defence of legality means the suppression of the class struggle, which, in the very nature of things, means that the trade unions ultimately undermine their ability to achieve even the limited aims to which they are officially dedicated. Herein lies the contradiction upon which trade unionism flounders.” [David North, The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished 20 thCentury, Mehring Books, pp 138-39]

In the rail workers strike, the drivers union ASLEF and the RMT have done everything to ensure that drivers and conductors—who work the same trains—are isolated from one another. In stark contrast, ASLEF drivers at Southern Govia Thameslink Railway have twice, in February and this month, thrown out a sell-out deal the union agreed with management. Most significant was the refusal on March 13—and again in a 24-hour strike this month—by those ASLEF drivers to cross picket lines of RMT conductors at Merseyrail.

Such a rebellion points the way forward for the working class in the struggles they confront. The most essential tasks facing rail workers and all others who are opposing the devastating onslaught against their jobs, terms and conditions is the development of new rank and file fighting organisations, independent of the trade unions.

In imposing DOO, train companies are implementing Conservative government policy aimed at sacking thousands of workers and increasing productivity. In this and every other struggle, workers are thrust into a conflict with all the political institutions of the capitalist state. To carry out this struggle, workers need independent organisations, but to lead it they require a political party. That party is the Socialist Equality Party.

Turkey to vote on constitutional referendum Sunday

Halil Celik

On Sunday, more than 55 million Turkish citizens will participate in a referendum on the constitutional amendments proposed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Should it succeed it would hand control of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary to the president, establishing a dictatorship in all but name.

The referendum is taking place under ever-increasing national and international tensions that reached a new climax after the US missile strike at the Shayrat air base in Syria on April 7. The US missile attack not only further undermined US-Russian relations, but also upset the fragile balances in the Middle East, calling into question the Astana talks on peace in Syria.

Ankara has declared its “full support” for the Trump administration's decision to escalate the war for regime change in Syria, while Russia and Iran, Turkey’s partners in the Astana talks, condemned the strike against the Syrian government.

The militarist and authoritarian “yes” campaign led by the ruling AKP and the fascistic Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), however, meets with no real opposition inside the Turkish bourgeois establishment. This has led to rising poll figures for the “yes” camp in recent days, though the results remain too close to call. The latest opinion polls show Erdogan’s “yes” campaign winning by a slim margin.

According to leading Turkish polling firm Konda, 51.5 percent of voters will vote “yes” and 48.5 percent “no,” with a margin of error of 2.4 percent. On April 13, Gezici Research announced similar results: 51.3 percent “yes” and 48.7 percent “no.”

As neither side has secured a lead but claims its certain victory, tension between the two sides have increased, especially after Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) called the 15 July 2016 putsch a “controlled coup.”

In response, Erdogan accused Kilicdaroglu of communicating with the putschists: “Explain whom you talked to on the phone for 12 minutes? It seems the radars of the coup plotters didn’t detect Kilicdaroglu. Instead of apologizing to the Turkish people over what he did, he shamelessly said, ‘the July 15 is a controlled coup.’ A man should have shame and decency.”

In response, Kilicdaroglu vowed to “quit politics” if this claim is proven: “If they prove that I spoke with [the coup plotters] for a minute, or even half-a-second, be assured that I will quit politics.”

The official “no” campaign, led by the CHP and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), is even more closely aligned than the AKP with the major imperialist powers. This allows Erdogan to fraudulently portray the referendum as a continuation of the mass popular mobilization that halted the July 15 coup, which was backed by Washington and Berlin.

On April 12, addressing families of those killed fighting the July 16 coup, Erdoğan said: “God willing, April 16 will also be the day of the defeat of all terror organizations, as it will herald a bright day shining on Turkey.”

The bourgeois “no” campaign, for its part, is neither anti-war nor fundamentally opposed to the AKP's drive to dictatorship. Both the CHP and the HDP previously agreed in talks with Erdogan on the need for constitutional changes to the Turkish state, in which HDP proposed a presidential and federalist system.

Last October, the CHP voted for a resolution in the Turkish parliament extending the government’s authority to launch cross-border military operations for a year. The HDP enthusiastically welcomed the US-led regime-change operations in Syria. Its objection to Turkish military operations in Syria and Iraq is based solely on the interests of the Kurdish bourgeoisie and has no progressive character.

Amidst growing international tensions and the escalating war drive in the Middle East, the Turkish referendum is assuming an ever more openly anti-democratic character. Already 110,000 people have been jailed, and at least 152 people, including HDP and DBP (Democratic Regions Party) leaders, have been taken into custody in recent days.

A hunger strike of 219 largely Kurdish political inmates in 27 Turkish prisons has reached its second month, with no response from the government, the political establishment, or the media.

Thirteen HDP MP’s, including its co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, have been in jail for months on charges of “helping the propaganda” of the outlawed Kurdistan's Workers Party (PKK). Thousands of local HDP officials have been removed from office or jailed on similar charges. The HDP's “No” campaign was thus drowned out in the media, which are all but a mouthpiece of Erdogan’s “yes” campaign, while local authorities covered the streets with “yes” banners and pictures of Erdogan.

The AKP has put relentless pressure on the “no” campaign, accompanied by military operations and fighting in Kurdish regions of Turkey. To the extent that the imperialist powers reacted by stepping up their criticisms of Ankara, however, this has largely played into Erdogan's hands.

In a statement on Thursday, UN rights experts declared that Turkey's security crackdown after the failed coup attempt of July 15 had “undermined the chance for informed debate on the referendum.”

Previously, almost all European Union authorities had sharply criticized Erdogan for his crackdown on and purges of opponents. The governments of Austria, the Netherlands and Germany even banned Turkish government officials from making pro-”yes” speeches to Turkish citizens in these countries. Erdogan reacted by posturing as a victim of the imperialist powers and trying to exploit anti-imperialist sentiment among Turkish workers and youth.

Speaking live on television in Istanbul, Erdogan said a “yes” victory would “break the shackles on Turkey’s hands”, adding: “My people’s answer on Sunday will not only be national but at the same time will be international.”

This only underscores that Erdogan's strongest suit in the referendum is not his own position, but the hypocrisy of Ankara’s US and European imperialist allies. Indeed, there are growing signs that they would not have the slightest problem backing an Erdogan dictatorship created by a “yes” vote, as long as Erdogan does their bidding.

The Economist, while acknowledging that “Turkey is sliding into dictatorship” and “Erdogan is carrying out the harshest crackdown in decades”, warns in its current issue that “as a NATO member and a regional power, Turkey is too important to cut adrift.” It concludes, “If Mr Erdogan loses, Turkey will be a difficult ally with a difficult future. But if he wins, he will be able to govern as an elected dictator.”

While the imperialist powers may back Erdogan's dictatorship, they are also quite capable of instigating another coup against him, depending of Erdogan's foreign policy orientation. Both scenarios would be a catastrophe for working people.

As Toplumsal Esitlik (Social Equality) warned in its statement, “rejecting the AKP’s proposed constitutional changes will not by itself halt the international drive to dictatorship and war”. It is necessary to “unify workers and youth of Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic and other origins in Turkey and across the Middle East in a struggle against imperialism and the capitalist class in the Middle East, as part of an international struggle for world socialist revolution”.

Russia and Iran issue warning against further US attack on Syria

Jordan Shilton

Responding to the Trump administration’s unilateral and illegal missile strike on Syria April 7, Russia, Iran and Syria issued a blunt warning to Washington against conducting any further attacks Friday.

Meeting in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Iranian and Syrian counterparts issued a strongly-worded statement describing the strike as a “flagrant violation” of international law. Further action, it continued, would produce “grave consequences not only for regional but global security.”

As if to underscore the point, the statement came less than 24 hours after the US confirmed it had dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan in what amounted to a demonstration of Washington’s determination not to be bound by any restrictions in its ruthless pursuit of its global economic and geopolitical dominance.

The horrific weapon was aimed principally at Russia and Iran, and any other power contemplating a challenge to Washington. It followed the trip by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Moscow, where five hours of talks between him, Lavrov and Russian President Vladimir Putin proved incapable of bridging the sharp tensions between the two countries. Tillerson effectively delivered a US ultimatum, demanding that Russia cease its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and emphasized the US commitment to regime change in Damascus. The secretary of state remarked afterwards that US-Russian relations were at a “low point,” while Trump, hosting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Washington, acknowledged that Washington and Moscow were not getting along.

Although the US military claimed that the MOAB had killed a total of 36 ISIS militants, all indications point to a much higher death toll. A resident in a village roughly 1.5 miles from the blast site told the Guardian the windows and doors in his home had been destroyed and there were cracks in the walls. A local police chief added that it remained unclear how many had been killed by the bomb and by US aircraft, which strafed the area with gunfire Friday morning. The New York Times reported that four houses in the Pekhe area, three miles from the blast site, had been completely destroyed.

Even former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who served as a stooge for US imperialism following the 2001 invasion, denounced the bombing as a “brutal misuse of our country” which was being used as a “testing ground for new and dangerous weapons.”

The joint Russian, Iranian and Syrian statement also condemned an initial investigation into the alleged gas attack in Khan Cheikhoun, which bore all the hallmarks of a CIA provocation and was used as the pretext to justify the missile strike.

Lavrov called for the expansion of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) team to include experts from all geographical areas, rather than the Western-dominated body that currently exists.“If our U.S. colleagues and some European nations believe that their version is right, they have no reason to fear the creation of such an independent group,” Lavrov added. “The investigation into this high-profile incident must be transparent and leave no doubt that someone is trying to hide something.”

In fact, it is already clear that the US and its imperialist allies are determined to avoid such an inquiry. No evidence has yet been presented to back up the charge that the Assad government conducted a chemical weapons attack. Russia has countered by saying that the incident was caused when an air strike struck a rebel weapons store, a suggestion dismissed out of hand by the corporate media even though the ability of the Islamists to produce and use chemical weapons has been well documented.

On Thursday, Russian officials suggested that an agreement had been struck with Washington not to launch any further unilateral military actions in Syria, but no information to this effect has been forthcoming from the US. On the contrary, White House officials have this week repeatedly refused to rule out further air strikes.

The desperate efforts of the Kremlin to arrive at a compromise with US imperialism have been severely undermined over the past week. Initial hopes that the Trump administration would bring about an accommodation with Moscow have been dashed after the military-intelligence establishment, backed up by an hysterical anti-Russia media campaign, prevailed on the administration to maintain the aggressive anti-Russian stance developed under the Obama administration.

On Wednesday, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution tabled by Britain, France and the US which blamed Assad for the chemical weapons attack. The Syrian president once again rejected this charge Thursday, saying that it was a 100 percent fabrication.

Moscow and Teheran are Assad’s closest allies and have assisted the Syrian government by sending military forces to the country in response to the strengthening of Islamist forces such as the al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al-Qaida, by the United States and its Western and Gulf allies. Their warning of “grave consequences” is therefore no empty threat.

Warplanes from the US-led coalition are continuing to launch bombing raids over Syria and the prospect of a direct clash between US and Russian aircraft is heightened even further by the suspension by Russia of cooperation with Washington on air traffic in retaliation for the April 7 cruise missile strike. Since Trump took office, he has loosened restrictions on the military so that air strikes can be ordered more swiftly, a move which has seen a dramatic rise in civilian casualties in both Syria and Iraq.

Russia’s warning notwithstanding, all indications suggest that the Trump administration is preparing for a vast escalation of the Syria conflict to prevent the routing of its proxy forces.

According to a report by Bloomberg, a debate is ongoing within Trump’s National Security Council about sending ground troops into Syria. While Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis and Stephen Bannon, Trump’s top political adviser, reportedly reject the plan, it is endorsed by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, whose position on the NSC was strengthened last month following Bannon’s removal.

Retired four-star General Jack Keane, a close ally of McMaster, and other sources familiar with the debate suggested to Bloomberg that the talk was of anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 troops being deployed.

Keane told Bloomberg that the policy of relying on the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) was increasingly being seen as unviable. “Our special operations guys believe rightfully so that this was a proven force that could fight. While this makes sense tactically, it doesn’t make sense strategically. Those are Arab lands, and the Arabs are not going to put up with Syrian Kurds retaking Arab lands.”

The expansion of the US intervention would inevitably bring further death and destruction to the Syrian population, close to half a million of whom have already lost their lives during the six-year US-orchestrated war for regime change in Damascus. Millions more have been forced from their homes by the conflict.

On Wednesday, a US air strike killed 18 Kurdish fighters in a “friendly fire” incident in northern Syria. The pro-government news network SANA also accused US planes of bombarding an ISIS weapons depot near Deir ez-Zor resulting in the deaths of “hundreds” due to the release of toxic substances. however, this allegation has not yet been corroborated by other sources, including Russia, which said it had no information on the incident.

The Syrian government and rebel forces began the implementation of a forced resettlement program Friday for the residents of four towns, two in Idlib province and two close to Damascus. The agreement will see the predominantly Shia Muslim populations of Fouaa and Kefraya removed from their homes and sent to Aleppo province, while rebel fighters and residents in Zabadani and Madaya will go to Idlib.

The move is a further step in the dividing of the country along ethnic lines. While Assad’s support base is predominantly among Shia Muslims, the Jihadi opposition groups have found their strongest backing among Sunnis.

SOCAP17 Scholarship for Social Entrepreneurs 2017

Application Deadline: 1st June, 2017.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Scholarship recipients span across the globe

To be taken at (country): Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, USA

Eligible Field of Study: Entrepreneurship

About the Award: SOCAP (Social Capital Markets) is a world-renowned conference series dedicated to increasing the flow of capital toward social good.Social entrepreneurs are the heart of SOCAP. They identify new solutions to pressing issues, balancing true impact with sustainable business models. We prioritize support for inspiring entrepreneurs, as they are the future of the social capital markets.

Since the first SOCAP, scholarship recipients have spanned the globe, and represented a wide variety of sectors and business models. In 2015 alone, 140+ SOCAP scholars hailed from more than 35 different countries.

Offered Since: 2008

Type: Entrepreneur Scholarship

Eligibility Criteria: Entrepreneurs are recognized for their outstanding ideas, inspiring stories, and passion for creating sustainable business models

Number of Scholarships: Several

Value of Scholarship: 2017 scholarship recipients will be supported with the following:

• Free SOCAP17 full conference pass (valued at $1495)
• Exclusive access to the Impact Accelerator @SOCAP
• Hostel accommodations for the duration of the conference
• Recognition and high visibility at SOCAP17

How to Apply: Apply Here

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details

Scholarship Provider: SOCAP (Social Capital Markets)

Important Notes: Scholarship does not include travel expenses. If you know someone who would benefit from this opportunity, please spread the word.