Trump prepares to gut Federal land protections

Daniel de Vries 

President Trump issued an executive order Wednesday to review dozens of national monument designations, preparing the way for expanded drilling, mining and other development on large tracts of public land. The order directs the Department of Interior to assess two-dozen sites created since 1996, of more than 100,000 acres each, and potentially many other smaller sites.

Wednesday’s directive is part of a broad effort to dismantle public health and environment-related restrictions on oil and gas producers, mining companies and other resource intensive industry. It adds to a March 28 executive order, which in addition to unraveling Obama’s climate change regulations, orders a far-reaching review of all existing regulations that “burden” energy producers. Trump has also proposed a budget that would effectively paralyze the Federal government’s chief environmental regulator and enforcer, the Environmental Protection Agency.

Through these orders and other antiregulatory initiatives underway by administration officials, Trump has sought in his first hundred days to rally support from a powerful section of the corporate elite, in this instance the energy industry. Removing regulatory impediments and geographical restrictions for drilling could greatly strengthen the profitability of the sector, which rapidly expanded during much of the Obama era. Despite recent cutbacks, production levels today remain well above those just a decade ago, nearly 80 and 50 percent higher than in 2005 for oil and natural gas respectively. However, as energy prices have fallen over the past few years, profits have suffered greatly.

In the text of the executive order and during his remarks Wednesday, Trump singled out Bears Ears National Monument for special consideration, claiming that its designation “should never have happened.” The 2,000-square-mile site in Utah is a scenic natural formation of immense cultural significance to native tribes. It is also located in an area rich in natural resources, eyed for oil and gas development. The energy company EOG Resources has approval to drill nearby in the national monument.

Reflecting the dominance of oil and gas interests in the state, the political establishment in Utah has remained bitterly opposed to the monument status for Bears Ears, which was designated by Obama in the waning days of his term. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, who penned an op-ed in the Washington Post earlier this week advocating the delisting of the site, along with his Senate colleague Mike Lee and governor Gary Herbert, all stood beside Trump at the signing ceremony. The executive order requires preliminary recommendations on Bears Ears after just 60 days, followed two months later by recommendations for the other national monuments.

Trump’s order reaches back to 1996 to include Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, but also includes the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the Pacific Ocean northwest of Hawaii, designated by George W Bush and enlarged by Obama. No president has ever completely abolished national monument status once created, and only rarely has a designated area been scaled back. Since the Antiquities Act was passed in 1903, 13 presidents have used it to create new national monuments. Conservationists have questioned the legal ability of a president to overturn these designations of his predecessors.

Nonetheless Trump vowed Wednesday to end the supposed “land grab” and “return control to the people” of federal lands. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke complained that the designations put the areas off limits to “traditional uses” including “timber harvest, mining, oil and gas exploration.”

Notwithstanding this doublespeak, national parks and national monuments, which are afforded equal protection, are extremely popular across the country including in the West where the majority of the protected land is located. Visits to National Parks Service sites exceed 300 million annually. Recent polling indicates broad opposition to shrinking the amount of protected land, with just 9 percent of respondents indicating they favor such action.

Sri Lankan president calls on former army commander to “discipline the country”

K. Ratnayake

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has called upon Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka to resign from the government’s ministry and return to the position of army commander. In a bid to “discipline the country,” Fonseka would be head of the country’s three armed forces for two years.

Cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne announced the president’s request at a media conference on Wednesday. His statements revealed extensive discussions in the previous day’s cabinet meeting over how to suppress mounting strikes, protests and unrest among workers and youth, and prevent any disruption to state-run entities or the operations of the corporate elite.

The immediate incident that rattled the government was a strike on Monday at the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, which halted fuel supplies in the entire country.

The proposal made to Fonseka is a warning that the government of Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is planning an escalating assault against workers, the poor and young people.

Fonseka’s reinstatement would be tied to an expansion of the army commander’s powers, raising the spectre of a military dictatorship. Among the measures floated by the cabinet is the creation of a new special force under Fonseka. It also discussed training military groups for deployment in the event of “emergencies” affecting key sectors of the economy, such as the Petroleum Corporation, the Electricity Board, the Water Board and the ports.

There are no constitutional provisions for these anti-democratic moves. They would require the introduction of special regulations.

The cabinet has not taken a final decision on Fonseka’s role. However, the proposal points to the advanced crisis of the government and the ruling elite as a whole, which is propelling it toward extra-parliamentary forms of rule.

According to Senaratne, Fonseka said he would consider the request and work accordingly if he were provided with proper powers and responsibilities.

Fonseka was engaged from its inception in the ruthless 26-year civil war waged by successive governments against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). As army commander, he was notorious for having overseen war crimes committed by government forces at the conclusion of the war in 2009.

Foreshadowing renewed repression, Senaratne said military deployments in key economic sectors were proposed because protests and social unrest were increasingly “hindering the development plans of the country.” He referred to the governments’ backroom discussions with trade union leaders, but complained that strikes were often called with little notice.

“People complain that the president and prime minister have been quiet for too long,” Senaratne said. “For those who say the government is spineless, we are about to have a spine.”

Since last October, tens of thousands of workers have engaged in strikes and other struggles demanding higher wages. The industrial action has involved workers at the Hambantota and Colombo ports, the Electricity Board and the Water Board.

Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, has experienced a wave of protests, with virtually continuous actions involving doctors, students and others. Yesterday, working people in the country’s war-ravaged north held a hartal, a total shut-down of businesses, shops and most transport, demanding to know what happened to those who disappeared during the civil war.

There is also widespread anger regarding the deaths of dozens of people due to the collapse of a huge garbage dump at Meethotamulla on April 14. Hundreds participated in protests against dumping garbage in their areas, fearing similar tragedies. Sirisena declared garbage disposal an essential service to justify deploying the police to suppress protests.

The military forces are demanding greater powers in a bid to crush these struggles. Senaratne told the press conference: “Security forces asked us what was this joke happening in the country. They questioned if investors and tourists would come here if this situation went on. They said, ‘give us more powers. We will take care of Colombo.’”

Answering questions from reporters, Senaratne justified Sirisena’s proposal by saying that the former Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike and former President J. R. Jayawardene used the military to break strikes.

Bandaranaike, using emergency laws, forced strikers back to work at bayonet point in order to break the 1976 general strike. Jayawardene used the communal war, and emergency laws, to unleash military terror against workers and rural youth from 1987 to 1990.

Senaratne did not refer to former President Mahinda Rajapakse, because Rajapakse is an opponent of the Sirisena government. However, during the war and at its end in May 2009, Rajapakse used the military and police to violently suppress the struggles of workers and the poor.

The Sirisena government has attacked strikes and protests on the pretext that they were called to support Rajapakse’s new political outfit. “We cannot allow trade unions to bring back Rajapakse who was thrown out by the people,” Senaratne declared. He was referring to some union bureaucracies, which are backing Rajapakse.

Rajapakse has organised a group of MPs, including from Sirisena’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party, as a “united opposition” and warned he will topple the government and form a new one.

Though he ruled the country autocratically, attacking living standards and social conditions, Rajapakse is absurdly posturing as a democrat who established social justice. He is seeking to exploit growing opposition toward the Sirisena government. Rajapakse is preparing to take on the working class, building a right-wing movement and instigating a communal anti-Tamil and anti-Indian campaign.

The Sirisena government is facing an economic crisis, with foreign debt rapidly increasing and exports declining. The International Monetary Fund has imposed further austerity measures, including the slashing of subsidies, tax increases and privatisation. The government is well aware that these measures will be resisted by the working class. Between January and February, inflation rose by 8.2 percent.

A host of pseudo-left parties and trade unions campaigned to bring Sirisena to power in 2015, claiming he would establish “good governance,” in an attempt to derail unrest among workers and the poor. However, because of the attacks on living conditions and democratic rights over the past two years, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government has been thoroughly discredited. At the same time, it is increasingly tying Sri Lanka to the US-led plans for war against China.

Around the world, the ruling classes in every country are going on the offensive against workers’ rights and seeking to establish dictatorial rule. The Colombo government’s right-wing turn is one expression of this international tendency.

The working class must prepare to fight the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government’s autocratic moves and its attacks on living standards and social conditions. It can only do so by breaking from every faction of the bourgeoisie, mobilising its independent strength and rallying the rural poor and youth to fight for a workers’ and peasants’ government based on a socialist program.

The Trump tax plan: More money for the oligarchs

Barry Grey

In presenting the administration’s tax plan at a White House press briefing on Wednesday, Trump’s top economic advisers, Gary Cohn (net worth $610 million) and Steven Mnuchin ($500 million), both former Goldman Sachs bankers, could barely contain their glee over the prospect of a massive transfer of wealth to themselves and their fellow oligarchs.

Cohn, the director of Trump’s National Economic Council, set the tone, gushing: “This is quite an historic day for us and one that we’ve been looking forward to for a long time… We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do something really big.”

The “really big something,” as the one-page handout to reporters made clear, is a plundering operation that will shift trillions of dollars from the federal Treasury to the bank accounts of the rich and the super-rich. The aim, besides adding to the obscene wealth of the financial aristocracy, is to starve and eventually eliminate basic social programs such as Medicare and Social Security.

The proposals outlined by Cohn and Mnuchin include:

• Abolishing taxes that impact only the rich, such as the estate tax, the alternative minimum tax and a capital gains surcharge for Obamacare;

• Cutting the corporate tax rate as well as the rate for business profits taken as personal income from 35 percent to 15 percent; and

• Reducing the top income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 35 percent.

The administration is also proposing to eliminate the taxation of profits made by US-based corporations outside the country, along with a one-time tax incentive for corporations to repatriate trillions of dollars in profits held in offshore accounts.

The list of demands totaled a mere 200 words. In reality, the agenda could have been summed up in just four: “We want more money!”

The corporate-financial elite is particularly fixated on abolishing the estate tax. This is because it wants to nail down for its great grandkids everything it has stolen in the past. This tax on inherited wealth, established in 1916, has been repeatedly watered down, but the billionaire parasites want it wiped off the books to establish themselves as an American royalty.

Trump and his Goldman Sachs advisers are resorting to shameless lying to promote the tax scheme. Mnuchin, who appeared on the three network morning news programs on Thursday, insisted that the tax plan will benefit working and middle-class people, not the rich. “This isn’t about a dramatic tax cut for the wealthy,” he asserted. “It’s a middle class income tax cut to create American jobs. Jobs, jobs, jobs.”

He also repeated the ridiculous claim that the multitrillion-dollar cost of the plan will not increase the federal debt because it will pay for itself through increased economic growth. An independent analysis of Trump’s campaign tax plan, similar to the proposal presented Wednesday, estimated that it would raise the federal debt by an additional $7 trillion in the first decade and $21 trillion by 2036.

The massive transfer of wealth will not go to investment, but to acquiring bigger diamonds; more luxurious mansions, yachts and private jets; new private islands; more security guards and better-protected gated communities to segregate the financial nobility from the masses whom they despise and fear.

A portion of the money stolen from the working class will be used to buy more politicians and reporters to keep the democratic façade going.

The official “debate” on the tax scheme will be nothing more than a smokescreen for implementing virtually all the tax proposals. The Democrats are no less the lackeys of Wall Street than Trump and the Republicans. The Obama White House proposed a cut in the corporate tax rate to 28 percent and repeatedly granted tax breaks to big business as the centerpiece of its phony “jobs” programs.

Even as the Trump administration was rolling out its tax plan, it was reported that Obama, following in the footsteps of the Clintons, had agreed to speak at a Wall Street event in return for $400,000 fee. Payment for services rendered.

It is nearly half a century since the Democratic Party abandoned any policy of social reform, which it adopted under the pressure of mass struggles of the working class. The increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich, abetted by changes in the tax structure, has been underway for decades, carried out by Democratic-controlled Congresses and Democratic as well as Republican administrations.

As a result, the corporate tax accounted for just 10.6 percent of the federal government’s revenue in 2015, down from a third in the 1950s. Today, two-thirds of active corporations pay no corporate tax. Large profitable corporations pay an average rate of 14 percent, and some of the biggest companies pay nothing.

The Trump administration marks the emergence of government of, by and for the oligarchy in the purest form. But Trump is no aberration and he did not emerge from outer space. He is the noxious outcome of decades of social counterrevolution.

Obama handed to Trump a country in which the annual income of the top 1 percent ($1.3 million) is more than three times what it was in the 1980s, while the pre-tax income of the bottom 50 percent ($16,000) has not changed in real terms. The share of national income going to the top 1 percent rose from 12 percent to 20 percent over that period, while that of the bottom 50 percent fell from 20 percent to 12 percent.

In human terms, this translates into a society wracked by social crisis and vast suffering, with tens of millions unemployed or consigned to poverty-wage, part-time jobs, life expectancy declining, and drug abuse and suicide rates soaring. Entire generations of young people are condemned to lives of economic insecurity, forced to live with their parents and postpone getting married or having children. The elderly face the destruction of their health and retirement benefits.

And all of this to sustain the meaningless and corrupt lives of a small elite of financial parasites!

With the people of America and the world facing ever worsening social conditions and the looming threat of world war, the top priority of the political establishment is to hand over trillions more to the wealthy elite. This shows that no social problem can be tackled without directly confronting the oligarchy, breaking its power and seizing its wealth so that it can be used to meet social needs.

The American oligarchy, steeped in criminality and parasitism, can produce only a government of war, social reaction and repression. In its blind avarice, it is creating the conditions for unprecedented social upheavals. It is hurtling toward its own revolutionary demise at the hands of the working class.

University of Bath Postgraduate Engineering Scholarships for International Students 2017/2018

Application Deadline: Thursday 1st June 2017 (12:00 noon GMT+1).

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): UK

Type: Masters

Eligibility: You can apply for this scholarship if you are an international student from any country and:

• have a confirmed offer to study a full-time taught postgraduate masters (MSc) programme in Engineering with us
• have made us your Firm choice
• pay fees for the programme you study

Number of Awards: 20

Value of Scholarship: £2,000.

Duration of Program: 1 year

How to Apply: Apply here

Decisions will be made by Wednesday 5 July 2017 (18:00 GMT+1).

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: University of Bath

Wellcome Trust Training Fellowships in Public Health and Tropical Medicine 2017

Application Deadline: The preliminary application deadline is 8th May 2017 and full application deadline is 17th July 2017.

Eligible Countries: Low- and middle-income countries

To be taken at (country): Fellowships can be taken in Low- and middle-income countries (See list of countries below)

Eligible Field of Study: Fellowships are awarded in the field of Public Health

About the Award: This scheme offers research experience and training to early-stage researchers from low- and middle-income countries. The scheme aims to support research that will improve public health and tropical medicine at a local, national and global level.

Type: Postgraduate, Early Research

Eligibility: A researcher can apply for a Training Fellowship in Public Health and Tropical Medicine if:

• they are a national of a low- or middle-income country.
• they have a degree in a subject relevant to public health or tropical medicine. Or you have a degree in medicine and are qualified to enter higher specialist training.
• they have some initial research experience.

The Trust expects candidate to register for a PhD if they’re awarded this fellowship. Candidate may also apply if they have a PhD and no more than three years’ postdoctoral experience.

You must also:

• have sponsorship from an eligible host organisation in a low- or middle-income country
• have a research proposal that is within the public health and tropical medicine remit.

If you’ve been away from research (eg for a career break, maternity leave, or long-term sick leave), we’ll allow for this when we consider your application. If you’ve taken formal maternity, paternity or adoption leave as the primary carer, or long-term sick leave, we’ll allow an extra six months for each period of leave when we consider your postdoctoral experience.

Selection Criteria: 

• your research experience
• the quality and importance of your research question(s)
• the feasibility of your approach to solving these problems
• the suitability of your choice of research sponsors and environments
• your vision of how this fellowship will contribute to your career development.

The Trust encourages fellows to collaborate with researchers in other low- and middle-income countries.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Fellowship: Support includes:

• A basic salary (determined by your host organisation)
• Personal removal expenses
• Research expenses, directly related to your proposal
• course fees – in most cases, you must register for your higher degree at a local academic organisation.

Duration of Fellowship: 3 years. A Training Fellowship in Public Health and Tropical Medicine is normally for three years, and can be held on a part-time basis. The fellowship can be for up to four years if you want to do Master’s training or a diploma course relevant to the research proposal.

List of Countries: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Dem. Rep., Congo, Rep., Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Arab Rep., El Salvador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia,  Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Iran, Islamic Rep., Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Korea, Dem Rep., Kosovo, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao PDR, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Macedonia, FYR, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mexico, Micronesia, Fed. Sts., Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Samoa, São Tomé and Principe, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, RB, Vietnam, West Bank and Gaza, Yemen, Rep., Zambia and Zimbabwe.

How to Apply: Applicants must submit their application through the Wellcome Trust Grant Tracker (WTGT). Stages of application

• Submit preliminary application
• Submit full application
• External peer review
• Shortlisting
• Interview

Application Form

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Wellcome Trust

ACALISE Doctorate and Masters Scholarships for Students in sub-Saharan Africa 2017

Application Deadline: 15th May 2017

Eligible Countries: Countries in sub-Saharan Africa

To be taken at (country): Uganda

Fields of Study: 

1. PhD in Agroecology and Food Systems
2. MSc in Agroecology,
3. MSc in Monitoring and Evaluation
4. MSc in Development Economics.

Type: PhD and MSc

Eligibility: Eligible candidates must be citizens of a country in sub-Saharan Africa, admitted to study in any of the ACALISE Programmes listed above at Uganda Martyrs University or our partner institutions.Applicants must meet the admission conditions of Uganda Martyrs University.

Regional and Female candidates as well as candidates from less privileged groups are especially encouraged to apply.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Program: The scholarship will be a contribution towards tuition fees as per the University fees structure. International students will in addition receive a contribution towards living costs and accommodation.

Duration of Program: PhD and MSc Scholarships are available for up to a maximum of three and two years respectively. The scholarship will be initially granted for one year and will be renewed upon successful completion of the preceding year and submission of a competence report by the Supervisor.

How to Apply: 

1. Fully filled and signed Uganda Martyrs University Scholarship form
2. Signed curriculum vitae.
3. Certifieduniversity degree certificates and transcripts.
4. Proof of admission to the ACALISE Programmes. (See in Link below)
5. Letter of motivation
6. 2 Referees at least one from Academia

A complete application form together with all the application documents listed above should be sent to Central Scholarship Committee C/O Deputy Vice Chancellor (FA) or email: dvcfa@umu.ac.ug before Monday, May15, 2017 by close of business.

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: Uganda Martyrs University Central Scholarship Committee, African Center of Excellence in Agroecology and Livelihood System (ACALISE)

NDDC Foreign Postgraduate Scholarship to Study Abroad 2017 – Masters & PhD

Application Deadline: Friday 27th May, 2017.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Niger Deltan states in Nigeria which includes Akwa Ibom State, Bayelsa State, Cross River State, Delta State, Edo State and Rivers State.

To be taken at (country): Universities Abroad

Eligible Field of Study: The Scheme is for suitably qualified applicants with elevant Bachelor’s/Master’s Degree(s) from recognized universities in the following professional disciplines:

1. Agricultural Sciences
   2.      Engineering
   3.      Environmental Sciences
   4.      Geosciences
   5.      Information Technology
   6.      Law
   7.      Management Sciences
   8       Medicine

About Scholarship: As part of our Human Resource Development initiatives, the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, is commencing the 2016 Post-Graduate Foreign Scholarship Programme, to equip Niger Deltans with relevant training and skills for effective participation in the Local Content programme of the Federal Government, as well as compete globally in various professional fields.

Type: Masters, PhD

Eligibility Criteria

1. First Degree with minimum of 2nd Class Lower Division for those  wishing to undertake a master’s Degree programme and a good Master’s Degree for PhD candidates from a recognized University.
2. Gained Admission into a Post Graduate Programme in any of the listed disciplines in a recognized foreign University Abroad.
3. Applicants who have already enrolled in overseas’ universities are NOT eligible to apply
4. Guarantor’s written consent of good conduct of the applicant from any of the following persons from the applicant’s community/clan.

• Member of National Assembly
• Chairman of the LGA.
• First class traditional ruler.
• High Court Judge

5. Persons with  evidence  of  cult  membership  or  criminal   record  shall  not be  considered  for  the
6. Applicants must have completed the mandatory National Youth Service (NYSC).
7. Applicants must have a valid Admission Letter from a Foreign University

Number of Scholarships: Several

Value of Scholarship: Full-fee scholarship

Duration of Scholarship: For the period of the programme

How to Apply: Application must be made online at the Commission’s website: with the following attachments:

• Recent passport photograph
• Local Government identification letter.
• Post Graduate (PG) admission letter from Overseas University.
• Relevant Degrees from recognized University.
• Y.S.C Discharge Certificate.

Successfully completed application form will be assigned a registration number automatically.

Print the hard copy of the on-line generated acknowledgement for ease of reference.

All shortlisted applicants will be posted on NDDC website,

Select Your Preferred Program from the Links Below to the appropriate application form

Masters Degree – forms.nddc.gov.ng/view.php?id=46

PhD Programme – forms.nddc.gov.ng/view.php?id=45

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Scholarship Provider: Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC

Venezuela Ablaze

Robert Hunziker

The title “Venezuela Ablaze” implies sinister forces at work. Whether those sinister forces are for, or against, or within the Bolivarian Revolutionary government of Venezuela is the crux of the matter. Which is it?

Questions come to mind when news about Venezuela depicts a nation under siege. For certain, the mainstream press in America is not on the President Nicolás Maduro bandwagon. From coast-to-coast, American media claims Maduro is a horrible despicable dictatorial creepy monster that flogs his own people and stifles democracy, same as all tyrants throughout history.

But, is that really the truth?

After all, the United States has such a horrible fouled reputation of dastardly influence south of the border, whom to believe? For decades the CIA planted news stories and assassinated leaders and manipulated economies to benefit aristocratic landed interests over the interests of “the people” (Proof: John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, Penguin Group, 2004).

South America is a training ground for the CIA ever since Allen Dulles dreamed up the idea in the 1950s (Dulles likely ordered JFK’s assassination – Read: David Talbot’s The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government, HarperCollins Publishers, 2016).

It’s easy to imagine sinister forces at work in Venezuela. After all, the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela easily fits the script of Costa-Gavras’ historical film drama Missing (Universal Pictures, 1982) starting Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek based upon the true story of a conservative God-fearing father (superbly played by Lemmon) traveling to Chile to find his “missing” son during the U.S.-backed Chilean coup of 1973, when socialist President Salvador Allende was tossed out of office (likely murdered but supposedly shot himself whilst in the presidential palace under fire by Pinochet’s henchmen) in a bloody coup, including cameo appearances by the irrepressible Henry Kissinger & CIA operatives in darkened shadows.

In subsequent years, the Freedom of Information Act clearly shows Kissinger playing footsy with brutal dictator Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, authorizing covert work via CIA goon squads, disrupting the socialist government with killings galore, American kids not excluded, which, post factum, turns Missing into a true life documentary. At the time, and in the spirit of defending democracy, America was on a “killing spree of anything that moved, so long as it was shades of red.”

So, 44 years after the United States sponsored a bloody coup in Chile, and also intervened, including death squads and caches of armaments, in countless countries south of the border, the big mondo question is whether it’s happening again in Venezuela. After all, ever since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, the United States has furtively claimed protector ship over every inch of ground south of the border. By now, it’s part of U.S.A. DNA.

Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, World News Tonight, wherever a breaking story of Venezuela appears nowadays, it’s bloodshed, protests, no food, people starving, and worse… Venezuela ablaze! President Maduro is reviled time and again as a brute.

On the other hand, that’s strange in the face of the principles of Chavismo, established by Hugo Chávez, including nationalization, social welfare programs for all citizens, and opposition to neoliberalism, especially policies of the IMF and World Bank. Chavismo promotes participatory democracy and workplace democracy. For example, Chávez invested the nationalized oil income in the development of social programs in favor of the most impoverished of the country. Which all sounds kinda okay. The question therefore: Does Maduro violate those principles or uphold them?

Still and all, tens-upon-hundreds and thousands of poets, writers, artists, international analysts, journalists, social and political activists have joined in supporting the legitimacy of Nicolás Maduro and the revolutionary Chavista legacy. They also speak of condemning an alleged coup attempt by right wing forces operating both inside and outside of Venezuela, surprise!

Intellectuals from around the world have signed onto “IN VENEZUELA, THEY SHALL NOT PASS,” an international movement to speak the truth and preserve the Bolivarian Revolution.

Why do so many intellectuals, writers, journalists, and analysts from around the world support Maduro and condemn the OAS and the U.S. as well as allege that right-wingers are undermining Maduro in Venezuela, ‘planting demonstrations’, and so forth?

Do intellectuals, in general, support strong-armed tactics or the principles of equality and democracy and evenhandedness? Do they see the latter or the former in Maduro? In fact, thousands upon thousands from sea-to-sea claim to see the latter.

After all, the battle for the soul of Venezuela is at hand, and the battle for South America’s incipient Bolivarian Revolution is at great risk, a revolutionary movement that the great masses in Venezuela embrace with fervor under Chávez. He lifted them out of the gutter.

But then again, it’s the same old story with South & Central America, whom to believe is the major issue regarding stuff that happens, whether reported by American media and department of state or a broad coalition of the world’s intelligentsia. Whom to believe?

Anti-immigrant campaign intensifies in New Zealand

Tom Peters

Five months ahead of the September general election, New Zealand’s National Party government and the country’s opposition parties are all promoting policies to slash immigrant numbers.

On April 19, the government announced a policy to prevent migrants from obtaining a Skilled Migrant Visa if they earn below New Zealand’s median annual income of $49,000. The change means thousands of low-paid migrant workers may struggle to obtain a visa. They will find it harder to obtain permanent residency, because their work will no longer count as “skilled.”

The change follows cuts to visa numbers announced last October. The skilled migrant category was tightened and the right of migrants to bring parents to New Zealand was removed.

The anti-immigrant measures are part of the shift in ruling circles throughout the world toward more extreme forms of nationalism, aimed at dividing the working class by scapegoating foreigners for the worsening economic and social crisis. The Trump administration in the United States is leading the way with its “America first” rhetoric and vicious attacks on Muslims and Mexican immigrants.

The announcement in New Zealand came a day after the Australian government unveiled restrictions on immigration, including tougher English language tests and a requirement that migrants show “allegiance” to Australia and unspecified “Australian values.” This lays the basis for the interrogation and surveillance of migrants and increased discrimination on the grounds of nationality, religion or politics.

In both countries, the entire political establishment is clamouring for greater attacks on the rights of immigrants. New Zealand’s opposition Labour Party denounced the National government from the right for only “tinkering” with immigration settings.

Labour Party leader Andrew Little described the current policy as “open slather,” telling the media he wanted immigration cut by “tens of thousands.” The government has not given any estimate of how many migrants would be barred under its proposed changes. For the 12 months to February, net migration was 71,333. Little told TV3 he wanted this slashed by as many as 50,000 people.

Little’s statement was supported by Labour’s new deputy leader Jacinda Ardern, who has appeared at anti-Trump rallies and is falsely portrayed as a “progressive” figure.

Little told the New Zealand Herald it was too “easy [for employers] to get somebody from overseas and keep locals out of work.” He said Auckland, the country’s largest city, where a third of the population was born overseas, was “absolutely packed … You see it in the congestion. You see it in not enough housing. You see it in overcrowded schools.”

In fact, the social crisis is the result of the pro-business agenda pursued by successive governments, including the 1999–2008 Labour government. Every wing of the political establishment supports cutbacks to the funding of basic services and has encouraged property speculation, pushing up the cost of housing. Recent years have seen thousands of redundancies in the public service, local councils and state-owned companies like Solid Energy and New Zealand Post, with no opposition from Labour and the trade union bureaucracy.

Labour has joined the overtly anti-Asian New Zealand First Party in blaming migrants for the social inequality produced by nearly a decade of austerity. At a recent meeting of the senior citizens’ group Grey Power in Upper Hutt, NZ First leader Winston Peters declared: “Ninety-one thousand young New Zealanders not in training, not in education, not employed.… Why should they compete with someone from Shanghai?”

Labour and New Zealand First have sought to whip up xenophobia against migrants from China, India and the Pacific region. Like Trump, NZ First has also demonised Muslim immigrants as potential terrorists.

The Labour Party hopes to form a coalition government with NZ First and the Green Party, which wants a similarly drastic cut to immigration. In an interview posted on the web site the Spinoff on March 31, Greens co-leader Metiria Turei said her party would not welcome a visit by Trump, calling him a misogynist and racist.

However, the Greens have no principled opposition to racism and xenophobia. In the same interview Turei and fellow co-leader James Shaw declared they were happy to collaborate in government with NZ First. Turei noted that Peters had “racist views” but added: “I really like him … he’s given me really good political advice in the past … I admire his tenacity, his staying put. For a Maori man in New Zealand politics, he’s been there for a really long time.”

The trade union bureaucracy has likewise scapegoated foreigners for poor wages and unemployment. A statement by the Council of Trade Unions feigned sympathy for exploited migrant workers but praised the government’s policy announcement and said there was “a need [for immigration] to be reined in to better protect New Zealand workers and those looking for work.”

This nationalist outlook is reflected on the Daily Blog, which is funded by several trade unions. In a vicious anti-Chinese article on March 28, editor Martyn Bradbury declared: “The last bloody thing we need is MORE Chinese tourism bringing more hungry speculators into a country crippled by a lack of infrastructure investment and housing crisis.”

Echoing NZ First, Bradbury accused the government of being “wedded and compromised personally to wealthy Chinese interests … National have sold our economy to China and our mass surveillance to America.”

These ludicrous and racist denunciations are intended to divide workers along ethnic and national lines and subordinate them to parties of big business and the pro-capitalist unions. These same organisations have spent decades enforcing redundancies and wage cuts in the name of making New Zealand businesses “internationally competitive.”

Labour and its allies are stoking anti-Chinese sentiment in order to pressure the government to further strengthen its support for US war preparations against China. The National Party maintains a close military and intelligence alliance with the US, and supports Washington’s military build-up in Asia, but has been reluctant to openly denounce China. Labour and NZ First have both called for more military spending to improve “interoperability” with US forces.

Workers can only defend their interests if they reject the efforts of the political elite and the unions to divide workers based on race and nationality. A campaign must be waged to defend immigrants: workers should be allowed to live in whatever country they choose, with full citizenship rights. This is an essential part of the fight to unite the working class internationally against the capitalist system, which is the source of poverty, inequality and war.

Fiji Times publisher, editors charged with sedition

John Braddock

The publisher and editors of the Fiji Times, one of Fiji’s two main daily newspapers, as well as a letter writer, were last month charged with “sedition”—a crime that carries a maximum punishment of seven years’ imprisonment. The case will go to court in Suva on May 9.

Publisher Hank Arts, editor Fred Wesley, and Anare Ravula, editor of the Times’ iTaukei (Fijian)-language weekly, Nai Lalakai, were originally charged in August 2016 with inciting “communal antagonism” by publishing an anti-Muslim letter last April. The charges were laid under the Crimes Decree, passed by the military government in 2009, which prohibits any communication deemed likely to incite dislike, hatred or antagonism of any community.

The xenophobic letter was published without endorsement in the letters section of Nai Lalakai. It accused Muslims, who it described as “not indigenous” to Fiji, of invading foreign lands, “where they killed, raped and abused their women and children.” It further alleged that Muslims had “gone to the extent of having a part in the running of the country.” The writer, Josaia Waqabaca, was jailed after the 2000 military coup for his role in a plot to kidnap the then-armed forces commander, now Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama.

The four accused pleaded not guilty to the incitement charge in October and were released on bail. However, the Director of Public Prosecutions last month suddenly amended the charge to one of sedition. There has been no official explanation for the change. Sedition is the more explicitly political charge, involving a purported crime against the state.

On March 30 police executed a search warrant on the newspaper’s Suva premises. Officers of the Major Crime Unit sought, and were given, copies of the employment contracts of staff under investigation.

Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) “Pacific Beats” program on March 24, Arts described the sedition charge as “hard to believe.” In a “normal environment,” he said, any complaint over a letter would be dealt with by the Press Council.

Arts said the paper will contest the charge. He indicated that neither he nor Wesley read or speak Fijian, and were not made aware of the letter’s contents before it was printed. For the six years he had been in charge, Arts added, the Times and its sister publication had “stuck within the rules” and was ready to “apologise and correct” if it got “something wrong.”

The politically-motivated charge is bound up with deep-seated conflicts within the Fijian ruling elite. Bainimarama, who seized power in a 2006 coup, postures as a “national unifier,” but his regime is oriented to sections of the Fijian capitalist class and pro-business members of the chiefly elite. His military junta adopted measures aimed at eliminating barriers to investment and private profit.

The ethnic Fijian nationalist wing of the ruling elite, seeking to maintain political and economic privileges for the traditional chiefs, is bitterly opposed to aspects of Bainimarama’s rule. Led by the opposition Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA) they are known for chauvinism toward the country’s ethnic Indian minority.

Some, evidently including the letter writer Waqabaca, have seized on the fact that Bainimarama’s Attorney General and Finance Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum is a Muslim, in order to accuse Muslims of “running the country.” The government in turn is simply exploiting the anti-Muslim comments to undermine its political opponents.

In August 2015, 70 nationalists accused of “separatist” activities were charged with sedition. Five, including SODELPA parliamentarian Mosese Bulitavoare, were accused after allegedly spraying anti-government graffiti in various locations. Bainimarama ominously warned of “severe punishment,” including many years in jail, for anyone attempting to overthrow the government. He called on people to report “illegal activity” and vowed to “crush” any “insurrections.”

In a sign of deepening antagonisms, former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, a one-time chairman of the Great Council of Chiefs, was last year named leader of SODELPA. Rabuka, a former army major general, led two military coups in 1987 before becoming prime minister in 1992. Last September, six leading Fijian opposition figures including Rabuka were arrested for criticising the current regime’s 2013 constitution at a political forum.

The use of sedition charges underlines the thoroughly undemocratic nature of the Fijian regime, despite the fig-leaf of an election in September 2014, which was won by Bainimarama’s Fiji First Party. The election took place under conditions of strict press censorship, military provocations and severe restrictions on opposition political parties.

The ongoing anti-democratic measures, including suppression of the media, are ultimately directed against the working class and rural poor, and aimed at intimidating and silencing any opposition. The Fiji Times has previously fallen foul of the authorities. In 2013, it was fined $US170,000 for contempt of court and editor Wesley received a two-year suspended sentence for publishing an article that called into question the independence of Fiji’s post-coup judiciary.

In 2009, Bainimarama abrogated the constitution and state censors entered newsrooms to decide what could and could not be published. Bainimarama justified the censorship by saying: “They can print whatever they want. But irresponsible journalism is not going to be tolerated.”

Many journalists protested the regime’s diktats, often leaving blank spaces and marking where their articles were due to appear with a note: “This story could not be published due to government restrictions.”

The Media Industry Development Decree 2010 imposed further draconian restrictions on the print media, television and radio broadcasts, and the Internet. It also limited foreign investors from owning more than 10 percent of any media outlet—a measure aimed at the Fiji Times, then 90 percent owned by Murdoch’s Australia-based News Limited.

The Fiji Times ’ stance against the regime dovetailed with Australian and New Zealand strategic and business interests in the region. Australia’s then foreign minister, Stephen Smith, warned the junta that its “arbitrary move sends a very bad signal so far as future investment in Fiji is concerned.” The two local imperialist powers were not concerned for the democratic rights of the Fijian people, but opposed the junta because they feared the spread of political instability in the South Pacific and the growing influence of rival powers, particularly China.

During an official visit to New Zealand last October, Bainimarama announced he would rescind an eight-year ban on selected New Zealand journalists regarded as critical of his government. As part of a diplomatic offensive to repair relations with Wellington, Bainimarama said the journalists were now welcome in Fiji to witness “the progress we have made.”

Bainimarama claimed “the institutions of state are functioning properly and we are strengthening [them] to ensure they are truly independent and free from personal and political influence.” In fact the authoritarian Fijian state remains dominated by the military.