Haitian government in crisis as protests spread

John Marion

The government of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, inaugurated at the beginning of this year after an election in which only 20 percent of eligible voters participated, is already in deep crisis.

Last Tuesday, as thousands took to the streets in Port-au-Prince, the government flew a surveillance drone over the protest. Shots were fired into the air from the back of a white pick-up truck; rumors spread on social media that the truck belongs to the national lottery, which denied the charge.

The protests, which have been going on across the country since the beginning of September, have met with fierce reaction from the Haitian National Police (PNH) and its tear gas guns. In Les Cayes at the beginning of October, tear gas fired by police at protesters sent a dozen students from a nearby school to the hospital.

At the end of September, ten workers in the city of Ouanaminthe were injured during a protest against the imposition of an income tax on textile workers, who make only 365 gourdes (less than US $6) per day. Alterpresse reported that two of the injuries were from bullets.

To justify its violence, the government has pointed to the burning of several cars in Port-au-Prince during a protest on September 12.

At the end of September, the mayors of nearly 50 cities and towns in the Nord, Nord-Est, and Artibonite departments organized a three-day strike to protest Moïse’s budget, which makes no mention of funds for local governments. All services were suspended during the strike.

More protests are planned this week in the cities of Hinche and Port-au-Prince, and the Sud department. A protest near the SANOPI industrial center in Port-au-Prince, where textile workers struck for better pay in May and June, is planned. The Ethnology Department of the Université d’Etat d’Haïti has been closed since June, when a student was hit and killed by the Dean’s car during a protest.

In a dictatorial move, on October 22 the public prosecutor for Port-au-Prince, Clamé Ocnam Daméus, ordered that “all images and recordings on audio-visual media pertinent to any act of banditry and violence committed in the the course of protests in the streets of” Port-au-Prince be turned over to the Haitian National Police. The effect of the order is to turn journalists into surveillance agents of the state.

The web site Tout Haiti reported on October 21 that violence against the protesters has been carried out by paramilitary groups—including former soldiers—paid by the government of Moïse and Prime Minister Jacques Guy Lafontant. The tactic has caused infighting in the highest levels of the Haitian National Police (PNH), with some threatening to resign, and the government seeking to install a director “totally devoted to its cause to transform the PNH into a political militia.”

The growth of the PNH to a force of 15,000 members was used by the United Nations as a reason to end its hated MINUSTAH “peacekeeping” mission in October. MINUSTAH not only introduced cholera to Haiti, causing an epidemic that has killed more than 10,000 people, but also supplied soldiers who engaged in sexual trafficking.

Nonetheless, it is being replaced by a UN mission with a different name (MINUJUSTH) but the same purpose of policing the population. Seven of the 11 police units of MINUSTAH are being maintained as is, “in order to preserve the progress accomplished in recent years in the domain of security thanks to the operational support given to the national police.”

MINUJUSTH is being coordinated closely with the PNH’s strategic plan for the period 2017-2021. That strategic plan includes an increase in the size of the PNH from 15,000 to 18,000 by the end of 2021, and, in a nod to identity politics, calls for “the participation and representation of women at all levels.”

Mamadou Diallo, the interim head of MINUJUSTH, announced last week that his mission will not support attempts to reinstate the Haitian army, instead pursuing the “reinforcement of … the national police, courts and tribunals, and penitentiary administration.”

In keeping with the imperialistic purpose of the mission, Diallo also declared that “whether or not the [Haitian] parliament ratifies the agreement related to the new mission of the UN will not have any consequence.”

The government, however, is reinstating the army. At a press conference last week, Prim Minister Lafontant declared that the army had never really been dissolved, only “administratively demobilized” under the first administration of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. 2,350 young army cadets have been recruited since July.

Many of the anti-government protests are being organized by Fanmi Lavalas and the Pitit Dessalines movement, whose candidate, Moïse Jean-Charles, lost to Jovenel Moïse in the presidential election. These elements see the protests as a means to both further their own careers and keep public anger under control. Senators and parliamentary deputies are also joining in the calls for protests. Jean-Charles said last week that “we’re now preparing the after-Jovenel. There won’t be elections after his departure. We will put in place estates general which will reevaluate the whole system of government.”

After returning from his first speech before the UN General Assembly in September, Jovenel Moïse took part in a pro-government demonstration starting at the Toussaint Louverture airport in Port-au-Prince. Despite being heavily guarded by the PNH, the march was cut short because of rocks thrown by counter-demonstrators.

The protests occur in the midst of high inflation and miserable poverty for the vast majority of Haitians. According to Alterpresse, poverty caused an extremely low attendance by school children at the beginning of September, with only four showing up at one of the schools in Port-au-Prince. In recent years, teachers have had to go for months without being paid.

More than 8 million Haitians have no access to electricity, the highest rate in the Caribbean. The 2017-2018 budget, which imposed fees that sparked many recent protests, includes only $249 million for public works and $139 million for agriculture. These amounts are pennies compared to the damage caused by Hurricane Matthew—estimated at $2.8 billion, according to the Miami Herald—and subsequent rains.

While the lack of government revenues is used as excuse to bleed taxes out of underpaid workers, numerous government agencies in banking, aeronautics, the lottery, ports, water treatment, etc., provide revenue for the pockets of government figures rather than social services. At the beginning of October, Le Nouvelliste reported that the equivalent of US $ 8 million in revenues—“a pittance,” according to one senator—is expected to go toward actual government revenues this year.

At the end of August, Minister of Social Affairs and Labour Roosevelt Bellevue was fired by the Prime Minister for having pocketed nearly US $1 million in a scheme involving subsidized school supplies for the children of factory workers.

In keeping with such crimes, President Moïse’s promise to bring electricity to poor households 24/7—mainly through small, unnetworked solar generators—will likely turn out to be just a cash cow for the politically connected.

Kenyan president declared winner in election re-run amid low turnout

Eddie Haywood

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) on Monday declared incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta the winner over rival Raila Odinga in the re-run of a hotly disputed presidential election overshadowed by egregious instances of fraud, violence, and intimidation.

In announcing President Kenyatta’s victory, IEBC chair Wafula Chebukati stated that Kenyatta took over 98 percent of the vote in Thursday’s poll, with an extremely low turnout of 38 percent. Chebukati claimed Kenyatta garnered 7.5 million of the votes cast, a smaller number than the 8.2 million he captured in the August 8 poll.

Odinga won a mere 73,000 votes, the low number being the result of his call to boycott the election. As a result of large numbers of voters not participating, balloting did not take place in 25 precincts.

The strikingly low turnout stands in stark contrast to the 80 percent turnout registered in the August 8 poll, and reflects the mass disillusionment of the Kenyan masses toward the political establishment, as well as expression of widespread contempt for the corrupt electoral process.

Citing violent protests, the IEBC canceled balloting in Nyanza region and other parts of Western Kenya. Violent clashes occurred between police and protesters who attempted to disrupt polling in many cities and towns, including Kisumu, Migori, Siaya, and Homabay. The Nyanza region is a stronghold of support for Odinga and his National Super Alliance party (NASA).

Stating that he would contest the poll, Odinga said, “Kenyans are tired of this illegitimate regime. We do not want to institutionalize election-rigging. The moment people lose faith in the electoral process then anarchy becomes the order of the day.” Odinga said that he would address his supporters at a rally planned for today, for which he would outline his plan for the creation of a “resistance movement.”

Kenyatta declared that the poll validated his August win, and he sharply criticized Odinga for his boycott, “You cannot choose the opportunity to exercise a right and thereafter abscond from the consequences of that choice.”

The poll took place amid an atmosphere of police violence and acts of intimidation, which almost certainly originated with forces loyal to Kenyatta. Since the election on Thursday, nine people were killed and scores more injured by police responding to demonstrations held in several locations of Nairobi and Western Kenya. More than 70 people have been killed since the August 8 poll.

Several reports in Kisumu and Nairobi recounted police conducting door-to-door searches and rounding up NASA supporters, in the process ransacking homes and beating scores of residents. Police have repeatedly responded violently to ongoing demonstrations conducted almost daily since the original August 8 poll.

Highlighting the overall corrupt character of the election occurring in the days preceding the October 26 re-run poll, was the lawsuit filed by several civil organizations to the Supreme Court which sought to postpone the election, after the news that senior IEBC board member Roselyne Akombe fled to the United States after receiving death threats, prompting IEBC chair Chebukati to admit the IEBC’s inability to carry out a “free and fair” election.

The day before the court was to convene a hearing of the case, the bodyguard of Supreme Court Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu was shot. Indicating that a concerted attempt to intimidate the judiciary was successful, only two of the seven judges on the court were in attendance, with the judges declining to adjudicate the case citing its inability to hold a quorum.

Maina Kai, a Kenyan lawyer and the former UN special rapporteur on the rights to freedom and peaceful assembly and association, responded to the court’s refusal to convene: “When judges have taken office and vowed to keep the constitution, and then they don’t show up, that is a big statement. It worries us because the judiciary was the last bastion of independence. If they are going to be buckling under pressure and be intimidated, then we are going to be in for a very rough ride.”

Odinga and NASA have accused the IEBC of rigging the election in Kenyatta’s favor. The allegations are not without foundation: Christopher Musando, an official in charge of IEBC’s digital voting system, was found murdered and tortured just days before the August 8 poll. Additionally, two foreign election consultants employed by the Odinga campaign were kidnapped by police and forced to depart the country. In another suspicious instance, an IEBC poll worker committed suicide after the August 8 poll, leaving a note expressing his distress over illegalities perpetrated during the vote tally.

Despite this, Chebukati stated on Monday that the re-run poll was “free and fair,” a complete reversal of his statements last week eliciting his doubts of the commission’s ability to carry out a credible election. Chebukati made no attempt to reconcile these two contradictory claims.

The fact that Kenyatta has been declared the winner of the re-run poll in the wake of such blatant electoral malfeasance, testifies to the clear criminal character of not only the Kenyatta government, but the governments of Washington and Europe, from whom not a single word of condemnation of this clear malfeasance has been uttered.

Instead, US and European observers unanimously certified the August 8 poll “free and fair,” essentially emboldening the Kenyatta government in its assault on the democratic rights of the Kenyan population.

Adding fuel to the political crisis is the downturn of Kenya’s economy, of which growth projections have been adjusted downwards in the wake of the election chaos. This in turn has spooked investors away from East Africa’s top economy.

Washington has been particularly unnerved by the widespread contempt for the political establishment embodied in the mass demonstrations, fearing the unrest could precipitate a full-scale insurrection against the government. Kenyatta plays a key role in Washington’s geopolitical strategy in the region, having committed Kenyan troops to the US-backed war in neighboring Somalia.

Last week, US Ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec, leading a pack of several Western diplomats, sharply rebuked Kenyatta and Odinga, blaming them for the “deteriorating political environment,” saying, “Inflammatory rhetoric, attacks on institutions, and growing insecurity all make holding a credible and fair poll more difficult ... it is dangerous, and it must stop.”

In the final analysis, it was clear from the outset that regardless of which of the two wealthy contestants assumed power, they would preside over a government that will come into explosive conflict with an increasingly restive population experiencing conditions of social misery for which the Kenyan ruling class has no solution but violent repression.

Nepali Stalinist parties form a new alliance

W.A.Sunil 

Ahead of elections in the coming weeks in Nepal, the country’s two main Stalinist parties—the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML) and the Communist Party of Nepal, or Maoist Centre (MC)—have formed an electoral alliance and decided to merge after the elections.

The parliament was dissolved on October 14 and the elections are scheduled for November 26. Elections for the country’s provincial bodies will take place on December 7.

The CPN-UML is the main opposition party, while the MC has been the principal partner in the coalition government led by the Nepal Congress. The new alliance is a political trap for the working class and oppressed masses under conditions of growing opposition to the government and the political establishment as a whole.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba of Nepal Congress reacted immediately by inducting eight new ministers from the Hindu right-wing Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) into his government. The coalition also includes several other minor parties, such as the Federal Socialist Forum (FSF) and Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJP).

Initially the MC refused to leave the government. Its leader Puspha Kamal Dahal said his party would remain until the elections were over. When the Maoist leader refused to call for the resignation of his party’s ministers, Deuba sacked them all, including 10 ministers and 10 state ministers.

The alliance between the CPN-UML and MC marks a sharp political turn. UML general secretary, Ishwor Pokarel, told the Kathmandu Post: “Now the leftist forces realize the need for unification and a strong alliance to fuel stability...” In other words, these two Stalinist parties are coming together to prop up capitalist rule.

Social tensions are rising in the country. Hundreds of part-time teachers from Tribhuvan University protested on October 5 demanding permanent contracts, better pay and working conditions. Rural farmers in the Rautahat district protested last month against damage to their paddy fields due to toxic chemicals released by the nearby industries.

The political establishment in Nepal as a whole, including the CPN-UML and MC, is corrupt, parasitic and widely discredited. Tribhuvan University political science professor Krishna Khanal recently told the media: “Both the UML and the Maoists have huge stakes in private banking.”

Far from being socialist or communist, the CPN-UML and MC both defend capitalism and have played crucial roles in propping up bourgeois rule. The CPN-UML, formed in 1991, has always been closely integrated into the political establishment, supported the monarchy and backed the war against the Maoist insurgency that claimed 16,000 lives and trampled on basic democratic rights.

The Maoist Centre, founded in 1994, waged a protracted guerrilla war, not to abolish capitalism, but to end the monarchy. In 2006, amid mass protests in the main cities, the Maoists came to the rescue of the ruling class by entering into the so-called comprehensive agreement backed by New Delhi. In exchange for the king’s abdication, the MC disarmed its fighters, used its influence to suppress further protests and integrated itself into the political establishment.

In government, the MC has implemented pro-market, pro-business policies, leading to a rapid erosion of its support. The number of MC members in the parliament plunged from 240 in 2008 to 80 in 2013. In recent local polls, it came third with 106 seats, while the CPN-UML and NC won 296 and 264 respectively.

Nepal is in a deepening political crisis. Over the past decade, there has been a succession of 11 governments, including the present one. After the abolition of the monarchy in 2008, it took nearly a decade to pass a new constitution in September 2015. However, that constitution has faced severe criticism from the parties based on ethnic minorities, including the Madhesi and Janajati, for alleged discrimination against their communities.

To placate the minorities and end violent protests, the government drew up amendments to the constitution in August but failed to pass them in parliament due to the opposition of the CPN-UML and a section of the RJP.

All the parties claimed that the abolition of the monarchy would bring prosperity and democracy. However, the social crisis facing working people has only worsened.

According to the latest Asian Development Bank report, 25.2 percent of the population lives below the official poverty line. The proportion of the working population living on less than $US1.90 a day is 12.5 percent. For every 1,000 babies born, 29 die before their first birthday.

According to the 2017 global hunger index, Nepal ranks 72. The percentages for those under five suffering from undernourishment, wasting, stunting and death are 8.1, 11.3, 37.4 and 3.6 respectively. While the official unemployment rate was 3.2 percent in 2016, thousands of young people and women are migrating abroad to look for jobs.

Nepal is increasingly being dragged into geo-strategic rivalry as China and India, backed by the US, have both sought to expand their influence in Kathmandu.

China is the country’s main donor and investor. The previous CPN-UML government led by K.P. Oli signed 10 agreements with Beijing, including on trade diversification, cross-border connectivity and infrastructure development. In April, Nepal held its first-ever joint military exercise with China.

India sought to pressure the Oli government to distance itself from Beijing by backing the Madhesi protests demanding constitutional change. New Delhi also imposed a five-month economic blockade against Nepal last year in support of the Madhesi demands.

Behind the scenes, India helped to engineer the ousting of the Oli government and installation of the current NC-led administration of Deuba in July last year. The MC, by entering into the coalition government, effectively became a partner in this regime-change operation to secure the strategic interests of India and the US.

US has directly intervened in Nepal as part of its efforts to undermine and encircle China. In September, senior US State Department official Alice Wells told US Congress: “Nepal has been selected for one of the US’s most high profile projects to increase regional connectivity within the Indo-Pacific.”

If the alliance between the CPN-UML and MC does win the election and form government, it will continue the attacks on social and democratic rights, and drag the country even further into the sharpening geo-political rivalries that are leading to war.

Burmese government continues persecution of Rohingya minority

Kayla Costa 

Reports over the past week have shed further light on the Burmese regime’s brutal campaign against the Rohingya ethnic minority, while highlighting the dire circumstances confronting those who have fled to neighboring Bangladesh.

The Burmese military, with the support of the government headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, has been conducting a vicious assault in Rakhine state since August. Reports have documented the indiscriminate killing of Rohingya, the wholesale destruction of villages and a litany of human rights abuses. Some 600,000 Rohingya have fled abroad since August 25.

Suu Kyi’s government has prevented aid deliveries into Rakhine state, on the pretext that humanitarian organisations are assisting “Muslim extremists.” The United Nations, which is among the entities being blocked, this week warned that the death toll from the Burmese military’s “clearance operation,” may be “very high.”

UN officials said the actions of the Burmese military indicated a “consistent, methodical pattern of action resulting in gross human rights violations affecting hundreds of thousands of people.” They said fleeing refugees had reported troops carrying out “killings, torture, rape and arson,” and restated their warning that the actions amount to “ethnic cleansing.”

Refugees who have made the dangerous journey to Bangladesh, have faced water and food shortages, poor sanitation, disease outbreaks, and exposure to floods and elephant stampedes.

Doctors Without Borders said the situation in makeshift refugee camps in Bangladesh is “a public-health time-bomb” and warned about the inability of aid groups to meet the dire needs of the growing population.

UN agencies have made similar assessments, based on interviews with refugees in Cox’s Bazaar, the largest of the refugee camps. At a conference last week, the UN raised only $344 million of the $430 million needed to expand the reach of food and sanitation supplies, with the US providing a paltry $32 million.

In an interview with the Guardian, Elhadj As Sy, the head of the International Federation of Red Cross Societies, described the refugee conditions as in “a state of deprivation. It’s hunger, fear, exhaustion… You see almost the unbearable look of a total destitute person in need.”

The contemptuous attitude of Bangladeshi authorities to the asylum seekers was underscored by an article in the Independent on Sunday, which reported that the government is preparing to implement a program of “voluntary sterilization” for refugees.

The major imperialist powers, led by the United States, have issued utterly hypocritical statements of concern, while continuing to back the Burmese regime.

The US State Department has suspended aid to military units directly linked to the pogroms, revoked previous invitations to US events, and halted the issuing of travel waivers.

These actions, however, are largely cosmetic, focusing only on military units directly carrying out the cleansing of Rohingya populations. They ignore the role of Suu Kyi, her National League for Democracy (NLD) and other key sections of the military in supporting the campaign.

Last Thursday evening, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held a phone conversation with the head of the Burmese military Min Aung Hliang. Tillerson reportedly encouraged the army’s cooperation with the Burmese government in “ending the violence and allowing the safe return of ethnic Rohingya who have fled the area.”

The Trump administration is reportedly considering limited trade sanctions in response to growing public outrage at home and internationally. However, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Senator Bob Corker summed up the policy, stating: “The United States should not abandon Burma. However, it may be time for a policy adjustment.”

These “adjustments” will be handled with utmost caution, in order to prevent the regime turning toward China for economic and political support. The US views Burma as geo-strategically critical to its military encirclement of China, in preparation for war against the Beijing regime.

U Ko Ko Gyi, a former student “democracy” activist and supporter of the Burmese regime, pointedly noted: “We are a small country that lies between India and China, and the DNA of our ancestors is to try to struggle for our survival. If you in the West criticize us too much, then you will push us into the arms of China and Russia.”

Reports of the ongoing persecution of the Rohingya preceded a tour of Asia by US President Donald Trump, starting this week.

Trump will visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, and attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam and the Association of South East Asian Nations in the Philippines. The tour will be used to consolidate military ties and alliances forged by the US in its anti-China campaign, and to escalate the threats against Beijing and North Korea.

Sections of the US ruling elite have called on Trump to make a show of opposition to the persecution of the Rohingya during the tour.

The Washington Post, which has close ties to the US military and intelligence agencies, published an editorial on Sunday, declaring that Trump has “an opportunity to show he will not ignore crimes against humanity.” It called for the US government to impose sanctions targeting top Burmese military officials.

Such a move, from the commander-in-chief of the blood-soaked American military, would be aimed at covering up the US role in backing the persecution of the Rohingya, and placing pressure on the Burmese regime to align more directly with Washington’s plans for a catastrophic war against China.

CVS and Aetna reportedly in talks for $60 billion merger

Tom Hall 

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the CVS pharmacy chain is in talks to acquire health insurance giant Aetna, in a massive deal worth as much as $60 billion. The merger, if successful, would likely be the largest merger of 2017.

The deal, the first of its kind in the health care industry, would represent an unprecedented step towards a vertically integrated monopolization of the provision of health care in the United States.

However, CVS was already a significant player in the insurance industry through its pharmacy benefits management (PBM) business, which contracts with insurance companies to provide prescription drug coverage to policyholders. A majority of CVS’s revenue comes through this side of the business. A potential snag in the proposed merger is the fact that CVS already has a PBM contract with Anthem, a rival insurance company.

CVS’s proposed acquisition is reportedly in response to the anticipated entry of Amazon into the prescription drug market. While Amazon has made no official announcements, the St . Louis Dispatch has reported that the online retail giant has won regulatory approval to sell pharmaceuticals in 12 states.

Amazon, whose CEO, Jeff Bezos, was recently named the richest person in the world, is increasingly setting the standard for cost-cutting and the super-exploitation of the working class as it expands into segments of the retail market, as older brick-and-mortar retail chains struggle to compete. Earlier this year, Amazon announced it had acquired the grocery chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, while indicating that it planned on laying off staff to cut labor costs.

Over the past few days, Walmart has begun operating robotic stocking machines at 50 retail locations nationwide in an attempt to compete with Amazon, which operates tens of thousands of similar machines at its fulfillment centers, where online orders are processed and sent out for delivery. Over the summer, Walmart also announced plans for an Uber-style delivery service in which it will pay employees to deliver online orders on their daily commutes.

Aetna, for its part, would be entering into the merger after suffering a series of reversals of fortune. Its own proposal in 2015 to acquire rival insurance company Humana for $37 billion, which would have been the largest merger in the history of the insurance industry, eventually fell apart after regulatory concerns. At the beginning of the year, fresh off the collapse of the Humana merger, and after its widely publicized decision to pull out of the Obamacare state health insurance exchanges, the company posted a $381 million first-quarter loss.

What this merger will mean in practice in terms of the business model of the combined entity is not yet clear. However, one financial analyst quoted by Bloomberg News envisioned a scenario “that CVS expands its MinuteClinics or creates mini urgent centers in CVS stores to direct patients to these lower cost settings via copay differentials.”

In other words, this could result in the further penetration by CVS into the urgent care clinics which have proliferated throughout the United States as a cheaper, bare-bones alternative to receiving health care in traditional settings such as hospitals and internal medicine practices, which are increasingly unaffordable for tens of millions of Americans.

Wall Street responded positively to the initial Wall Street Journal report, with Aetna’s stock climbing sharply on Thursday before falling slightly on Friday to $173 per share, somewhat below the reported $200 per share reportedly offered by CVS. Most financial analysts praised the deal, calling it “revolutionary” and a necessary step forward for the health care industry. However, there was some skepticism as to whether the deal would ultimately materialize, and some analysts questioned whether CVS was making an overly hasty and risky move in response to the expected competition from Amazon.

The rumored merger between CVS and Aetna comes in the midst of a record-setting wave of mergers and acquisitions by American corporations. The Institute for Mergers, Acquisitions and Alliances forecasts that over 17,000 mergers will take place by the end of the year in North America, totaling more than $1.5 trillion in combined value.

The enormous growth in spending on mergers and acquisitions, which create no new productive capital, and in general are used to slash costs and cut jobs, is the outgrowth of the massive rise in financial parasitism in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, aided and abetted by years of cheap money policies of the Federal Reserve and other major central banks.

Is Iraq Coming to the End of Forty Years of War?

Patrick Cockburn

There is a growing mood of self-confidence in Baghdad which I have not seen here since I first visited Iraq in 1977. The country seemed then to be heading for a peaceful and prosperous future thanks to rising oil revenues. It only became clear several years later that Saddam Hussein was a monster of cruelty with a disastrous tendency to start unwinnable wars. At the time, I was able to drive safely all around Iraq, visiting cities from Mosul to Basra which became lethally dangerous over the next 40 years.

The streets of the capital are packed with people shopping and eating in restaurants far into the night. Looking out my hotel window, I can see people for the first time in many years building things which are not military fortifications. There are no sinister smudges of black smoke on the horizon marking where bombs have gone off. Most importantly, there is a popular feeling that the twin victories of the Iraqi security forces in recapturing Mosul in July and Kirkuk on 16 October have permanently shifted the balance of power back towards stability. The Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, once criticised as weak and vacillating, is today almost universally praised for being calm, determined and successful in battling Isis and confronting the Kurds.

“I detect a certain jauntiness in Baghdad that I have not seen before,” says the Iraqi historian and former minister Ali Allawi. “Al-Abadi has hardly put a foot wrong since the start of the crisis over Kirkuk.” A recently retired senior Iraqi security official adds that “it was bit of luck for all Iraqis, that [Kurdish President Masoud] Barzani brought on a confrontation when he did”. People in the capital are beginning to sound more like victors rather than victims.

Life in Baghdad is abnormal by the standard of any other city: it remains full of blast walls made out of concrete slabs that always remind me of giant grave stones. Numerous checkpoints exacerbate appalling traffic jams. Bombings by Isis are far less frequent than they used to be, but there are memories of past atrocities, such as the truck bomb in Karada district on 3 July 2016 that killed 323 people and injured hundreds more. “Many of them were burned to death in buildings with plastic cladding on the outside that caught fire like Grenfell Tower,” observed an Iraqi observer as we drove past the site of the blast.

Violence will not entirely end: the Shia majority are about to celebrate the Arbaeen festival on 10 November when millions of pilgrims walk on foot to the shrine city of Kerbala to mourn the death of Imam Hussein in a battle in 680 AD. The road between Kerbala and the shrine city of Najaf, is already decorated with thousands of black mourning flags, interspersed with occasional green and red, ones, and there are thousands of improvised tents where the pilgrims can rest and eat.

The vast numbers involved makes it impossible to protect them all, so Isis may well bomb the vast multitude of pilgrims in a bid to show that it has not been totally eliminated. Despite this the long-expected defeat of Isis is very real, but the greatest boost to public morale comes from the unexpected crumbling, with little resistance and in a short space of time, of the Kurdish quasi-state in northern Iraq that had ruled a quarter of the country.

Iraqi history over the last 40 years has been full of what were misleadingly billed as “turning points” for the better, but which turned out to be only ushering in a new phase in Iraq’s multi-phase civil wars that have been going on since the Americans overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003. All sides have become, at different periods, the proxies of foreign backers, but this period may now be coming to an end primarily because the wars have produced winners and losers.

Communal politics are not the only determining feature in the Iraqi political landscape, but the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish communities are its main building blocks. The Sunni, a fifth of the population, have lost comprehensively because Isis became their main vehicle for opposition to the central government. Justly or unjustly, they share in its defeat. Their great cities like Mosul and Ramadi are in ruins. Sunni villages that line the main roads have often been levelled because they were seen as the home bases of local guerrillas planting IEDS. IDP camps are full of displaced Sunnis.

Shia-Kurdish cooperation was born in opposition to Saddam Hussein and was the basis for the post-Saddam power-sharing governments. But both sides felt that they were being short-changed by the other and Baghdad and Erbil came to see each other as the hostile capitals of separate states.

Great though their differences were, they might not have over-boiled for a few years had Barzani and his Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) not had the astonishingly bad idea of holding a Kurdish referendum on independence on 25 September. It was one of the great miscalculates of Iraqi, if not Middle East, history: the KDP now complains that it was the victim of Iranian machinations, but its real mistake was to confront the Iraqi government when it was politically and militarily much stronger than it had been after recapturing Mosul from Isis. Regardless of which Kurdish leader did or did not betray the cause, their Peshmerga would have lost the war.

Ironically, the Iraqi Kurds are now likely to lose a large measure of the independence they enjoyed before the referendum. They have lost not only the oil province of Kirkuk, but may also lose control of the borders of their three core provinces. Iraqi regular forces are pressing towards the crucial border town of Fishkhabour between Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey. Al-Abadi last week turned down a Kurdish offer “to freeze” the referendum result, demanding its complete negation, though it now has only a symbolic value.

Iraqis in Baghdad are rightly wary of predictions of a return to normal life after 40 years of permanent crisis. There have been false dawns before, but this time round the prospects for peace are much better than before. The biggest risk is a collision between the US and Iran in which Iraq would be the political – and possibly the military – battlefield. Barzani and the KDP are promoting the idea of Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi Shia paramilitaries being at the forefront of every battle, though in fact Kirkuk was taken by two regiments from Baghdad’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service and the 9th Armoured Division.

The success of the Iraqi regular forces is such that one danger is that they and the Baghdad government will become overconfident and overplay their hand, not making sure that all communities in Iraq get a reasonable cut of the national cake in terms of power, money and jobs. A golden rule of Iraqi politics is that none of the three main communities can be permanently marginalised or crushed, as Saddam Hussein discovered to his cost. The end of the era of wars in Iraq would not just be good news for Iraqis, but the rest of the world as well.

U.S. Commandos are a “Persistent Presence” on Russia’s Doorstep

NICK TURSE

“They are very concerned about their adversary next door,” said General Raymond Thomas, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), at a national security conference in Aspen, Colorado, in July.  “They make no bones about it.”

The “they” in question were various Eastern European and Baltic nations.  “Their adversary”?  Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Thomas, the commander of America’s most elite troops — Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets among them — went on to raise fears about an upcoming Russian military training event, a wargame, known as “Zapad” or “West,” involving 10 Russian Navy ships, 70 jets and helicopters, and 250 tanks.  “The point of concern for most of these eastern Europeans right now is they’re about to do an exercise in Belarus… that’s going to entail up to 100,000 Russian troops moving into that country.” And he added, “The great concern is they’re not going to leave, and… that’s not paranoia…”

Over the last two decades, relations between the United States and Russia have increasingly soured, with Moscow casting blame on the United States for encouraging the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine a year later.  Washington has, in turn, expressed its anger over the occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia following the Russo-Georgian War of 2008; the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine after pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych was chased from power; and interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.  There have been recriminations on both sides over the other nation’s military adventurism in Syria, the sanctions Washington imposed on Moscow in reaction to Crimea, Ukraine, and human rights issues, and tit-for-tat diplomatic penalties that have repeatedly ramped up tensions.

While Zapad, which took place last month, is an annual strategic exercise that rotates among four regions, American officials nonetheless viewed this year’s event as provocative.  “People are worried this is a Trojan horse,” Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, who commands U.S. Army forces in Europe, told Reuters. “[The Russians] say, ‘We’re just doing an exercise,’ and then all of a sudden they’ve moved all these people and capabilities somewhere.”

Russia is not, however, the only military power with “people and capabilities” in the region. In passing, SOCOM’s Thomas also mentioned the presence of other forces; troops that he readily admitted the public might not be aware of.  Those soldiers were — just as he feared of the Russian troops involved in Zapad — not going anywhere.  And it wasn’t just a matter of speculation.  After all, they wear the same uniform he does.

For the past two years, the U.S. has maintained a special operations contingent in almost every nation on Russia’s western border.  “[W]e’ve had persistent presence in every country — every NATO country and others on the border with Russia doing phenomenal things with our allies, helping them prepare for their threats,” said Thomas, mentioning the Baltics as well as Romania, Poland, Ukraine, and Georgia by name.

Commandos and Their Comrades

Since 9/11, U.S. Special Operations forces (SOF) have grown in every conceivable way from funding to manpower, the pace of operations to geographic sweep.  On any given day, about 8,000 special operators — from a command numbering roughly 70,000 in total — are deployed in around 80 countries.  Over the course of a year, they operate in about 70% of the world’s nations.

According to Major Michael Weisman, a spokesman for U.S. Special Operations Command Europe, elite U.S. forces have deployed to 21 European countries in 2017 and conducted exercises with an even larger number of nations. “Outside of Russia and Belarus we train with virtually every country in Europe either bilaterally or through various multinational events,” he told TomDispatch.

The number of commandos in Europe has also expanded exponentially in recent years.  In 2006, 3% of special operators deployed overseas were sent to the continent.  Last year, the number topped 12% — a jump of more than 300%.  Only Africa has seen a larger increase in deployments over the same time span.

This special-ops surge is also reflected in the Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program, overseas missions designed to prepare American commandos in a variety of warfighting skills while also strengthening relations with foreign forces.  In 2012, special operators conducted 29 JCETs on that continent.  Last year, the number reached 37, including six in Bulgaria, three in Estonia, three in Latvia, three in Poland, and three in Moldova.

The United States has devoted significant resources to building and bolstering allied special ops forces across the region.  “Our current focus consists of assuring our allies through building partner capacity efforts to counter and resist various types of Russian aggression, as well as enhance their resilience,” SOCOM’s Thomas told members of the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year.  “We are working relentlessly with our partners and the Department of State to build potency in eastern and northern Europe to counter Russia’s approach to unconventional warfare, including developing mature and sustainable Special Operations capabilities across the region.”

This year, U.S. commandos could be found in nations all along Russia’s borders.  In March, for example, Green Berets took to snowmobiles for a cold-weather JCET alongside local troops in Lapland, Finland.  In May, Navy SEALs teamed up with Lithuanian forces as part of Flaming Sword 17, a training exercise in that country.  In June, members of the U.S. 10th Special Forces Group and Polish commandos carried out air assault and casualty evacuation training near Lubliniec, Poland. In July, Naval Special Warfare operators took part in Sea Breeze, a two decade-old annual military exercise in Ukraine. In August, airmen from the 321st Special Tactics Squadron transformed a rural highway in Jägala, Estonia, into an airstrip for tank-killing A-10 Thunderbolts as part of a military drill.  That same month, U.S. special operators advised host-nation commandos taking part in Exercise Noble Partner in the Republic of Georgia.

“Working with the GSOF [Republic of Georgia’s Special Operations forces] was awesome,” said Captain Christopher Pulliam, the commander of the Georgia Army National Guard’s Company H (Long-Range Surveillance), 121st Infantry Regiment.  (That, of course, is a unit from the American state of Georgia.) “Our mission set requires that we work in small teams that gather specific intel in the area of operations. The GSOF understand this and can use our intel to create a better understanding of the situation on the ground and react accordingly.”

Special Warriors and Special Warfare

The United States isn’t alone in fielding a large contingent of special operations forces.  The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency estimates that Russia’s Spetsnaz (“special purpose”) troops number around 30,000, a sizeable force, although less than half the size of America’s contingent of commandos.  Russia, SOCOM’s Thomas told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this year, is “particularly adept at leveraging unconventional approaches to advancing their interests and it is clear they are pursuing a wide range of audacious approaches to competition — SOF [special operations forces] often present a very natural unconventional response.”

Indeed, just like the United States and myriad militaries around the world, Russia has devoted significant resources to developing its doctrine and capabilities in covert, clandestine, and unconventional forms of warfare.  In a seminal 2013 article in the Russian Academy of Military Science’s journal Military-Industrial Courier, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov explained the nature of modern hybrid warfare, including the use of elite troops, this way:

“In the twenty-first century we have seen a tendency toward blurring the lines between the states of war and peace. Wars are no longer declared and, having begun, proceed according to an unfamiliar template… The role of nonmilitary means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and in many cases, they have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness… [t]he broad use of political, economic, informational, humanitarian, and other nonmilitary measures… is supplemented by military means of a concealed character, including carrying out actions of informational conflict and the actions of special operations forces.”

Spetsnaz troops have indeed played a role in all of Russia’s armed interventions since 2001, including in Chechnya and the North Caucasus, Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria.  During that same span, U.S. Special Operations forces have been employed in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Niger, and the Central African Republic.  They have also had a presence in Jordan, Kenya, Djibouti, and Cameroon, among other countries to which, according to President Trump, U.S. combat-equipped forces are currently deployed.

In an interview late last year, retired Lieutenant General Charles Cleveland, chief of U.S. Army Special Operations Command from 2012 to 2015 and now the Senior Mentor to the Army War College, discussed the shortcomings of the senior military leadership in regard to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the “bad national policy decisions… that shaped U.S. campaigns in those theaters,” and a reliance on a brand of conventional war-fighting with limited effectiveness in achieving political goals.  “[I]t is important to understand why SOF has risen from footnote and supporting player to main effort,” he added, “because its use also highlights why the U.S. continues to have difficulty in its most recent campaigns — Afghanistan, Iraq, against ISIS and AQ [al-Qaeda] and its affiliates, Libya, Yemen, etc. and in the undeclared campaigns in the Baltics, Poland, and Ukraine — none of which fits the U.S. model for traditional war.”

U.S. Special Operations Command Europe‎ failed to answer TomDispatch’s questions about those “undeclared campaigns” on Russia’s doorstep, but more public and conventional efforts have been in wide evidence.  In January, for example, tanks, trucks, and other equipment began arriving in Germany, before being sent on to Poland, to support Operation Atlantic Resolve.  That effort, “designed to reassure NATO allies and partners… in light of the Russian intervention in Ukraine,” according to the Congressional Research Service, began with a nine-month rotation of about 3,500 soldiers from the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, who were replaced in September by 3,300 personnel and 1,500 vehicles from the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, which would be deployed to five countries.  Earlier this month, Russia’s Defense Ministry complained that the size of the U.S. contingent in the Baltics violates a Russian-NATO agreement.

Red Dawn in the Gray Zone

Late last year, a group of active-duty and retired senior military officers, former ambassadors, academics, and researchers gathered for a symposium at the National Defense University (NDU) in Washington, D.C., titled “Russian Engagement in the Gray Zone.”  Conducted via Chatham House rules — that is, in accounts of the meeting, statements could not be attributed to any specific speaker — the Americans proceeded to vilify Russia both for its bellicosity and its underhanded methods.  Among the assessments: “Russia is always at a natural state of war and it prioritizes contactless war”; “Russia de-emphasizes kinetic activities and emphasizes the indirect/non-lethal approach”; and “Russia places a priority on subversion.”

The experts at NDU called for a comprehensive campaign to undermine Russia through sanctions, by courting “disenfranchised personnel” and “alienated persons” within that country, by developing enhanced cyber-capabilities, by utilizing psychological operations and “strategic messaging” to enhance “tactical actions,” and by conducting a special ops shadow war — which General Charles Cleveland seems to suggest might be already underway. “[T]he United States should learn from the Chechnya rebels’ reaction.  The rebels used decentralized operations and started building pockets of resistance (to include solo jihadists),” reads a synopsis of the symposium.

“SOCOM actions will need,” the NDU experts asserted, “to be unconventional and irregular in order to compete with Russian modern warfare tactics.”  In other words, they were advocating an anti-Russian campaign that seemed to emphasize the very approach they were excoriating Russia for — the “indirect/non-lethal approach” with a “priority on subversion.”

In the end, Russia’s much-feared “West” war game, in which Spetsnaz troops did participate, concluded with a whimper, not a bang.  “After all the anxiety, Russia’s Zapad exercise ends without provocation,” read the headline in the military newspaper Stars and Stripes on September 20th.

For months, while Russia insisted its war game would involve fewer than 13,000 soldiers, the U.S. and its allies had warned that, in reality, up to 100,000 troops would flood into Belarus.  Of those Russian troop levels, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Möller, a Swedish military observer who attended Zapad, said, “We reported about 12,400.”  Of such exercises, he added, “This is normal military business as we do in all countries with armed forces. This is not training for attacking anyone. You meet the enemy, you stop the enemy, you defeat the enemy with a counterattack. We are doing the same thing in Sweden.”

Indeed, just as Möller suggested, more than 20,000 troops — including U.S. Special Operations forces and soldiers from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Lithuania, Latvia, Norway, and Sweden — had gathered in his country during the Zapad exercise for Aurora 2017.  And Sweden was hardly unique.  At the same time, troops from the U.S., Bulgaria, Canada, Estonia, Georgia, Italy, Lithuania, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom were carrying out Rapid Trident, an annual military exercise, in neighboring Ukraine.

What message was the U.S. sending to Russia by conducting training exercises on its borders, Catherine Herridge of Fox News asked General Raymond Thomas in Aspen?  “That’s a fascinating question because I am — I try to appreciate the adversary’s optic to — I realize that a way to gauge a metric if you will for how well we’re doing,” the SOCOM chief replied somewhat incoherently.

Herridge was, of course, asking Thomas to view the world through the eyes of his adversary, to imagine something akin to Russia and its ally Syria conducting war games in Mexico or Canada or in both countries; to contemplate Spetsnaz troops spread throughout the Western hemisphere on an enduring basis just as America’s elite troops are now a fixture in the Baltics and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

In the end, Thomas’s take was understated in a way that undoubtedly wouldn’t have been the case had the roles been reversed.  “I am curious what Putin and his leadership are thinking,” the special ops chief mused. “I think it was a little unnerving.”

Cambodian government expels opposition party from parliament

 John Roberts

The Cambodian Constitutional Council last Tuesday endorsed changes to four anti-democratic election laws approved earlier by the National Assembly and Senate. The changed laws pave the way for the expulsion from the parliament of all members of the main opposition party elected in 2013, plus thousands of its members elected to regional governments last June.

The measures will effectively wipe out the results of both elections and give the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) unchallengeable control of every level of government. The CPP is only waiting for a Supreme Court ruling, due by the end of month, to dissolve the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP).

The CRNP won about 44 percent of the vote in 2013, giving it 55 parliamentary seats in the 123-member Assembly chamber. Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government plans to distribute these seats to minor parties whose total vote was just 7 percent.

The royalist FUNCINPEC party, an occasional CPP ally, will be handed 41 of these seats. This cynical manoeuvre by Hun Sen seeks to provide the veneer of a “multi-party” parliamentary democracy.

In the expulsion of CNRP representatives from commune councils, there is no attempt to disguise the naked power grab.

After the June commune election results, the CPP feared it could lose the scheduled July 2018 national election. The CNRP vote increased by more than 13 percent, whereas that of the CPP fell by nearly 11 percent.

The CPP will totally reverse the commune election results, taking over the posts of 489 commune chiefs and 5,007 commune councillors won by the CNRP.

Deep social tensions lie behind these measures. Feeding into this situation are the sharp geo-political pressures throughout the South East Asian region generated by Washington’s ongoing diplomatic and military challenges to Beijing’s influence.

Though the CPP has sought to improve ties with the US, it has a pro-Beijing orientation and has championed China’s interests within the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Like the CPP, the CNRP supports anti-working class, pro-market policies and the transformation of the country into a cheap labour platform, but is much more closely oriented toward Washington.

The crackdown on the CNRP began early last month when opposition leader Kem Sokha was arrested on treason charges. Since then, more than half of the 55 CNRP National Assembly members have fled the country, including deputy leader Mu Sochua. The rest are boycotting the parliamentary sessions.

Legislative changes this year include a provision to allow the government to suspend the activities of, or use legal proceedings to dissolve, any political party engaging in activities that may harm “national unity.” Non-government organisations and foreign entities are targeted, as is their collaboration with Cambodian political parties.

The regime has used these provisions to force the US-funded National Democratic Institute (NDI), which worked with the CNRP, to end operations in the country. It also has closed down media outlets connected to programs from Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, both set up to promote US foreign policy and propaganda.

Hun Sen’s regime formally moved to have the Supreme Court dissolve the CNRP on October 6. On October 10, the court gave the jailed Kem Sokha just 20 days to gather evidence to defend the CNRP against dissolution.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said the government had received “21 pieces of concrete evidence to prove the party has intentionally sought to topple the government through a ‘colour revolution’.” Like the allegations against Sokha, these claims have not been substantiated.

A government propaganda video, broadcast last Monday on multiple TV stations, linked the opposition to US regime-change “colour” operations in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Footage included shots from Libya, Tunisia, Syria, Serbia and Ukraine.

The official US response has been muted. US Republican Senator Ted Cruz declared last Tuesday he would work with the US Congress and the Trump administration to ban some Cambodian government officials from travelling to the US, unless Kem Sokha was freed by November 9.

In a bid to shore up support for the government, Hun Sen has sought to stoke nationalist sentiment. Addressing 20,000 garment workers earlier this month, he accused the US and its allies of meddling in Cambodia’s affairs. These countries “always invade countries that are weak,” he said. “Unlike them, I have no weapons of mass destruction. So I urge you to stand up to protect peace and for the sake of future development.”

In 2013, the parliamentary opposition exploited the discontent over poverty among factory workers, many of whom financially support their families in rural areas. In 2013 and 2014, the regime violently suppressed wage struggles among the 700,000 garment and footwear workers.

On October 10, Hun Sen announced, following earlier concessions on wages and health care, that from January the lowest income tax rate of 5 percent will apply to earnings above $US300 a month, as opposed to the current $250. He also announced significant increases in compensation payments for public servants.

At the same time, Defence Minister Tea Banh warned that the military was prepared to deal with any opposition to the dissolution of the CNRP. “The army is ready to fight any person who wants to overthrow the legitimate government.”

Geo-political tensions are rising as US President Donald Trump threatens war with North Korea and places mounting pressure on China—militarily, diplomatically and economically. Trump is due to travel to Asia later this week and will attend the ASEAN summit in the Philippines, where he will try to lay down the law to the region.

All 10 ASEAN governments are deeply concerned over Trump’s threat at the UN to inflict “total destruction” on North Korea—a move that could drag Asia and the world into war. As one of the ASEAN members with the closest ties with China, Cambodia could find itself in the firing line at the summit meeting.