Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont released from German prison

Ulrich Rippert 

Former Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont was released from detention yesterday afternoon in Germany, where he faces extradition to Spain. However, Puigdemont is not completely free, he may not leave Germany until further notice, had to post bail of €75,000 and must report weekly to the police in Neumünster.

On Thursday evening, the Higher Regional Court (OLG) in Schleswig agreed not to extradite Puigdemont to Spain on the charge of rebellion. However, the OLG has upheld the second allegation of misappropriation of public funds and therefore the former Catalan regional president could still be extradited to Spain. The arrest warrant was only “suspended” under certain conditions, a spokeswoman for the court said.

In a press release, the court explained its decision as follows: “The victim’s alleged behaviour is not punishable in the Federal Republic of Germany under the applicable law.” The relevant criminal offence of treason had not been met because it could not be associated with violence.

Thus, the Higher Regional Court very directly contradicted the Attorney General of Schleswig-Holstein, who had declared earlier this week that an admissible extradition request existed, and the risk of Puigdemont fleeing was real. On Tuesday, the Schleswig-Holstein Attorney General announced that an “intensive examination” of the European arrest warrant issued by the Spanish judiciary had revealed that an admissible extradition request existed.

The state prosecutor argued that the charge of rebellion against Puigdemont raised by the Spanish judiciary “essentially involved the allegation of holding an unconstitutional referendum on Catalonia’s independence from Spain, despite the anticipated violent clashes.” This accusation of rebellion found a similar equivalent in German criminal law in paragraphs 81 and 82 of the Criminal Code (High Treason); a verbal likeness of the German and Spanish regulations was not required by law. It is exactly this assessment that the higher regional court has now rejected.

The decision of the OLG has far-reaching consequences.

Puigdemont can no longer be handed over to Spain for “rebellion.” The court decision is binding on the federal government. On the existing legal basis, Puigdemont cannot be prosecuted in Spain or any other country on this charge. Whether the allegation of breach of trust can be upheld is highly questionable because it is not a charge of personal corruption. The Spanish authorities accuse Puigdemont, as regional president of Catalonia, of having financed the banned independence referendum using €1.6 million of public funds. However, if the referendum was not a call for rebellion, it is highly questionable whether the financing of it actually meets the charge of the misappropriation of public funds.

The first reactions to the verdict in Germany were divided. In a furious editorial, the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung stated, despite the verdict, Puigdemont remains “a criminal” who “cannot escape justice.” If he succeeded in escaping extradition, “he will have little choice but to hide from the Spanish courts in Belgium or elsewhere. If he is deported, he will go to jail in Spain.”

Media outlets and politicians who fear that an extradition of Puigdemont could cause violent protests in Catalonia and also in Germany, welcomed the verdict. “If things go well, if things go really well, then the verdict of the German judges is the beginning of a political solution, the beginning of negotiations,” commented the Süddeutsche Zeitung .

Gregor Gysi of the Left Party called on the German government to put pressure on Madrid and the judiciary. “Now, I expect that our foreign minister might go to Spain and try to talk them out of certain things, and not that our government sits there and says we must now execute their arrest warrants for things that are not punishable in Germany.”

In fact, the German government, which yesterday had refused to take a position on the verdict, then did exactly that.

Newsweekly Der Spiegel reports that the government had already agreed on its approach during a telephone conference on the day Puigdemont was arrested. According to information held by Der Spiegel, on the weekend before Easter, Justice Minister Katarina Barley (Social Democratic Party, SPD), Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (also SPD and former Minister of Justice), Chancellery Chief of Staff Helge Braun (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) and Hans-Georg Engelke, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior and former head of “Terrorism/Islamism” at the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (as the secret service is called) held a telephone conference to determine the attitude of the government. It was agreed that the government would not veto any possible extradition of Puigdemont.

A few days later, the Attorney General of Schleswig-Holstein “consulted” with the Ministry of Justice to discuss further action, writes Der Spiegel. In other words, when the Schleswig-Holstein Attorney General requested Carles Puigdemont be held in detention at the beginning of this week pending extradition, stating that the charge of rebellion was justified and found “a comparable analogy in German criminal law in paragraphs 81 and 82 of the Criminal Code (High Treason),” this approach and this argument had been agreed with the highest government circles.

Thus, it is clear that the German government not only supported the undemocratic approach of the Spanish government, but wanted to use the arrest of Puigdemont to set a precedent for the prosecution of any form of protest and resistance against the ruling powers.

In particular, the reference to the law relating to High Treason illustrates the tradition in which the German government stands and how consciously it is working to build a European police state. High Treason is aimed at a violent upheaval within society, according to Rechtslexikon. It is an offence in which the perpetrator “undertakes to use force or threats of violence to undermine the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany or to change the constitutional order based on the Basic Law [constitution], i.e., to practically bring about an overthrow (revolution).”

The law had already been introduced at the founding of the German Reich in 1871 and since then has been repeatedly employed to persecute and suppress opponents of the imperial authoritarian state and later the Nazi dictatorship. The SPD founder August Bebel was persecuted on this basis as well as the KPD (German Communist Party) leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. During the Nazi period, Hans and Sophie Scholl, along with other members of the White Rose resistance group were sentenced to death and executed on this basis.

Now, the German government is again resorting to these brutal forms of oppression to intimidate and nip in the bud any form of opposition, resistance and protest.

It is no coincidence that the criminalization of resistance and the introduction of police-state measures in Europe coincide with the largest strike movement in France against the labour market “reforms” of the Macron government and increased protest strikes in Germany. In Spain, the economic and social crisis is particularly acute. Not only have Amazon workers gone on strike, but pensioners have been organising mass demonstrations to fight for decent pensions and improved social benefits.

Even if the verdict of the Higher Regional Court in Schleswig-Holstein does not lead to Puigdemont being extradited and charged with “rebellion,” the German government is continuing its right-wing course.

Israel’s shoot-to-kill policy on Gaza border claims more lives

Jean Shaoul

Israel’s military forces killed seven Palestinian protestors along Gaza’s border and injured around 200 more, five of them seriously, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) used live rounds and tear gas against protestors throwing stones and burning car tyres to create smoke to screen themselves from sniper fire.

About 10,000 Palestinians took part in the second “March of Return” protest yesterday, which they called “Jumat al-Kawshook” or “Friday of tyres.”

Also, solidarity protests took place in several towns and cities in the West Bank, including Ramallah and Al-Bireh. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, 37 Palestinians were injured by live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas canisters.

Rallies in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza were called for Friday evening and Saturday in cities in the United States, Britain, France and elsewhere in Europe.

Israel’s Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman had earlier warned that “open-fire rules for the Gaza border will remain unchanged” and that anyone approaching the border was endangering their life. He promised a “reaction of the harshest kind like last week.”

Without providing a shred of evidence, Israel has accused Hamas, which governs Gaza, of using the protests as a cover for carrying out attacks on the border.

Friday’s demonstration was called as the culmination of the second of six weeks of peaceful protests, demanding the right to return of Palestinian exiles to their ancestors’ villages and towns in what is now Israel—a demand that Israeli officials reject because it would reduce Jewish citizens to a minority.

The Palestinians are also calling for the full implementation of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 of December 1948 stipulating that “the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.”

Of the 1.9 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, 1.3 million are refugees, according to Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics report in February 2018.

The March of Return will conclude on May 15, the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel, which the Palestinians commemorate as Nakba (Catastrophe Day). The US is set to open its embassy in Jerusalem on that day, as announced last year by President Donald Trump. The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

Last Friday, Israeli troops and sharpshooters killed at least 16 people—a total that has now risen to 20 as others have succumbed to their injuries. At least 23 have been killed in the last week, including a Palestinian killed by an Israeli drone late Wednesday in the Gaza Strip, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

Evidence of the IDF killing spree is provided by video footage showing that at least two of those murdered were unarmed as they walked slowly towards the border with Israel, while another man was shot in the back as he ran away from the border holding a car tyre.

Not a single Israeli was killed or even injured, and no Israeli property was damaged or at risk.

A further 1,400 Palestinians were injured, more than half by live ammunition and steel-tipped rubber bullets. It was the deadliest day of violence since Israel’s 2014 war on Gaza, which killed 2,250 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians.

Ahmad Abu Artema, who conceived the idea of the March of Return, is not affiliated to Hamas, and rejects armed resistance, partly because it has failed. Instead, he puts forward a plan for mass civil disobedience as promoted by Mahatma Gandhi against British rule in India. His plan won the backing of several Gaza-based Palestinian groups. He said, “It’s not necessary to resist the occupation with bullets. You can resist the occupation with dabke[traditional Palestinian music and dancing], or by just sitting there.”

Irrespective of the value of such a strategy, it confirms that Israel used live fire on a peaceful, unarmed protest.

Israel’s chief military spokesman, Brigadier General Ronen Manelis, warned on Monday that the IDF would step up its violence on the Gaza border. He added that the IDF had restricted its actions thus far to the border fence, but it was prepared to “act against these terror organizations in other places too,” that is, within Gaza.

B’Tselem, the human rights organization, condemned Israel’s use of live fire on the civilian protesters, calling it criminal and illegal. It said that live fire should only be used when troops face “tangible and immediate mortal danger, and only in the absence of any other alternative.” It has launched a “Sorry Commander, I cannot shoot,” campaign, urging Israeli soldiers to disobey orders to shoot unarmed protesters in Gaza, which it argues are “manifestly illegal.”

The group criticized the Israeli military for announcing, even before the March began, that soldiers would use live fire against protesters, even if they were hundreds of meters away from the border fence.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch stated that last week’s killings were unlawful and “calculated,” and noted that the border protests posed no immediate threat to Israeli soldiers.

Within Israel, there have been small demonstrations in Tel Aviv, Jaffa and near the border with Gaza protesting at Israel’s unprovoked murders.

The US, Israel’s chief benefactor, unable to stop the holding of an emergency session of the UN Security Council, blocked a draft statement condemning Israel’s use of force against protesters at the Gaza border. Not one of the major powers spoke out against this filthy manoeuvre.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, then called for an “independent and transparent investigation” and reaffirmed “the readiness” of the world body to revitalise peace efforts.

This is a fraud and a diversion. Previous UN inquiries, including the report into the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza, provide detailed evidence of Israeli war crimes, but use irrelevant legal arguments to draw conclusions entirely at odds with their own evidence and absolve Israel of criminal responsibility for its actions. Last year, Guterres succumbed to US pressure, suppressing a UN report that found Israel practices apartheid against Palestinians.

Speaking for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, Lieberman flatly refused the UN’s pathetic entreaties, saying that the government would not carry out any inquiry into the casualties. “From the standpoint of the [IDF] soldiers, they did what had to be done,” he said. “All of our troops deserve a commendation.”

While the UN issued a warning to Israel to use “extreme caution” in facing the second round of mass protests, it toed the Israeli line and called on organizers of the March not to put women and children in danger.

Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas and other militant groups of using women and children as human shields to excuse its own murder of innocent civilians.

Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt went further in giving Israel a green light to do whatever it liked. He told the Palestinians to engage solely in peaceful protests and demanded that the protesters “should remain outside the 500-meter buffer zone; and should not approach the border fence in any way or any location.”

Turning reality on its head, he refused to condemn Israel’s murder spree, condemning instead “leaders and protestors who call for violence or who send protestors—including children—to the fence, knowing that they may be injured or killed.”

Greenblatt demanded the Security Council “send a clear message to the Palestinian leadership insisting that it put an end to these riots that only serve to sow violence and instability.”

JPMorgan CEO threatens rate hikes to break wages movement by US workers

Barry Grey 

In the midst of an expanding wave of teachers’ strikes in the US and mounting class battles in Europe, intensive discussions are underway within the American ruling class on measures to prevent the growth of a militant nationwide movement for higher wages and benefits. The corporate-financial elite is preparing the most ruthless measures—economic and political—to counter the emerging rebellion of US workers against the government, the corporations and the corporatist trade unions that do their bidding.

On Thursday, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who heads the largest US bank and is often called “the most powerful banker in the world,” warned of rising wages and raised the possibility of a sharp rise in interest rates to put a brake on economic growth and drive up unemployment. The aim of such a policy would be to weaken the working class and break its resistance to austerity and wage cutting.

In his annual letter to shareholders, Dimon wrote: “I believe that many people underestimate the possibility of higher inflation and wages, which means they might be underestimating the chance that the Federal Reserve may have to raise rates faster than we think…

“If growth in America is accelerating, which it seems to be, and any remaining slack in the labor markets is disappearing—and wages start going up, as do commodity prices—then it is not an unreasonable possibility that inflation could go higher than people might expect.

“As a result, the Federal Reserve will also need to raise rates faster and higher than people might expect.”

Significantly, Dimon cited the precedent of then-Fed Chairman Paul Volcker’s shock increase in interest rates in August of 1979, which precipitated the deep recession of 1980-82. The Reagan administration exploited the wave of plant closures and layoffs that followed the near doubling of interest rates to launch an anti-working class offensive and social counterrevolution that has continued to this day, under Democratic no less than Republican presidents.

The appointment of Volcker by Democratic President Jimmy Carter followed the 111-day national coal miners’ strike of 1977-78, in which the miners defied Carter’s back-to-work Taft-Hartley injunction, shaking the authority of the entire state. Volcker’s recessionary measures were followed by Reagan’s firing and blacklisting of the PATCO air traffic controllers in 1981, which was the signal for a decade of union-busting, wage cutting and strikebreaking, made possible by the treachery of the union leadership.

Dimon wrote: “Remember that former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker increased the discount rate by 100 basis points on a Saturday night back in 1979 in response to a serious double-digit inflation problem. And when markets opened the next business day, the Fed funds rate went up by over 200 basis points.”

In his letter, Dimon acknowledged that the course he was suggesting could lead to an implosion of stock prices, noting, “In this case, markets will get more volatile as all asset prices adjust to a new and maybe not-so-positive environment.”

“There is a risk that volatile and declining markets can lead to market panic,” he added.

He alluded to the ultra-low interest rate regime that has been maintained for more than three decades by the Fed, with near-zero rates put in place following the 2008 market crash, which has fueled the staggering rise in stock prices and accompanying enrichment of the corporate-financial elite. “While in the past,” he said, “interest rates have been lower and for longer than people expected, they may go higher and faster than people expect.”

The social basis for the stock market boom has been the suppression of the class struggle. This has been accomplished above all by the transformation of the trade unions into corporatist adjuncts of the government and big business. The central preoccupation of these anti-working class organizations has been to prevent strikes and isolate and betray them when they broke out, resulting in record low levels of strike activity, especially since the 2008 financial crisis.

What particularly alarms the ruling class in the current wave of strikes and protests by teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona and other states is the fact that they have been organized by rank-and-file teachers independently of and increasingly in defiance of the unions.

The New York Times recently quoted a teacher in the leadership of a rank-and-file group in Arizona as saying, “Our unions have been weakened so much that a lot of teachers don’t have faith in them.” The newspaper noted that the walkouts to date have occurred in states where the teachers unions are weak, the majority of teachers are not union members, and state laws bar unions from compelling workers to pay union dues. It has written worriedly of teachers using social media “to organize and act outside the usual parameters of traditional unionism.”

It and other capitalist media are commenting on the “tight” labor market and danger of the economy “overheating.” This week alone, the Wall Street Journal published two front-page articles on this theme, one with the headline “Iowa’s Labor Plight: Too Many Jobs,” and the other with a headline noting that “jobs outnumber workers” in Elkhart, Indiana, the center of recreational vehicle manufacturing in the US.

In essence, Dimon is telling the ruling class that regardless the consequences for stock prices and the fortunes and profits of significant sections of the corporate elite itself, the stability and continued rule of the capitalist class as a whole may require drastic measures to undermine workers’ militancy and step up the war on the working class.

Fear within the ruling elite of a wages movement was underscored Friday when US stock prices plunged following the release by the Labor Department of the March employment report. Alarm over the outbreak of a trade war between the US and China was compounded by the news that US wages had risen 2.7 percent year-over-year.

Two months ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 665 points when the January jobs report showed a wage increase of 2.9 percent. But that was before the outbreak of the teachers’ strikes. This time, the very modest wage increase for March contributed to a drop in the Dow of 572 points.

As Dimon’s letter indicated, a rise in interest rates is only one component of an intensification of the offensive against the working class. The weakening of the working class by means of mass unemployment is to be accompanied by a frontal attack on what remains of basic social programs.

“The real problem with our deficit,” Dimon wrote, “is the uncontrolled growth of our entitlement programs… The extraordinary growth of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security is jeopardizing our fiscal situation.”

Social Security could be “fixed,” the multimillionaire banker said, “by changing the qualification age and means testing, among other things.” He pointed out that when the program was initiated in 1935, the average life span after retirement was 13 years, while today it is 25. In other words, the destruction of health care for workers must be carried through to dramatically lower their life expectancy.

In his letter, Dimon did not spell out the political corollaries of his economic and social policies. However, in May of 2013, his bank issued a report on the euro area calling for the overturning of the bourgeois democratic constitutions established in Europe after World War II. The document, “The Euro Area Adjustment—About Half-Way There,” called for measures to protect the major international banks and stressed the need for “political reforms” of a dictatorial character to impose the necessary attacks on the working class.

The American financial oligarchy and the state are already beginning to implement similar measures to crack down on working-class opposition in the US, including the drive to censor the Internet and criminalize political dissent in the name of combating “fake news” and “Russian meddling.”

US sanctions target Russian officials and businessmen

Andre Damon

The US government imposed a new round of sanctions against Russia on Friday, targeting seven Russian businessmen and 17 government officials in the latest provocation against that country.

The move follows the expulsion of more than 100 Russian diplomats by the US and its allies in the wake of the alleged poisoning last month of Sergei Skripal, a double agent living in England, and his daughter.

In announcing the latest measures against Russia, the US government made no mention of the Skripal case, instead claiming the new sanctions were retaliation for alleged Russian “meddling” in the 2016 election.

The US has good reason to be circumspect in this regard. In recent days, the US and British narrative of the alleged poisoning by Russia has fallen apart. Both Sergei and Yulia Skripal are recovering from their alleged poisoning by a nerve agent supposedly ten times more powerful than VX nerve gas, leaving their pets, who were starved by UK authorities, the only casualties of the incident.

In an interview with Russian television, Viktoria Skripal, a relative of the two who lives in Russia, cast doubt on the British version of events and said she was afraid that the Skirpals were not being allowed to communicate and move freely by British authorities. Earlier this week, Russian TV ran a telephone interview between Yulia and Viktoria taped by Viktoria in which Yulia said both she and her father were recovering, were in good health and had suffered no lasting harm from the incident.

Viktoria told Russian media that the phone conversation was cut off abruptly and she has had no further communication from her cousin.

On Friday, the British Home Office announced that it had rejected Viktoria Skripal’s application for a visa to visit her relatives at the hospital in Britain where they are being held.

The US press has largely ignored these developments, as well as this week’s statement by the UK’s Porton Down chemical weapons laboratory that it had “not verified the precise source” of the material used, contradicting claims by UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson that Porton Down had definitively identified the source as Russian.

The breakdown of the official narrative has done nothing to slow the US campaign against Russia. This is because Washington’s actions have nothing to do with the alleged poisoning—a completely concocted provocation—or with supposed Russian “meddling” in the US elections, another entirely unsubstantiated fabrication woven by US intelligence agencies and dutifully disseminated by the US corporate media.

Rather, they are rooted in the growing conflict between the US and Russia on the world stage, particularly in Syria, and efforts to use the conflict with Russia, which threatens to escalate into a shooting war at any moment, to suppress domestic political opposition.

Hinting at the real issues animating the anti-Russian campaign, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin declared Friday in his announcement of the new sanctions: “The Russian government engages in a range of malign activity around the globe, including continuing to occupy Crimea and instigate violence in eastern Ukraine” and “supplying the Assad regime with material and weaponry...”

After Trump speculated last week about withdrawing US troops from Syria, the New York Times and Washington Post, speaking for the US intelligence agencies and the Democratic Party, opposed any such action, declaring that such a course would empower Russia.

In an editorial titled “Trump’s Approach to Syria Is No Way to Run a War,” the Times wrote that Russia would “benefit from the president’s apparent desire to retreat from the Middle East.” It continued, “Already, Mr. Trump is letting Russia take the lead in Syria, ceding to Vladimir Putin the crucial diplomatic work of forging a political agreement between Mr. Assad and the Syrian rebels.”

The Washington Post said a continued US presence in Syria would be necessary to prevent “Russia from entrenching in the country at the expense of US allies including Israel and Jordan.”

Both newspapers warned that Trump’s policy was creating the conditions for the consolidation of an alliance between Turkey, Iran and Russia, which held a high-profile meeting to discuss Syria this week. On Thursday, Turkey, a NATO member, reported that it would purchase an advanced Russian missile defense system, reportedly capable of shooting down any US aircraft.

The latest sanctions announcement has also been accompanied by a new push to censor the Internet in the name of combating Russian “meddling” and “fake news.” On Friday, Facebook announced that it would require users who purchase ads on the platform to verify their identities, a major step toward ending the anonymous use of Facebook, something long demanded by the US intelligence agencies.

The move, coming ahead of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s scheduled testimony before the US Congress next week, was accompanied by the announcement that Facebook would hire tens of thousands of censors to moderate content, and that it had had deleted thousands of allegedly “fake” accounts.

With the growth of the class struggle in the US coming together with bitter political warfare at the heights of American politics, all factions of the political establishment are seeking to project internal tensions outward by demonizing Russia and China.

The Democrats, in particular, working in alliance with the intelligence agencies, are focusing their efforts on exerting maximum pressure to ensure that Trump does not back down from the conflict with Russia.

China prepares to strike back as US trade war intensifies

Nick Beams

China has responded to US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on a further $100 billion of Chinse goods by declaring it is ready to fight a trade war.

The proposed escalation was announced by Trump on Thursday in response to China’s decision that it would target 106 commodities, mainly agricultural products, if the US went ahead with its plan, announced earlier this week, to hit 1,333 Chinese goods worth $50 billion.

At a briefing with reporters in Beijing yesterday evening, Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng said the US move was “extremely wrong” and China was preparing to retaliate.

“China is fully prepared to hit back forcefully and without hesitation,” Gao said. He added that the Chinese government had put in place “detailed counter-measures” and those measures did “not exclude any options.”

One option could be a decision to sell off holdings of US Treasury bonds, of which China holds almost $1.2 trillion. It is the largest foreign holder of US debt and any significant withdrawal would send US bond yields and interest rates up, causing major turmoil in US financial markets.

Bloomberg, citing highly placed but unnamed sources, reported in January that such a plan was under consideration in Chinese ruling circles.

The issue was raised by US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in an interview on the business channel CNBC. He said there was a “level of risk that we could go into a trade war.”

But he sought to brush aside concerns that China would react by selling off its holdings of US debt under conditions where more money has to be raised to finance the Trump administration’s tax cuts. “I’m not concerned about that,” he said. “There are lots of buyers around the world for US debt.”

But the fact that the issue has been raised shows that the possibility of such a move is under consideration by both Chinese and US authorities in what would be a major escalation of economic warfare.

Since the initial tariff moves were announced on Tuesday, the US administration has been trying to calm markets by issuing assurances, particularly by the president’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow, that the tariff measures are an opening gambit in securing a deal and that negotiations and discussions with the Chinese are taking place.

However, that ploy suffered a major blow with Trump’s announcement on Thursday that he had asked US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to consider tariffs on an additional $100 billion worth of Chinese goods.

Wall Street fell sharply on Friday, with the Dow down by more than 572 points, after dropping by almost 800 points in the course of the day. In remarks yesterday, Trump said there would be “a little pain,” but “we’re going to have a much stronger country when we’re finished, and that’s what I’m all about.”

How long the PR campaign, with claims that there are back-channel talks, can prevent a panic in US markets remains to be seen. But the Chinese authorities say no talks are taking place with members of the US administration.

Chinse Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao denied that there were any negotiations and said there had been none “for a period of time.” Under the present circumstances, “it’s even more unlikely for the two sides to engage in any kind of negotiations,” he added.

Even Kudlow, the leader of the market-calming operation, has had to admit that serious talks with China “have not really begun yet,” telling Bloomberg that whatever talks have taken place have been “unsatisfactory.”

Given the underlying forces behind the US trade war drive, there is very little room for manoeuvre. Trump has pointed to the US trade deficit of $375 billion with China and levelled accusations that through forced technology transfers and other measures Beijing is stealing American technology.

Of the two, the second is the more fundamental question. The overriding concern of the US administration is the “Made in China 2025” policy of the Xi Jinping regime, through which it is seeking to transform China into a technological leader in areas such as robotics, artificial intelligence, communications and pharmaceuticals. This is regarded as a direct threat to both US economic and military dominance.

The centrality of these considerations has been continually emphasised by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, who, together with Lighthizer, is a key architect of the trade war measures. In a radio interview on Wednesday, he said: “If they [China] basically seize that high ground technologically by stealing from us, we will not have a future as a country in terms of our economy and our national security.”

In an interview yesterday, Navarro gave voice to the gangster-like character of the US actions. In words that recalled The Godfather, he said Trump had a “great relationship” with Chinese President Xi, but “this is business.” He continued, “And this is the kind of business where we have to stand firm against China’s unfair trade practices.”

As the trade war unfolds and escalates, both sides are seeking allies in the global arena, with attention focused on Europe and the European Union. Responding to questions from Bloomberg, the head of the Chinese Mission to the EU, Zhang Ming, said China and the EU “need to stand together with a clear-cut position against protectionism, and need to work with each other to uphold the rules-based multilateral trade order.” The US actions went “completely against the fundamental principles of the World Trade Organisation,” he said.

China has launched an action against the US under the WTO, but this will have no impact on the US administration because it regards the present system and the WTO itself as an essential cause of the US deficits. It maintains that the WTO framework cannot deal with the key question of intellectual property rights.

For its part, the US is seeking to use the earlier threat of tariffs on steel and aluminium, imposed on March 1 under “national security” provisions of a 1962 law, as a means of pressuring the EU to back it against China. The imposition of the tariffs on European products has been suspended until May 1 pending negotiations, with the US making it clear that part of the price for an exemption is EU support for its actions against China.

The bellicose character of the US actions were underscored by Kudlow in remarks earlier this week, in which he reprised the rhetoric surrounding the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 by calling for a “trade coalition of the willing” for action against China.

Both the actions of the Trump administration and the rhetoric accompanying them indicate that, whatever the moves and counter-moves, there is a fundamental issue at stake, which is irresolvable within the framework of capitalist economics and politics.

The US regards the economic growth of China and its move, flowing from that growth, into high-tech development as an existential threat, which will further undermine its already diminished economic power and lead to a weakening of its military supremacy as well. It is determined to use whatever means necessary to prevent that, threatening to plunge the world into the kind of economic chaos not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s, as well as world war if that proves necessary.

Fifty years after May-June 1968, the class struggle erupts in France

Alex Lantier

A half century after the French general strike of May-June 1968, the class struggle in France is entering a new and explosive stage. A confrontation with revolutionary implications is emerging between the working class and the French government, backed by the entire European Union (EU).

Last week’s strike against President Emmanuel Macron’s decree privatizing the French National Railways (SNCF) shut down much of France’s mass transit. Air France workers demanding pay increases and electricity and garbage workers demanding recognition as a public service have joined striking rail workers. Students are occupying universities to protest new selection rules limiting access to a university education.

These developments come amidst a broad international upsurge of the class struggle. This year has already seen major strikes by metal and auto workers in Germany, Turkey, and Eastern Europe; railway workers in Britain; and broad layers of teachers in Britain and the United States.

These struggles take place under the shadow of the 50th anniversary of the French general strike of May-June 1968, the largest strike in European history. This mass mobilization of the working class shook French capitalism and the regime of General Charles de Gaulle to the core. Mass anger triggered by repression of student protests erupted into a strike of over 10 million workers, and red flags flew over factories across France.

Two factors saved de Gaulle. The first was the counterrevolutionary role of the Stalinist French Communist Party (PCF), then the leading party in the working class. It organized a return to work in exchange for wage increases, demoralizing workers by its betrayal of the revolutionary situation and allowing de Gaulle to win re-election in 1969. The second factor was that the strike erupted at the height of the 1945-1975 post-war boom. The bourgeoisie had resources to make concessions, buy time and prepare its response. It went on to decimate French manufacturing industries and implement policies of mass unemployment and austerity.

There will be no reformist outcome to the class struggle today. The crisis of world capitalism is far deeper than 50 years ago. The quarter century since the Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the foundation of the EU in 1992 has seen deepening social inequality and an escalating imperialist war drive across the Middle East, Africa and Eurasia.

Macron will not retreat. The French ruling class is drastically restructuring class relations to join in the imperialist scramble to re-divide the world. As the major European powers all rearm, Macron has pledged to spend €300 billion on a military build-up by 2024, restore the draft, and hand billions of euros in tax cuts to the rich. He plans to slash state spending and basic social services—including pensions, public health care, and unemployment insurance—to finance the military machine.

Workers can only oppose the moves to turn France into a militarized police state by a revolutionary struggle to bring down the Macron government and mobilize the working class in France and across Europe in a struggle for state power. This struggle sharply poses the need to build a new revolutionary leadership in the working class.

Since 1968, the working class has had vast experiences with the organizations that falsely claimed to speak for socialism. The PCF was destroyed by its role in 1968 and its support for the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. The Socialist Party (PS), founded in 1969, proved itself to be a reactionary bourgeois party of austerity and war, from which Macron himself emerged.

As for the petty bourgeois descendants of various renegades from Trotskyism, which played a key role in setting up the PS—Lutte ouvrière, the Pabloite New Anticapitalist Party (NPA), or the lambertiste Independent Democratic Workers Party—they speak for privileged layers of the upper-middle class.

Workers are increasingly aware of their hostility to these groups. Protesters threw ex-lambertiste and ex-PS senator Jean-Luc Mélenchon out of one recent demonstration, shouting, “Leave, Mélenchon”, “Out with the PS”, “Hey you Senator, you did all the dirty deals” and “Neither God, nor master, nor Mélenchon.”

To contain the class struggle, the NPA is proposing an alliance stretching from the PS and the unions to the pseudo-left: “The path that is open can be extended to weave a united front bringing together unions, parties and associations of the social movement around common demands, a front with a long-term perspective for a broad convergence, for a general strike to make Macron retreat.”

This is cynical double-talk. Workers are not moving in the direction of a general strike to make a reactionary politician “retreat,” but to force him out. The NPA, moreover, is promoting a broad alliance of parties and unions that have helped implement the austerity policies Macron is now aiming at the workers. If one translated the NPA’s statement into plain English, it would say: “We are betraying you.”

The NPA and its allies play a carefully rehearsed role, to wear down opposition to militarism and austerity and allow Macron’s policies to pass. The unions are calling rotating transit strikes two days a week, until June. These will inconvenience and irritate the public, while leaving Macron in power and allowing him to wait for the end of the strike to announce the promulgation of his decree privatizing the SNCF, which he was negotiating with the unions only last month.

There is nothing for workers to negotiate with Macron. His policy is illegitimate and anti-democratic. In 2016, the unions negotiated the PS labour law that provides the basic framework for Macron’s decree and allows the unions and employers together to suspend the protections of the Labour Code and attack wages and conditions. The law was passed without a vote in parliament, using emergency powers, despite 70 percent popular opposition.

President François Hollande’s PS government violently repressed mass protests against the labour law during the state of emergency. This state of emergency was itself a political fraud, imposed in response to attacks carried out by Islamist networks that were in fact working under the protection of the intelligence services, as they helped wage NATO’s proxy war in Syria.

Macron was elected by default last year. Faced with the choice between the ex-banker and the unpopular neo-fascist candidate Marine Le Pen, less than half of voters participated in the legislative elections that gave Macron’s party a majority. Nonetheless, the parliament voted an enabling act adding vast powers to the PS labour law allowing Macron to slash working conditions by decree. Under this legislation, the unions have already approved contracts facilitating job cuts in auto and sub-minimum wages in the chemical industry.

The revolutionary struggles developing against Macron will inevitably bring workers into conflict with the parties of what has passed for the post-1968 “left.” This underscores the significance of the foundation in 2016 of the Parti de l’égalité socialiste (PES), the French section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). It re-established the presence of Trotskyism in France, fighting for the revolutionary mobilization of the working class against the pseudo-left and all the capitalist parties.

As the union bureaucracies openly participate in implementing austerity, the PES calls for the formation of rank-and-file organizations in workplaces, schools and working-class communities across France. These are critical to provide workers and youth with forums to discuss and organize opposition to the social attacks and war plans of the entire political establishment.

The PES will fight to connect the growth of rank-and-file organizations and of the class struggle to an internationalist, socialist and anti-war movement in the European and international working class to take state power and reorganize economic life on the basis of social need, not private profit. It appeals to workers and youth entering into struggle to support the PES and the ICFI, study its programme, and make the decision to join and build the Trotskyist movement.

Australia proposes visas for white South Africans

Max Newman & Mike Head

The Australian government, notorious around the world for blocking refugee boats and indefinitely detaining asylum seekers, is pushing ahead with plans to grant humanitarian visas to selected white South African farmers.

After first announcing on March 14 that the farmers “deserve special attention and we’re certainly applying that special attention now,” Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton this week declared he is considering “several” such visa applications.

Around the world, more than 65 million people are facing closed borders as they flee persecution and wars, many as a result of military interventions by the US and its allies, including Australia. Nearly a million Rohingya refugees are currently living in squalor and danger in tents and huts in impoverished Bangladesh, driven out of Burma by the military supported by the Western-backed government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

While shutting the country’s borders to these desperate people, Australia’s government is moving to grant expedited visas to white South Africans. Dutton last month provocatively declared that the farmers deserved help “from a civilised country like ours,” claiming they face “horrific conditions” of violence and seizures of their land. South Africa called in Australia’s high commissioner to demand an explanation.

Dutton has responded by ramping up his inflammatory remarks this week. He accused the South African government of falsely claiming, for “domestic” reasons, that the Australian government had retracted his comments. “There has been no retractions of my comments or our desire to assess some of these cases,” he told Sky News.

In his original remarks, Dutton insisted that the white farmers were hard workers who “want to contribute to a country like Australia.” He continued: “We want people who want to come here, abide by our laws, integrate into our society, work hard, not lead a life on welfare.”

In other words, the farmers should be prioritised because, unlike other refugees, they will supposedly “integrate,” be law-abiding and not seek to live on welfare benefits. These remarks highlight the racist character of Australian immigration policy, which features the demonisation of asylum seekers, especially those from Asia and the Middle East, by successive Liberal-National and Labor governments.

Dutton’s remarks recall the “White Australia” policies of the 19th and first half of the 20th century, which barred the immigration of people to Australia based on skin colour. Both Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop defended Dutton’s comments, while hypocritically insisting that Australia’s humanitarian visa program is non-discriminatory.

Bishop denied there was a double standard in Dutton speaking up for white South African farmers, but not Palestinian farmers persecuted by Israel. “What we do in our humanitarian visa program is assess visas on their merits and that’s what Peter Dutton as home affairs minister does every day,” she said.

In reality, Australia’s refugee and immigration policy has long been thoroughly discriminatory, with nearly all visas tied to selecting people on the basis of their wealth, employability, education levels, health status and English language proficiency, as well as their religion.

While handpicking small numbers of people for humanitarian visas, Australia’s bipartisan “border protection” regime violently turns back or imprisons all asylum seekers who try to reach Australia by boat. The Greens-backed Gillard Labor government reopened the camps on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island in 2012.

Last week, the UNHCR rejected Dutton’s call for special treatment for South African farmers, saying priority should be given to refugees, including children, detained by Australia for years on the remote island of Nauru.

By alleging widespread violence against white farmers, Dutton is echoing sensationalist campaigns by Murdoch media tabloids and right-wing web sites that have made similar calls for the Trump administration and other governments to come to the farmers’ “rescue.” Former prime minister Tony Abbott quickly backed Dutton, claiming that 400 farmers were murdered over the past 12 months.

According to various sources, including the fact-checking organisation Africa Check, the reports of widespread murders and land seizures are vastly exaggerated. More reliable statistics indicate that there were 84 farm murders in 2017, with 59 victims being white farmers.

This level has not changed significantly over the past two decades. It is part of a wider pattern of killings and home robberies that reflect the immense social and class tensions wracking the country, where the African National Congress (ANC) government has enriched a wealthy capitalist elite while presiding over worsening poverty and inequality since taking office in 1994, replacing the decades-long apartheid regime.

What has changed over the past year is that the increasingly discredited ANC, now led by the multi-millionaire former trade union leader President Cyril Ramaphosa, has desperately sought to revive its electoral fortunes by promising to shift its “land reform” policy to head off discontent.

The overwhelming majority of South Africa’s commercial agricultural land, about 80 percent, remains in the hands of 1 percent of the population, nearly all white farmers, except for a small number of wealthy black operators. This is despite the ANC, then led by Nelson Mandela, promising in 1994 that 30 percent of agricultural land would be transferred to black owners by 1999. According to the latest statistics, only about 8 percent of the land has been transferred under the so-called land reform program.

This became a major issue in Ramaphosa’s bid last year to oust his predecessor Jacob Zuma. As a result, two months ago, the ANC backed a motion in the South African parliament to amend the country’s constitution to allow for land expropriation without compensation. A parliamentary committee was appointed to report back by August 30 on the proposal, which would require a two-thirds majority in parliament and ratification by six of the country’s nine provinces.

At the same time as holding out the promise of land distribution, Ramaphosa assured the financial markets that no “smash and grab” land transfers would be permitted, nor would any harm to the economy. Nevertheless, some wealthy farmers could now face the prospect of having their holdings expropriated.

Dutton, Abbott and others, including Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party, are seizing on the South African crisis as part of their efforts to whip up a nationalist and xenophobic constituency domestically. Last month, several hundred people, mostly white South African immigrants, marched through Brisbane, Dutton’s home city, demanding support for his offer of visas for farmers, particularly their families and friends.

Some media commentators have touted Dutton as a possible replacement for Turnbull, whose government is showing signs of unravelling. Last December, Turnbull elevated Dutton to the new position of home affairs minister, allocating him vast repressive powers. In effect, Dutton became a “national security” supremo, in charge of Australia’s intelligence agencies, immigration department, the Australian Border Force, the Australian Federal Police, “cyber security” and citizenship laws.

Sri Lankan prime minister narrowly survives no-confidence resolution

K. Ratnayake

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe survived a no-confidence motion by 122 to 76 votes after a 12-hour parliamentary debate last Wednesday. The motion was moved by the Joint Opposition, a parliamentary faction led by former president Mahinda Rajapakse. The group has publicly vowed to bring down the government.

The main pretext of the no-confidence motion was a multi-billion rupee scam involving Central Bank bonds and Perpetual Treasuries, a financial company, two months after President Maithripala Sirisena took office in January 2015. Wickremesinghe is accused of appointing and defending former Central Bank governor Arjun Mahendran, who was implicated in the scandal.

The motion also accused Wickremesinghe, who was law and order minister, of failing to promptly stop anti-Muslim riots by Sinhala Buddhist extremists last month in the Kandy district.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which is led by Sirisena, is a partner of the so-called national unity government with Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP).

SLFP parliamentarians were politically divided before Wednesday’s vote—41 supported the government and 54 were with Rajapakse. The no-confidence motion deepened the factional tensions, further destabilising the government. On Wednesday, 16 SLFP parliamentarians loyal to Sirisena voted for the opposition resolution and at least 20 abstained.

Since the humiliating defeat of ruling coalition candidates in February’s local government elections, Sirisena has sought to distance his SLFP loyalists from the government. The president did not publicly oppose the no-confidence motion but advised SLFP members to vote according to their “conscience.” Senior SLFP minister Nimal Siripala de Silva demanded that Wickremesinghe resign before the parliamentary debate, a proposal widely interpreted as a political message from Sirisena.

Sirisena has not publicly explained what he will do after a faction of his group endorsed the no-confidence motion. Wickremesinghe simply declared he would continue with the unity government after discussions with the president. Senior members of the UNP, however, are demanding the removal of SLFP ministers who voted with the opposition. Adding to Wickremesinghe’s crisis, the SLFP ministers said they would not resign, declaring that the president was leader of the government.

The differences between Sirisena, Wickremesinghe and Rajapakse, however, are entirely tactical. The principal concern of the ruling class is a growing financial crisis and the mounting political opposition of workers, youth and the rural poor to the government’s austerity measures.

Sirisena was elected president, with Wickremesinghe’s backing, in 2015 by exploiting the mass opposition to Rajapakse’s autocratic rule and anti-democratic attacks on social rights.

While the incoming administration introduced some cosmetic measures, mounting economic problems forced it to negotiate an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout loan and implement the IMF’s austerity dictates. The past two years have been marked by increasing struggles of workers, students and farmers, as well as Tamils in the north and east, whose conditions were devastated by war.

Underscoring this popular opposition, on Tuesday thousands of workers at Colombo’s Katunayake international airport staged a wild-cat strike, blocking access roads and demanding higher wages. The militant walkout ended after government ministers quickly promised to grant the strikers’ demand.

At the same time, over 15,000 non-academic university workers remain on strike after walking out indefinitely in February. They are demanding higher wages and pension and medical schemes.

A day before the no-confidence debate, Central Bank Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy pointed to the economic crisis and outstanding IMF demands. “We need to move away from the current political instability and achieve a stable outcome soon,” he warned.

Coomaraswamy said the government should have implemented a new fuel price formula—i.e., raised prices in line with the world market—as previously demanded by the IMF.

“The deadline was missed as political instability struck in the wake of the local government election results,” Coomaraswamy said. “A similar price transfer of electricity has been set for September but it is unclear whether the government will meet it.”

The Rajapakse group’s no-confidence resolution had nothing to do with the Central Bank bond scam or attacks on Muslims. The former Rajapakse regime and its close associates were mired in nepotism, corruption and Sinhala chauvinism.

Like Sirisena and Wickremesinghe, Rajapakse nurtured extreme-right Sinhala Buddhist groups and gave them a free hand to provoke anti-Tamil and anti-Muslim riots. Movements such as Bodu Bala Sena and Maha Sohon Balakaya, which were involved in the recent attacks on Muslims, began during Rajapakse’s rule. Local members of the Rajapakse-led Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) have been arrested for their involvement in the anti-Muslim attacks in the Kandy district.

Rajapakse’s SLPP won a majority of local government positions in the February elections by capitalising on the widespread popular opposition to the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration. Rajapakse and his allies are building an extreme-right movement, appealing to the military, the Buddhist hierarchy and other right-wing forces to take on the working people.

Parliamentarians from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the main bourgeois Tamil party, opposed Wednesday’s no-confidence motion. The TNA supported Sirisena’s election as president and has been a close ally of the pro-US government since then. Serving the geopolitical interests of US and India, the TNA calculates that the best way to secure the interests of the Tamil elite is by assisting the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration.

Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake told parliament the no-confidence motion was “politically motivated” by the Rajapakse camp, but falsely claimed it was “against corruption and racism.”

The JVP manoeuvres between all factions of the ruling elite. It backed Rajapakse to come to power in 2005 and ten years later, in 2015, supported Sirisena. The JVP served for four months on Sirisena’s national executive council to help stabilise his regime.

The desperate right-wing manoeuvres of these competing factions are a warning to the working class. The ruling class is committed to implementing the IMF’s demands and has already deployed police and military against workers, students and farmers opposing the government’s attacks on living conditions. Facing a worsening economic crisis, the factions are all moving toward the imposition of dictatorial forms of rule.

The working class must build its own independent socialist movement to rally poor farmers and youth, and fight for a workers’ and peasants’ government to implement socialist policies. This is the perspective advanced by the Socialist Equality Party.

Haitian army general staff appointed amid tensions with the Dominican Republic

John Marion

Recent events show that workers and peasants face grave dangers as the ruling elite on both sides of Hispaniola resurrect figures from their violent pasts.

Haitian President Jovenel Moïse announced on March 13 the appointment of six general staff members for the reconstituted Forces Armées d’Haïti. All six held senior posts in the FAd’H before it was disbanded by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1995. Three have blood on their hands from the period of the Raoul Cédras military dictatorship in the early 1990s.

Colonel Jean-Robert Gabriel, a new assistant chief of staff, was convicted in absentia for his role in the April 1994 Raboteau Massacre under Cédras. After his appointment to the new general staff was announced, the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, which had secured his conviction in connection with Raboteau in 2000, issued a press release noting that not only was he complicit in the massacre, but he also was a torturer under Cédras.

A Haitian court overturned Gabriel’s conviction in 2006, using a technicality it had dredged up from a 1928 law passed during the American occupation.

Brigade General Sadrac Saintil, the new army chief of staff, was a Lieutenant Colonel during the Cédras regime and participated in the official whitewash of the Raboteau Massacre.

Another assistant chief of staff in the resurrected army, Derby Guerrier, had his assets frozen by the US Treasury in 1993 because of his role in the Cédras dictatorship. The current acting commander in chief of the FAd’H, Jodel Lesage, served in the military of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and was trained by the US military as a member of the Leopard Corps.

In announcing the appointments, Moïse claimed that the army will be used to manage responses to natural disasters and as a coast guard. He undoubtedly views it as a replacement for the United Nations’ hated forces and the US military, which deployed far fewer marines after Hurricane Matthew than after the 2010 earthquake.

The US, France, and the UN view the Haitian National Police, which they helped build up to 15,000 members, as a more effective means of suppressing domestic unrest than military troops. US Senator Marco Rubio had this tactic in mind when he pretended last month to oppose Moïse’s military appointments, telling the Miami Herald, “I continue to question why, with so many other needs, Haiti would pursue creating an army.”

While the reconstituted army has fewer than 200 troops at present, Haitian Defense Minister Hervé Denis plans to recruit 5,000.

Despite his protestations about human rights, Moïse also sees the army as a means of addressing tensions along the border with the Dominican Republic. There is currently no criminal extradition treaty between the two countries, but in March the Dominican military demanded the extradition of a Haitian suspected in the murder of a Dominican husband and wife in Pedernales.

In response, Haitian judge Françoise Morailles told Le Nouvelliste that “more than ever it is time for the FAd’H…to get to work on the violent situation with which Haitians find themselves confronted at the border.”

Ramfis Domínguez Trujillo, the grandson of murderous dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, has announced his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election in the Dominican Republic. According to a Gallup poll last month, 42 percent of Dominicans support his candidacy while 51 percent are opposed. In order to give his campaign a populist air, Trujillo is promising to institute anti-corruption measures that would include 30-year jail terms for guilty officials.

More ominously, he is proposing to build a border wall between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is already monitoring parts of the border with drones and cameras.

On Sunday, according to the Providence Journal, Trujillo told a group of Dominican emigrants in Rhode Island that “we need to hold a tough and firm stance before the peaceful Haitian invasion. We need to remove all Haitians who are in the country illegally.”

In the Pedernales case, a Haitian named Edner Noël is accused of murdering a couple on whose Dominican ranch he had worked. He was captured and jailed in Haiti after crossing the border.

After the murders, vigilantes drove through Pedernales in a pickup truck with a loud speaker on March 13 and demanded that all Haitians leave within 24 hours. At least 250 families fled across the border to Anse-à-Pitres. Dominican President Danilo Medina ordered the deployment of 60 soldiers to Pedernales, along with 30 anti-riot police.

There are conflicting reports of whether Haitians had been killed in retaliation, with the mayor of Anse-à-Pitres on the Haitian side of the border telling Le Nouvelliste that he had heard reports of deaths. Tensions continued to be high two weeks after the murders, with the international market still closed by Dominican authorities.

In a second incident, a Dominican was murdered on March 19 in Barahona province, with a Haitian co-worker named Jacques Estimphil accused of the crime. The Haitian refugee support group GARR told Alterpresse that approximately 100 people had fled across the border to Haiti to avoid reprisals. Dominican soldiers stopped people who were trying to flee and demanded bribes of 150 pesos.