‘The Fusion Doctrine’ A Totalitarian Takeover

Julian Rose

It has become increasingly apparent throughout the past decade that the nation state, and the traditional notion that it represents a culturally cohesive citizen’s platform, is no longer a valid supposition.

In Europe, countries have been stripped of their status as individual nations overseen by elected governments. They have been turned into corporatist fiefdoms having their own agendas and their own means of achieving them. The chief amongst these agendas is the domination of all spheres of the market place via the overt influence of government. And the method of achieving this end is extortion – buying one’s way into positions of leverage.

This would not be possible, of course, if parliamentarians refused to bend to the temptation of corruption. But as we now see on a virtually daily basis, the great majority of these ‘representatives of the people’ are themselves severely lacking in moral fiber and only too ready to do what is asked of them, in order to remain in power.

But the problem goes deeper. Other institutions with a remit to inform and educate, such as the media, leaders of national education programmes and the church also appear incapable of realizing a vision of any depth or purpose – equally allowing themselves to be led by the corporatist agenda.

An increasingly significant number of citizens now feel that there is no trust-worthy party to turn to at election time; whereas those who continue to place their faith in one or other party, allow themselves to be swayed by the ubiquitous nature of state propaganda – and not by their better instincts. This propaganda is corporation infused and is tied-into the deliberate promotion of an increasingly “me, me” agenda. Materialistically inclined consumers and many of those reacting to the dog eat dog political agenda of the day, appear to believe that any sort of resistance to the dominant trend is pointless, preferring to think only about their own needs and wishes and how to get the best out of a bad situation.

The most recent twist in this trend has been the promotion of ‘gender bending’ or what I prefer to call ‘gender ending rights’. I refer to the deliberate spreading of a fashion to change one’s sex if one doesn’t feel ‘comfortable’ with one’s gender of birth. At the core of this sex-ploitation is a plan to do away with gender altogether and to replace human reproduction with a commercially lucrative market for designer babies. A clear mark of the perversion that underlines the coldly calculating methodology employed by a deeply disturbed and power obsessed elite.

The corrosive affect of the perverted top down stranglehold on society is undermining the moral fiber once characteristic of independent nations, leading to a state of permanent social unease and deprivation. Throughout Europe, North America and other westernized neoliberal capitalist countries, corporate deep state driven solution to this widespread sense of dispossession – is war. The constant hype surrounding war and ‘terrorism’ keeps people in a permanent state of anxiety and placates them into accepting unacceptable solutions to the continuing state of societal malaise. A malaise that goes under the deceptive misnomer of ‘peace’.

Leading the pugilistic charge is the USA. The rhetoric comes from the President, but the heavy guns in the background are representatives of the military industrial complex with its head quarters in the Pentagon. Behind them, as more people are becoming aware, is the shadow government/deep state which ultimately calls all the shots and masterminds the timing and intensity of the war rhetoric. This war warning siren is at its loudest when there is some particularly unpleasant internal news to keep out of the spotlight.

Presently that news is that the US has just run-up its highest trade deficit for a decade – $55.5 billion – and is in a third degree phase of bankruptcy. The economy is slowing. Manufacturing orders are falling and economic conditions are reported to be deteriorating for all but the top earners. The old US pugilistic empire building role is itself under threat and someone has to be blamed for this – so Russia is once again cranked-up as the number one villain.

Owing to the US’s vast military – and the equally vast costs of maintaining its more than 1,000 strategically positioned global bases – a crisis is looming for The American Dream and the crassly materialistic sudo-paradise expectations that this dream has stood for over the past two centuries. But a crisis for the US is, as we know, also a crisis for Europe, since their economies are strongly interlinked, with or without TTIP in place.

The ideological battle between capitalism and communism has historically played-out as a ‘cold war’, sucking-in all of Europe in its wake. Now the hidden hands of the shadow government driving the global political and economic agenda are working to ratchet-up the ‘cold war’ agenda, via pumping ever more funds into the propaganda machine whose open belligerence is directed at Putin. Here, we are all led to believe, is the number one threat to the planet and prima causa of the rapidly failing dominance of the neoliberal Western led economic and military agenda.

So important is it for those who pull the strings of world affairs to keep Western populations permanently biased against the The Russian Federation – and Putin in particular – that a military strategy has been devised in which NATO has landed the star role as ‘Defender of the West’.
A role that it is hoped will be believed by those at home who worry about the US no longer properly fulfilling its job as the world’s number one despot – and as the global bringer of good tidings via its unsurpassed culinary ambassadors: Coca Cola, McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

With the US emphasis, backed by France and Britain, on a military solution to the long cold war, has come the strategic importance of ensuring the allegiance of Eastern Europe, as Eastern Europe is seen as the battle ground for the perpetually hyped ‘West versus East’ show-down. The ‘war theater’ as military strategists like to call it.

Over the past decade Poland, Romania and Lithuania have become front line nations in relation to what is described – by fake mainstream news – as ‘Russian aggression’ but which is in reality US/NATO hegemonic ambition to advance Eastwards. Poland, from where I am now writing this article, has recently become the main base of NATO’s Eastern European Command and hundreds of US missiles – under NATO’s command – are stationed at various sites on Polish soil , as well as in Romania, ringing the Western boundary with Russia.

Continued attempts are being made , via the call for further Eastern EU expansion, to also gain a further Western style foothold in the Caucasus, so that yet more US/NATO missiles can be established there, to further encircle the Russian Federation as well as put pressure on China.

The EU plays a central part in the roll-out of this aggressive militaristic strategy – more on this later. But simultaneous to the implementation of its geopolitical role as chief player on behalf of the shadow government, the EU is itself showing evidence of ever deepening fissures in its attempt to hold together ‘the Union’ as the supposed one voice socio-economic unit it was supposed to be. Cracks are appearing everywhere as the European Commission is ever more exposed as the perpetuator of a policy expressly designed for the creation of a supranational superstate; a centralized control system (based in Brussels) established to be the European blueprint of The New World Order. The purveyor of a doctrine of taking unto itself command and control of every significant aspect of the workings of the countries under its flag.

Recent examples of this are the introduction of single point centralization of all member state fiscal arrangements; secret services; banking operations; police forces and now ‘EU military unification’. A programme announced by head of the European Commission, Donald Tusk, in June 2018. ‘EU military unification’ involves the diverting of the autonomy of each EU nation state to maintain its own independent military – into a collectivized pool under the direct command of EU defence chiefs, with back-up from NATO.

The implications of this military centralization programme also suggest an equally sinister civilian lock-down. In a recent BBC TV interview, EU defence chief Federica Mogherini stated “We need to merge military and civilian policing functions.” This is a much more critical statement of intent that it might seem at first glance. A nation state without full control of its military and with its tax payers contributions being funneled into building an EU based military/police state – will not be able to defend itself without permission from Brussels. This is a key part of New World Order planning – and it is happening.

The fiasco called Brexit is at the centre of this political sell-out to the barely disguised fascistic ambitions of the EU Superstate. Under the guise of negotiating an EU exit, the reality is that a covert form of high treason is being enacted right under the eyes of UK citizens. British Prime Minister Theresa May is overseeing a strategy whereby the country’s navy, air force and army are being rapidly run-down to unworkable levels, in lock-step with EU military unification being ramped up.

Britain’s military, the largest independent unit in Europe, is being sold to Brussels – and the price is being kept secret. At the helm of this new EU army will be either a French or German high command.

The ‘centralization of all strategically important elements into a one point control unit, has been given the name ‘The Fusion Doctrine’ by the UK Ministry of Defence. The Fusion Doctrine is supposedly being established in order to counter international terrorism – but actually it is to bring together different professional bodies under a war style footing so as to exert further draconian levels of control over the civilian population. Such strategic thinking comes from Chatham House, the Atlantic Council, the Bilderberger group and other similar secret society operatives.

The implications are, of course, far reaching, but completely in line with the ambitions of the deep state shadow government: all administrative functions key to ensuring the daily functioning of a nation state are to be ‘fused’ into one centralized totalitarian control system, to an agenda overseen by the 0.5% elite banking, military industrial, energy and telecommunication providers. Not forgetting pharmaceutical, agro-industrial behemoths, corporate infrastructure conglomerates, food giants and hypermarket chiefs.

The end result is to be a structure exactly in the mold of Hitler’s proposed Fourth Reich. The founding fathers of the EU always intended their project to be a ‘Federation’ – a supranational superstate run by unelected technocrats. And this is what we’ve got.

Pumping money in behind the scenes are the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, European Central Bank and – taking a leading role – the International Bank of Settlements, based in Frankfurt. The biggest money laundering outfit in the world.

In order for this totalitarian take-over to appear to be sanctioned by the public at large, non governmental organisations (NGO’s) are being enlisted to play an increasingly important role in smoothing the way. There are a plethora of such organisations at work in the UK, all receiving direct (but largely disguised) funding from government and industry. They are involved in military and civilian deception.

For example, UK NGO’s have been revealed to have helped indirectly fund the Middle East rogue ‘peace keepers’ known as the White Helmets, who act in support of ISIS terror squads and anti Assad dissidents. NGO’s have been conscripted to play the role of putting a positive propaganda spin on secret service backed attempts to bring about regime change and similar acts of covert interference in foreign countries, since it is believed that the public will never conceive of ‘charitable’ organisations acting as CIA/MI6 and Mossad sponsored operatives. But they do.

Within UK civilian circles a government and industry supported NGO called ‘Common Purpose’ 
has taken on the remit of ‘educating’ various branches of government how to improve their public relations profiles (read: create more authentic spin) and a lot more besides. Common Purpose, like its cousins, is a propaganda machine working to undermine and destroy the traditional functions of national governments and the civil service, often on behalf of the political and economic agenda of super wealthy families such as the Soros regime, Rothschilds and Rockerfellers. The British Civil Service, once a quite respected body in its own right, has shown signs of itself being corporatised and being open to the influence of major players with ‘an agenda’.

Social engineering has become a critically important tool in spreading disinformation, and mainstream media has become the chief outlet for its dissemination. The BBC, for example, has completely failed to live-up to its reputation as an independent broadcaster of merit, becoming one of the most frequent disseminators of fake news within a veritable hornet’s nest of bought-out media enterprises now towing the toxic globalist imperial agenda.

So tight is the lid being kept on ‘don’t step out of line’ political correctness – within a world of supposed freedom of speech – that transgressing the line can amount to a criminal act; especially if it is seen as ‘dissent’ from key government policies – such as the insistence that Putin is the evil harbinger of death and destruction to the Western World.

Greens can also be found being swept along by a tide of grandiose ‘solutions’ to climate change and other environmental crises. Many buying-in to the Agenda 21 plan of shifting large segments of the population into ‘smart cities’ so as to allow countryside areas to become ‘purified’ zones and wildernesses. What would be left of farming, in this scenario, would consist of vast genetically modified and agrichemical dependent monocultures, coupled to hydroponic and nanotech laboratory food production factories.

Such regimes would supply the ‘hygienic’ staple diets for smart city occupants. Such so called ‘sustainable solutions’ are actually quasi extensions of eugenics programmes popular with Hitler, and have nothing to do with actual solutions to the process of planetary ecocide still being moved forward under the central control system’s totalitarian agenda. Many ‘green’ organisations have also become dependent upon their wealthy financiers, who often harbor strong ulterior motives for supplying their financial support.

An outstanding example of a psychopathically grandiose supposed ‘green’ initiative unleashed this year (2018), is the launching of the 5G WiFi and electromagnetic microwave network, by Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind the electric car. This scheme will up the EMF rate of mobile phone towers and street transmission installations by a drastic magnitude, at huge cost to the health and welfare of peoples, animals and the environment. It will cover every city, town and village – that goes along with it – with thousands of new microwave spewing base stations at intervals of every 5 to 8 houses in urban landscapes.

There can be little doubt that the true role of this falsely touted ‘no lag internet’ is to exert a 100% effective monitoring programme over the entire population of this planet. Not just this, but to also increase the ability to use advanced mind control techniques within areas of mass population density.

The ubiquitous spread of electromagnetic microwave technologies over the past two decades provides an essential tool for population control. Closely allied are the extraordinary powers now being held by social media and internet giants like Google and Facebook. The fact that great swathes of the population are addicted to an almost continuous use of hand held ‘smart phone’ technologies has enabled the operatives of the central control system to exert a net like influence on the population from one end of the globe to another.

In very general terms, this provides a further string to the bow of a global dumping down exercise. An exercise that continues to be applied via the dominance of toxic pharmaceuticals, processed, devitaminized – and genetically modified foods, chemically altered drinking water, sub standard air quality and atmospheric aerosol engineered nanoparticulates, to name a few. Coupled to these are the psychologically destabilising affects of TV fake news and so called ‘entertainment’ shows, general media hype and the huge number of war oriented and generally violent electronic computer games that cover the children’s toy market.

In the background to all this, is the constantly beating war drum, keeping society in a state of perpetual anxiety.

The Fusion Doctrine no doubt intends to take full advantage of artificial intelligence in its delivery of a fully functioning totalitarian take-over. The steady incremental growth of public addiction to electromagnetic microwave mobile phones, smart meters and associated smart technologies, has opened the way for upping the levels and range of control over the daily lives of millions, perhaps billions, of people. The advent of algorithyms in computer software coupled with the multiple neighbourhood transmitter boxes with their millimeter pulsed 5G microwaves, are clear signals of ‘human side-stepping’ and non-human advancement., both in the work place and at home.

The Fusion Doctrine is what stands behind ‘the internet of everything’ and the internet of everything will be powered by 5G and the 20,000 satellites its sponsors aim to launch during 2019/20 so as to cover “every square inch of the planet.”

The breadth of the agenda which I have attempted to encapsulate in this article, is far from complete. However, it is sufficient to reveal that our precious and precarious planet is in the hands of deeply disturbed individuals, exhibiting varying degrees of psychopathic compulsion. We also see, thanks to those at the forefront of exposing the horrific abuse of children by those in positions of power, that the world of politics, religion and other institutions of supposed ‘reputation’ is corrosively flawed. We see that, amongst those we have entrusted with power, are perpetrators of some of the worst crimes against humanity this planet has ever endured.

Given these facts, we cannot but reach the conclusion that, at the top end of the day to day management of this world, are a cabal of deeply psychotic criminals. Crimes against humanity start with those in power. Once ‘we the people’ see that an undetermined number of our ‘leaders’ are at the centre of a club of satanic worshiping pedophiles and child murderers, we cannot turn our backs and remain passive. To do so implicates us in the crime and ensures an inhuman future for all mankind.

Humanity is reaching breaking point. A point that has come about through many millions, if not billions, of good people suffering untold torment at the hands of oppressors of all that constitutes love, unity, freedom and spiritual radiance. But at this darkest of darkest hours, a great change is in the air.

Those who have maintained a warm hearted humanitarian stance throughout this planetary crisis are rising. Rising more and more everyday.

Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of the materialistic world of cruelty?

We are approaching a major break-through of conscious awareness and actions that come from it.

The tipping point is close at hand as rebellion simmers. Rebellion of the indestructible human spirit.

Let us channel our energies into fully exposing the criminal perpetrators.

Let us get on with the work of celebrating the value of human life.

Let us be united in our determination to succeed, for the destiny of humanity.

Six killed in “preemptive” security operation in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province

Bill Van Auken 

The bloody siege by security forces of a village in the coastal Qatif region of Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province has left at least six people dead and a number of others wounded.

The assault, described by Saudi officials as a “preemptive” security operation, saw heavily armed troops storm the village of Al-Jish after surrounding it for 15 hours. The Saudi regime claimed that the operation was aimed at capturing “terrorists” and that those killed had been given a chance to surrender but died in an “exchange of fire.”

No credibility whatsoever can be given to this official story from a monarchical dictatorship that describes anyone who opposes its rule or dares to insult the Saudi king or the country’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as a “terrorist,” whose offenses are punishable by beheading.

The Eastern Province, where the siege took place, has been the scene of continuous repression by the Saudi regime since 2011, when demonstrations broke out among the area’s Shia population demanding democratic rights and an end to the systemic discrimination exercised by the monarchy, whose rule is bound up with the official, state-sponsored religious doctrine of Wahhabism, an ultra-conservative Sunni sect.

The leader of the 2011 protests, the Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, who called for an end to the monarchy, was executed in January 2016, along with 46 others on charges of “terrorism.” Forty-three were beheaded, and four were shot to death by firing squads.

The brutal repression has left the region, which is a center of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry, but whose population is the poorest in the country, seething. Sporadic demonstrations have continued, even as the Saudi regime maintains what amounts to a military occupation.

In 2017, dozens were killed in protests over the regime’s decision to raze the historic Musawara district in Awamiyah, which had been al-Nimr’s hometown. Some 30,000 people fled the town to escape the state terror. The pounding of Awamiyah into rubble was executed shortly after Crown Prince bin Salman took the reins of power.

The Saudi regime has continued to carry out arrests, imprisonment and executions of Shia prisoners convicted in rigged trials. Among those on the Saudi death row, threatened with beheading, is Isra al-Ghomgham and her husband, Moussa al-Hashem, along with three others, who were convicted under Saudi Arabia’s notorious 2017 “counter-terrorism” law of the “crimes” of peacefully protesting against the dictatorship, chanting anti-regime slogans and posting videos of the protests on social media.

Al-Ghomgham would be the first woman to be executed for political opposition. Saudi Arabia has put many other women to death for other offenses, including adultery, for which women are routinely stoned.

The latest state violence in the Eastern Province came as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was conducting his eight-nation tour of the Middle East aimed at shoring up Washington’s anti-Iranian axis in the wake of President Donald Trump’s announcement of a planned Syria troop withdrawal, whose timetable has become ever vaguer amid suggestions that US forces could stay on indefinitely.

Saudi Arabia, one of Pompeo’s scheduled stops, is the linchpin of this axis, along with the other Sunni oil sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf.

The repression in the Eastern Province is bound up with Saudi Arabia’s regional role in promoting war against Iran along with terrorism and violence against non-Sunni populations. Among the motives for the US-backed Saudi war against Yemen, pitting the region’s richest nation against its poorest, is the fear that the rise of the Houthi rebels, who follow an offshoot of Shiism, could inspire a revolt by the impoverished working class Shia population.

Unable to achieve its objectives in Yemen, despite a savage war that has claimed the lives of at least 60,000 people and brought two-thirds of the population to the brink of starvation, the Saudi monarchy has also proven incapable of suppressing social unrest in the Eastern District and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Riyadh is going through the motions of a trial of 15 state officials charged with carrying out the gruesome murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist and former regime insider, at the country’s Istanbul consulate on October 2.

Not on trial is Crown Prince bin Salman, whom the CIA has declared with “high confidence” ordered the murder of Khashoggi. Also in doubt is the status of his senior advisor, Saud al-Qahtani, who reportedly participated in the abduction, torture and murder of Khashoggi via a Skype connection between Riyadh and the Istanbul consulate. Turkish intelligence reported that he had instructed the 15-member assassination team sent to Istanbul: “Bring me the head of the dog.”

During the course of the assassination, bin Salman sent at least 11 messages to al-Qahtani. The leader of the assassination team was recorded by Turkish intelligence as telling Qahtani, “tell your boss” that the job had been completed.

Qahtani has been reported sighted in various parts of Saudi Arabia and is apparently not being detained or being brought into the Saudi court. His prosecution would only point to bin Salman’s role as the chief instigator of the murder.

In a conference call with the media, a senior US State Department official said that the Trump administration was “pleased” to see the beginning of the trial of the alleged Khashoggi assassins but added that the legal process had not yet “hit that threshold of credibility and accountability.”

How such a “threshold” could be reached without the indictment of bin Salman, Trump’s closest ally in the Arab world, is unclear, to say the least.

While the brazenness of the Khashoggi assassination triggered a brief wave of protest within the US political establishment and the media—including a Time magazine cover—the issue has now been largely dropped.

Both of the major US capitalist parties support the continuation of the alliance between US imperialism and the House of Saud, which has been the axis of counterrevolution in the Middle East for over seven decades.

Despite the passage of largely symbolic resolutions in the US Senate last month condemning bin Salman for the murder of Khashoggi and calling for an end to US support for the near-genocidal Saudi war against Yemen, Washington’s support for Riyadh continues unabated.

Under a deal approved by the State Department last month, nearly $200 million worth of upgrades to Saudi Arabia’s missile defense systems are being carried out by American military contractors.

Meanwhile, the weapons used in the repression of oppressed workers in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern District are largely supplied by the US, while the special operation troops that carry it out are trained and advised by the US military.

Report: Police gave neo-Nazi rioters free rein in Chemnitz, Germany

Martin Nowak

Between August 26 to September 1, the city of Chemnitz in Saxony was the scene for one of the largest violent neo-Nazi mobilizations in Germany’s post-war history. Far-right-wing thugs chased immigrants on the streets and raided left-wing clubs and a Jewish restaurant.

According to data from the German government, 112 far-right-wing crimes were committed in Chemnitz between August 26 and October 11. These offences included the display of symbols of banned organisations, assault and violations of the Explosives Act. In addition, during this period, a terrorist organisation called “Revolution Chemnitz” was formed, which planned attacks on foreigners and political opponents of the far-right.

The events in Chemnitz were preceded by a stabbing death on the fringes of the Chemnitz City Festival of the 35-year-old German-Cuban Daniel H. The exact circumstances of the attack remain unclear, but just a few hours after the incident the stabbing figured prominently in far-right networks and Germany’s tabloid newspapers. The reports described Daniel H. as the victim of criminal refugees who were sexually threatening women. This version of events turned out to be entirely fictitious but was used to encourage right-wing extremists from all over Germany and Europe to travel to Chemnitz.

In one of its recent editions, Der Spiegel magazine published an article describing the shocking events in Chemnitz based on an internal police report. The report makes clear that although the police were well informed about the activities of the far right, they did nothing to stop the neo-Nazis.

With regard to the riots in Chemnitz the magazine writes: “the police could have been well prepared.” This is confirmed by “their own internal daily activity book”. Already “at just after ten o’clock” on Monday the police in Chemnitz received their first notifications about the alleged incident, including a WhatsApp message from Leipzig referring to a “a far-right mobilisation to Chemnitz”. Then, at around 13.00 the German state domestic intelligence agency (LfV) declared it expected numbers of far-right demonstrators in the “lower to middle thousands”.

Police officials had insisted upon “receiving the secret service information in written form, only in this form could it used to assess the situation,” Der Spiegelwrites. The LfV had fulfilled this “wish” and outlined “a clear scenario”. The LfV report referred to a “very high degree of emotionalisation”. The alleged manslaughter in Chemnitz was seen as “a welcome occasion for renewed physical confrontation and targeted confrontations with refugees, asylum seekers and political opponents,” the intelligence agency report read. Attacks on refugee centres and election campaign offices were not ruled out.

Further information came “from other sources”. For example, the Thuringian police believed “that up to 40 dangerous fans of the Rot-Weiß Erfurt football club were on their way”. The police also expected ‘problematic fans’ from Halle and Leipzig” would travel to Chemnitz along with “far-right thugs” from Salzgitter. The state of Baden-Württemberg reckoned “with arrivals from Switzerland and France”. At 16.27 the state police operations center in Thuringia reported internally that “A man with ‘contact with 6,000 skinheads’ was mobilising for Chemnitz by SMS.”

Despite the warnings, the Chemnitz police did nothing. According to the internal situation report the “letter from the state intelligence agency was only actually completed at ….more than four hours after the telephone warning”. An offer by Lower Saxony interior minister Boris Pistorius, “to send his Thuringia riot police to Chemnitz,” was turned down with the remark: “The situation is under control.” When the Chemnitz police force finally requested “reinforcements” at 19:06, police commanders reported that “no further forces were available”.

Shortly afterwards, police in the city center lost control. Der Spiegel writes: “At 8 pm, the masses began running. Stones flew. At 20:02, police reported: ‘With current forces, a separation of both camps is hardly possible.’ Hooded persons were shouting out: ‘National Resistance’. 20:25. Protesters break out of the Pro Chemnitz demonstration. “Police forces are not enough to prevent this...15 protesters storm a house and break down apartment doors in Theaterstraße.”

That same evening, a group of neo-Nazis also attacked the Jewish restaurant, Shalom. Once again there was no sign of the police, although they knew about the planned attack. According to Der Spiegel, reports came in at 21.47 that “20-30 masked persons armed with stones were moving towards Brühl and the Shalom restaurant”. Although the brutal attack was obviously motivated by anti-Semitism the police initially wrote of a “complaint of attempted damage to property”. Only later was the case “correctly assessed” with the words: “Suspicion of dangerous bodily injury” and suspicion of a far-right motivated deed “with an anti-Semitic background”.

According to Der Spiegel, state authorities “failed for days” and the police were “hopelessly overwhelmed” in Chemnitz. The “vacuum” was then used by “the right wing to spread their ideology, sometimes with brutal force”. In the end, “extremists even fantasised about a terrorist attack.”

In reality, the “reconstruction” of events by Der Spiegel permits only one conclusion: what took place in Chemnitz were stage managed far-right mobilisations and riots which were not only permitted and tolerated by sections of the state apparatus, but possibly even received their active support. Links between right-wing extremists, the police and the state apparatus are manifest in the state of Saxony.

Immediately after the events in Chemnitz, the World Socialist Web Site pointed out the close cooperation taking place between the police and government in the far-right riots. Among other incidents, a prison officer in Saxony forwarded the arrest warrant for a 22-year-old Iraqi to leading right-wing extremists in order to incite the neo-Nazi mob. Leading politicians, such as the Saxony premier Michael Kretschmer (Christian Democratic Union) and the federal interior minister Horst Seehofer (Christian Social Union) expressed their solidarity with the extreme right-wing protests, while the head of Germany’s federal intelligence agency at the time, Hans-Georg Maassen, went so far as to deny that the far-right attacks had even taken place.

British prime minister suffers second defeat at hands of pro-European Union MPs

Robert Stevens 

On Wednesday, British MPs voted 308 to 297 for an amendment put forward by pro-European MPs—led by pro-Remain Conservative Dominic Grieve—giving UK Prime Minister Theresa May just three sitting days to present a “Plan B” if parliament votes against her proposed Brexit deal with the European Union.

It is expected that MPs will vote by a significant margin against May’s deal next Tuesday evening.

Wednesday’s vote means that May will have less than a week to produce an alternative plan—until Monday, January 21—for a vote by MPs. With the UK set to exit the UK in less than 80 days, legislation passed previously allowed her three weeks to come up with another Brexit plan. She was relying on taking any debate and subsequent vote in Parliament right down to the wire—leaving recalcitrant MPs with a choice of backing her deal or facing a chaotic “no-deal Brexit”—as the Brexit timetable expired.

May had already postponed a vote on her EU deal by over a month, cancelling a vote scheduled for December 11 at the last minute. She was expected to lose that vote by a massive majority.

Wednesday’s vote was the second defeat of the government in less than 24 hours, as a result of pro-Remain Tories blocking with the opposition parties. On Tuesday evening, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn whipped his MPs to support a backbench amendment to the finance bill tabled by leading Blairite Yvette Cooper. The amendment, restricting the government’s tax powers unless a no-deal Brexit is taken off the table, resulted in a 303 to 296 government defeat, with 20 pro-EU Tory MPs backing it.

The amendment put forward Wednesday by Grieve was supported by former Tory ministers Sir Oliver Letwin, Jo Johnson (the brother of hard Brexiteer and former Foreign Minister Boris Johnson) Guto Bebb and Sam Gyimah. Crucially for the Remainers, an amendment to the EU (Withdrawal) Act passed before the Christmas recess—also authored by Grieve—allows MPs to amend any government statement following a Brexit defeat. This allows amendments to be put by the Remain wing demanding that the UK stay in the EU Single Market and Customs Union post-Brexit, as well as other amendments seeking to delay the process.

The pro-Remain Financial Times described the passage of Cooper’s amendment on Tuesday as marking “the start of a parliamentary war of attrition against a no-deal Brexit.”

That vote took place amid extraordinary scenes, as MPs supporting May’s position and hard Brexiteers took turns denouncing the House of Commons speaker, John Bercow, for allowing the amendment to be heard. May had been working on the assumption that Bercow would discard the amendment for procedural reasons, as was his prerogative.

Despite party affiliation or political beliefs, the speaker is duty bound to remain impartial and is not permitted to vote. But such is the crisis of the British bourgeoisie engendered by Brexit that Bercow, a Remain supporter whose wife had a “Bollocks to Brexit” sticker in her car, deemed it necessary to come forward and give the Remain camp a shot in the arm.

Hard Brexiteer Tory Peter Bone told Parliament he had checked with parliamentary officials the previous evening and was informed that putting forward an amendment to a parliamentary business motion would be “totally out of order.” Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the House of Commons, said Bercow should publish the advice he received from the Commons clerk, Sir David Natzler.

BBC parliamentary correspondent Mark D’Arcy commented that Bercow’s decision “drove a coach and horses through accepted normal practice, and will have huge implications for the course of Brexit.” The Commons will now “have a chance to vote on alternative policies. Everything from a ‘managed no-deal’ to a further referendum, via a ‘Norway option,’ or a reheated version of the current deal could be on the table.”

May came to office after her predecessor, David Cameron, resigned, having called the June 2016 referendum and led the failed Remain campaign. May then called a general election in 2017, in which she lost her majority and was forced to rely on the 10 MPs of the hard-Brexit-supporting Democratic Unionist Party to rule as a minority government. She has been able to stagger on, while the Remain and Brexit wings of the ruling class fight out their contending strategies on behalf of British imperialism, only because of the role of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters.

In recent weeks, Corbyn has repeatedly stated his preference for bringing about May’s downfall via a general election. But calling a vote of no-confidence in the government is the only means for the main opposition party to bring about a general election.

Despite the unprecedented crisis facing May, Corbyn has steadfastly refused to do this. He and his main ally, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, have said that a no-confidence vote would take place at a time when it would do maximum damage to May. Most commentators had expected one to be moved following the vote on May’s deal next week.

Labour front bencher Barry Gardiner told the BBC Today programme yesterday morning that “it is expected that the government next Tuesday will be defeated on the most important piece of legislation that has come before Parliament in 50 or more years… Obviously, the next thing to do immediately after that is for there to be a vote of confidence in the government.”

However, Corbyn’s office said a no-confidence motion would not “necessarily” be immediately lodged. His spokesman dismissed Gardiner’s comments as “speculation.”

A Labour spokesman later told the New Statesman that there should be a general election, but refused to sanction the only action that could allow one. He said, “If the government is defeated next week, it will clearly have lost the confidence of Parliament and there should be a general election. We have always said that it’s a matter of when, not if we table a motion of no-confidence, and we’ll judge the timing day by day.”

Corbyn heads a party whose MPs do not want to come to office, but rather seek to ensure a change in orientation under the Tories. These are the forces he allows to dictate events thanks to his refusal to mobilise the massive opposition to the Labour right wing and his non-stop efforts to convince the ruling class that he can be trusted with the fate of British capitalism.

Labour’s pro-Remain Blairites are in favour of a no-confidence motion being moved, anticipating that it will fail and thereby clear the decks for delaying Brexit and eventually securing a second referendum, in which they hope to overturn the 2016 Leave vote.

Speaking to Sky News Wednesday, Chuka Umunna said, “The two big problems we have to solve are… how to break the deadlock and… how to prevent us leaving the European Union without a deal.” This meant getting “that vote of no-confidence out of the way so that we can move on to resolving the impasse.”

With 79 days until exit day, “if you take out the weekends and Fridays when Parliament doesn’t sit, that is about 40 days to resolve this mess,” he added. “I’m not sure that quite frankly a general election is going to resolve this issue… ultimately we are going to have to refer this back to the people.”

No deal reached in US-China trade talks

Peter Symonds

Three days of talks in Beijing between US and Chinese negotiators broke up yesterday without a deal being struck to end the escalating trade war between the countries. Further talks are scheduled in Washington ahead of the March 1 deadline set by the Trump administration.

The US threat to raise tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10 to 25 percent, if no resolution is reached, underscores the one-sided and bullying character of Washington’s approach to the talks. The “negotiations” consisted of US officials insisting that Beijing meet a long list of demands, but offering nothing in return, other than not proceeding with the higher tariffs.

In a statement issued yesterday, the Office of the US Trade Representative declared that US negotiators had “conveyed President Trump’s commitment to addressing our persistent trade deficit [with China] and to resolving structural issues in order to improve trade between our countries.”

The statement noted that China had pledged to buy a “substantial amount” of US agricultural, manufacturing, energy and other products, but made clear that any deal would be “subject to ongoing verification and effective enforcement.” In other words, the onus is on China to demonstrate that it will meet US demands, with the threat of additional penalties in the background.

The New York Times noted that the US intends to maintain its tariffs placed on Chinese goods last year. “Treasury would preserve indefinitely the 25 percent tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed in July and August on $50 billion a year in Chinese goods, or roughly a tenth of American imports, and the 10 percent tariffs that he imposed in September on an additional $200 billion in Chinese goods,” it reported.

The so-called “structural issues” are not about “fair trade,” but reflect fears in Washington that China is a threat to US ambitions for global domination. Trump and his officials have repeatedly accused Beijing of the “theft” of American intellectual property and of forcing US corporations to transfer technology to their Chinese partners as the price of doing business in China.

While, prior to the talks, China had drawn up draft laws to illegalise such practices, the US demanded tougher measures. The New York Times reported that, according to unnamed US sources, American officials pressed China for more details on how it will guarantee its offers will be implemented. “Many of the administration’s trade hawks regard them as nebulous, especially when it comes to Chinese trade practices that administration officials consider unfair,” it stated.

The chief obstacle to any deal remains the “Made in China 2025” program to accelerate China’s competitiveness in key high-tech industries such as semi-conductors, commercial aircraft and electric cars. While Beijing regards these plans as essential to China’s continued economic growth, Washington is hostile to the threat that it poses not only to the dominant position of US corporations, but also to US military superiority.

While Beijing has offered to allow US corporations greater access to participation in manufacturing development in China, it is unwilling to abandon its plans to boost its industrial capabilities.

In a brief statement issued today, China’s commerce ministry put an optimistic spin on the talks, declaring there has been “broad, deep and meticulous discussions on shared observations on trade issues and structural problems, laying the foundation for addressing areas of common concern.”

Both sides are under pressure to reach an agreement. China is facing a slowdown in economic growth, in part as a result of falling exports to the US. If no deal were reached and US tariffs were raised as threatened on March 2, Chinese growth would be hard hit. Trump has also threatened to go further and impose higher tariffs on all Chinese imports to the US.

The latest sign of the slowing Chinese economy was a fall in car sales last year—the first decline in more than two decades. According to a report released yesterday, retail sales of sedans, multi-purpose vehicles and sport utility vehicles plunged by 19 percent in December—the seventh straight monthly drop.

Trump is also under pressure to reach an agreement amid a US economic slowdown and high levels of volatility on Wall Street. Sharp divisions have emerged in the White House between Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and those such as US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer who insist that China has to address not only trade imbalances, but also the so-called structural issues.

A Bloomberg article yesterday, based on unnamed sources, suggested that Trump was keen to make a deal “driven in large part by his desire for markets to rally.” However, “hawks have also been pressing the president to keep his focus on what they see as a long-term fight” to address what they term “a vast list of Chinese trade abuses.”

This week’s talks took place between mid-level officials. The US team was led by Deputy US Trade Representative Jeffrey Gerrish, who is reportedly closely aligned to Lighthizer. The next round of talks is likely to take place in Washington between Lighthizer, who was appointed by Trump to lead the negotiations, and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, President Xi’s chief economic adviser.

Any agreement, if finally reached, will be little more than a temporary truce. The Trump administration’s trade war measures against China are part of a far broader confrontation on all fronts—diplomatic and military as well as economic—that is directed at ensuring China does not threaten American global domination. As in the 1930s, the escalating economic and trade rivalry is bound up with the US preparations for a catastrophic war involving nuclear-armed powers.

Worker killed as Bangladesh police attack striking garment workers

Wimal Perera

Thousands of striking Bangladesh garment workers continued demonstrations for a fourth day on Wednesday in the face of increasingly violent police attacks. The workers, who are among the lowest paid garment employees in the world, have long been fighting for decent wages to compensate for price increases in food and other basic necessities.

On Tuesday, Sumon Mia, a 22-year-old garment worker, was killed and more than 50 others injured when police assaulted protesting workers. Sumon, who worked in the cutting section of the Anlima Textile factory in Savar’s Kornopara area, was not involved in the demonstrations but was returning home from work.

Nadid, Sumon’s work colleague, told the Bangladesh’s Daily Star newspaper that he and Sumon were walking along a road in Hemayetpur where some workers were protesting. Police suddenly arrived and began breaking up the demonstration. While the two young men were running away Sumon was hit in the chest by police gunshots and died. He was married just a year ago.

According to the Daily Star, police left the area, leaving Sumon dead on the ground. When Sumon’s co-workers took his body to the Anlima Textile plant and began protesting over his death, police opened fire with rubber bullets and baton-charged the workers. Witnesses told the newspaper that at least 11 workers were injured, including two who were hit with rubber bullets.

Yesterday police and Border Guard Bangladesh officers again used rubber bullets, as well as water cannons and tear gas, against an estimated 10,000 workers blocking a major highway at several places in the Savar industrial district, north of the capital, Dhaka.

Strikes and demonstrations also erupted at Ashulia, Gazipur, Uttara and Mirpur yesterday with at least 50,000 workers walking out of their factories in the morning to demand higher wages. Scores of workers were injured in police attacks on the protesting workers.

The industrial action and protest rallies began on Sunday when workers at the TCL 2 and Standard Group factories in Savar complained to management about low wages and discrepancies in recent pay increases. Factory authorities responded by calling the police who beat up the workers. Angered by this response, workers took to the streets and the next day were joined by others from Savar, as well as workers from Ashulia and Gazipur.

Police have also begun violent raids on workers’ homes. Imdadul Haque, a worker from the Standard Group in Savar, told the media this week: “Although we did not join the demonstrations, police came to our house and asked to see our professional identity cards. Upon seeing our ID cards, they started beating us. At one stage, police fired rubber bullets at my leg and my colleague’s leg.”

Bangladesh garment workers have been fighting since 2016 for their monthly minimum wage to be increased to 16,000 taka ($US190). In December that year about 150,000, garment workers in Ashulia demonstrated for 10 days for the pay rise.

Employers, backed by the Awami League-led government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, responded with sackings, victimisations and political frame-ups. At least 1,600 workers have been dismissed and around 1,500 accused of “inciting” industrial action, “trespass,” “vandalism” and “theft.” Most of these workers have been black-listed and are thus barred from employment at other factories.

When garment workers resumed protests last September, the Hasina government, fearful that any industrial action would rapidly escalate, announced that the minimum monthly wage would be increased on December 1 to 8,000 taka ($96), up from 5,300 taka.

The recommended pay increase, however, has only been paid to grade seven (entry-level) employees, who only constitute about 10 percent on the industry’s total workforce, with a far smaller rise for senior workers. Workers in most other grades only received a 500 taka increase.

Early last month workers began strike action again for minimum pay of 16,000 taka, with walkouts at 20 factories in Mirpur, Gazipur and adjoining districts. In line with government demands, the garment workers’ unions ordered an end to all action in the lead up to the December national elections.

Garment workers temporarily ended their agitation, but following Hasina’s “victory” in the blatantly rigged national ballot, have resumed demonstrations and industrial action. The Awami League won 288 of the 300 elected positions in the parliament.

On Tuesday, the Hasina government announced the establishment of a tripartite committee consisting of ten representatives from government, garment owners and union officials. The committee immediately held “an emergency meeting” and called on workers to present their “grievances” on the new pay structure within a month. It denounced the protesting workers as “toughs and vandals” and called for “stern action.” The meeting was presided over by State Minister for Labour Monnujan Sufian and also involved Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi.

Munshi declared that “those engaged in vandalism are not friends of the RMG [ready-made garment] trade and the lawmen have been instructed to take a tough line on the troublemakers.”

Bangladesh has about 4.5 million garment workers who produce about 80 percent or $30 billion of the country’s annual foreign exchange earnings. With garment exports as the “main pillar” of economic growth, big business and the government are determined to keep garment workers’ wages at poverty level and boost its share of the international market. Giant retailers in the US and Europe, such as H&M, Inditex, C&A, M&S, Wal-Mart, Tesco, Gap, and JC Penney, reap massive profits from Bangladesh’s low-wage regime.

The escalating police violence and ongoing government and employer attacks on garment workers are another indication that the Awami League regime is turning towards dictatorial methods, which will be used against all sections of the Bangladesh working class.

India’s “rise” and the savage exploitation of the working class

Kranti Kumara

Beset by a catastrophic foreign exchange crisis that had forced it into the arms of the IMF, India’s ruling elite abandoned in 1991 the state-led capitalist development project it had pursued for decades, and set out to make India a cheap-labor haven for global capitalism.

If the Indian bourgeoisie and the western press are to be believed, the adoption of neo-liberal, “pro-market” policies has been a stupendous success. After all, between 1993 and 2014 India’s GDP grew in real terms at an annual rate of about 7 percent per annum, resulting in nearly a quadrupling of India’s total economic output.

But India’s “rise” has been based on ruthless capitalist exploitation and the plunder of state assets and natural resources. India’s rapidly expanding working class is condemned to poverty wages, Dickensian working conditions and precarious employment, and this in a country in which public services, if they exist at all, are dilapidated and even a rudimentary social-safety net has never existed.

India has become one of the most socially unequal countries in the world. Between 1980 and 2016, the richest 10 percent of Indians captured 66 percent of all growth in income. Just the top 1 percent appropriated 28 percent—or more than two-and-a-half-times the 11 percent share of income growth that fell to the poorest 50 percent of Indians.

Further light on the rapacious growth in social inequality is shed by the figures on national income. They show that between 1991 and 2013 the labour share of national income declined from about 40 percent to 35 percent despite a massive growth in the working-class population.

The crudest expression of the gargantuan appetite of the bourgeoisie, in a country where the Global Nutrition Report 2018 found 46 million children to be stunted due to malnutrition and a further 25 million “wasted,” is the exponential growth of India’s billionaires. Whereas in the mid-1990s India was home to two billionaires with combined assets of $3.2 billion, today it boasts 131, whose wealth of $340 billion is equivalent to 15 percent of India’s GDP.

While the elite crows about India’s arrival on the world stage, the widespread and intractable social deprivation in which the vast majority of the country’s 1.3 billion people eke out their existence defies imagination.

Many of the statistics cited in this article come from UN International Labor Organization (ILO) and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) reports. Some have been rounded for convenience, and although most apply to the years 2011 or 2012, the social crisis they document has certainly not abated and most likely worsened. Currently India is under the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which combines veneration of the capitalist market and personal enrichment with rabid communalism.

Mass joblessness and under-employment

One of the most striking features of the Indian economy is its feeble labour force participation rate.

According to the latest ILO report on India, out of the country’s 860 million working-age population, that is, persons between the ages of 15 and 64, only 405 million (47 percent) are “wage-earners”—which under the ILO’s definition refers to all persons earning a living, whether as a worker, salaried professional, farmer, artisan, street-vendor or corporate executive.

India has a rapidly expanding working-age population, with young people between the ages of 15 and 34 accounting for 35 percent of India’s population. But only a fraction of the 1.3 million youth who, according to the World Bank, are entering the workforce each month, are finding employment.

In the 1970s and 1980s, when GDP grew by 3–4 percent annually, employment increased by 2 percent per year. In the 1990s, with the adoption of India’s pro-investor agenda and the closing down of sections of state-owned industry, job growth slowed to less than 1 percent per year. Currently employment growth is close to zero.

Mass joblessness and underemployment are taking a vast social toll. Business, needless to say, exploits the vast pool of unemployed and under-employed labour to depress wages and working conditions. But the scarce job opportunities also mean there is tremendous competition to enter even semi-reputable educational institutions and obtain better qualifications.

Under conditions where the Stalinist parties and the unions have suppressed the class struggle, the bleak employment prospects facing youth have fueled reactionary caste-based agitations for reservations (affirmative action) to dole out the few public sector jobs and university places on more “equitable” lines. Youth unemployment and the competition for jobs and education are also a major factor in India’s youth suicide rate, which at 35.5 per 100,000 is the highest in the world.

The following graph, excerpted from the 2018 UNDP Asia-Pacific Human Development Report, shows the increasing gap since 1991 between the numbers of working-age population and their “participation rate” in the national economy—a phenomenon which attests to the growth of “hidden” unemployment.

However, even this graph is misleading since 206 million or 51 percent of the persons deemed employed are “self-employed.” Large numbers of these subsist by engaging in small-scale vending or hawking, tilling small plots of land, and other marginal economic activities.

According to a UNDP estimate, during the period spanning 1991 to 2013, while the working age population increased by 241 million, employment increased by only 144 million.

Another striking feature of the Indian economy is the division between the so-called formal and informal sectors. The formal sector includes large-scale industry and businesses and has traditionally been subject to labour standards providing for regular employment with some sort of benefits.

The informal sector, comprised of small and medium enterprises, is almost entirely unregulated, with employers free to dictate wages and working conditions. Fully 82 percent of wage workers work in the informal sector where in 2012 the average wage was a miserable 147 rupees ($2.00) per day. In the formal sector, the average wage was considerably higher, Rs. 247 ($3.50) per day, but still by any definition a poverty wage.

Increasing “informalization” of the economy

If employment in the formal sector was once associated with more stable employment, this is no longer the case. There has been a vast increase in contract labour and other forms of precarious, lower-paid employment in the formal sector, with state-owned enterprises very much spearheading the drive to increase exploitation and gut job security.

In a 2018 report the ILO emphasizes that “[although] the organized sector has often been used synonymously with formal regular/salaried work, since the economic reforms in 1991, wage employment in the organized sector has increasingly become casual or contractual in nature, without access to social security and other benefits to the workers.”

The Modi government has peddled the lie that the solution to chronic joblessness is to allow companies to hire and fire workers at will. In March 2018, Modi and a small coterie of his ministerial minions amended labour laws to allow what they termed as “fixed-term” employment, lasting from a week to up to two years, in all industries. Even the category “fixed-term” has no meaning since the employers are allowed to terminate the “fixed-term” employees anytime.

Poverty wages

The earnings of the working class in India can only be described as ranging from the miserable to the abominable. The following graph displays the median income, which defines the midpoint of income distribution, among rural, urban and all Indian workers. According to the ILO, in 2011-12 half of rural workers earned less than US $1.85 a day. In urban areas, half earned less than $3.20 per day. Nationally the median was just $2.15 per day. It needs to be stressed that the overwhelming majority of Indian workers are casual workers whose access to even these miserable wages is precarious.

The plight of agricultural labourers and other rural workers

As indicated above, the plight of rural workers, including the tens of millions who work as agricultural labourers, is especially grave.

Faced with widespread rural distress, the Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government introduced a program in 2005 that nominally guarantees 100 days of menial minimum-wage labor to one member of every rural household, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).

The UPA did this at the urging of the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) upon whose parliamentary support it depended for survival. Touted as the exemplar of “reform with a human face,” the MGNREGS gave the Congress Party the requisite populist cover for proceeding unencumbered with implementing pro-market “reform.”

Although the Indian government has failed to live up to even the meagre promises of the MGNREGS, the scheme has come under concerted attack from the Modi government and big business for distorting the “agricultural labour market”—that is, for driving up wages!

The BJP government has slashed support for it, even though the program has been significantly oversubscribed, that is many more people have sought to exercise their MGNREGS rights than the government has places for. According to a recent report in the Indian business daily Business Standard,the funding of MGNREGS as a percentage of GDP has steadily fallen from 0.53 percent of GDP in 2010–11 to 0.42 percent in 2017–18. Adjusting for inflation the budget allocation for 2017–18 should have been greater than Rs. 710 billion ($10 billion) but the actual allocation in the budget was a mere Rs. 480 billion ($6.9 billion).

Most cruelly, the Modi government has purposely delayed paying wages for months to these impoverished workers so as to discourage them from availing themselves of this mandated “benefit.”

Countering Left Wing Extremism: Need to Look Beyond Numbers

Rajat Kumar Kujur


It has been over 50 years, and the Maoist movement in India is still not showing signs of withdrawing or weakening. Undeniably, at present, the movement is hard pressed by new challenges and it no longer inspires the buoyant optimism it did during the 1960-70 period. Yet, simultaneously, it is also true that the government has not been able to fine tune its strategies and policies to effectively deal with what was described by a former Indian prime minister as “the single biggest threat to India’s internal security.” Going forward, it is important to glean lessons from past experiences in order to counter left wing extremism (LWE) comprehensively.

Since 2015, the Union Government has been following the National Policy and Action Plan to tackle the Maoist insurgency. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs’ (MHA) data, the numbers of districts affected by Maoist violence has reduced from 106 in 2017 to 90 in 2018. Similarly, the numbers of worst-affected districts reduced to 30 in 2018 from 36 in 2017. Security forces killed 232 Maoists in 2018 while the number was 150 in 2017. Going by those statistics there seems to be no doubt about the success of the government’s counter-Maoist strategy. However, while dealing with a problem like LWE one needs to look beyond the numbers as well. Numbers are always deceptive in a conflict situation because they only portray half the truth.

As per official data, while the numbers of attacks on security personnel may have reduced in past few years, during the same period, Maoists also demonstrated their ability to carry out fatal attacks on security forces. Unfortunately India’s counter-Maoist strategy is yet to find answers to the Maoists’ use of landmines that cause massive damage to the life and morale of the security forces. Indeed, a lot of coordination between state police and central paramilitary forces operating on the ground is visible now. However, what is missing is real time intelligence. In a conflict like LWE that India faces, it is not high tech intelligence but human intelligence that holds the key.

Coercion or otherwise, it is local support for the Maoists that makes it difficult for the security forces to procure accurate information about the insurgents. On the other hand, Maoists get information on security forces’ logistics through villagers. Additionally, Maoists are extremely familiar with the topography of the forest land and the hills. Meanwhile, security forces find it difficult to keep pace with the Maoists as they fall short on accurate knowledge of the terrain. Given the situation, it is time for the local police forces to redefine their role in the counter-Maoist operations.

In 2018, Maoist penetration into India’s urban centres emerged as the greatest challenge for the government. The Maoists have carved the “Golden Corridor” (Pune-Mumbai-Ahmadabad), “Ganga Corridor” (Delhi-Kanpur-Patna-Kolkata), and the “Tri-junction” (Chennai-Coimbatore-Bengaluru) for their urban operations.  Maoists have also formed urban cells in the industrial belts of Raipur, Durg, Surat, Faridabad and Bastar. They are making steady inroads into the many of India’s semi-urban centres. While the Maoists seem to be preparing for the next stage of the ‘People’s War’ i.e. encircling the cities, the government is busy counting its success from the rural war fields.

An important development of 2018 that could lead to a perceptible change in the course of the Maoist Movement in India is the stepping down of Ganapathy and elevation of Baswaraj as the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Known to be extremely tech-savvy and equally strong in his ideological commitment and military craft, Baswaraj is a fervent advocate of the Tactical Counter Offensive Campaign (TCOC) to blunt counter-insurgency measures. His experience of leading the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) could result in a possible escalation of violence in the coming days.

Undoubtedly, the Indian government’s multi-pronged strategy in the areas of security, development, and community empowerment, have begun to show results. It is also a fact that CPI (Maoist) is experiencing one of its worst leadership crises. However, it would be useful to remember that the Maoists have survived similar situations in the past. When several analysts wrote off the Movement following the arrests of Charu Majumdar and Kondapalli Seetharamaiah in 1972 and in 1993 respectively, the group proved everyone wrong with its resurgence.

At present, the government evidently has an edge over the CPI (Maoist) but that should not lead to unrealistic assessments. Success is not always dependent merely on numbers. And the success of the counter-Maoist strategy depends much on winning the hearts and minds of the people who are yet to realise their independence. It is not just to reaffirm India’s sovereignty over its own territory; more than that, it is essential to make people realise that the sovereign power belongs to them.

Strengthening of institutions for proper implementation of government programmes is much more essential than formulation of ambitious development plans and programmes. Raising new battalions for security agencies is important but preventing youth, children and women from joining the Maoist fold is equally important. With a new general secretary at the helm of affairs at a time when general elections are fast approaching, and changes in state government leaderships in various Maoist infested states, it is certain that the CPI (Maoist) will change gears in 2019. The government of India must wake up to the winds of change in order to prevent any future ‘Spring Thunder’, for India does not need it.

Where is Kabul Headed?

Maryam Baryalay & Abdul Mateen Imran


Afghanistan is gearing up for a possible political overturn. The ongoing peace talks between the US and the Taliban; talks of withdrawal of 7000 US troops; the three-month push-back of the Afghan presidential election; and the appointment of two staunch anti-Pakistan politicians – Amrullah Saleh and Asadullah Khalid – as the ministers of interior and defense respectively, are post-signs indicative of strategic changes in the US policy towards the country, as well as Afghanistan's future path.

Dissecting the EventsWith the onset of the US launched two-party talks with the Taliban without the government of Afghanistan (GoA) at the behest of the Taliban’s insistence and rumors of a possible US troops withdrawal in late summer 2018 became an accepted fact by late autumn 2018. As the peace-talks headed by US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad began in Qatar and continued without achieving any tangible outcome, the GoA realised it had to make a move sooner than later to gain a footing in an ever-looming situation of Kabul's disadvantage. The US’s bilateral talks with the Taliban weakened the GoA's position and placed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in a precarious position, discrediting his government in the region and especially with its enemy, the Taliban.

Days ago, the Afghan presidential election was postponed by three months citing the need for additional preparation time for the polls. Many inside Afghanistan view this as a US attempt to pressurise the GoA by not financing the elections, so that the GoA accepts the interim-government solution proposed (indirectly) by the Taliban as a starting point for any further steps. If such an interim government comes to be, it would enable Washington to realise its much sought after ‘dignified exit’ from Afghanistan and the credit of succeeding in reaching a peace deal with the Taliban.

However, the GoA and the incumbent establishment in Kabul would be the main losers of such a scenario. The rationale of this scenario – a US imposed interim-government with the Taliban – has all relevant Afghan-stakeholders inside and outside the Afghan government so anxious that major opposition formations literally disintegrated at the prospect of such an outcome. Key opposition figures have either stepped aside or signaled possible alignment with a second-term Ghani government. The alternative, namely the possibility of an interim government with the Taliban (and the insofar absent clarity regarding the capacity in which they will join, given the unpredictability of decisions coming from the US) has undoubtedly become an unfavorable option for the Kabul political elite.

The appointments Saleh and Khalid, both former heads of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, must also be viewed in conjunction with President Ghani attempting to consolidate his position at home. With the appointment of these men, President Ghani has sent an clear message to all the neighbouring countries that either have or are attempting to initiate their own bilateral talks with the Taliban (Iran being the latest in the list) that any such attempts at peace will not be acceptable to the GoA, and must not be held without the GoA. The move has already generated some positive changes in public perception –  something President Ghani desperately needs given the internal pressure of growing public discontent and the overall deteriorating security situation. Both ministers are relatively popular in their ethnic communities, most prominently for their anti-Taliban and anti-Pakistan stances. Moreover, the appointment of the two – one Tajik and one Pashtun – is indeed killing two birds with one stone as it also serves as a silencer to President Ghani's Pashtun and Tajik critics and competitors. While the GoA does want to strike a peace deal with the Taliban, it wants to do this on its own terms, most likely on the terms they got in the peace deal with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami.

Likely ScenarioThe current trajectory does not indicate significant changes in the overall political and security situation in the short term. While the usual winter lull will witness a slight decrease in fighting in the provinces and major population centers, high profile installations will remain a potential target, especially in Kabul. This is because the Taliban will attempt to demonstrate their resilience and fighting morale, and the Islamic State ‘Khorasan Province’ will try to just show that they exist. In the meantime, the Afghan National Security Forces headed by the two new ministers will try to make positive inroads and gains to demonstrate the capability and capacity of the forces. The Ministry of Interior has already introduced significant disciplinary measures concerning the national police forces. These and other steps with regard to new appointments or dismissals in Kabul or the provinces are all connected to consolidating President Ghani's position and reelection chances. In this backdrop, the peace talks and the prospect of a possible peace deal will continue to take reverse steps until the presidential election is conducted, mainly because the political elite in Kabul have to align and rearrange themselves with new realities that will decide their fate.