Now Chad, then Mali: Why African Countries Are Normalizing with Israel

Ramzy Baroud

Forget the hype. Israel’s ‘security technology’ has nothing to do with why some African countries are eager to normalize relations with Israel.

What is it that Israel is able to offer in the technology sector to Chad, Mali and others that the United States, the European Union, China, Russia, India, Brazil, South Africa and others cannot?

The answer is ‘nil’, and the moment we accept such a truth is the moment we start to truly understand why Chad, a Muslim-majority country, has just renewed its diplomatic ties with Israel. And, by extension, the same logic applies to Mali, another Muslim-majority country that is ready to normalize with Israel.

Chadian President, Idriss Deby, was in Israel last November, a trip that was touted as another Benjamin Netanyahu-engineered breakthrough by the Israeli government and its allied media.

In return, Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu, paid Deby a visit to N’djamena where they agreed to resume diplomatic ties. In their joint press conference, Deby spoke of ‘deals’ signed between Chad and Israel, but failed to provide more details.

Israel may try to present itself as the savior of Africa, but no matter how comparatively strong the Israeli economy is, Tel Aviv will hardly have the keys to solving the woes of Chad, Mali or any other country on the African continent.

Israeli media is actively contributing to the fanfare that has accompanied Netanyahu’s ‘scramble for Africa’, and is now turning its focus to preparations under way for another ‘historic visit”, that of Malian President, Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga, to Israel in the “coming weeks”.

Netanyahu is keen to schedule Maiga’s trip just before the April 9 date, when Israelis go to the polls to vote in the country’s early general elections.

Israel’s motives to normalize with Africa are inspired by the same reasoning behind Netanyahu’s international outreach to South America and other regions in the global South.

Despite the Trump-Netanyahu love affair at the moment, Israel has no faith in the future of the US in the Middle East region. The current Donald Trump administration, as the previous Barack Obama administration, has made clear and calculated moves to slowly deploy out of the region and ‘pivot’ elsewhere.

This has alerted Netanyahu to the fact that Israel would have to diversify its alliances as an American veto at the United Nations Security Council is no longer a guarantor to Israel’s regional dominance.

For years, Netanyahu has pursued an alternative course, which has become the only path for Israel to escape its international isolation. Unfortunately for Palestinians, Israel’s new strategy, of seeking separate alliances with UN General Assembly members seems to be paying dividends. Israel now hopes that other countries that have historically stood on the side of Palestinians – voting for Palestinian rights as a bloc at the UN – will follow the Chad and Mali examples.

The struggle between Israel and Arab countries in Africa, according to Dan Avni – a top Israeli Foreign Ministry official during the 1950s and ‘60s – is “a fight of life and death for us.” That statement was made during a time that the US had not fully and ardently committed to the Israeli colonial project, and Israel was in a desperate need to break away from its isolation.

Following the expansion of the Israeli colonial project in Palestine and other Arab countries after the 1967 war, the US unconditional political, economic and military support for Israel has addressed many of Israel’s perceived vulnerabilities, empowering it to become the uncontested bully of the whole region. At the time, neither Africa mattered, nor did the rest of the international community.

But now, a new Great Game is changing the rules once more. Not only is the US losing its grip in the Middle East and Africa – thanks to the rise of Russian and Chinese influences, respectively – Washington is also busy elsewhere, desperate to sustain its dwindling global hegemony for a bit longer.

Although ties between Washington and Tel Aviv are still strong, Israeli leaders are aware of a vastly changing political landscape. According to Israeli calculation, the ‘fight of life and death’ is drawing near, once again.

The answer? Enticing poor countries, in Africa and elsewhere, with political support and economic promises so that they would deny Palestinians a vote at the UN.

It is no surprise that the governments of Chad and Mali are struggling, not only economically, but also in terms of political legitimacy as well. Torn in the global struggle for dominance between the US and China, they feel pressed to make significant choices that could make the difference between their survival or demise in future upheavals.

For these countries, an alliance with Israel is a sure ticket to the Washington political club. Such membership could prove significant in terms of economic aid, political validation and, more importantly, an immunity against pesky military coups.

Considering this, those who are stuck discussing the Israeli ‘charm offensive’ in Africa based on the claim of Israel’s technological advancement and hyped water technology are missing the forest for the trees.

It is important to note that it is not the road to Tel Aviv that N’Djamena and Bamako are seeking, but rather the road to Washington itself. In Africa, as in other parts of the global South, it is often the US, not the UN that bestows and denies political legitimacy. For African leaders who enjoy no democratic credence, a handshake with Netanyahu could be equivalent to a political life insurance.

So, for now, Israel will continue to walk this fine line, usurping American resources and political support as always, while learning how to walk on its own, by developing a foreign policy that it hopes will spare it further isolation in the future.

It is yet to dawn on Israeli leaders that, perhaps, a shortcut to breaking its isolation can be achieved through respecting international law, the rights of the Palestinian people and the territorial sovereignty of its neighbors.

Diplomatic ties with Chad and Mali may garner Netanyahu a few more votes next April, but they will also contribute to the Israeli illusion that it can be an international darling and an Apartheid regime, simultaneously.

More ministers quit Australia’s disintegrating government

Mike Head

Two more senior government ministers announced last weekend their decisions to quit at the imminent federal election, highlighting both the intensifying breakup of the Liberal-National Coalition and the broader fear in ruling circles of the rising social and political discontent.

Human Services Minister Michael Keenan, a prominent Liberal, announced his departure last Friday, followed the next day by Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion, the National Party leader in the Senate. That brought to three the number of such announcements in the past week, following that of Industrial Affairs and Women’s Affairs Minister Kelly O’Dwyer.

Desperate to hold his government together until the election, which he must call by mid-May, Prime Minister Scott Morrison asked all three to remain in their posts until after the poll, effectively making them lame duck ministers.

The departures are another indication of the worsening factional war tearing apart the Coalition, one of the two wings of capitalist rule since World War II. More fundamentally, the entire political establishment has become increasingly discredited and unstable over the past decade, featuring a succession of short-lived prime ministers. It is now being further destabilised by the implosion of a seven-year real estate bubble, warnings of the dire implications of the far-reaching economic warfare launched by the US against China, and the resurgence of working class struggles internationally after decades of widening social inequality.

More high-profile exits are expected, according to various media reports, notably that of former Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop and ex-Small Business Minister Craig Laundy. Like O’Dwyer, both are members of the Liberal Party’s “socially progressive, economically conservative” wing who opposed the removal of their standard-bearer, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, last August.

Morrison has become a vehicle through which the Coalition’s most right-wing elements, gathered around Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and ex-Prime Minister Tony Abbott, are aggressively seeking to refashion the Coalition parties along Trump-style, semi-fascistic lines to divert the deepening popular disaffection in nationalist, anti-immigrant and anti-Chinese directions.

Last week’s installation of right-wing indigenous businessman Warren Mundine as a party candidate, at the expense of a locally-elected candidate, underscored the faction’s determination to bulldoze its plans through, even if it means wrecking the Coalition’s chances of holding onto office.

Keenan, 46, once a rising star in the Liberal Party, previously held the portfolios of justice and counter-terrorism but was demoted from cabinet by Morrison despite backing Turnbull’s removal. He was evidently regarded as unreliable by the Abbott-Dutton camp because he earlier supported Turnbull’s ouster of Abbott in 2015.

Similar pressures confronted Scullion, 62. Such is the political turmoil that he was the only minister to serve in the same portfolio under the three Coalition prime ministers since 2013—Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison. But he only became a central leader of the rural-based National Party after Turnbull ousted Deputy Prime Minster Barnaby Joyce, an Abbott supporter, who has agitated to return as party head.

Members of the Turnbull faction are mounting rear-guard actions against the Morrison-Abbott wing to cement its control of the Liberal Party.

Dutton, Abbott and two other figures centrally involved in Turnbull’s ousting, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Health Minister Greg Hunt, are facing challenges in their electorates by dissident “liberals” of the Turnbull type, who are running as “independents.”

Abbott’s seat is being contested by a number of such people, mainly campaigning against his pro-coal industry stance of opposing action on global warming while agreeing with the core corporate program of the Liberal Party. Similarly, a former Clean Energy Finance Corporation chief executive, a proponent of “green business,” is running against Frydenberg. Julia Banks, who currently sits in parliament as an independent after defecting from the Liberal Party in protest over Turnbull’s ouster, is reportedly considering standing against Hunt.

Australian columnist Peter Van Onselen, who has Liberal Party sources, last weekend warned that the Coalition could break apart if it lost the election. “Internally, the Liberal Party is deeply divided, with moderates and conservatives at war across state divisions,” he wrote. “If it loses the next federal election, there is a genuine risk that the Coalition could dissolve.”

Van Onselen pointed to these “problematic” tensions being exacerbated by other formations striving to outflank the Coalition on the right. He named Senator Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, David Leyonhjelm’s Liberal Democrats, Bob Katter’s Australian Party and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party. To that list could be added the Conservative National Party recently registered by Senator Fraser Anning, who openly advocates stopping immigration and returning to the racist White Australia policy on which the Australian federation was founded in 1901.

These groups are jockeying to exploit the widespread hostility toward all the establishment parties, Coalition, Labor and Greens, which have for decades helped enforce a corporate assault on working class jobs, working conditions, living standards and basic services.

These far-right parties are striving to channel the disaffection in jingoistic and patriotic directions as the gap widens between rich and poor, the economy lurches toward recession, and US-China war tensions intensify, raising the likelihood of Australian involvement in a catastrophic nuclear conflict against China.

This week, Deloitte Access Economics issued the latest warning of economic turmoil ahead. It said Australia’s “main risk is a continuing slowdown in China,” not the sharp downturn in real estate prices or the high levels of household debt, which meant “Australian families are more vulnerable to higher interest rates than families in almost any other nation in the world.”

With the Coalition unraveling, elements within the ruling capitalist class are preparing to back the return of yet another Labor government as a means of containing social unrest and restabilising the parliamentary order.

According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “7.30” program, media oligarch Rupert Murdoch has invited Labor Party leader Bill Shorten to meet him in the United States whenever Shorten is next there. It has become a tradition for Australian prime ministers, Labor and Coalition alike, to pay court to Murdoch, who has long used his media outlets to either support or destabilise governments in Australia, Britain and the US. For now, Shorten has declined the offer but said he will meet with Murdoch’s team in Australia, which is headed by Murdoch’s son, Lachlan.

Last weekend, the Australian Financial Review published a feature promoting Labor’s shadow treasurer Chris Bowen as a “new Keating,” pledged to carry through an updated version of the pro-market restructuring imposed by the Hawke and Keating Labor governments of 1983 to 1996, which worked closely with the trade unions to brutally redistribute wealth to the corporate elite at the expense of the working class.

Shorten has sought to capitalise on the Coalition’s crisis and make a pitch to big business by accusing the government of “running out of puff” and “barely limping to the end of its term.” With “fresh chaos and continuing disunity in the government,” the “big issues are just not getting addressed,” he said on Monday.

He did not specify the “big issues” he meant. But whichever party heads the next government, it will seek to make the working class pay for the emerging crisis by further gutting social spending, driving down real wages and breaking up working conditions. At the same time, it will boost military spending to meet Washington’s demand for Australia to remain unconditionally behind the US offensive against China.

While portraying themselves, for electoral purposes, as champions of a “fair go” for workers, the Labor and union bureaucrats are fully aware they will be called upon to try to derail and suppress working class resistance. At Labor’s national conference last month, Shorten said a Labor government was needed to overcome mounting “distrust and disengagement, scepticism and cynicism” toward the political system.

Venting the real hostility of the Labor and union apparatus to the re-emergence of working class struggle, party president Wayne Swan, who was treasurer in the Rudd and Gillard governments from 2007 to 2013, denounced the “yellow vest” movement in France, in which hundreds of thousands of workers have joined demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron. “Mob violence has returned to the streets of Paris after 50 years,” he said, referring to the general strike movement of 1968 that shook capitalist rule in France and triggered similar upheavals around the world.

Greek parliament votes in support of Macedonia name change

Katerina Selin

Greece’s parliament voted Friday to ratify an agreement that changes the name of its northern neighbour Macedonia, which has been officially known since the early 1990s as FYROM (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia).

In July, the two countries’ prime ministers, Alexis Tsipras and Zoran Zaev, agreed on the new name, the Republic of North Macedonia, at a meeting near the border at Lake Prespa, which has shores in Greece, Macedonia and Albania. The agreement brought to an end a decades-long dispute over Macedonia’s name.

The Prespa agreement, which has been enthusiastically welcomed by the media and politicians in Europe and the US as a historic peace deal, in reality pursues reactionary goals. It is aimed at paving the way for the rapid integration of the small Balkan country into NATO and the European Union (EU).

Athens blocked that process for years with the nationalist argument that northern areas of the country might be up for grabs if its neighbour used the name Macedonia, which is also the historical name for a province in that region of Greece.

Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left), the governing party, was dependent on the votes of other parties to pass the agreement. A slim majority of 153 out of the 300 deputies voted for the deal. Together with Syriza (145 votes), other backers of the deal included deputies from the Movement for Change (Kinal, which also includes the former social democratic PASOK), the liberal Potami, and Syriza’s far-right coalition partner, the Independent Greeks (Anel). Voting against were the conservative New Democracy (ND), the Stalinist Communist Party of Greece (KKE), deputies from Anel, and the neo-Nazi Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn). There was one abstention.

The parliamentary debate, which extended over several days, was accompanied by demonstrations of right-wing extremist and nationalist forces opposed to the change of name. Over 100,000 people gathered in front of the Greek parliament on Sunday prior to the vote and clashed violently with the police. Right-wing thugs sought to force their way into the parliament building. The police responded with a violent crackdown and fired tear gas. On Thursday, when the vote was originally scheduled, further protests took place. The neo-Nazis from Golden Dawn chanted right-wing extremist slogans in parliament and accused the government of betrayal.

The Stalinist KKE and LAE (Popular Unity), which emerged out of a split from Syriza, held their own protests outside the US embassy in Athens.

The KKE also opposed the Prespa deal on nationalist grounds. In the parliamentary debate, KKE general secretary Dimitris Koutsoumbas explained his party’s vote in opposition to the deal by saying that “the fundamental source of irredentism [territorial claims on the part of Macedonia] still exists.” References to a Macedonian people, and a Macedonian nationality and language could lead to future challenges on Macedonia’s part. At the demonstration, he described the KKE’s position as “patriotic.”

Zoe Konstantopoulou, former parliamentary speaker for Syriza and now leader of the pseudo-left Course of Freedom (Plevsi Eleftherias), called in the newspaper Ta Nea for a referendum on the deal.

Negotiations to resolve the name dispute began a year ago, when the Greek and Macedonian prime ministers met at the World Economic Forum in Davos. In February, right-wing demonstrations dominated by the Greek Orthodox Church, sections of the military and Golden Dawn took place against the talks.

One of the most vehement proponents of this ultra-nationalist opposition is Panos Kammenos, leader of Anel and until recently defence minister in Tsipras’ government. A few days after the Macedonian parliament voted on January 11 to accept the agreement, Kammenos resigned from his post, telling members of his party in parliament to reject the deal and end their support for the coalition government.

Tsipras then tabled a vote of confidence in his government in parliament, and was able to secure victory thanks to a handful of rebel Anel deputies. This removed speculation about an immediate end to the Syriza government for the time being. However, it remains uncertain whether the government can remain in office until elections scheduled for the autumn.

By forming a coalition with Anel in 2015, Tsipras nourished and strengthened the ultra-right forces who are now outraged at the Macedonia agreement. He relied on them to drown the anger of the working class toward his austerity policies in nationalist reaction. Although Kammenos’ resignation called the government’s continued existence into question, he and Tsipras praised each other and exchanged words of thanks for close and trustworthy collaboration.

With Kammenos’ blessing, Tsipras used the resignation of the defence minister to strengthen the far-right and militarist tendencies in the state. He appointed the supreme commander of the Greek armed forces, Evangelos Apostolakis, as defence minister.

The online publication militaire.gr, which speaks for the Greek armed forces, was delighted, writing, “The left-wing Tsipras, who they all said would dissolve the armed forces, appoints a member of the armed forces in Evangelos Apostolakis as defence minister. This is the first time since the fall of the junta that something like this has happened, and it’s a positive step.”

Tsipras gave Apostolakis “full freedom to select the leadership team that he thinks will get the most done. Apostolakis’ demands are well known, operational readiness, a rapid reorganisation of the armed forces, and the concentration of the existing weapons arsenal,” noted militaire.gr .

The Prespa agreement is fully endorsed by the EU, NATO, and the US. This is due to concrete political considerations. They are pressing ahead urgently with North Macedonia’s integration into NATO and the EU to push back Russia and China, who are also trying to secure their interests in the region.

The struggle for spheres of influence in the Balkans has a long and bloody history. Due to its location on the fault lines of Europe, Asia and North Africa, the area was transformed prior to and during the First World War into a battlefield for the European great powers.

The Greek-Macedonian conflict, like other smoldering flashpoints in the region, is the direct product of Western imperialist intervention in the Balkans during the 1990s. Confronted with mounting working class resistance to the devastating consequences of capitalist restoration, the ruling elites in the former Yugoslav republics deliberately incited national, ethnic and religious tensions to divide the workers and break their resistance.

They were supported in this strategy by the Western powers, above all Germany and the US, who had an interest in dividing up the Balkans, to better exert their dominance over it. This resulted in ethnic cleansing and horrific wars. NATO ultimately intervened in 1999 to destroy what remained of Yugoslavia. The result was the breakup of Yugoslavia, a country with 23 million inhabitants, into no fewer than seven individual states.

The wars have left behind numerous bitter conflicts that can be incited at any time and exploited for political interests. The Balkan region threatens to become a powder keg once again.

The shadow of Great Power conflicts also hung over the West Balkan conference in London last July, which concluded without any concrete outcomes. Although the EU plans to invest up to €150 million [$US196 million] in the region during 2019 and 2020, it has ruled out accepting any new members prior to 2025. At the same time, fears are growing that rivals could gain a foothold in the Balkans. The Financial Times warned ominously of a “vacuum which other powers—China and Russia—want to fill.”

China intends to involve the states in southeastern Europe into its plans for a new Silk Road, and has invested substantially in the region’s infrastructure. Last July, Greek parliament speaker and Syriza politician Nikos Voutsis promised in an interview with the Chinese news agency Xinhua that the Prespa agreement would also benefit Beijing. It would help “to open the New Silk Road initiative to trade.” The assurances to China underscore that the deal to resolve the naming dispute will not bring peace and stability to the Balkans, but in fact will further incite conflicts.

The German bourgeoisie in particular hopes that it can expand its field of economic exploitation further into the Balkans through North Macedonia and combine it with its economic crushing of Greece. Germany played a leading role in the austerity dictates of Greece’s international lenders, pushing for cuts and privatisations from which German companies now hope to profit.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel rushed to Athens prior to the vote on Macedonia to support her Greek counterpart. International media outlets praised Tsipras to the skies as they sought to defend him against resistance to the deal within Greece. The German daily Die Welt published a tribute to Tsipras, who had, at a time of a “leadership crisis in the West, proved he possessed rare statesmanlike qualities ... farsightedness, energy, and bravery.” The Financial Times took a similar line in a piece entitled “How Greece’s Alexis Tsipras went from firebrand to statesman.”

High-ranking representatives of the EU and NATO celebrated the result of the parliamentary vote. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described the deal as a “historic decision,” which overcomes “a hurdle for the country’s Euro-Atlantic integration.” He praised “the leadership and bravery from Prime Minister Tsipras, and also from Prime Minister Zaev,” and vowed to press ahead quickly with North Macedonia’s acceptance as a NATO member. The New York Times stressed the significance of the deal for the US and Europe, and described it as a “win for the West.”

EU Council President Donald Tusk tweeted triumphantly, “Zoran, Alexis—well done! Mission Impossible fulfilled.” In a joint statement, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini, and EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn added that Skopje and Athens had “written a new chapter in our common EU future.” European Parliament deputies Udo Bullmann (SPD), Ska Keller (Greens), and Gabi Zimmer (Left Party) reportedly went so far as to urge Tsipras’s and Zaev’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

For his part, Tsipras described the parliamentary vote as a “historic day,” and wrote in an article at the weekend for the Greek Economist that 2019 would be a “historic year” where everyone can be “optimistic” once again. With cynical self-praise that will be recognised as an affront by every Greek worker and refugee, Tsipras wrote that in Greece “a progressive government has managed to get Greece out of the memorandums, secured financial stability, achieved justice for the majority, and conquered the refugee crisis with humanity and solidarity.” The Prespa agreement was yet another success, he added.

Knowing full well that many cuts agreed on in the last year of Greece’s bailout programme still have to take effect in 2019 and will further worsen the already terrible social situation, Tsipras resorted to an even more blatant lie. “A structural element of our strategy is redistribution,” he wrote. He referred to planned wage increases, which amount to a drop in the bucket.

At home, Tsipras is using the dispute over Macedonia’s name and the nationalist hysteria being whipped up by the opposition to divert attention away from the austerity measures and suppress the class struggle. The reality is that Syriza has organised one of the greatest transfers of wealth in Greek history, from the bottom to the top of society. The social consequences are horrendous. As the Prespa agreement was being debated in parliament, a review of Greece’s reform progress by its international lenders took place, the second such review since the formal end of the bailout programme. Officials from the lenders pushed yet again for more privatisations and cuts.

Working class resistance to austerity policies and militarism must be directed against both factions of the ruling elite, the right-wing extremists just as much as the Syriza government, which has proven to be a loyal appendage of the US and European bourgeoisies. Only the unification of Greek workers with workers in the Balkans and throughout Europe in the fight to overthrow capitalism and establish a socialist Europe can put an end to the ruthless exploitation of the working class and the dangerous national rivalries.

Russian Duma plans internet crackdown as 12,000 truckers strike

Clara Weiss

Amid a strike of up to 12,000 truckers in southern Russia, the Russian Duma (parliament) voted on January 24 to approve the first reading of two bills that will dramatically escalate the state crackdown on free speech on the internet and websites critical of the Russian state and political establishment.

The two bills provide the legal basis for a far-reaching crackdown on independent news websites, in line with the international censorship campaign against alleged “fake news.” One of them prohibits the publication of what are deemed “unreliable” news stories about “socially significant” issues on the internet and in print media which could cause harm to individuals or social disorder. The term “unreliable” is kept deliberately as vague as possible, making it a transparent pretext to crack down on any coverage that goes against the official narrative of the state-controlled media.

The internet in Russia is already subject to large-scale surveillance by the state with significant limitations imposed on internet users, such as a ban on Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) that hide users’ actual internet IP, allowing them to surf on the internet without being automatically identifiable. At the same time, Russia has the highest percentage of internet usage of all European countries, with millions relying almost exclusively on the internet for access to information, communication and entertainment.

Based on the first proposed bill, the Russian prosecutor general will be able to block material extra judicially and the Roskomnadzor, the Russian government’s censorship agency, can issue warnings to media sources that it believes publish such “unreliable” information. News agencies that receive two warnings within one year can have their license to operate revoked. Individuals spreading “fake news” may face fines: about 3,000 to 5,000 rubles (US$45-75) for individuals publishing, for example, on blogs—a significant amount in a country where millions earn less than $300 a month—and up to 10 times as much for public figures.

The second bill penalizes expressions of “disrespect” to “society,” the Russian president, the government, Russian state symbols such as the national flag, and the Russian Constitution. Those accused under this bill would face fines from between 1,000 to 5,000 rubles (US$15-75) or up to 15 days under administrative arrest. It is widely expected that both bills will pass the parliament with slight modifications.

These two bills are part of a series of far-reaching assaults on free speech on the internet and a censorship campaign against independent news outlets, in particular anti-war and left-wing websites like the World Socialist Web Site.This campaign is the response by the ruling class to growing class tensions, which have found an initial expression in the eruption of open class struggles in the US, Mexico, and Europe, and growing interest in left-wing and socialist politics among workers and youth. Most of these struggles are organized through social media and commented upon only by outlets such as the WSWS, amid blackouts by the official media and attempts by the trade unions to strangle any protests and strikes by workers.

In Russia, the Duma’s approval of the reading of these bills came amidst a now two-week-long strike by up to 12,000 truck drivers in southern Russia and rumors that Ford may close two major Russian auto plants as part of an international offensive against auto workers, potentially laying off up to 3,700 Russian auto workers.

The truckers’ protests started in late December. By the middle of January, between 9,000 and 12,000 truckers in southern Russia who transport grain to the ports of the Azov and the Black Sea had joined the strike. According to the business daily Kommersant, between 70 and 80 percent of all truckers delivering grain are on strike, including in the Rostov, Krasnodar and Stravopolski regions. Grain deliveries have slowed down or have been stopped by companies starting January 21. The truckers, who have protested several times in recent years against increasing taxation, are demanding the introduction of a unified tariff for the delivery of grain that would be fixed depending on the price of gas. Truckers blocking roads have also called upon car drivers to join their protests.

Amid an international eruption of struggles by the working class, there are well-founded fears within the Russian oligarchy that the strike movement could soon spread to Russia. The French “yellow vest” movement, in particular, has been widely discussed on Russian social media. Numerous outlets have speculated how long it would take for a similar movement to emerge in Russia, especially as broad sections of the population face skyrocketing prices for food items and gas.

Several people commented on a YouTube video about the truckers’ strike by referencing the movement in France. One noted that it was “time to wear yellow vests”; another wrote, “Excellent news, the truckers are doing great, finally someone started to strike. It’s high time for everyone to go on strike. Otherwise, they will take the last piece of clothes from the people, we are now seeing the blossoms of the 1990s.”

Russian workers are also hit by the international offensive against the working class in the auto industry. Ford is expected to close two out of its three plants in Russia: the one in Vsevolozhsk, an industrial city close to St. Petersburg where some 2,700 workers are employed, and in Naberezhyne Chelny, a major industrial city in the republic of Tatarstan, where 1,000 workers are employed. Both of these plants have already sent contractors on unpaid holiday leave in December and early January.

The business outlet offshorereview.ru recently noted: “In order to avoid a panic, the management of the Russian branch of Ford has already sent out letters in which it calls upon [workers] to work according to the standard scheme and not to succumb to the multiple provocations on the part of journalists and competitors. However, it was also confirmed that negotiations about the closure of the factories are underway.” The outlet also noted that the Ford layoffs may be only the beginning of a larger wave of plant closures in the Russian auto industry, which has grown significantly in the 2000s.

These layoffs will hit a working-class population that is already deeply impoverished and is seething with hatred for the oligarchy that has emerged out of the destruction of the Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy. According to the World Inequality Database, wealth inequality in Russia is greater than in any other major economy and has grown steadily since the 2008 crisis. The richest top 10 percent of the country controls about 65 percent of net wealth, while half of the population owns less than 5 percent of the country’s net wealth. The Russian oligarchs have as much wealth stashed outside of the country as is owned by the entire Russian population.

As Russian workers will be increasingly driven into struggle, the critical task for them is to orient toward a strategic alliance with workers in Europe and internationally in a fight against the capitalist system. The fight for this political orientation requires a struggle to build a section of the Trotskyist movement, the International Committee of the Fourth International, in Russia.

40,000 Irish nurses to participate in series of one day strikes

Dermot Byrne & David Byrne

Almost 40,000 Irish nurses, members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), are to hold a 24-hour strike today over pay and conditions. A series of five further 24-hour stoppages is planned for the first two weeks of February. Over 95 percent of nurses voted for strike action, demanding a 12 percent pay increase.

Six thousand psychiatric nurses, members of the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PSN), will also ban overtime and mount a series of strikes in February. Meanwhile, the National Association of GPs is to hold a protest at Dail Eireann (Irish Parliament) on February 6 citing the collapsing of family doctor services in parts of the country.

Following public attacks on the nurses by Taoiseach (prime minister) Leo Varadkar, the 12 percent wage demand by nurses was rejected by the eight members of the Public Service Pay Commission (PSPC), all of whom were appointed by Paschal Donohoe, the current minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.

The degeneration of the Irish health service proceeds from the financial crash of 2008, in which the European Union, at the behest of the Irish government, bailed out the wealthy elite and the bankers to the tune of €62.7 billion. Savage cuts were made to public services. The Irish government cut public spending by a figure approaching 20 percent of GDP. The health service and the pay and conditions of nurses and other health workers were targeted.

Between 2008 and 2014, successive Fianna Fail and Fine Gael governments introduced a massive €2.7 billion of health service cuts, amounting to 20 percent of the health budget. These resulted in cuts to discretionary medical cards, home help supports, the introduction of prescription and hospital charges and chronic delays to infrastructure projects.

Both parties have presided over the introduction of a two-class health system. The wealthy use the booming private health sector, while the working class must make do with bed shortages, cancelled operations, and long hours waiting in Accident and Emergency Departments. The dysfunctional public system is operated by under-paid, under-staffed and over-worked nurses, doctors and ancillary workers.

Health workers have seen their wages decrease and staff levels plummet. The number of staff nurses fell by 1,754 between 2008 and 2018.

Since the strike was called at the beginning of the year, the INMO has held talks on three occasions with the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) seeking a pretext to prevent a strike. The WRC, formerly the Labour Relations Commission, has been instrumental over the past decade in drastically impacting the lives of 300,000 public service workers. Its purpose is to enforce the dictates of the ruling elite against working people.

The WRC set down a new marker in imposing the costs of recession and the financial crisis on the working class. It acts on behalf of the government and in conjunction with the trade union bureaucracy to confuse and strangle the anger and resentment which nurses and other health workers feel about their pay and conditions.

The unions are currently part of the Public Service Stability Agreement which runs until December 2020. This agreement, which was facilitated by the WRC, is the latest of a series between the unions and the government to target public sector workers for pay cuts, longer working hours, and the elimination of jobs.

The most notorious of these was the Croke Park deal of 2010, in which the public service unions agreed a four-year strike ban in return for a series of worthless promises on limiting future job cuts. Three brutal cuts budgets followed between 2010 and 2016. The unions therefore bear direct responsibility for the degeneration of the Irish health service over the past decade.

The INMO, despite its initial pose of opposing these agreements, accepted €1 billion in cuts without organising any protest action. They did nothing to resist the establishment of emergency powers during the financial crisis by the government, which allowed the pay and working conditions of public service workers to be altered unilaterally. The unions work consistently to facilitate cuts, while maintaining a pose of opposition in order to head off the mass struggles they fear will emerge.

In 2016, the INMO called off limited strike action as nurses’ frustration and anger at understaffing and increased work levels came to the fore. Over 90 percent voted for strike action. But the INMO concocted a plan with management which Liam Doran, then INMO General Secretary, described as leading to “a deeper level of trust between hospital management and nursing staff.”

The “resolution” to the threat of limited strike action worked out between the unions and the Health Service Executive (HSE) involved nothing more than weekly meetings between INMO representatives and HSE management to monitor overcrowding and the continuing crisis in the system.

The stitch up included “minimising emergency department overcrowding and trolley waiting times.” However, figures for September 2017 showed almost 8,000 patients sleeping on trolleys waiting for beds. It was the worst overcrowding in a decade.

This time, as before, the INMO is seeking an accommodation with the HSE and government which will do little or nothing to further the interests of nurses and health workers. The series of 24-hour strikes are deliberately limited in scope and designed for show and to let off steam while a new deal struck within the confines of the government-brokered public service agreement is patched together.

When the series of one day strikes was announced some weeks ago, INMO General Secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha was apologetic, saying “Going on strike was the last thing a nurse or midwife wants to do.”

The union has made no appeal for support to other sections of the working class or even an appeal to the 7,000 health workers in the Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU) who are working normally. This is under conditions where similar attacks are falling on every economic sector.

Ni Sheaghdha has been at pains to confirm to the government that a deal could be worked out within the guidelines of the current public service deal, which would rule out other public service workers making claims. Prior to taking the INMO general secretary position, Ni Sheaghdha worked for nearly a decade as its director of industrial relations.

The demands of nurses and other health workers cannot be constrained by what the Fine Gael government, the corporate media, and the trade union officials deem “affordable.” The working class needs to combine its independent strength and demand the right of all people to high-quality, free health care which is provided by the necessary number of doctors, nurses, and other well-paid medical professionals.

Forging workers’ unity and confidence cannot be done within trade union organisations that have become an industrial police force on behalf of the state and ruling establishment. The union bureaucracy is part of a privileged upper middle-class layer, which has a material interest in the defence of the status quo and opposes any struggle for social change.

The Socialist Equality Group (SEG) calls on health workers to organise independently of the union bureaucracy by forming rank and file committees to prepare for a nationwide strike and to forge alliances with health workers internationally.

UK’s May fends off demands to delay Brexit or rule out “no deal”

Robert Stevens & Chris Marsden

With less than two months to go before Britain’s scheduled exit from the European Union (EU), Prime Minister Theresa May swung most of her hard Brexit wing and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) behind her with a promise to seek renegotiation of the Irish backstop.

This and divisions within the Labour Party over either delaying Brexit or seeking a second referendum, or both, gave the day to the Conservative government though this could prove to be a pyrrhic and very short-lived victory.

May suffered an initial cross-party rejection of the deal she negotiated with the EU by a record majority of 230 on January 15, as hard-Brexit Tories and the DUP’s 10 MPs voted with the opposition because they disagreed with proposals for Northern Ireland to remain in a de facto customs union with the EU to prevent the return of a hard border with the Republic of Ireland.

May responded by promising to seek further concessions and assurances from the EU and scheduling yesterday’s vote on any modified agreement. However, May was unable to secure any substantial change, leaving MPs to back a short technical motion that they had considered last week’s statement. Attention therefore focused on seven amendments to the motion chosen to go forward to votes by House of Commons speaker John Bercow.

Labour’s official amendment advancing its Brexit policy—seeking to avoid a “no deal” and maintain some form of customs union with the EU—was bound to fail as no Tory would vote for it.

This left the most important vote for Labour the one proposed by Blairite Labour MP Yvette Cooper calling for a mandatory extension of Article 50 if May failed to secure a deal by late February. Article 50 is the legislation authorising the UK’s withdrawal from the EU after two years of talks. The amendment initially specified until December 2019, but Labour whipped its MPs to vote for a shorter extension of three months. However, 14 Labour MPs from Brexit-supportive constituencies and two former Labour MPs, now independents, voted Tuesday with the government and provided May a majority of 23.

This meant that a potentially more damaging amendment, by former attorney general Dominic Grieve, allowing parliament to take control of the Brexit process rather than the government, was defeated by a smaller majority.

Cooper’s amendment having failed, Labour and other opposition parties successfully backed an amendment by Tory MP Caroline Spelman stating that the UK would not leave the EU without a deal—with a majority of eight. However, unlike Cooper’s this is advisory and has no legislative force.

The most important amendment for the government side was proposed by Graham Brady, chair of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee. His amendment was backed by the government as it called for the Northern Ireland backstop to be removed from the EU Withdrawal Agreement, and for it to be replaced with “alternative arrangements” to avoid a hard border during the transition period between Brexit and securing an all-encompassing UK-EU trade deal.

This compromise was embraced by May as a successful means of enlisting support from the Tories’ hard Brexit wing and the DUP. It was accompanied by a Cabinet meeting to discuss a “Plan C” scenario named the “Malthouse compromise” after housing minister Kit Malthouse. According to pro-EU Tory Nicky Morgan, the plan “provides for exit from the EU on time with a new backstop, which would be acceptable indefinitely, but which incentivises us all to reach a new future relationship. It ensures there is no need for a hard border with Ireland.”

During the debate, May described the Malthouse compromise as a “serious proposal” that she was approaching “sincerely and positively.” In a further move to win over the hard Brexiteers, she stated—after maintaining for weeks that her deal with the EU was the only deal on the table—that she would be demanding from the EU regarding the backstop a “significant and legally-binding change to the withdrawal agreement.” She was forced to concede that negotiating such “will involve re-opening the withdrawal agreement—a move for which I know there is limited appetite among our European partners.”

The Brady amendment passed by 317 votes to 301—a majority of 16—meaning an acceptance of May’s deal with the present backstop removed.

However, while she has appeased her hard-Brexit opponents, the passing of the Spelman amendment again confirms there is a majority in parliament against any “no deal” outcome. Yet this is what is threatened by her relying on winning some final concessions from the EU. She calculates that taking votes on Brexit down to the wire will force MPs into backing her renegotiated deal. Pro Remain MPs would be threatened with a no-deal Brexit, and Brexiteers with a possible delay or even reversal. May has promised MPs a vote on February 14, but said that a vote may even be required as late as March 14—just two weeks from the date March 29 date for the UK’s exit—if no deal could be reached with the EU.

But this is still highly likely to backfire. Brussels continues to pour cold water on any conception that the deal agreed is up for renegotiation. On Monday, EU deputy chief negotiator Sabine Weyand said, “There’s no negotiation between the UK and EU—that’s finished.” The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt told the pro-Remain Independent that the European Parliament would not consent to a “watered down” agreement and that the Irish backstop would not be abandoned.

Speaking in Cyprus as the debate in parliament concluded, French President Emmanuel Macron stressed that the deal “is the best accord possible. It is not re-negotiable.” He warned that a no-deal Brexit is something that “no one wants, but we should all prepare for.”

After a 3 percent rally in anticipation of the success of “no deal” amendments, the pound fell 0.75 percent against the euro and 0.72 per cent against the dollar yesterday, with the sharpest fall after Cooper’s amendment fell.

Labour’s own divisions on Brexit are becoming ever more apparent—one reason why Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has refused to simply back Blairite demands to commit to a second referendum. But as it has throughout the Brexit crisis, Labour continues to act as an advocate of the “national interest” of dominant sections of big business who are reliant on access to the EU Single Market and the customs union.

Closing Labour MPs contributions, Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer said, “This is one of the greatest national crises our country has faced in a generation,” adding that the extension of Article 50 was inevitable to avoid a no-deal Brexit that MPs had to act to ensure did not occur.

After the vote, May declared, “Tonight a majority of… members have said they would support a deal with changes to the backstop. Combined with measures to address concerns over parliament’s role in the negotiation of the future relationship and commitments on workers’ rights … it is now clear there is a route that can secure a substantial and sustainable majority in this house for leaving the EU with a deal.”

This was, the prime minister insisted, the only way to prevent “no deal” before restating her offer to meet Corbyn. The Labour leader responded by saying the vote showed there was “no appetite” for “no deal,” which May had refused to rule out. But he then reversed himself once again, stating that he was now prepared to meet with her to discuss the way forward.

US: Measles outbreak in Washington state prompts state of emergency

Kate Randall 

Washington Department of Health officials have declared a state of emergency as they scramble to contain a measles outbreak in two counties in the state. There were 36 confirmed cases and 11 suspected cases of the potentially deadly virus as the number continues to rise in a region of the United States with a lower-than-normal vaccination rate.

In Clark County, Washington, which borders Portland, Oregon, Monday’s 36 confirmed measles cases were up significantly from the 26 on Friday, when Governor Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency. Most of the measles cases involved children between 1 and 10 years old who had not been vaccinated. Health officials anticipate that the outbreak will rapidly expand.

In a statement Friday, Inslee said: “The measles virus is a highly contagious infectious disease that can be fatal in small children” and that the number of confirmed cases “creates an extreme public health risk that may quickly spread to other counties.”

The outbreak of measles in Washington state is taking place nearly two decades after the virus was eliminated in 2000. By that time, enough people were immunized that outbreaks were uncommon and deaths from measles were virtually unheard of. A rise in the percentage of unvaccinated children has directly led to a rise in the number of cases of the potentially fatal disease.

US county-level nonmedical vaccine exemption rates, 2016–2017. Source: PLOS Medicine

Washington and Oregon are some of the more permissive states in the US in allowing parents to opt out of vaccines, including for measles. In Clark County, 7.9 percent of children were given exemptions from vaccines for entry to kindergarten in the 2017-18 school year, according to the Washington Post. This is much higher than the national average of children unvaccinated for nonmedical reasons, which is estimated at 2 percent nationally.

Before the measles vaccine was introduced in the US in 1963, there were 4 million measles cases with 48,000 hospitalizations and 500 deaths in the US every year. Measles was also a leading cause of death for children globally. Intense pockets of transmission still exist around the world today, especially in low-income countries such as the Philippines and Vietnam.

In addition to the US, there has also been an uptick of people contracting measles in Canada and across Europe due to people foregoing the vaccine. Europe saw more than 41,000 measles cases in the first half of 2018, a record high in the post-vaccine era. The tragedy is that the deadly disease and its consequences are almost 100 percent preventable if the population is vaccinated.

Measles strikes after an incubation period of 10 to 12 days in the form of fever, cough, stuffy nose, and bloodshot and watery eyes. Sufferers, overwhelmingly children, can be hit with loss of appetite, malaise and confusion. Several days after these initial symptoms, an uncomfortable rash spreads from the face and neck downward through the rest of the body.

In uncomplicated cases, sufferers usually begin to recover as soon as the rash appears and feel better in about two to three weeks. However, up to 40 percent of patients have complications, usually occurring in children under five, adults over 20, and anyone who is undernourished or immunocompromised.

Children under age 5 have the highest probability of death from measles. Pneumonia is the most common complication, accounting for most measles-related deaths. Less common complications include blindness, croup, mouth ulcers, ear infections, and severe diarrhea. Some children develop swelling of the brain, or encephalitis, which can lead to convulsions, loss of hearing and mental retardation.

A measles outbreak in the US usually begins when a traveler picks up the virus in another country where measles is still common. If that person brings the virus back to a community with a high rate of unvaccinated individuals, it can spread rapidly.

Child suffering from measles, pre-1963. Source: Wikimedia

The measles virus is airborne, and is transmitted by respiratory droplets from the nose, mouth, or throat of an infected person, usually through coughing or sneezing. Small-particle aerosols from an infected person can remain suspended in air for long periods of time after a person has left a location, and the virus can live on surfaces for up to two hours. The virus can spread in a person four days before the onset of the rash associated with measles, so people carrying the virus can spread it to others before even knowing they have the disease.

In Washington state, people with the measles virus reportedly visited public places such as healthcare facilities, schools and churches, as well as stores such as Dollar Tree and Ikea, potentially spreading the disease.

The measles vaccine is given as part of the combination MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) injection. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that children receive two doses: one at 12 through 15 months of age, the second at 4 through 6 years of age.

As the MMR vaccine cannot be administered until age 1 this leaves these young infants at particular risk of contracting the measles if they come into contact with the virus.

According to the CDC, fevers after the MMR vaccine occur in one in six people, mild rashes in one in 20. More severe problems are virtually nonexistent, with serious allergic reactions happen in fewer than one in a million cases.

Overall, MMR vaccine refusal by parents is not that common, with about 91 percent of young children receiving the shot in 2016, according to the CDC. This is nearly enough for “herd immunity,” in which a certain percentage of the population needs to be immunized.

“Herd immunity” means that a disease cannot spread very easily, even among those who can’t be vaccinated, like newborns and those with vaccine allergies. However, despite the national rate of vaccination, there are geographical clusters of unvaccinated people. These include vaccine-averse Amish in Ohio, Orthodox Jews in New York, as well as parents who choose not to put “unnatural” substances in their bodies or who choose to delay immunizing their children.

According to a 2018 analysis published in PLOS Medicine, dozens of counties across the country had nonmedical exemption rates exceeding the national average. In 2016-17, Camas County, Idaho, led the nation with a 27 percent opt-out rate.

A movement of parents in the US claims that vaccines, including MMR, cause autism, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and other developmental problems in children. These theories have been promoted by figures such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who met with then president-elect Donald Trump during the transition period in January 2017 to discuss plans to chair a commission “on vaccine safety and scientific integrity.”

The MMR vaccine

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump spoke with a group of donors at a Florida fundraiser who are prominent proponents of the discredited link between vaccines and autism, including disbarred British physician Andrew Wakefield. Wakefield was the senior author of a now retracted 1998 Lancet study linking autism to the MMR vaccine. The study involved only 12 children, including 8 whose parents were already convinced of the MMR-autism connection.

Trump in 2016, playing to the anti-vaccine community, stated without substantiation: “You take this little beautiful baby and you pump—I mean, it looks like just it’s meant for a horse and not a child…We had so many instances, people that work for me, just the other day, 2 years old a beautiful child, went to have the vaccine and came back and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic.”

It seems the Trump administration’s plans to launch an anti-vaccine commission have for the time being been stalled, much to the dismay of Kennedy and the other vaccine opponents. However, the fractured state of the public health system in the US allows millions of parents to be granted exemptions by states and localities from their children receiving the MMR vaccine.

The current state of emergency in Washington state points to the danger—on the basis of unsubstantiated and antiscientific theories—of measles and other diseases, long thought to be eradicated in North America and Europe, to reemerge.

Germany and EU support US-engineered coup in Venezuela

Peter Schwarz 

The governments of Germany, France, Spain, Great Britain and the Netherlands, as well as European Union Foreign Affairs Commissioner Federica Mogherini, gave the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, an ultimatum on Saturday: either he calls “free, transparent and democratic elections” within eight days, or Juan Guaidó, who appointed himself head of state last week with Washington’s backing, will be recognized as the new president.

Maduro rejected this demand at once, while Guaidó welcomed the “tough” EU response. It was “very positive, very productive for Venezuela,” he said. The line of “pressure” taken by Europe was correct, he told his followers in Caracas, and appealed again to the military to abandon Maduro and back him.

The threat against Maduro exposes the lie that Berlin and Brussels, unlike Washington, pursue a foreign policy committed to multilateralism, democracy and peace. Not only the governing Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, but also the Greens and the Left Party support the return of Germany to great power politics and militarism.

It is the second time in five years that Berlin and Brussels have supported a right-wing coup that bears the “Made in the USA” trademark. In 2014, they actively participated in the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was replaced by the pro-Western oligarch Petro Poroshenko.

The then-foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is now federal president, travelled personally to Kiev to negotiate the transfer of power and met with Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the far-right Svoboda party, which stands in the tradition of Nazi collaborators from the Second World War. Deputy US Secretary of State Victoria Nuland bragged that Washington had spent $5 billion to finance the regime-change operation in Kiev. The German media talked about a “democratic revolution” even when it became clear that the armed militia leading the Maidan protests in Kiev was recruited from neo-Nazis.

The consequences of this coup were devastating. As was foreseeable, the seizure of power by an ultranationalist regime in Kiev triggered a violent reaction among Russian-speaking inhabitants concentrated in eastern Ukraine, estimated at between 30 to 50 percent of the population. Russia was unwilling to accept the establishment of a pro-NATO regime on its immediate border and the loss of its naval base in Crimea, and supported anti-Kiev forces. For NATO, the coup served as an excuse to station troops in Poland and the Baltic states. The danger of Europe becoming a nuclear battlefield in a Third World War was immensely heightened.

Support for the coup in Caracas is no less reactionary and its consequences will be no less catastrophic. The talk from Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron of the Venezuelan people being allowed to “decide freely about their future” is a transparent fraud.

Juan Guaidó is a puppet of the US, and neither Washington nor Guaidó bother to hide it. Even the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung admits this fact in a rare display of openness.

“The precipitous events in the Venezuelan capital did not surprise foreign policy experts in Washington,” it reported on Monday. Vice-President Mike Pence publicly supported the protests against Maduro in a video message. Pence had called Guaidó the night before he proclaimed himself president and promised US support—which the Trump administration, with the full backing of the Democrats, proceeded to declare. Washington has imposed sanctions on the Maduro regime and the state-owned oil company and is threatening military intervention.

For weeks, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote, citing the Wall Street Journal, “there have been confidential talks with the opposition in Caracas, with allies in the region and with foreign policy leaders in Congress.” The idea of recognizing Guaidó as Venezuelan president was pushed with particular force by Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton, who is among the fiercest anti-Iran warmongers in the foreign policy establishment.

The Associated Press also reported that the anti-Maduro coalition had been created in weeks of covert talks. Guaidó had secretly travelled to Washington and had visited the ultra-right Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. There were many long meetings “with encrypted text messages.” When the decision for the coup was taken, the plotters chose Guaidó to head it up. “More moderate representatives were left in the dark.”

The Venezuelan population can expect neither freedom nor democracy from such a far-right conspirator. Guaidó stands in the tradition of those Latin American elites that have repeatedly defended their wealth and power with the help of US-backed dictatorships and have not shied away from massacring tens of thousands.

It is significant that the Trump administration has tasked Elliott Abrams with overseeing the “transition to democracy” in Venezuela. Abrams was one of the most prominent supporters of the Central American death squads in the 1980s, responsible for devastating entire countries. In the course of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, which concerned the secret financing by the White House of death squads in Nicaragua, Abrams was convicted of perjury.

Berlin and Brussels are backing the Venezuelan coup because they are pursuing their own imperialist interests in Latin America, no less criminally and ruthlessly than Washington. Again, the Frankfurter Allgemeine is remarkably open. Under the headline, “Venezuela’s wealth,” it writes, “Of course, it’s about oil in Venezuela. The country has the largest proven reserves in the world. China, Russia, the United States and the entire oil industry are eagerly looking to Venezuela.”

The article then seeks to relativize this statement, citing the country’s catastrophic economic and social situation, which had triggered mass protests against Maduro. In Guaidó, the Venezuelans had found “a new hope,” the paper said.

In reality, Guaidó is the “new hope”—as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitungputs it—of “the entire oil industry,” including the European, which wants to exploit the riches of the country unhindered. Germany and the EU are concerned about their own sales markets, their investments and their raw material sources in Latin America, with its 500 million inhabitants. Since the formulation of the Monroe Doctrine 200 years ago, Washington has considered Latin America as its “backyard,” but more recently Russia and especially China have emerged as major competitors.

The Venezuelan coup is part of a global offensive against the working class, in which the ruling class is with increasing openness using authoritarian and dictatorial means to defend its wealth. It is also part of a global struggle between the major powers for markets, resources and strategic interests, which will inevitably lead to a world war if the working class does not stop the warmongers in time.

French President Macron visits the hangman of Cairo

Will Morrow & Alex Lantier

President Emmanuel Macron’s trip to Cairo on Sunday for talks with Egypt’s bloodstained military dictator General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was a barely veiled threat, tacitly endorsed by governments around the world, against the working class.

For eleven weeks, hundreds of thousands of “yellow vest” protesters in France have marched every weekend to demand higher living standards, tax increases for the wealthy, and an end to repression and militarism. But the financial aristocracy will make no concessions to workers’ social and political demands. Rather, it is preparing a drastic intensification of repression of social protest amid a universal turn of the capitalist class around the world towards authoritarian forms of rule.

The meaning of Macron’s visit to Sisi is unmistakable. Sisi is infamous for his resort to mass murder to drown in blood revolutionary struggles of the working class that erupted in Egypt in 2011. During the 2013 coup against Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, his troops shot thousands in broad daylight on the streets of Egypt’s cities. Since then, more than 60,000 people have been jailed, as the Sisi junta carries out mass show trials of its opponents and resorts to systematic torture, documented by human rights groups, of thousands of political prisoners.

Macron’s claim Sunday night that he is visiting the hangman of Cairo so that he can “speak more openly” about “human rights” is ludicrous. Sisi banned the sale of yellow vests in Egypt last year for fear that mass protests would spread from France to Egypt. Macron’s meeting with Sisi doubtless concentrated on a feverish discussion of repression.

Faced with a parasitic financial oligarchy that cannot and will not make concessions, the working class faces a political struggle that can have one of only two outcomes: revolution or counterrevolution.

In Cairo, Macron made clear France would continue arming Sisi to the teeth against the Egyptian workers. French sales of Rafale fighters and other military hardware to Sisi are to continue despite Macron’s mealymouthed comments on human rights. “I would differentiate between the two subjects,” he said. “They are not linked for us and they never were.”

Asked about Amnesty International’s report that French armored vehicles were used in the 2013 repression in Egypt, Macron said France “foresaw they would be used for military purposes.” He claimed that there is “no possible ambiguity” in French weapons sales, that they are intended for the “defense of Egyptian territory against external enemies,” not against the Egyptian people.

Who does Macron think he is kidding? French armored vehicles serve to repress the workers not only in Egypt, but also in France—since Macron took the hitherto unprecedented step of deploying armored vehicles against the “yellow vests.” As Macron escalates repression in France and showers Cairo with weaponry, Sisi can take Macron’s toothless remarks as a green light to use French arms for further crackdowns in Egypt.

The authoritarian regimes and police-state policies of the capitalist class are now facing a challenge from the working class. After over a quarter century of imperialist war in the Middle East since the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and a decade of European Union (EU) austerity after the 2008 crash, the mechanisms used to suppress the class struggle are collapsing. A global upsurge of the class struggle, of which the 2011 uprising in Egypt was a forerunner, is underway.

The beginning of 2019 has seen a wildcat rebellion by 70,000 autoworkers in Matamoros, Mexico, the largest strike on the North American continent in 20 years, as well as strikes and anti-austerity protests across Europe, and continued mass “yellow vest” demonstrations in France.

On January 14, after nationwide demonstrations in December, a general strike of 700,000 public sector workers in Tunisia brought the country to a standstill, as tens of thousands in Tunis chanted, “The people want the fall of the regime.” Last week, Sisi met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, whose government has arrested hundreds and killed dozens since protests began last month over the rising cost of bread and other basic commodities.

As masses of workers and youth internationally enter into struggle, it is critical to draw the lessons of Macron’s trip to Cairo. Macron’s hailing last year of French fascist dictator Philippe Pétain, or German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer’s endorsement of neo-Nazi riots in German cities, are not isolated accidents. Faced with a challenge from below, the ruling class will seek to use the most ruthless methods.

The French ruling elite’s response to the “yellow vest” protests has been to launch mass arrests and repression on a scale unseen in metropolitan France since the Nazi Occupation. Over 5,000 protesters have been arrested, including more than 1,700 on a single day on December 8. At least four protesters have had their hands blown off by police stun grenades, another 20 have lost eyes from police bean-bag bullets, and one person has been permanently deafened.

Photos have emerged showing riot police in Paris carrying Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifles loaded with live ammunition, and a furious debate is ongoing in the French ruling class about attempting to implement the repressive policies pioneered by Sisi in Egypt against the “yellow vests.”

On January 7, Luc Ferry, a former education minister and self-proclaimed “philosopher,” lashed out on radio against the “yellow vests,” demanding that the military fire live ammunition at them: “We have the fourth largest army in the world, and it is able to put an end to these c—ts,” he said. “These kinds of thugs … from the extreme right, the extreme left and from the housing estates that come to hit the police—enough!”

This statement sums up the sentiments prevailing not just in the ruling classes of France, but of the whole world, who see the turn to dictatorship and repression as the only means to prop up the increasingly hated capitalist system.

The most basic needs of the working class today, including the defense of the most fundamental democratic rights, cannot be met outside of a frontal assault on the fortunes and prerogatives of the capitalist class—a struggle of the international working class for the expropriation of the ruling class and the building of socialism.