Haiti and the Collapse of a Political and Economic System

Jake Johnston

You can draw a pretty straight line from the last electoral process to the current unrest in Haiti. Building for months, and frankly years, the country has now been shut down for five days as tensions – and violence – increase, threatening President Jovenel Moise’s mandate.

In 2015 and 2016, backed by the international community, political and economic actors made a Faustian bargain in the name of “stability.” They decided to allow fraudulent and violence-plagued legislative elections to stand, and rerun them at the presidential level.

The failure of that analysis is evidenced by the situation in Haiti today. In truth, it’s been international policy for more than a decade. Keep a lid on things, while sustaining the unsustainable status quo.

The incoming legislature was stacked full of “legal bandits” and to ensure a continuation of the Michel Martelly/PHTK government, Moise allied with some of the country’s most nefarious political actors. As I wrote at the time:

Will this strategy of elite alliances and local influence maintain right-wing rule in Haiti? Three decades of near-constant foreign intervention and the failures of Haiti’s traditional political class have weakened and divided the country’s once strong and united democracy movement. Elite control, at least in the short term, is now all but ensured.

But the foundation for this “stability” has been built with kindling. With so many excluded from their country’s politics, the viability of Haiti’s electoral democracy as a path toward constitutional order and stability has been diminished.  More than two hundred years since Haitian independence, the struggle for freedom will find other expressions.

Senator Youri Latortue, a former ally of the president who has turned into a leading critic and “anti-corruption champion,” owes his seat in the legislature to dirty dealing and corruption in his home department of the Artibonite:

To secure a first-round win, a candidate must receive at least 50 percent of the vote, or a 25-percent lead over the second place finisher. Latortue had neither. But not only did the court reintroduce tally sheets to get over the 70-percent barrier, it applied a different calculation method to allow Latortue to advance to the second round. Despite being completely in conflict with the regulations and interpretation put forth by the CEP, Latortue advanced based on the court’s ruling while receiving only 27 percent of the vote. …

After the decision, an anonymous member of the CEP spoke to Haiti’s leading daily,Le Nouvelliste, explaining that the departmental electoral court had no jurisdiction to put excluded tally sheets back into the count. “Yes, there was influence peddling, bargaining,” the member told the paper. “With advisors clearly at the service of power and other interests, it is difficult to guarantee elections and the credibility of results.”

Moise received most of the votes in the presidential election rerun. However, with less than 20 percent voter turnout and a process that was deeply compromised, it was crazy to believe that the election would lead to stability.

When the #KoteKobPetrocaribea protests began this past August, most analysts viewed the movement as little more than a flash — a temporary spasm that was driven more by politics than citizen frustration.

But it should have been more accurately viewed as the manifestation of tremendous anger built up at a political and economic system that failed the people.

Again, the analysis of the government and its international allies was faulty. Believing the cries of the population could be ignored and a political solution reached, the government failed to adequately respond to the demands emanating from the street.

It didn’t help that the president built his campaign around a company that was a commercial failure and was found to have received Petrocaribe funds during the presidential campaign.

The fact remains, however, that Agritrans has never made a profit. Since Moïse launched his presidential campaign with that first shipment, only one additional container has left port, and it was more than two years ago, in April 2016.

As a free-trade zone, Agritrans is legally required to export 70 percent of its production. In 2014 the company signed a long-term deal with a German company, Port International, which called for the shipment of up to 60 containers per week. Agritrans has claimed that the replanting effort was made in coordination with their international partner, but the company provided a contradictory view.

Mike Port, an official with the company, confirmed to me that there had been no recent communication with Agritrans. “We had just 2 shipments and it seems that due to unknown reasons Agritrans was not in a position to establish the relationship we wanted,” Port wrote to me via e-mail in February. “We lost contact during and after elections.”

Now, facing generalized unrest, and with each day showing the government’s lack of control over the country, the people and the economy, the situation is approaching the brink. Enter the international community, again.

The Core Group — composed of the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General, the Ambassadors of Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, the European Union, the United States of America, and the Special Representative of the Organization of American States — in its customary diplomatic language, once again called for elections as a way out of the crisis. Though the government surely viewed the statement as support, reading between the lines, it was perhaps the most critical statement I can remember.

Nevertheless, it shows the continued naivete of those in the international community. If elections are not held this coming October, then the terms of parliament will expire and, come 2020, the president may be ruling by decree.

But thinking that elections will resolve the current crisis is patently absurd. As one diplomat recently conceded, rather than releasing tension, elections have the opposite effect in Haiti. It is the legal bandits who would once again dominate in this environment.

(Not to mention the hypocrisy of the Core Group statement).

Core group countries who are currently promoting the coup in Venezuela while talking shit about democracy and elections in #Haiti. pic.twitter.com/vYHfpKttfI

— Etant Dupain (@gaetantguevara) February 10, 2019

None of which seems to allow an easy way out of the current situation. The economy is crumbling, and the government has nowhere near the resources to address it. The president’s calls for dialogue have fallen on deaf ears. Reshuffling ministers won’t do anything.

And who would the government dialogue with? Yes, the political opposition smells blood, but no single actor has control over the streets today. And who among the country’s political and civic leaders has the credibility to lead such a process?

The strategy of the Haitian government appears to be hunker down and hope this all just goes away. In the meantime, the situation for millions of Haitians will continue to deteriorate, caught between political violence, government ineptitude, and the ever-increasing cost of living.

I believe what we are witnessing is the collapse of a system. A system that has failed the Haitian people. There are no more quick fixes; there are no more internationally devised compromises to paper over the reality.

I fear that things will get worse before they get better.

The hope? A new generation of leaders who have yet to fully emerge, but undoubtedly will be the only ones able to lead their country forward. Who among the discredited political class will have the courage to step aside and empower them?

Pakistan’s War on Terror and Ouster of Nawaz Sharif

Nauman Sadiq

In a momentous decision on July 28, 2017, then Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif was disqualified from holding public office by the country’s apex court on the flimsy pretext of holding an “Iqama” (a work permit) for a Dubai-based company, and was subsequently given a ten-year imprisonment sentence, though the latter decision is subject to appeal.

Subsequently, sham elections were staged last year, in which many of the stalwarts of Nawaz Sharif’s political party were sent behind the bars and the stooge of Pakistan’s military Imran Khan and his newly formed political party emerged as clear winners, thus legitimizing the “judicial coup” against the government of Nawaz Sharif.

Although it is generally assumed that the revelations in the Panama Papers, that Nawaz Sharif and his family members owned offshore companies, led to the disqualification of the former prime minister, another critically important factor that contributed to the ouster and incarceration of Nawaz Sharif is often overlooked.

In October 2016, one of Pakistan’s leading English language newspapers, Dawn News, published an exclusive report dubbed as the “Dawn Leaks” in the Pakistani press. In the report titled “Act against militants or face international isolation,” citing an advisor to the prime minister, Tariq Fatemi, who was fired from his job for disclosing the internal deliberations of a high-level meeting to the media, the author of the report Cyril Almeida contended that in a huddle of Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership, the civilian government had told the military’s top brass to withdraw its support from the militant outfits operating in Pakistan, specifically from the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad.

After losing tens of thousands of lives to terror attacks during the last decade, an across-the-board consensus has developed among Pakistan’s mainstream political forces that the policy of nurturing militants against regional adversaries has backfired on Pakistan and it risks facing international isolation due to belligerent policies of Pakistan’s security establishment.

Not only Washington, but Pakistan’s “all-weather ally” China, which plans to invest $62 billion in Pakistan via its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects, has also made its reservations public regarding Pakistan’s continued support to the aforementioned jihadist groups.

Thus, excluding a handful of far-right Islamist political parties that are funded by the Gulf’s petro-dollars and historically garner less than 10% votes of Pakistan’s electorate, all the civilian political forces are in favor of turning a new leaf in Pakistan’s checkered political history by endorsing the decision of an indiscriminate crackdown on militant outfits operating in Pakistan. But Pakistan’s security establishment jealously guards its traditional domain, the security and defense policy of Pakistan, and still maintains a distinction between the so-called “good and bad” Taliban.

Regarding Pakistan’s duplicitous stance on terrorism, it’s worth noting that there are three distinct categories of militants operating in Pakistan: the Afghanistan-focused Pashtun militants; the Kashmir-focused Punjabi militants; and foreign transnational terrorists, including the Arab militants of al-Qaeda, the Uzbek insurgents of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Chinese Uighur jihadists of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Compared to tens of thousands of native Pashtun and Punjabi militants, the foreign transnational terrorists number only in a few hundred and are hence inconsequential.

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is mainly comprised of Pashtun militants, carries out bombings against Pakistan’s state apparatus. The ethnic factor is critical here. Although the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) like to couch their rhetoric in religious terms, but it is the difference of ethnicity and language that enables them to recruit Pashtun tribesmen who are willing to carry out subversive activities against the Punjabi-dominated state apparatus, while the Kashmir-focused Punjabi militants have by and large remained loyal to their patrons in the security agencies of Pakistan.

Although Pakistan’s security establishment has been willing to conduct military operations against the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which are regarded as a security threat to Pakistan’s state apparatus, as far as the Kashmir-focused Punjabi militants, including the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, and the Afghanistan-focused Quetta Shura Taliban, including the Haqqani network, are concerned, they are still enjoying impunity because such militant groups are regarded as ‘strategic assets’ by Pakistan’s security agencies.

Therefore, the Nawaz Sharif government’s decision that Pakistan must act against the jihadist proxies of the security establishment or risk facing international isolation ruffled the feathers of the military’s top brass, and consequently, the country’s judiciary was used to disqualify an elected prime minister in order to browbeat the civilian leadership of Pakistan.

Historically, from the massacres in Bangladesh in 1971 to the training and arming of Afghan jihadists during the Soviet-Afghan war throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, and then mounting ill-conceived military operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas under American pressure, leading to the displacement of millions of Pashtun tribesmen, the single biggest issue in Pakistan’s turbulent politics has been the interference of army in politics. Unless Pakistanis are able to establish civilian supremacy in Pakistan, it would become a rogue state which will pose a threat to regional peace and its own citizenry.

For the half of its seventy-year history, Pakistan was directly ruled by the army, and for the remaining half, the military establishment kept dictating Pakistan’s defense and security policy from behind the scenes. The outcome of Ayub Khan’s first decade-long martial law from 1958 to 1969 was that Bengalis were marginalized and alienated to an extent that it led to the separation of East Pakistan (Bangladesh) in 1971.

During General Zia’s second decade-long martial law from 1977 to 1988, Pakistan’s military trained and armed its own worst nemesis, the Afghan and Kashmiri jihadists. And during General Musharraf’s third martial law from 1999 to 2008, Pakistan’s security establishment made a volte-face under American pressure and declared a war against its erstwhile jihadist proxies that kindled the fire of insurgency in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Although most political commentators in Pakistan nowadays hold an Islamist General Zia-ul-Haq responsible for the jihadist militancy in tribal areas, it would be erroneous to assume that nurturing militancy in Pakistan was the doing of an individual scapegoat named Zia. All the army chiefs after Zia’s assassination in 1988, including Generals Aslam Beg, Asif Nawaz, Waheed Kakar, Jahangir Karamat and right up to General Musharraf, upheld the same military doctrine of using jihadist proxies to destabilize the hostile neighboring countries, Afghanistan, India and Iran, throughout the 1980s and ‘90s.

A strategic rethink in the Pakistan Army’s top-brass took place only after the 9/11 terror attack, when Richard Armitage, the US Deputy Secretary of State during the Bush administration, threatened General Musharraf in so many words: “We will send Pakistan back to the Stone Age unless you stop supporting the Taliban.” Thus, deliberate promotion of Islamic radicalism and militancy in the region was not the doing of an individual general; rather, it was a well-thought-out military doctrine of a rogue institution.

Notwithstanding, although far from being its diehard ideologue, Donald Trump has been affiliated with the infamous white supremacist “alt-right” movement, which regards Islamic terrorism as an existential threat to America’s security. Trump’s tweets slamming Pakistan for playing a double game in Afghanistan and providing safe havens to the Afghan Taliban on its soil reveals his uncompromising and hawkish stance on terrorism.

Many political commentators in the Pakistani media misinterpreted Trump’s tweets as nothing more than a momentary tantrum of a fickle US president, who wants to pin the blame of Washington’s failures in Afghanistan on Pakistan. But along with tweets, the Trump administration also withheld a tranche of $255 million US assistance to Pakistan, which shows that it wasn’t just tweets but a carefully considered policy of the new US administration to persuade Pakistan to toe Washington’s line in Afghanistan.

Furthermore, Washington has also been arm-twisting Islamabad through the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to do more to curtail the activities of militants operating from its soil to destabilize the US-backed government in Afghanistan.

Finally, after Donald Trump’s outbursts against Pakistan, many willfully blind security and defense analysts suggested that Pakistan needed to intensify its diplomatic efforts to persuade the Trump administration that Pakistan was sincere in its fight against terrorism. But diplomacy is not a charade in which one can persuade one’s interlocutors merely by hollow words without substantiating the words by tangible actions.

The double game played by Pakistan’s security agencies in Afghanistan and Kashmir to destabilize its regional adversaries is in plain sight for everybody to discern and feel indignant about. Therefore, Pakistan will have to withdraw its support from the Afghan Taliban and the Kashmir-focused Punjabi militant groups, if it is eager to maintain good working relations with the Trump administration and wants to avoid economic sanctions and international censure.

War With China? It’s Already Under Way

Michael T. Klare

In his highly acclaimed 2017 book, Destined for War, Harvard professor Graham Allison assessed the likelihood that the United States and China would one day find themselves at war. Comparing the U.S.-Chinese relationship to great-power rivalries all the way back to the Peloponnesian War of the fifth century BC, he concluded that the future risk of a conflagration was substantial. Like much current analysis of U.S.-Chinese relations, however, he missed a crucial point: for all intents and purposes, the United States and China are already at war with one another. Even if their present slow-burn conflict may not produce the immediate devastation of a conventional hot war, its long-term consequences could prove no less dire.

To suggest this means reassessing our understanding of what constitutes war. From Allison’s perspective (and that of so many others in Washington and elsewhere), “peace” and “war” stand as polar opposites. One day, our soldiers are in their garrisons being trained and cleaning their weapons; the next, they are called into action and sent onto a battlefield. War, in this model, begins when the first shots are fired.

Well, think again in this new era of growing great-power struggle and competition. Today, war means so much more than military combat and can take place even as the leaders of the warring powers meet to negotiate and share dry-aged steak and whipped potatoes (as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping did at Mar-a-Lago in 2017). That is exactly where we are when it comes to Sino-American relations. Consider it war by another name, or perhaps, to bring back a long-retired term, a burning new version of a cold war.

Even before Donald Trump entered the Oval Office, the U.S. military and other branches of government were already gearing up for a long-term quasi-war, involving both growing economic and diplomatic pressure on China and a buildup of military forces along that country’s periphery. Since his arrival, such initiatives have escalated into Cold War-style combat by another name, with his administration committed to defeating China in a struggle for global economic, technological, and military supremacy.

This includes the president’s much-publicized “trade war” with China, aimed at hobbling that country’s future growth; a techno-war designed to prevent it from overtaking the U.S. in key breakthrough areas of technology; a diplomatic war intended to isolate Beijing and frustrate its grandiose plans for global outreach; a cyber war (largely hidden from public scrutiny); and a range of military measures as well. This may not be war in the traditional sense of the term, but for leaders on both sides, it has the feel of one.

Why China?

The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian relations, in large part because of revelations of Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 American presidential election and the ongoing Mueller investigation. Behind the scenes, however, most senior military and foreign policy officials in Washington view China, not Russia, as the country’s principal adversary. In eastern Ukraine, the Balkans, Syria, cyberspace, and in the area of nuclear weaponry, Russia does indeed pose a variety of threats to Washington’s goals and desires. Still, as an economically hobbled petro-state, it lacks the kind of might that would allow it to truly challenge this country’s status as the world’s dominant power. China is another story altogether. With its vast economy, growing technological prowess, intercontinental “Belt and Road” infrastructure project, and rapidly modernizing military, an emboldened China could someday match or even exceed U.S. power on a global scale, an outcome American elites are determined to prevent at any cost.

Washington’s fears of a rising China were on full display in January with the release of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, a synthesis of the views of the Central Intelligence Agency and other members of that “community.” Its conclusion: “We assess that China’s leaders will try to extend the country’s global economic, political, and military reach while using China’s military capabilities and overseas infrastructure and energy investments under the Belt and Road Initiative to diminish U.S. influence.”

To counter such efforts, every branch of government is now expected to mobilize its capabilities to bolster American — and diminish Chinese — power. In Pentagon documents, this stance is summed up by the term “over-match,” which translates as the eternal preservation of American global superiority vis-à-vis China (and all other potential rivals). “The United States must retain over-match,” the administration’s National Security Strategy insists, and preserve a “combination of capabilities in sufficient scale to prevent enemy success,” while continuing to “shape the international environment to protect our interests.”

In other words, there can never be parity between the two countries. The only acceptable status for China is as a distinctly lesser power. To ensure such an outcome, administration officials insist, the U.S. must take action on a daily basis to contain or impede its rise.

In previous epochs, as Allison makes clear in his book, this equation — a prevailing power seeking to retain its dominant status and a rising power seeking to overcome its subordinate one — has almost always resulted in conventional conflict. In today’s world, however, where great-power armed combat could possibly end in a nuclear exchange and mutual annihilation, direct military conflict is a distinctly unappealing option for all parties. Instead, governing elites have developed other means of warfare — economic, technological, and covert — to achieve such strategic objectives. Viewed this way, the United States is already in close to full combat mode with respect to China.

Trade War

When it comes to the economy, the language betrays the reality all too clearly. The Trump administration’s economic struggle with China is regularly described, openly and without qualification, as a “war.” And there’s no doubt that senior White House officials, beginning with the president and his chief trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, see it just that way: as a means of pulverizing the Chinese economy and so curtailing that country’s ability to compete with the United States in all other measures of power.

Ostensibly, the aim of President Trump’s May 2018 decision to impose $60 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports (increased in September to $200 billion) was to rectify a trade imbalance between the two countries, while protecting the American economy against what is described as China’s malign behavior. Its trade practices “plainly constitute a grave threat to the long-term health and prosperity of the United States economy,” as the president put it when announcing the second round of tariffs.

An examination of the demands submitted to Chinese negotiators by the U.S. trade delegation last May suggests, however, that Washington’s primary intent hasn’t been to rectify that trade imbalance but to impede China’s economic growth. Among the stipulations Beijing must acquiesce to before receiving tariff relief, according to leaked documents from U.S. negotiators that were spread on Chinese social media:

• halting all government subsidies to advanced manufacturing industries in its Made in China 2025 program, an endeavor that covers 10 key economic sectors, including aircraft manufacturing, electric cars, robotics, computer microchips, and artificial intelligence;
• accepting American restrictions on investments in sensitive technologies without retaliating;
• opening up its service and agricultural sectors — areas where Chinese firms have an inherent advantage — to full American competition.

In fact, this should be considered a straightforward declaration of economic war. Acquiescing to such demands would mean accepting a permanent subordinate status vis-à-vis the United States in hopes of continuing a profitable trade relationship with this country. “The list reads like the terms for a surrender rather than a basis for negotiation,” was the way Eswar Prasad, an economics professor at Cornell University, accurately described these developments.

Technological Warfare

As suggested by America’s trade demands, Washington’s intent is not only to hobble China’s economy today and tomorrow but for decades to come. This has led to an intense, far-ranging campaign to deprive it of access to advanced technologies and to cripple its leading technology firms.

Chinese leaders have long realized that, for their country to achieve economic and military parity with the United States, they must master the cutting-edge technologies that will dominate the twenty-first-century global economy, including artificial intelligence (AI), fifth-generation (5G) telecommunications, electric vehicles, and nanotechnology. Not surprisingly then, the government has invested in a major way in science and technology education, subsidized research in path-breaking fields, and helped launch promising startups, among other such endeavors — all in the very fashion that the Internet and other American computer and aerospace innovations were originally financed and encouraged by the Department of Defense.

Chinese companies have also demanded technology transfers when investing in or forging industrial partnerships with foreign firms, a common practice in international development. India, to cite a recent example of this phenomenon, expects that significant technology transfers from American firms will be one outcome of its agreed-upon purchases of advanced American weaponry.

In addition, Chinese firms have been accused of stealing American technology through cyber-theft, provoking widespread outrage in this country. Realistically speaking, it’s difficult for outside observers to determine to what degree China’s recent technological advances are the product of commonplace and legitimate investments in science and technology and to what degree they’re due to cyber espionage. Given Beijing’s massive investment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education at the graduate and post-graduate level, however, it’s safe to assume that most of that country’s advances are the result of domestic efforts.

Certainly, given what’s publicly known about Chinese cyber-theft activities, it’s reasonable for American officials to apply pressure on Beijing to curb the practice. However, the Trump administration’s drive to blunt that country’s technological progress is also aimed at perfectly legitimate activities. For example, the White House seeks to ban Beijing’s government subsidies for progress on artificial intelligence at the same time that the Department of Defense is pouring billions of dollars into AI research at home. The administration is also acting to block the Chinese acquisition of U.S. technology firms and of exports of advanced components and know-how.

In an example of this technology war that’s made the headlines lately, Washington has been actively seeking to sabotage the efforts of Huawei, one of China’s most prominent telecom firms, to gain leadership in the global deployment of 5G wireless communications. Such wireless systems are important in part because they will transmit colossal amounts of electronic data at far faster rates than now conceivable, facilitating the introduction of self-driving cars, widespread roboticization, and the universal application of AI.

Second only to Apple as the world’s supplier of smartphones and a major producer of telecommunications equipment, Huawei has sought to take the lead in the race for 5G adaptation around the world. Fearing that this might give China an enormous advantage in the coming decades, the Trump administration has tried to prevent that. In what is widely described as a “tech Cold War,” it has put enormous pressure on both its Asian and European allies to bar the company from conducting business in their countries, even as it sought the arrest in Canada of Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, and her extradition to the U.S. on charges of tricking American banks into aiding Iranian firms (in violation of Washington’s sanctions on that country). Other attacks on Huawei are in the works, including a potential ban on the sales of its products in this country. Such moves are regularly described as focused on boosting the security of both the United States and its allies by preventing the Chinese government from using Huawei’s telecom networks to steal military secrets. The real reason — barely disguised — is simply to block China from gaining technological parity with the United States.

Cyberwarfare

There would be much to write on this subject, if only it weren’t still hidden in the shadows of the growing conflict between the two countries. Not surprisingly, however, little information is available on U.S.-Chinese cyberwarfare. All that can be said with confidence is that an intense war is now being waged between the two countries in cyberspace. American officials accuse China of engaging in a broad-based cyber-assault on this country, involving both outright cyber espionage to obtain military as well as corporate secrets and widespread political meddling. “What the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing,” said Vice President Mike Pence last October in a speech at the Hudson Institute, though — typically on the subject — he provided not a shred of evidence for his claim.

Not disclosed is what this country is doing to combat China in cyberspace. All that can be known from available information is that this is a two-sided war in which the U.S. is conducting its own assaults. “­The United States will impose swift and costly consequences on foreign governments, criminals, and other actors who undertake significant malicious cyber activities,” the 2017 National Security Strategy affirmed. What form these “consequences” have taken has yet to be revealed, but there’s little doubt that America’s cyber warriors have been active in this domain.

Diplomatic and Military Coercion

Completing the picture of America’s ongoing war with China are the fierce pressures being exerted on the diplomatic and military fronts to frustrate Beijing’s geopolitical ambitions. To advance those aspirations, China’s leadership is relying heavily on a much-touted Belt and Road Initiative, a trillion-dollar plan to help fund and encourage the construction of a vast new network of road, rail, port, and pipeline infrastructure across Eurasia and into the Middle East and Africa. By financing — and, in many cases, actually building — such infrastructure, Beijing hopes to bind the economies of a host of far-flung nations ever closer to its own, while increasing its political influence across the Eurasian mainland and Africa. As Beijing’s leadership sees it, at least in terms of orienting the planet’s future economics, its role would be similar to that of the Marshall Plan that cemented U.S. influence in Europe after World War II.

And given exactly that possibility, Washington has begun to actively seek to undermine the Belt and Road wherever it can — discouraging allies from participating, while stirring up unease in countries like Malaysia and Uganda over the enormous debts to China they may end up with and the heavy-handed manner in which that country’s firms often carry out such overseas construction projects. (For example, they typically bring in Chinese laborers to do most of the work, rather than hiring and training locals.)

“China uses bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijing’s wishes and demands,” National Security Advisor John Bolton claimed in a December speech on U.S. policy on that continent. “Its investment ventures are riddled with corruption,” he added, “and do not meet the same environmental or ethical standards as U.S. developmental programs.” Bolton promised that the Trump administration would provide a superior alternative for African nations seeking development funds, but — and this is something of a pattern as well — no such assistance has yet materialized.

In addition to diplomatic pushback, the administration has undertaken a series of initiatives intended to isolate China militarily and limit its strategic options. In South Asia, for example, Washington has abandoned its past position of maintaining rough parity in its relations with India and Pakistan. In recent years, it’s swung sharply towards a strategic alliance with New Dehli, attempting to enlist it fully in America’s efforts to contain China and, presumably, in the process punishing Pakistan for its increasingly enthusiastic role in the Belt and Road Initiative.

In the Western Pacific, the U.S. has stepped up its naval patrols and forged new basing arrangements with local powers — all with the aim of confining the Chinese military to areas close to the mainland. In response, Beijing has sought to escape the grip of American power by establishing miniature bases on Chinese-claimed islands in the South China Sea (or even constructing artificial islands to house bases there) — moves widely condemned by the hawks in Washington.

To demonstrate its ire at the effrontery of Beijing in the Pacific (once known as an “American lake”), the White House has ordered an increased pace of so-called freedom-of-navigation operations (FRONOPs). Navy warships regularly sail within shooting range of those very island bases, suggesting a U.S. willingness to employ military force to resist future Chinese moves in the region (and also creating situations in which a misstep could lead to a military incident that could lead… well, anywhere).

In Washington, the warnings about Chinese military encroachment in the region are already reaching a fever pitch. For instance, Admiral Philip Davidson, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, described the situation there in recent congressional testimony this way: “In short, China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States.”

A Long War of Attrition

As Admiral Davidson suggests, one possible outcome of the ongoing cold war with China could be armed conflict of the traditional sort. Such an encounter, in turn, could escalate to the nuclear level, resulting in mutual annihilation. A war involving only “conventional” forces would itself undoubtedly be devastating and lead to widespread suffering, not to mention the collapse of the global economy.

Even if a shooting war doesn’t erupt, however, a long-term geopolitical war of attrition between the U.S. and China will, in the end, have debilitating and possibly catastrophic consequences for both sides. Take the trade war, for example. If that’s not resolved soon in a positive manner, continuing high U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports will severely curb Chinese economic growth and so weaken the world economy as a whole, punishing every nation on Earth, including this one. High tariffs will also increase costs for American consumers and endanger the prosperity and survival of many firms that rely on Chinese raw materials and components.

This new brand of war will also ensure that already sky-high defense expenditures will continue to rise, diverting funds from vital needs like education, health, infrastructure, and the environment.  Meanwhile, preparations for a future war with China have already become the number one priority at the Pentagon, crowding out all other considerations. “While we’re focused on ongoing operations,” acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan reportedly told his senior staff on his first day in office this January, “remember China, China, China.”

Perhaps the greatest victim of this ongoing conflict will be planet Earth itself and all the creatures, humans included, who inhabit it. As the world’s top two emitters of climate-altering greenhouse gases, the U.S. and China must work together to halt global warming or all of us are doomed to a hellish future. With a war under way, even a non-shooting one, the chance for such collaboration is essentially zero. The only way to save civilization is for the U.S. and China to declare peace and focus together on human salvation.

Chinese community in Australia voices concern over xenophobic “foreign interference” campaign

James Cogan

Some 128 Chinese community organisations in Australia have put their name to a statement, published on February 16, opposing the stripping of permanent residency from billionaire Huang Xiangmo by the Home Affairs ministry.

On the advice of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Huang, who has lived in Australia since 2011 and whose family still resides in Sydney, has been denied re-entry into the country on the grounds that he is suspected of being an agent of “foreign interference” of the Chinese government.

Three major Chinese language newspapers, Singtao, Australian Chinese Daily and the Daily Chinese Herald, published a full-page advertisement featuring the statement and the endorsing organisations. It conveys concern and alarm that the banishment of Huang is the prelude to a xenophobic campaign directed against all Australian citizens and permanent residents of Chinese background.

The statement notes that the accusations against Huang are “groundless,” as his donations to both the Liberal and Labor parties were legal. Huang himself has stressed in interviews the remarkable fact that he has been condemned for supporting the reunification of China and Taiwan. Reunification has been the official position of the Australian government since 1972, when Canberra adopted the “One China” policy and ended diplomatic recognition of Taiwan as an independent state, in order to develop Australian economic ties with mainland China.

ASIO has also deemed Huang to be an agent of the Chinese government because he sponsored academic and other initiatives that are aimed at strengthening economic, political and cultural ties between China and Australia. Such initiatives and activities involve hundreds of thousands of Australians of Chinese background.

Pointing to fears of mass persecution, the statement declared: “What happens to Mr Huang today, could happen to any of us tomorrow. If we cannot defend Mr Huang’s lawful rights today, no one can defend our lawful rights tomorrow.”

In a column published on February 16 by the Saturday Paper, David Brophy, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney, also highlighted the broader implications of the stripping of residency from Huang Xiangmo.

Brody observed: “That Huang would be the first big fish to be caught in the foreign interference net was predictable. For some time, he has been the bête noire of journalists on the hunt for nefarious Chinese influence on Australia’s political system.”

He drew attention to the “vague wording” in statements in the Australian Financial Review justifying ASIO’s advice. The intelligence agency reportedly told Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton to strip Huang of his residency rights because he was “amenable to conducting acts of foreign interference.” [emphasis added]

Huang Xiangmo is certainly a member of the Chinese financial and corporate elite that has been spawned since the restoration of capitalism by the Stalinist regime in Beijing from 1978 on. Like all Chinese oligarchs, he has connections inside the misnamed Chinese Communist Party. However, beyond encouraging closer relations between the capitalist classes of Australia and China—and developing his own connections with the major parliamentary parties—there is no evidence he was directly carrying out actions on behalf of the Chinese government or any of its agencies.

Brody commented: “To point this out is not to defend Huang’s actions, but to highlight the expanding use of discretionary authority to exclude individuals from the body politic. For decades, only non-citizens convicted of serious offences were vulnerable to this form of modern-day banishment.”

The academic noted that if Huang’s involvement in various Australian-Chinese associations was “sufficient to prompt visa-threatening questions of character, then hundreds, maybe thousands of Chinese Australians must now be wondering where Home Affairs intends to draw the line.”

Such concerns are entirely legitimate. As part of its February 7 coverage of Huang’s denial of permanent residency, for example, the Sydney Daily Telegraph published a chilling sidebar which stated:

“In Australia, security agencies estimate there could be anything up to 1,000 agents of influence, ranging from actual spies seeking to gain political insight and details of military and energy projects and infrastructure, through to local Chinese community leaders, university students and associations pushing Beijing’s lines.”

In the conclusion of his 2018 inflammatory book Silent Invasion: China’s influence in Australia, Green Party member and pro-US ideologue Clive Hamilton provocatively asked: “What proportion of the one million Chinese-Australians are loyal to Beijing first and what proportion are loyal to Australia first?”

This is the language of xenophobic witch-hunts against anyone of Chinese background who exercises their right to criticise Australia’s militarist alliance with US imperialism in an escalating and increasingly open drive toward confrontation with China over economic and strategic dominance.

More broadly, the ever-mounting hysteria over “Chinese interference” poses immense dangers to the democratic rights of the entire working class. As the Australian ruling class prepares for the prospect of joining a US-led war against China, it is preparing state repression against all anti-war opposition, on the pretext that it must be inspired by “foreign” influence.

In its campaign in the 2019 federal election, the Socialist Equality Party will raise as one of its central policies the immediate repudiation of the battery of anti-democratic foreign interference laws rammed through the parliament by the Coalition government and Labor opposition last June.

German government to tighten up deportations

Marianne Arens

Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (Christian Social Union, CSU) has presented a 60-page bill on the deportation of refugees. The bill bears the imprimatur of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) from start to finish. It makes a mockery of democratic principles; it is a document of bureaucratic cruelty and, if passed by the Bundestag, would set a precedent for the suppression of social and political opposition.

The bill aims to get refugees whose asylum applications have been rejected, but who cannot be deported because of war and terror in their homeland or because of lack of paperwork, out of Germany as quickly as possible. It bears the cynical name, “Orderly Return Law,” but could be more appropriately titled, “The Foreigners Out Law.”

At present, there are 236,000 people who have been ordered to leave Germany; 180,000 have a temporary reprieve to stay because they cannot return to their country of origin for various reasons. In the future, they would be treated like criminals and ruthlessly harassed.

Those who do not actively contribute to their own deportation are to be punished! Refugees who are guilty of nothing are to be put in jail. In the Orwellian language of the bill, this is called an “extended preparatory detention.” Insufficient action in the procurement of a passport—which often proves impossible due to non-functioning authorities in the home country—is sufficient to land a refugee behind bars.

According to the draft, refugees would lose their temporary leave to stay status if, in the opinion of the authorities, they do not cooperate sufficiently. For example, they must prove that all identity information is correct—which is often difficult or impossible for refugees from areas afflicted by war and civil war. The burden of proof is reversed: Previously, it was the responsibility of the immigration authority to prove that a person has provided false information before they could curtail their rights.

But the bill goes even further: Anyone who warns refugees about their impending deportation and helps them can be punished by up to three years in prison. Similar to Hungary, members of refugee initiatives and individuals with access to official know-how are to be severely punished if they warn someone who is threatened with deportation. This sets a precedent for criminalizing any form of protest and resistance against the authorities. Making a warning of impending deportation flights by newsletter or social media can also be punished, a clear violation of freedom of the press and information.

The draft law also stipulates that benefits for refugees who have no right to stay will be further reduced. In addition, nationals from so-called “safe countries of origin” should no longer be tolerated from the outset and can be sanctioned, imprisoned and deported solely based on their nationality.

Refugees ordered to leave the country are to be deported as soon as possible. Especially in airports, it would be made easier to imprison people without a court decision and without them having committed any criminal acts.

Although the courts have banned this, refugees awaiting deportation can be held in regular prisons. They should only be physically separated from the general prison population.

More and more people are being deported from Germany. According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, almost 24,000 people were deported in 2017. In addition, almost 30,000 people left “voluntarily.” More than 7,100 people were deported to other European countries under the Dublin regulations. In total, more than 60,000 refugees from Germany were removed in 2017, i.e., an average of 166 people per day.

To double and further multiply these numbers, the grand coalition government of the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD) is not shying away from openly breaching the law. “The ‘Orderly Return Law’ ignores principles of the rule of law,” the Pro Asyl organization said on its website. “Rejected asylum seekers who have never committed a crime are to be treated like criminals.”

As the director of Pro Asyl, Günter Burkhardt, told the AFP news agency, the bill means an “unlimited expansion of the grounds for detention” that could affect almost any asylum seeker. As a result of asylum seekers being prohibited from working and partaking in education, those affected are deprived of any prospects of staying. A very large group of people are thrust into a “lawless state.”

Interior Minister Seehofer justified the draft to the Passauer Neue Pressesaying: “If someone is to be deported, we should take him into custody so that he does not disappear at the time of deportation.”

The CDU parliamentary deputy Armin Schuster defended him on the programme “Tagesschau” with the words: “Those who prevent their deportation by not clarifying their identity, not cooperating or even practising deceit, [can] only stay until we have deported them, let’s say, under lowered standards. They are not allowed to work, receive reduced asylum seeker benefits, etc.”

The SPD has already made clear that it does not object to the law in principle. It has merely criticized it for not being effective enough. The party’s domestic affairs spokesman, Burkhard Lischka, told “Tagesschau” that he doubted the measures would lead to more deportations, and would “not speed up any deportation,” adding, “I have to make sure that people are returned.”

Seehofer’s bill and the reactions to it confirm the assessment of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party) that the grand coalition formed in March last year is the “most right-wing German government since the fall of the Nazi regime.” In order to suppress resistance to growing social inequality and military rearmament, it is adopting the AfD’s programme, systematically fostering right-wing and xenophobic sentiments and increasing the powers of the state apparatus.

Indian government intensifies retaliatory threats against Pakistan

Deepal Jayasekera

The Indian government has intensified its threats of retaliatory strikes against Pakistan over last Thursday’s terrorist attack in Kashmir. It immediately blamed Islamabad for the suicide bombing that killed more than 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel, after the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM)’s claimed responsibility for the attack.

On Sunday, Home Minister Rajnath Singh told a public meeting in Odisha that the JeM had perpetrated the attack because of the “desperation” of “forces backed by Pakistan.” He hailed the “free hand” given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to military forces to take action—a clear sign that India is preparing retaliatory attacks inside Pakistan.

Singh also applauded the support of virtually all establishment parties for a military move against Pakistan. He said that they had “condemned terrorist attacks with one voice and at the same time they censured neighbouring Pakistan,” and declared that they stood united with the military forces.

Among the parties attending the meeting to give their support was the Communist Party of India (CPI), one of India’s two main Stalinist parliamentary parties and an ally of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM. After endorsing the resolution of support at the all-party meeting, CPI national sectary D. Raja cynically sought to distance himself from the ruling Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) by opposing the BJP’s whipping up of communalism in Jammu and Kashmir and raising “concerns” about the safety of Kashmiri students and citizens.

The Modi government is stirring up anti-Pakistan chauvinism and threatening retaliatory action in order to strengthen New Delhi’s geo-political ambitions in the region and to divert popular opposition in India to its pro-market economic restructuring into reactionary communal channels. It is desperately seeking to stem expected losses in general elections in April-May.

The BJP has boasted that the “surgical strike” ordered against Pakistan in response to the September 2016 terror attack on an Indian army camp in Kashmir represented a huge blow to Pakistan and an assertion of Indian strategic power in the region.

An Indian military strike, even if limited in size and duration, could easily lead to a tit-for-tat escalation and rapidly cascade into an all-out war between South Asia’s rival nuclear-armed states. The two countries have fought three declared wars since their formation in 1947 and countless undeclared conflicts. All-out war between India and Pakistan would be a catastrophe for the people of South Asia and would rapidly run the risk of drawing in the US on the side of India and China on the side of Pakistan.

The Modi government has been particularly emboldened in its preparations for military action against Pakistan by support extended by the US and other world powers. On Friday, US National Security Adviser John Bolton telephoned his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval to convey US support for “India’s right to self-defence against cross-border terrorism.”

For the first time, the US has publicly given the green light in advance for any Indian military action against Pakistan in the name of “self-defence against cross-border terrorism.” In September 2016, the US initially gave behind-the-scenes support for Indian retaliatory action over the attack on the Indian army camp. It only gave public support for the “surgical strike” several weeks later after it became apparent that Pakistan’s reaction would be relatively subdued and confined to cross-border shelling.

The US response last week underscores just how far the Trump administration is ready to go in rallying India in its diplomatic, economic and strategic confrontation with China. Under the Modi government, India has been transformed into a frontline state in US war preparations against Beijing. This deepening military-strategic partnership is a continuation and further development of the close ties begun under the previous BJP-led government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and continued during the successive Congress-led governments.

The near open US incitement for an Indian strike on Pakistan is all that more jarring, since Washington has been engaged in recent weeks in enlisting Pakistan’s support and assistance for “peace talks” with the Taliban. The Indian ruling elite has expressed dismay over a possible US withdrawal from Afghanistan after any deal with Taliban, as it clearly sees this as an opportunity for its arch rival Pakistan to gain a major foothold there. India undoubtedly sees Thursday’s terror attack as an opportunity to disrupt US-Pakistan ties.

The Modi government has also launched a “diplomatic war” to isolate Islamabad internationally, claiming that the attack demonstrated that Pakistan should be branded as a country “sponsoring terrorism.” On Friday, the Indian Foreign Ministry called a meeting of New Delhi-based diplomats, including from the US and China, to step up its campaign.

Inside India, Hindu extremists allied with the BJP are actively encouraging attacks on Kashmiri students studying outside Kashmir. The stoning of Kashmir students, as well as other physical attacks and threats to force students to leave, have been reported in Jammu, New Delhi and Uttarakhand. In Jammu, the victims complained that the police stood by while mobs attacked them despite a curfew put in place supposedly to prevent such incidents.

Omar Abdulla, the leader of National Conference, a Kashmiri regional bourgeois party, suggested that the BJP government’s actions would push these students back to Kashmir and encourage them to join separatist groups. He pointed out that they had left Kashmir to study precisely because they did not want to join these groups.

Pakistan has reacted to India’s threats of retaliation by declaring that it had no hand in last week’s terrorist attack. Pakistani Foreign Secretary Termina Janjua said on Saturday that New Delhi’s campaign was part of its “known rhetoric and tactics” to divert global attention from its human right violations in Kashmir. Fearing diplomatic isolation, Pakistan has not used the belligerent rhetoric of the past to reply to India.

India is certainly notorious for its military atrocities against Kashmiri Muslims. Moreover it blames any protests against its heavy-handed military occupation of Kashmir on the activities of separatist groups, but these organizations only emerged in response to New Delhi’s abuse of the basic democratic rights of Kashmiris. Pakistan’s criticisms, however, have nothing to do with defending democratic rights in Kashmir, but are to further its own geo-political interests. It has promoted and supported Islamist insurgent groups to the detriment of other anti-Indian political forces in Kashmir.

Any Indian retaliatory action against Pakistan threatens to provoke a major war between two nuclear-armed powers with deadly consequences for many millions of people in South Asia. To prevent such a conflict, it is necessary to build a unified socialist movement of the working class throughout the region. The reactionary nation-state system created by the 1947 partition of British India into a Muslim Pakistan and a Hindu-dominated India must be overthrown and a union of socialist republics of South Asia established as a part of the broader struggle for socialism internationally.

Zimbabwe: Mnangagwa government clamps down on popular opposition

Stephan McCoy

The economic situation in Zimbabwe continues to worsen, with food shortages, high fuel prices, and a currency shortage exacerbating an already tense social crisis.

The scale of the crisis is immense. The Independent Online reports that more than half of the population in rural areas faces hunger, a significant increase compared to less than 30 percent just last year. In the capital, Harare, 52 percent of residents are facing food insecurity.

According to the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee’s 2018 Rural Livelihoods Assessment, approximately 2.4 million people in rural Zimbabwe—approximately 28 percent of the rural population—will be severely food insecure by March 2019. The prices of basic services and commodities have risen at a cumulative rate of over 500 percent.

The currency shortage plaguing the Zimbabwean economy exposes many more to financial hardship and economic insecurity, driving them into unemployment. Last year, for example, thousands of RioZim workers were forced to go for months without pay before being put on forced leave by the mining company, after it shut-down three of its mines.

The ZANU-PF government, led by a ruling clique that is hermitically sealed off from the mass of ordinary people by its colossal wealth, has responded to the social discontent created by these conditions by unleashing the military to suppress any signs of dissent and keep the population in a permanent state of fear. Reports by human rights groups detail wanton acts of torture, assault and sexual assault by the army. Victims describe chilling stories of men in army uniforms and black masks raiding their homes and raping them.

The government has reinforced the presence of the army on the streets and suburbs of the capital in what amounts to martial law. According to Bulawayo24, “There are reports of soldiers patrolling most high-density suburbs, with details of forced curfews in place. Coupled with this is the continuous nightly crackdown on civilians, opposition party and civic society members who are on police wanted list.”

Notwithstanding this intimidation, the working class has expressed its determination to fight. Teachers—reflecting the wave of teachers’ strikes that have taken place over four continents—have been in the lead of this militancy with 80 percent of over 100,000 Zimbabwean teachers going on strike for higher wages February 5 after the breakdown of negotiations between the government and public-sector workers.

Strikes were met with intimidation by ZANU-PF youth, war veterans and supporters and the police.

However, a forced return to the classroom was achieved not by these reactionary forces but by the main teachers’ unions, the Zimbabwe Teachers Association and the Progressive Teachers’ Union, who urged the government to take advantage of the “detente to introspect and come up with well thought out, meaningful, and long-lasting solutions on the salaries grievances.”

The actions by the teachers’ unions are in line with the general strategy of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), which is in political alliance with the pro-imperialist Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The MDC utilizes the backing of the ZCTU to place pressure on ZANU-PF, while working in alliance with British and US imperialism.

Exposing the anti-working class character of the MDC, and its own nationalistic and militaristic chauvinism, MDC Alliance president Nelson Chamisa made a direct appeal for support from the army, stating that “We love our soldiers, we honour our soldiers; they are patriotic; but, honestly, why are politicians abusing our soldiers to draw them into issues that are not supposed to be theirs?”

Recent statements by MDC councilor of Kwekwe, Washington Moyo, again underscore the reactionary and militaristic agenda of the MDC. Speaking at a council meeting on the issue of “street vendors” (marketeers who are unable to sell their goods anywhere else other than the streets of Harare), Moyo, according to the Zimbabwe Mail, remarked, “I think it’s a waste of time to dispatch our security personnel on the ground to chase away vendors from the streets because the moment they leave, vendors will come back,” before stating that “Under the circumstances, I think it’s prudent that we engage the army. I suggest that we use the army to bring sanity to our city.”

The deposing of President Robert Mugabe in November 2017 in a military coup led by his former enforcer and now President Emmerson Mnangagwa aroused hopes for change not only among the Zimbabwean population but also within imperialist circles.

The major powers are seeking to bring about a reorientation of the ZANU-PF government away from Russia and China and for the opening up of the economy to western transnationals. However, Mnangagwa continues to seek closer ties with Moscow and Beijing which offer the possibility of investment without further financial indebtedness to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The MDC acts as a local tool of the imperialist powers in pressuring ZANU-PF into changing course or, if necessary, working towards regime change. Notably, proposed talks with Mnangagwa were snubbed by Chamisa against a background of threats of further sanctions by Washington and London.

Britain’s Minister for Africa, Harriet Baldwin, said the Conservative government is considering widening sanctions on the Zimbabwean government in the aftermath of the repression of protests. Business Day reports her as saying, “I think that since the recent developments there might be a case for widening it to include further individuals… We have been aware that the president has said that heads will roll. We haven’t seen any specific heads rolling.”

According to Business Live, US state department spokesperson Robert Palladino expressed the Trump administration’s concerns about “excessive use of force by the government of Zimbabwe’s security forces and the imposition of undue internet restrictions.” Palladino called for dialogue between MDC and ZANU-PF, before insisting that talks must be “mediated by a neutral third party” and calling for “the government of Zimbabwe to enact promised political and economic reforms.”

MDC spokesperson Jacob Mafume noted his party’s alignment with the Trump administration’s position stating, “The US’s articulation of a dialogue process and what is needed to bring peace to Zimbabwe is very clear and more pointed.”

On February 14, the European Parliament also recommended the tightening of sanctions first imposed by the European Union in 2002 on senior Zimbabwe officials and institutions, citing the Mnangagwa government’s “continued attacks, hate speech, smear campaigns, acts of intimidation and harassment and… acts of torture.” Presently, out of an initial 200 targets, only seven people and one entity remain subject to sanctions, which are due to expire February 20.

Despite the threats of new sanctions, Mnangagwa seems intent on clamping down even harder on the MDC, with the Guardian reporting, “Briefing papers prepared by Zanu-PF officials blame opposition parties and ‘rogue NGOs’ for ‘an orgy of violence’ following a protest against fuel price rises last month, accusing them of following a plan ‘by hostile elements to subvert the state by rendering the country ungovernable.’”

The Guardian adds that “The Zanu-PF document describes the security forces’ response as ‘proportional to the threat posed’, though it adds: ‘Unfortunately some misguided elements within the system and the security forces committed excesses and the law is now taking its course.’ The briefing says reports of abuses are aimed at prompting western intervention in Zimbabwe.”

Mnangagwa circulated these documents among African Union foreign diplomats to build a support base against the western powers. Times Live reports, “Botswana [has become] the latest Sadc [South African Development Community] member state to throw its weight behind Mnangagwa’s government, asking the US and other Western countries to remove sanctions against Zimbabwe. Botswana’s president, Eric Masisi said the sanctions were preventing Zimbabwe from growing.”

It goes on to say, “[E]arlier this week, Sadc chair and Namibian president Hage Geingob also pledged support to Mnangagwa, saying: ‘Sadc expresses its solidarity with the government and the people of the Republic of Zimbabwe, and calls upon the international community to unconditionally lift all sanctions imposed on the country.’”

With the support of the army, representing a bourgeois constituency that does not want to be displaced by international capital, Mnangagwa is attempting to maneuver between the imperialist powers and Russia and China, while continuing to clamp down on all opposition. The working class must wage a struggle against Mnangagwe without being corralled behind the pro-imperialist opposition represented by the MDC/ZCTU.