The War in Libya Will Never End

Vijay Prashad

General Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA) continue to partly encircle Libya’s capital, Tripoli. Not only does the LNA threaten Tripoli, but it is within striking distance of Libya’s third-largest city, Misrata. Both Tripoli and Misrata are in the hands of the Government of National Accord (GNA), which is backed by the United Nations and—most strongly—by Turkey. The second-largest city—Benghazi—is in the hands of Haftar’s LNA. Haftar’s LNA is backed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Russia. There has always been a whiff of suspicion that Haftar himself is an old CIA asset—having lived under the shadow of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, for decades. What the NATO war on Libya did to that country is to turn it into a battlefield of other people’s ambitions, to reduce Libya into a chessboard for a multidimensional game that is hard to explain and even harder to end.

LNA vs. GNA

On January 19, the United Nations and the German government held a conference in Berlin on the Libyan question. Curiously, the two belligerent parties from Libya were in Berlin but did not attend the conference. General Haftar of the LNA and Fayez Serraj of the GNA stayed in their hotels to be briefed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the UN representative on Libya Ghassan Salamé. In 2012, the UN had said that no conference should be held that is not “inclusive” and does not have the stakeholders at the table. Nonetheless, the point of this exercise was not so much to create a deal within Libya as to stop the import of arms and logistics into Libya. “We commit to refraining from interference in the armed conflict or in the internal affairs of Libya,” agreed the external parties, “and urge all international actors to do the same.” External backers of each of the sides—Egypt, France, Russia, Turkey, the United States—were all signatories of this agreement. You can imagine that none of them will take it seriously.

Merkel hastened to Istanbul after the Berlin conference to solidify the pact she has made with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who then flew to Algeria to say that he would not appreciate external intervention into Libya. It is not Erdoğan alone who sounded bewildering—all the other leaders who came to Berlin made similar remarks. You stay out of Libya, they said, but we will have to be involved in any way we think appropriate. Turkey has provided the GNA with arms and logistical assistance, and it has helped bring a few hundred Syrian jihadis to Libya to assist the GNA-backed militias.

The UN released a statement recently with a clear indication that the deal is not worth its paper. “Over the last ten days,” the UN notes, “numerous cargo and other flights have been observed landing at Libyan airports in the western and eastern parts of the country providing the parties with advanced weapons, armoured vehicles, advisers and fighters.” It does not name the countries that continue to violate the embargo, but everyone knows who they are.

Emboldened by his backers, Haftar’s forces tested the GNA and its assorted militia groups in the outskirts of Misrata over the past few days. The LNA had taken up positions in al-Wishka, but they made a foray into Abu Grein, which is on the road to Misrata. The ceasefire that was supposed to be honored was violated, as the GNA Army’s spokesperson Mohammed Gununu said on Sunday. Haftar’s spokesperson Ahmed al-Mismari said that there is no political solution for Libya; the only solution is through “rifles and ammunition.” It is a clear statement that this war is not going to be ended at the UN or in Berlin. It will have to end in Misrata and in Tripoli.

Turkey vs. Saudi Arabia

Several years ago, when it became clear that Libyans who were close to the Muslim Brotherhood might come to power, Saudi Arabia went to work against them. The Saudis have made it clear that they will not tolerate any more Muslim Brotherhood forces coming to power in North Africa or West Asia. The Saudi embargo on Qatar, the Saudi interference in Tunisia, the Saudi intervention in Egypt to remove the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi, and now the Saudi backing of Haftar provides a clear indication of the Saudi intention to rid the region of the Muslim Brotherhood. Turkey and Qatar have been the main sponsors of the Muslim Brotherhood; Saudi Arabia has dented Qatar’s ambition, but it has not been able to tether Turkey. The war in Libya is—apart from the clueless intervention of the Europeans—a war between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, with Russia playing a curious role in between these powers.

Neither Saudi Arabia nor Turkey will relinquish their backing of the LNA and the GNA, respectively. No one makes any public noises about this, although everyone knows that it is these powers that are behind this horrendous new phase of the conflict ever since NATO entered Libya in 2011 and sent the country into a situation of permanent war. The UN has done the calculations. Since April, in Tripoli alone there are 220 schools closed and at least 116,000 children with no education. Schools, universities, hospitals—all working on reduced hours or closed.

Oil and Refugees

Haftar made his move on Tripoli in April 2019. He felt that he not only had the backing of the most important powers, but that he had already taken charge of several oil fields and squeezed the Tripoli government. His rush to Tripoli, dramatic in the first few weeks, then stalled in the outskirts of the capital. He is obdurate, unconcerned that his war will simply continue the attrition of social life that had begun in the 1990s and accelerated after the NATO war in 2011.

On January 19, the LNA and its allies seized the Sharara and El Feel oil fields; both of them produce a third of Libya’s oil, Sharara being the largest single field in this country. Oil production from Libya fell to less than 300,000 barrels per day from over a million barrels per day previous. The Libyan National Oil Company—controlled by the government in Tripoli—has now forced an embargo on oil exports from Libya. This is a blow to Europe, which relies on the sweet Libyan oil as much as it has relied upon Iranian and Russian energy sources—both blocked by U.S.-driven sanctions.

European Hypocrisy

Europe wants the oil but does not want the refugees. A UN report was recently released on the LNA’s bombardment of a refugee detention center in Tajoura on July 2, 2019. That attack, by LNA aircraft, killed 53 migrants and refugees who had come from Algeria, Chad, Bangladesh, Morocco, Niger, and Tunisia. After the jet dropped its bombs on the Daman complex, there were “bodies everywhere, and body parts sticking out from under the rubble. Blood [was] all around.” The migrants and refugees who survived remained in the complex. Four days later, they went on hunger strike. There have been several murders since July 2019, mainly of refugees shot by guards as they tried to leave the various detention centers that sit along the Libyan coastline and in Tripoli. There is no proper account of the total number of refugees and migrants in detention.

The European Union (EU) has been paying the Tripoli government and militia groups to hold these refugees and migrants in Libya rather than let them travel across the Mediterranean Sea. Europe has taken no responsibility for its role in the NATO war in 2011, which destabilized Libya; it has, instead, militarized the refugee crisis in Libya by using the militias. Operation Sophia of the EU brought European ships into the Mediterranean Sea to stop oil and refugee smuggling from Libya to Europe; there is now interest in restarting this policy. In Berlin, the EU’s High Representative Josep Borrell told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that “Libya is a cancer whose metastases have spread across the entire region.” This is the attitude of Europe: how to contain the crisis and let it remain within the Libyan borders. It is a shocking statement.

I Have No Illness

In the midst of Libya’s war against Italian colonialism a century ago, the poet Rajab Hamad Buhwaish al-Minifi wrote a poem—“Ma Bi Marad” (“No Illness but This Place”)—about the torment of his society. This is a poem that is often recited, never far from the lips of Libyans who know their long and difficult history. The line that repeats often in the poem, “Ma bi marad ghair marad al-Egaila” (“I have no illness but this place of Egaila”), seems apt for Libya today, a people abandoned to this war that will never end, a people buried in oil and fear, a people who are in search of the home that has been taken from them.

Right wing whips up anti-refugee sentiment in Greek island protests

John Vassilopoulos

Thousands protested last week against the refugee detention centres located across the Greek islands of the Northern Aegean bordering Turkey, and the plans to develop new ones.

There are reportedly more than 50,000 refugees currently interned on Greece’s islands in so-called hot-spot camps as part of the dirty deal cut in 2016 between the European Union, Turkey and the 2015-2019 pseudo-left Syriza-led government. The deal stipulates that all refugees crossing into Greece from Turkey will be interned until their cases are processed, before deportation back to Turkey.

Syrian refugees arrive on a dinghy after crossing from Turkey to Lesbos island, Greece in 2015 [Source: Flickr.com]

The protests were organised by local authorities and business groups, with small businesses and public services shutting and bringing much of the local economy to a standstill. Shops, pharmacies and petrol stations closed, as well as some clinics. Taxi and bus drivers also joined the strike.

The biggest protest took place in Mytilini, the capital of Lesbos, with around 7,000 people gathering at the town’s port. A sizeable contingent was from the small village of Moria, which is site to the notorious camp of the same name. Protesters demanded the closure of the site, carrying banners reading, “No more prisons for human souls in the North Aegean.”

Dubbed by the BBC as the “worst refugee camp on Earth,” Moria has conditions that have been condemned by aid groups and are described by inmates as “hell on earth.” Nearly 20,000 refugees live in and around the site of the camp, which has a capacity of less than 3,000 people.

Protests of several thousand also took place on the islands of Chios and Samos, both of which are home to overcrowded internment camps (Samos has 7,200 migrants hoarded into a camp built for just 700). Speaking to the BBC, one Samos islander said, “Here it’s like a prison. The migrants aren’t allowed to leave the island. They aren't free to go where they like.”

Additional pressure on the already overcrowded camps has come from the increased flow of refugees across the sea during the previous year. Figures released by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in January show that nearly 60,000 people made the sea journey from Turkey into Greece last year, up by 84 percent compared to 2018. Nearly 1,500 people made the crossing in the first two weeks of January, with 60 percent landing on Lesbos.

Extreme overcrowding has placed inmates under extreme psychological pressure. Many are already traumatised as victims and witnesses of atrocities in their home countries. Speaking about Moria to InfoMigrants, an aid worker with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) explained, “The overcrowding of the camp, the cold and the waiting doesn’t help the situation and makes it harder on everyone. We lack everything in Moria: food, showers, toilets… You have to line up for everything here, all the time.”

This unbearable situation has resulted in an upsurge of violence, with two stabbing fatalities since the start of the year. Speaking to InfoMigrants, a recent arrival at the camp said, “Since I arrived in Moria, there’s not a day that goes by without a fight breaking out… Every day, someone is injured.”

Tensions have also spilled outside of the camp, partly due to the increase in petty crime fuelled by the poverty and desperation faced by refugees. Another source of tension is the health hazard posed by the lack of safe waste disposal from the camp. A written complaint sent by the Moria residents’ association to the local authority last November read, “The sewage cannot be transmitted via the local settlement’s waste disposal pipeline and as a result overflows into the stream that runs on the edge of the village’s residential zone.”

A similar problem has been reported at the Chios camp.

The protests’ organisers made a conscious effort to channel the frustration over the crisis in a reactionary direction. This was underscored by the posters advertising the event, which portrayed refugees as invaders by displaying photos of them in dinghy boats crossing the Aegean with a slogan that read “We want our islands back… we want our life back!”

Headline speaker at the Lesbos protest was Costas Moutzouris, a former member of the ruling conservative New Democracy (ND) who ran for Northern Aegean Prefect as an independent. His politics are so close to ND’s that when he won, party leader Mitsotakis claimed it as an ND victory. He is a supporter of ND’s policy of closing the Moria camp and setting up closed detention centres as an alternative.

Last November, ND announced plans to construct new detention centres on mainland Greece by July 2020. The government has already sent 9,000 refugees from the Greek islands to the new centres, and this year will send another 11,000. While the centres have been promoted as more humane and cleaner, they are new jails that allow more control over the refugee population. They will be completely closed off and will operate like the closed detention centres in the United States. Hidden behind walls, detention guards will be allowed to carry out attacks on refugees with impunity.

Speaking ahead of the strike, after visiting Samos and Lesbos at the weekend, Migration and Asylum Minister Notis Mitarakis demanded more repression of refugees and migrants: “First, more efficient guarding of our borders and, second, the immediate return of those who don’t deserve international protection.”

Moutzouris’ speech was laden with far-right nostrums. He laid the blame for social problems such as lack of access to healthcare, pressures on the education system and an inadequate transport system—the product of chronic under-funding exacerbated by the brutal austerity measures imposed by the European Union—on refugees. “They are forcefully trying to impose a different way of life and religion on us,” he exclaimed. “We will not accept this.”

Moutzouris put forward the fascistic claim that the overcrowded camps on the islands are part of a plan to change the demographics of Europe, explicitly implicating billionaire international financier George Soros—a common anti-Semitic dog-whistle. He railed against the sentiment of solidarity shown by the islands’ residents towards the refugees contributing to the problem, exclaiming, “We tolerated this situation for a number of years. The time has come to react.”

A former dean of the Athens Polytechnic, Moutzouris stood trial alongside of Greek EEK (Revolutionary Workers Party) general secretary Savas Michael as part of a lawsuit launched by Golden Dawn in 2013. His early run-in with the neo-fascist party has not stopped Moutzouris from forming close ties with the far right. Asked during his election campaign last summer for the post of prefect to comment on rumours that Golden Dawn supported his campaign, Moutzouris replied, “If there was, is or will be any support from Golden Dawn then this is welcome.”

On Moutzouris’ ticket during the elections stood Nikolaos Tallas, who has been active in local far-right circles, with links to those accused of carrying out the brutal repression of refugees in April 2018.

In the face of such overt overtures to the far right, pseudo-left groups sought to distance themselves from the official demonstrations on the islands and held separate ones. A small rally was held at Sapphous Square by the Lesbos Labour Centre, a local trade union federation affiliated to the Stalinist Communist Party of Greece’s trade union body, PAME, while local Syriza branches held their own demonstration.

However, it is Syriza along with their junior coalition partner, the xenophobic Independent Greeks, that presided over the creation of internment camps. The 2016 EU-Turkey deal, implemented by Syriza as a central component of the EU’s Fortress Europe policy, was a frontal assault on the basic right to asylum and was deemed illegal by several human rights organizations as well as the United Nations.

Two months after the deal, the Syriza government employed tear gas and stun grenades against protesting refugees in Idomeni, a small village in Greece near the border with the Republic of North Macedonia, and ordered the clearing of the camp.

Ukraine government plagued by political infighting

Jason Melanovski & Clara Weiss

The government of President Volodymyr Zelensky has been plagued by internal crisis in recent weeks as recordings of disparaging statements made by Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk regarding Zelensky appeared on social media.

In the audio Honcharuk can be heard discussing the country’s economic situation with Ukrainian finance officials and stating that he had difficulty speaking with the Ukrainian president due to Zelensky’s “very primitive understanding of the economy.” Honcharuk also admitted to being a “complete ignoramus in economics” himself.

President Volodymyr Zelensky [Credit: en.kremlin.ru]

Regarding Zelensky’s economic advisors Honcharuk stated, “There used to be good business managers, under whom the [economic growth] was 4.6 percent. Then Sorosites came, and the economic growth is 2 percent and less. And you cannot prove anything to anyone. And all of this, together, induces in the president a feeling that the situation is uncontrollable. We do not understand. We have no plans.”

His contemptuous reference to Zelensky’s advisors as “Sorosites”—referring to the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros known for donating large sums of money to back western-leaning political parties and NGO’s throughout Eastern Europe—betrays Honcharuk political sympathies for the far-right. Due to his Jewish background, Soros has become the target of right-wing denunciations by fascist forces throughout Europe.

Honcharuk has long maintained ties to these forces. Last October, Honcharuk appeared on stage in front of a swastika at neo-Nazi rock concert in Kiev to commemorate the official state holiday “Defender of Ukraine Day.” He had also previously been photographed with members of the fascist Azov Battalion and the neo-Nazi C14 group.

Following the tape’s release Honcharuk took to Facebook to claim that the audio recording had been “doctored” and called Zelensky “a model of honesty for me.” On social media, he wrote “Its [the tape’s] contents artificially create the impression that my team and I do not respect the president, who is our political leader.” He also offered his letter of resignation to Zelensky in order “to remove any doubts about our respect and trust in the president.”

The offer of a resignation was a targeted move, aimed at pressuring Zelensky to come out in full support for the government and Honcharuk’s right-wing policies. Under Ukraine’s constitution only the parliament can accept the resignation of an acting prime minister but Honcharuk never submitted a resignation offer to the parliament.

Zelensky responded to Honcharuk’s phony resignation offer by meeting with him in a highly-scripted sit-down which was recorded on video. He rejected Honcharuk’s resignation offer and stated that Honcharuk could not resign as he had “not yet repaid this loan to our society.” He said, “I decided to give you a chance ... and a chance to your government.”

Zelensky ordered an investigation into who made and leaked the recording. The president’s office stated, “The unsanctioned surveillance and recording of conversations must not occur in the offices of the state authorities. This is a question of national security.”

Whoever is behind the release of these high-level government conversations, it is clear that the Ukrainian oligarchy and its government are torn by sharp infighting over both domestic and foreign policies. These divisions are coming to the fore as the government is pressing ahead with the largest mass privatization effort since the restoration of capitalism in the 1990s, and attempts to negotiate a settlement with Russia over the ongoing civil war in East Ukraine.

Honcharuk is in charge of leading these mass privatizations. As part of the privatizations, a long-standing moratorium on the sale of agricultural land including Ukraine’s highly-coveted “black earth” is being lifted starting on October 1. This week Honcharuk announced that his Cabinet of Ministers will receive $26 million euros from the EU in order to carry out the sale of Ukrainian land. According to a recent Rating poll, 73 percent of Ukrainian citizens oppose the privatization.

In addition to overseeing the privatizations Honcharuk was also tasked with drawing up a list of state companies to be privatized. These privatizations could cost tens of thousands of workers their jobs. This is under conditions where 60 percent of the population are estimated to live under the subsistence minimum.

In accordance with the privatization plans, a new labor law legislation has been introduced to the Ukrainian parliament that strongly favors employers by allowing them to fire workers “at will,” or in other words, for any reason or no reason at all. The draft law would also penalize any worker who fails to fulfill an employment contract by cancelling their right to unemployment benefits for two years.

Honcharuk previously served under former Finance Minister Aivaras Abromavicius, the Minister of Economy and Trade in the government of former-President Petro Poroshenko. Like his mentor Abromavicius, Honcharuk has taken the lead in conversations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over the continuation of loans to Kiev and most recently secured a conditional $5.5 billion loan in December that is dependent on Ukraine continuing the mass privatizations.

Prior to Honcharuk’s appointment, some officials within Zelensky’s incoming administration floated the idea of Ukraine leaving the IMF program entirely. Zelensky’s personal friend and political backer, billionaire oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, suggested that Ukraine should simply default on its loan repayments to the IMF and go its own way. Ukraine is scheduled to pay $1.4 billion to the IMF in 2020.

During the crisis sparked by the leaked audio recording Honcharuk was careful to assure the West that any potential resignation would have “no effect” on Ukraine’s participation in the IMF loan program.

As these assaults on the working class threaten to provoke mass opposition, there are growing tactical divisions within the oligarchy about how to best implement austerity. Differences over foreign policy also contribute to the tensions in Zelensky’s government. Like Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who maintains close ties to the US-funded far-right, Honcharuk is widely considered to speak for sections of the ruling elite that are firmly oriented toward US imperialism and oppose concessions to Russia.

In recent months, Zelensky has pushed for a negotiated settlement with Russia, through direct involvement of Berlin and Paris, while the US has been shut out of the negotiations. For his push for the Normandy talks in Paris in December, Zelensky has come under enormous pressure from sections of the oligarchy and the far-right. With the support of Poroshenko and other leading politicians, tens of thousands far-right demonstrators protested against the government and its negotiations with Russia last fall.

War tensions mount between NATO powers over Libya, Mediterranean

Alex Lantier

Following the January 19 Berlin conference on Libya, war tensions between NATO powers over Libya and the Mediterranean continue to mount, after Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited Paris on Wednesday for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron. The Berlin conference has set the stage not for peace, but only for stepped-up imperialist military interventions to divide up the profits to be extracted from Libya and the entire region.

With Mitsotakis, Macron announced the dispatching of French warships to the Aegean Sea and the formation of a French-Greek military alliance, while denouncing Turkish policy in Libya. Amid explosive border tensions and conflicts over eastern Mediterranean natural gas deposits between Turkey and Greece, Paris is threatening to support Greece in a war with Turkey.

French President Emmanuel Macron (right) and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at a joint press conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Wednesday Jan. 29, 2020 [Credit: Benoit Tessier/Pool via AP]

Macron accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of “not respecting his promises” in Berlin, saying that “at this very moment” Turkish ships were taking Syrian Islamist mercenaries to Libya. “We have seen in recent days Turkish vessels arriving on Libyan soil … in violation of explicit engagements taken by President Erdogan at the Berlin conference,” Macron said. He added, “This threatens the security of all residents of Europe and the Sahel.”

Macron, who has backed warlord Khalifa Haftar in the civil war provoked by the 2011 NATO war in Libya, said he “condemns with the greatest firmness the recent accord” between Turkey and Haftar’s main rival, Fayez al-Serraj’s Government of National Accord (GNA).

During the Macron-Mitsotakis conference, anonymous intelligence officials told French media that Rafale jets flying from the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle had detected Turkish ships transporting heavy armored vehicles and mercenaries into Libya’s capital of Tripoli, held by the GNA. They also alleged that the ships transporting the troops and hardware were escorted by one of several Turkish frigates cruising in Libyan waters.

Macron maintained a hypocritical and self-interested silence on French-backed Egyptian and United Arab Emirates (UAE) weapons shipments to France’s Libyan proxy, Haftar. “The position of Paris remains totally inflexible,” Le Monde wrote. “Marshal Haftar, who more or less controls most of Libya’s territory, must be taken into account and his demands—disbanding Islamist ‘militias,’ giving more oil revenue to the eastern Libyan region of Cyrenaica—are not negotiable.”

Macron also announced a “strategic security partnership” between France and Greece and declared that he “condemns the intrusions and provocations of Turkey” in Greek airspace and waters. France will rotate its warships through the eastern Mediterranean to ensure that at least one French frigate is in the area at all times. The purpose of the stepped-up French naval presence, Macron added, is “to fully ensure the security of a region that is strategic for Europe.”

Mitsotakis hailed the deal with France, saying: “Greece and France are pursuing a new framework of strategic defense.” Details of the Franco-Greek military alliance are to be announced in coming weeks. However, it appears French warships will likely patrol gas-rich waters off Cyprus, where the Greek Cypriot government has given French energy giant Total exploration rights.

While Mitsotakis called the French warships “guarantors of peace” in the Aegean, it is clear that the danger of military conflict between major NATO allies is very real. Greek Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos said his staff is “examining all scenarios, even that of military engagement” with Turkish forces at flashpoints like the Aegean Sea or Cyprus.

Turkish officials responded by denouncing the French intervention in the eastern Mediterranean. “If France wants to contribute to the implementation of decisions taken at the [Berlin] Conference, it should first stop supporting Haftar,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy declared in a statement. “The main party responsible for all Libya’s problems since the beginning of the 2011 crisis is France,” Aksoy added, noting that France “unconditionally supports Haftar to have its say over the natural resources in Libya.”

NATO’s 2011 war against Libya launched a bloody scramble for profits and strategic advantage in the region that has had disastrous consequences. After the Berlin conference, the imperialist powers are again recklessly intensifying their military intervention. As France, Russia, Egypt, and the UAE intervene to back Haftar in Libya while Italy, Turkey and Qatar back Serraj, the danger of a major regional war over Libya or the eastern Mediterranean is ever greater.

The scramble for Africa and the Mediterranean is intensifying deep and explosive divisions among the major NATO imperialist powers. Last year, France withdrew its ambassador to Italy as tensions mounted between Paris and Rome over Libya.

While Washington has not taken a public position on Greece or Libya, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed deals last October to build major new US military bases in Greece, saying Washington needs them “to help secure the eastern Mediterranean.” White House spokesman Judd Deere claimed that tensions between NATO powers forced Trump to call Erdogan on Monday. During the call, Trump reportedly stressed the “importance of Turkey and Greece resolving their differences in the east Mediterranean.”

Faced with the prospect of US and French military build-ups in Greece, sections of the Turkish bourgeoisie close to Erdogan are calling for closer ties with Berlin to counteract Paris.

The pro-government Daily Sabah call for an outreach to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who it said needs close cooperation with Turkey to power German industry and keep Middle Eastern refugees from reaching Europe. “Let’s give credit where credit is due: Merkel’s foreign policy is far more reasonable than French President Emmanuel Macron’s approach,” it stated, adding, “Merkel knows that the US abdication of its global responsibilities compels Europeans to take care of themselves and, by extension, to work with Erdoğan's Turkey.”

It concluded, “To improve Germany’s relations with Turkey and keep the upper hand in Libya, Merkel needs to overcome two obstacles: French and Greek adventurism. Macron undermines Libyan peace and stability by throwing his weight behind Haftar … Germany has to stop France and Greece. Let’s see if Merkel will manage to wrap up her political career by completing this urgent mission.”

As imperialist wars spread across the Middle East and Africa, Macron is pursuing a reckless policy in defense of French imperialist interests. On the one hand, he is continuing neo-colonial wars and intervention in Mali and the broader Sahel, south of Libya, supposedly to fight Islamist militias. At the same time, he is bidding to obtain for French oil firm Total a lion’s share of Libyan oil, should Haftar conquer the country, and of eastern Mediterranean gas via deals with the Greek Cypriot government.

This poses a growing risk of an outright military confrontation with Turkey, as Macron is launching an alliance with Greece amid explosive Greek-Turkish tensions. Britain’s Guardian newspaper wrote that, “Friction between the two neighbours has not been so acute since the invasion of Cyprus in 1974” by Turkey, which led to war with Greece. It added that, for Mitsotakis, “hostile relations with Turkey have eclipsed all other issues on the agenda of his near seven-month-old government.”

While he claimed the war danger is “slim, not least because it would be too much of a lose-lose situation,” University of Piraeus Professor Aristotle Tziampiris told the Guardian that “the chances of a [hot] incident, by design or accident, are very real and that is what is worrying us all.”

World Health Organisation officially declares coronavirus a “global health emergency”

James Cogan

The World Health Organisation (WHO) yesterday decided to formally declare the outbreak of 2019-nCoV, the new coronavirus first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan, as a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).” The PHEIC classification was only established by WHO in 2005 following the 2002–2003 SARS pandemic. It has been declared on five occasions since, in response to the 2009 Swine Flu, the outbreaks in 2014 of Ebola and polio, the 2016 Zika virus and the 2019 resurgence of Ebola in central Africa.

Chinese authorities reported last night that the number of confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV has reached at least 8,100. The virus has spread from its source in Wuhan across mainland China and now around the world. At least 100 cases—predominantly people either from or who had visited Wuhan—have been diagnosed in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Australia, South Korea, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, France, Finland, the United States and Canada. Dozens of suspected cases are under investigation in other countries.

Students line up to sanitize their hands to avoid the contact of coronavirus before their morning class at a hight school in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020. [Credit: AP Photo/Heng Sinith]

The number of deaths directly linked to 2019-nCoV infection, which can lead to severe pneumonia that cannot be treated with antibiotics or existing antiviral drugs, currently stands at 171. All of the fatalities were in China and, according to Chinese authorities, were mainly older people with existing medical conditions. The fatality rate, at around 2.7 percent, is low in comparison with other coronavirus outbreaks such as SARS and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). As with any virus, there is the possibility that as it spreads it could mutate into a far more deadly strain.

Like SARS and MERS, 2019-nCoV is an animal virus that has migrated to infect humans, most likely originating in either bats or snakes. At present, scientists postulate that it is being transmitted between people via respiratory “droplets” spread by coughing, so most likely can only be contracted if someone is in close and protracted proximity to an infected individual. By way of comparison, the common influenza virus, which spreads between people far more easily, has infected at least 15 million Americans and caused at least 8,200 deaths just in the 2019–2020 flu season.

In designating 2019-nCoV a global public health emergency, WHO officials took into account the evidence that the rate of human-to-human transmission outside China is increasing.

WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference last night: “The main reason for this declaration is not because of what is happening in China, but because of what is happening in other countries. Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with it.”

The media has generally interpreted this statement as a reference to so-called underdeveloped or “Third World” countries. In fact, the United States—where there is now one reported case of human-to-human transmission in Chicago—would be high on the list of concern. Tens of millions of people live in extreme poverty and lack any health insurance, while the public health system is drastically under-resourced. If several thousand patients sought treatment at the same time for severe respiratory illnesses in a major American city, it would completely overwhelm the medical system. A comparable situation exists in virtually all the so-called “advanced” capitalist countries.

The dangers are heightened by the likelihood that a vaccine for 2019-nCoV will not be developed for at least four months and would most likely not be available for roll-out to the general population for well over a year. One factor in the time length is the lack of collaboration between dozens of rival medical clinics internationally, which will be striving to patent a vaccine so their corporate owners can profit from its sale.

The international unpreparedness for serious pandemics—in terms of adequate medical facilities, dedicated quarantine wards and coordinated research teams—is reflected in the panicked responses to the coronavirus being announced around the world.

In China, health workers have reportedly had to deal with insufficient testing kits to diagnose the virus and shortages of protective suits to guarantee their own safety. In one Wuhan hospital, a nurse told CNN that at least 30 of the 500 staff are now infected. Hospitals have run out of beds and are telling people to go home unless they are displaying severe symptoms. Chinese authorities have rushed 1,800 additional doctors and specialists to Hubei province, while two temporary hospitals with a combined 2,300 beds are being rapidly built to cope with the number of patients.

Since January 22, the Chinese government has attempted to seal off Wuhan and other cities in Hubei province to try and stem the spread the virus. In total, some 50 million people are living under travel bans. As with all such blanket measures, however, those with wealth and power easily circumvent them. Moreover, 2019-nCoV was first identified in late December. By the time the quarantine was declared, as many as five million people had moved in and out of Wuhan, the largest city in central China, including thousands who traveled overseas. A factor in the spread of the virus was that people traveled elsewhere in China because they could not get treatment in the city.

Long after the virus has well and truly gone global, most airlines have now suspended or reduced their flights in and out of China. Airports internationally have erected elaborate screening measures to try and identify potential carriers of the virus, though infected people do not exhibit any symptoms for as long as seven to 10 days. Russia and North Korea have sealed their borders with China. In Italy, panicked authorities refused to allow thousands of people aboard a cruise ship to disembark due to suspicion that two passengers may have been infected. Test results came back negative.

A number of countries have organised flights to evacuate their citizens from the Wuhan region, but then placed them in quarantine in often substandard conditions. The Australian government stands out for its callousness. It is seeking to charge hundreds of Australian nationals $1,000 to be evacuated and intends to isolate them on the remote Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean and house them in the bleak facilities built to imprison so-called illegal refugees.

Amid the geostrategic and economic tensions between the United States and its allies with China, various demagogues are seizing the opportunity presented by the virus outbreak to stoke anti-Chinese xenophobia and sing nationalist praise of their own countries.

The Washington Post lambasted the Chinese government in the headline of an editorial yesterday for having “put everyone at risk” due to the lag between when the virus was identified and health warnings and drastic quarantine measures were announced. The Post implied that in the US, the “free press” would have ensured that information emerged more quickly. In fact, as has emerged time and again, the major American newspapers and networks collaborate just as intimately to censor information, on behalf of the government and the corporate ruling class, as their Chinese counterparts.

The Rupert Murdoch-owned Australian published today a particularly obscene piece by right-wing academic Salvatore Babones. He implied that the reason why coronaviruses have migrated from animals to humans in China and not in Australia was because Chinese—due to Confucianism and “communism”—relied on the state and did not “self-organise” to ensure sanitation and public health.

Babone wrote: “Australian civil society accomplishes what 100 million bureaucrats cannot—it ensures good public health by promoting safe practices broadly, across every niche of the economy, nearly all of the time.”

The utter stupidity of such nationalist assertions can be seen in the way that decades of Australian government indifference and inaction have left the population totally unprepared for the devastating impact of climate-change linked droughts, fires and floods. People have had to “self-organise” in fire-affected towns and regions over recent weeks because the emergency services and social support networks have been so deprived of resources that they are unable to provide the needed assistance.

The virus outbreak, like the climate change-linked natural disasters wreaking havoc on the lives of millions of people, starkly poses the necessity of international scientific planning and organisation and the investment of hundreds of billions of dollars into health and safety infrastructure, emergency services and preventative measures. The obstacle is the capitalist system, which subordinates economic and social life to the accumulation of private profit for a minority and maintains the division of the integrated and interdependent global economy into competing national states.

Australian government calls for national emergency powers

Mike Head

Beset by a deep political crisis, intensified by its contemptuous response to the ongoing bushfire disaster across large parts of the country, the Australian government is seizing on the catastrophe—which its policies have helped create—to push for far-reaching national powers to declare states of emergency.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday used a National Press Club speech to call for the overturning of the century-old constitutional division of federal-state powers. The Liberal-National Coalition government intends to seek changes that would allow prime ministers to declare national emergencies and call out the military, with or without state government agreement.

While offering no details, Morrison declared that laws had to be changed “where necessary” to enable “the Commonwealth to declare a national state of emergency with clear authorities,” on its own initiative, “including the deployment of our defence force.”

From both the political context and content of Morrison’s speech, it is clear that this announcement has nothing to do with providing the urgently-needed resources or policies to deal with worsening bushfire calamities or other climate change-driven disasters.

There is no proposal to increase fire service budgets or overcome the reliance on over-stretched volunteers, let alone allocate the billions of dollars necessary to adequately prevent or prepare for such catastrophes. Morrison again categorically ruled out taking any increased action to cut Australia’s rate of carbon emissions or otherwise address global warming.

Rather, Morrison’s call signals an increasingly authoritarian response. His government’s agenda is to strengthen the powers of the state apparatus to suppress the mounting discontent and political distrust being produced by ever-widening social inequality and the decades-long assault on working class living standards, working conditions and social services.

Emergency powers will not alter the shocking lack of civilian resources—aerial water bombers, modern fire trucks and equipment, professional firefighters, and evacuation infrastructure—laid bare by the bushfires. Instead, they would allow the state to impose virtual martial law, with sweeping authority to not just call out the armed forces but also to tear up basic democratic rights by suspending all existing laws.

Vast emergency powers already exist in the hands of state governments, and some have been invoked numerous times over the past six months. Yet fires have still killed more than 30 people—including volunteer firefighters—destroyed more than 2,500 homes, devastated livelihoods and eco-systems and created a potential health disaster for millions of people who have endured weeks on end in a smoke-polluted atmosphere.

Even as Morrison spoke, 75 fires were still burning throughout the continent, including two on the outskirts of Canberra, the smoke-filled national capital where his address was delivered. Many more dry and hot weeks lie ahead.

The government’s unprecedented January 4 deployment of 3,000 military reservists, warships and planes only highlighted the lack of civilian resources, while seeking to accustom the population to the sight of troops and military hardware on home soil. In his speech, Morrison boasted of making the first-ever compulsory domestic call-out of reservists and military intervention without any state government request, saying he had been “very conscious of testing the limits of constitutionally defined roles and responsibilities.”

Morrison tried to deflect the groundswell of popular hostility toward his government and the political establishment as a whole, fueled by both the official indifference to the communities left to face infernos by themselves, and the wholesale and desperate political vote-buying exposed by the sports grants pork-barreling revelations that have emerged over the past two weeks.

“I believe there is now a clear community expectation that the Commonwealth should have the ability to respond in times of national emergencies and disasters … in circumstances where the life and property of Australians have been assessed to be under threat,” the prime minister said.

In reality, the “community expectation,” reflected in large protests led by school students, is for the complete reorganisation of the economy to address climate change. Global warming stems overwhelmingly from the subordination of production to short-term corporate profit-making, which has prevented the necessary planning and marshaling of resources and technology to stem emissions and deal with the threats to life, health and the future of the planet itself.

Morrison’s vague reference to emergency declarations “where the life and property of Australians have been assessed to be under threat” points to the far-reaching powers envisaged. His words were not confined to so-called natural disasters.

Under the 1901 Australian Constitution, the states retained authority over police and emergency services, giving them the frontline access to invoke police-state powers. The legislation activated by the New South Wales and Victorian governments several times in recent months allowed state premiers and/or police chiefs to override any law, including supposed human rights protections, issue whatever orders and directives they deemed necessary, and arrest anyone who failed to comply.

They can also enter or take possession of property, shut down essential utilities, including electricity, gas, oil and water, close roads and order evacuations. Anyone who “obstructs” or “hinders” the exercise of these powers can be jailed. No-one can sue the government or any official for any resulting damage, loss, death or injury.

These powers can be utilised to suppress popular unrest and outlaw strikes. The Victorian legislation’s definition of “emergency” specifically includes an “act of terrorism,” “a hi-jack, siege or riot” and “a disruption to an essential service.” Under the legislation, the government can proclaim any service to be “essential.”

Morrison’s proposed national emergency declarations would place such powers in the hands of the prime minister and the military, intelligence and federal police apparatus. This would be on top of the expanded powers that the Liberal-National Coalition pushed through parliament in 2018, backed by the Labor Party, to call out the armed forces to deal with “domestic violence”—that is, civil unrest.

Morrison said the military’s structure and “posture” must change in line with its new internal focus. He stressed his government’s pledge to raise military spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product. This outlay will amount to about $40 billion in 2020-21—inevitably at the expense of public schools, hospitals and other essential social spending, including civil disaster programs.

Significantly, not one of the journalists assembled at the National Press Club questioned, let alone criticised, Morrison’s emergency powers call. The Labor Party opposition has previously stated its in-principle support. No less than the Coalition, Labor’s leaders are acutely aware and fearful of rising social and political discontent.

Apart from his emergency proposal, Morrison’s speech contained nothing new of any substance. Instead it was a belligerent defence of his government’s record on every front, even on the abuses and lengthening waiting times for aged and disability services.

Morrison provocatively asserted that the government was “taking climate action now,” yet insisted that he would allow no action that would affect the national economy, that is, corporate profits. Instead, he called for “resilience” and “adaptation” to climate change, echoing his recent declaration that people had no choice but to accept this “new normal.” In fact, he demanded that state governments remove limits on mining companies’ ability “to get the gas from under our feet,” another form of fossil fuel.

During question time, Morrison brazenly defended the now fully-documented and notorious use of a sports grant scheme to hand out cash to try to secure votes in “marginal” and “targeted” electorates before the May 2019 election, in illegal defiance of official guidelines. He asserted that politicians had the right to overturn departmental grant recommendations, dispensing with merit criteria, because “we are in touch with our communities.”

At the same time, Morrison refused to state categorically that he had no part in the pork-barreling. Instead, he claimed that his office simply “provided information” to the then sports minister, deputy National Party leader, Senator Bridget McKenzie. Morrison is contemplating whether to sack McKenzie and make her the scapegoat for the worsening scandal, which has engulfed the government for more than two weeks.

Thousands of companies in Britain flout national minimum wage laws

Joe Mount

A new report exposes the mass violation of minimum-wage legislation by ruthless employers seeking to increase levels of exploitation and boost profits.

The Resolution Foundation (RF) think tank’s “Under the Wage Floor” is the result of an investigation “to explore the incentives for firms to comply with the National Living Wage/National Minimum Wage (NLW/NMW).”

It found that thousands of companies are flouting minimum wage laws, which are barely enforced by government bodies.

The RF was established in 2005 to study the living standards of low income earners in Britain.

According to its findings, approximately one-in-four workers over the age of 25 on the minimum wage were underpaid in 2019. While the rate of underpayment generally improved from 1999, this trend reversed during the last few years.

Approximately 11,000 companies, a very conservative estimate, underpaid their workers as of April 2018. This practice is probably more common in smaller companies, and ill-regulated sectors such as textiles, that are less strictly monitored.

The NMW is the legal minimum hourly wage an employer can pay a worker. The rate at a paltry £8.21 per hour for those over 25 years of age is below the poverty level. The rate is lower for younger workers, falling by nearly half to £4.35 per hour for under-18s.

Around 7.3 percent of workers (2 million people) are paid at or below the minimum wage.

Minimum wage legislation was introduced by the Tony Blair’s Labour government in 1998, resulting in a leveling down of incomes and forced many into low-paid work. It aimed to reduce welfare budgets by making people ineligible for means-tested work benefits. The current rate is below Britain’s competitors, strengthening UK corporations against their global rivals and serving as an important lever to attract foreign investment.

Companies, particularly in labour-intensive sectors such as childcare, seek to pay the lowest wage possible to maximise profits for executives and shareholders. Firms cheat workers out of their earnings using various methods, including deliberate shortfalls in their pay packets, extending working hours, cutting expenses payments, and setting unrealistic productivity targets.

The tiny number of firms caught receive a slap on the wrist. Employers found guilty simply repay the wages in arrears and receive no punishment.

The report notes that, “Of the several thousand firms that have failed to pay the minimum wage over the last twenty years, only 14 have been criminally prosecuted, incurring an average fine of less than £3,000 each.”

These paltry fines prove a poor deterrent. The report states: “In practice, however, firms rarely suffer significant financial loss if they are found to have breached the NMW. Employment tribunal records suggest that since 2017, just one of the 141 firms found to have underpaid the minimum wage was subject to a financial penalty in addition to repaying the arrears owed.” The national average penalty levied is only 90 percent of the value of the stolen earnings, far below the maximum fine of 200 percent.

Company directors found flouting the law are treated with kid-gloves, the RF found. “In the 20 years since the introduction of the minimum wage, there have been only a handful of prosecutions or disqualifications of individual directors, and only limited criminal fines levied even for the severest of violations.”

This stands in stark contrast the punitive treatment handed down to workers who threaten strike action, are homeless, fall short of draconian welfare benefit requirements or otherwise fall victim to British class justice .

The routine violation of minimum wage regulation is part of a much broader disregard for basic workers’ rights, such as statutory holiday pay entitlements and overtime pay.

In 2016, the Conservative government increased the NMW to match the so called “living wage” needed to cover typical basic costs to survive. The present government’s stated aim is to raise the NMW to equal two-thirds of the median wage (i.e. just above poverty level) by 2024. This means little when the living wage is set to an unrealistically low level.

UK workers have suffered the largest fall in real wages amongst advanced countries, excluding Greece, since the 2008 financial crisis.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced an above inflation rise in the NMW to just £8.72, to be implemented in April, “provided economic conditions allow” and in the context of draconian attacks on the public sector and welfare benefits. Basic pay in the UK will remain at rock bottom for an entire generation of workers to come. Chancellor Sajid Javid proposes the minimum wage finally reach the sum of £10.50 an hour by 2040.

The Tory’s token NMW rise faces strong opposition from big business given prevailing economic uncertainty and desire to defend their super-profits. The cost of any wage increase in any case will be clawed back from the working class in terms of price rises, inferior conditions, job losses and reduced training and equipment budgets. Many employers will simply avoid paying the new NMW, as the RF reports outlines.

The Labour Party and trade unions offered a tepid reply to the RF report, hypocritically calling for an increase in the minimum wage and further help for those on low pay.

Trades Union Congress general secretary Frances O’Grady said, “This is a long-planned raise, but it’s also long overdue. Workers are still not getting a fair share of the wealth they create. And in-work poverty is soaring as millions of families struggle to make ends meet.”

What she will not say is that it is the trade unions, who have isolated and betrayed every dispute over pay and jobs for decades, that are primarily responsible for successive governments being able to prime the UK as a low wage economy.

Labour Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Margaret Greenwood declared: “This announcement falls short of what is needed to help workers. It comes against a backdrop of an economy created by successive Conservative governments, which has left millions of people trapped in low paid, insecure work over the last decade. Underpayment of the minimum wage is on the rise.”

Labour is equally responsible for poverty wages, working to suppress the class struggle alongside the unions whether under the leadership of Tony Blair or Jeremy Corbyn.

Any small gains in wages are offset by increased precarious working conditions, with the advent of the “gig economy” featuring zero-hours contracts, part-time work and unpaid internships. Combined with technology and automation, the super-exploitative practices pioneered by Amazon are used to attack workers’ rights across the board.

This is the grim social reality concealed by low official unemployment figures.

Such conditions are driving large increases in in-work poverty, and in-work homelessness. The much-vaunted 2020 target to eliminate child poverty, which is predicted to reach record levels in coming years, has been quietly ditched.

Wage underpayment, lax regulation and various forms of corporate criminality are different aspects of the rise of social inequality to unsustainable levels.

The theft of wages is part of the wholesale transfer of wealth from the working population to the financial aristocracy that was the response of the ruling class to the 2008 financial crash, when governments of all political stripes turned to austerity to safeguard the profit system.

This was preceded by decades of reactionary, pro-business policies implemented as part of a social counter-revolution that saw the transformation of ruling classes across the world into an increasingly irresponsible kleptocracy.

The RF offers no solution to the increasing impoverishment of the working class or criminal practices of companies that consistently underpay their workforce. The report merely calls for government measures to increase the detection rate of non-compliance with the NMW and strengthen the punishment for firms who break the law—appealing to the very forces that defend low wages in order to maximise the burgeoning profits of big business.

NMW laws implemented within the framework of capitalist private property and the anarchy of the market cannot meet the basic social needs of the working population. The rights of workers for a high standard of living and social equality will be guaranteed only when society’s wealth is taken out of the hands of the global elite and used for need not profit.

Crisis election in Peru yields fractured Congress

Cesar Uco & Bill Van Auken

In an extraordinary congressional election dominated by a crisis of bourgeois rule and overwhelming popular hostility to the entire political setup, Peruvian voters on Sunday failed to give any of the nine parties to win congressional seats more than 10 percent of the ballots cast. The election was a devastating defeat for the right-wing fujimorista party that had previously dominated the legislature.

The largest share of the vote consisted of blank and spoiled ballots cast by nearly a quarter of the Peruvian electorate. Only four of the 130 members of the previous Congress managed to hold onto their seats.

The election was the product of a protracted constitutional crisis that has its roots in the exposure of the wholesale corruption of the entire Peruvian political establishment, centered in a bribes-for-contracts scandal surrounding the operations of the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.

President Martin Vizcarra called the election after dissolving the Congress last September over its refusal to debate a vote of confidence. He had called for the vote of confidence after the Congress stonewalled a series of anti-corruption measures he had proposed.

Vizcarra’s action marked the first such dissolution since the so-called “self-coup” staged by President Alberto Fujimori in 1992, which allowed Fujimori to consolidate a right-wing dictatorship with the support of the military. Fujimori is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for his role in massacres and other human rights abuses as well as corruption.

The fujimorista Fuerza Popular (Popular Force) party, led by the former president’s daughter Keiko Fujimori, which controlled an absolute majority in the Congress, denounced Vizcarra’s action as a “coup” and attempted to declare the country’s vice president, Mercedes Araoz, as president. Vizcarra prevailed, thanks to both the overwhelming popular hostility to Fuerza Popular’s corrupt running of the Congress, which provoked street demonstrations, and, most crucially, a declaration of support issued by the chiefs of the Peruvian security forces.

Peru’s high court ruled Vizcarra’s action constitutional only on the eve of the election.

Fuerza Popular was the biggest loser in the election, placing sixth with just 7.2 percent of the vote. It collapsed from its previous 73-seat absolute majority in the Congress to a 12-seat minority. On Tuesday, party leader Keiko Fujimori was sent back to prison for 15 months of preventative detention. She is charged with using her party as a criminal organization to launder some $1 million in illegal contributions from Odebrecht to finance her 2011 presidential campaign.

Perhaps even more significant was the rout suffered by the APRA (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance) party, a major force in Peruvian politics since its formation in 1917. It won just 2.7 percent of the vote, failing to clear the five percent cut-off for representation in Congress.

A bourgeois nationalist party that previously had a base in the working class, it was repeatedly the target of military repression in the 20th century, including a military coup staged in 1962 to prevent its founder, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, from taking office after having been democratically elected. It subsequently turned increasingly to the right, forging alliances with right-wing bourgeois forces and integrating itself into the ruling establishment.

APRA served as the main ally of the fujimoristas in the Congress and was deeply implicated in the Odebrecht corruption scandal. Alan Garcia, its most prominent figure and two-time Peruvian president, shot himself to death in April of last year, just as police were coming to arrest him on bribery and corruption charges. He is only one of four former presidents to be charged. Two—Vizcarra’s immediate predecessor, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, and Ollanta Humala—are detained in Peru, while Alejandro Toledo is jailed in the US facing extradition proceedings.

Placing first in Sunday’s election was the right-wing bourgeois party Acción Popular. It is associated with the former two-time president, Fernando Belaunde Terry. It captured just 10.31 percent of the votes. Acción Popular is a reliable representative of Peruvian and international capital and enforcer of the dictates of the International Monetary Fund.

Coming in second and third were the Frente Popular Agrícola Fia del Perú (Frepap), with 8.27 percent, and Podemos Perú, with 8.06 percent. The first is a right-wing religious party with a rural base. Its origins lie in a Messianic religious cult known as the Evangelical Association of the Israelite Mission of the New Universal Covenant (Aeminpu), founded by Ezequiel Ataucusi, who cast himself as the reincarnation of the Holy Spirit. Upon his death in 2000, his followers waited in vain for three days for him to resurrect.

Podemos Perú is an outgrowth of the Partido Nacionalista Peruano founded by the former army officer Ollanta Humala, who is now in prison. Humala who won the presidency in 2005 by casting himself as a somewhat more moderate version of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, subsequently shifted sharply to the right.

The party’s most prominent candidate, who received more votes than anyone else running for Congress, was Daniel Urresti, who served as Humala’s interior minister, establishing a “tough on crime” image. Urresti, who was an Army intelligence officer in the 1980s during the dirty war against the Maoist Sendero Luminoso guerrilla movement, has been accused of participation in massacres, torture, disappearances and extra-judicial executions. Prosecuted in connection with these crimes in 2018, he was acquitted, but the Supreme Court overturned the verdict and ordered his re-trial. As a result of the election, he will be protected by parliamentary immunity.

Another party connected to Humala, the Unión por el Perú, also won congressional seats. It is a vehicle for the imprisoned former president’s brother, Antauro Humala, who is in jail for staging a 2005 abortive coup against the government of Alejandro Toledo. The party, which announced that one of its main goals would be passing legislation to free Antauro Humala, ran on a program of extreme xenophobia and support for the death penalty and the deployment of troops in the streets. Antauro Humala has called for executing homosexuals.

One pseudo-left coalition, the Frente Amplio, won representation in Congress with 5.7 percent of the vote. The failure of the Peruvian pseudo-left to gain any broad support under conditions of overwhelming popular hostility to the capitalist ruling establishment is due to its refusal to wage any genuine struggle against the right-wing capitalist policies of the Vizcarra administration, which has dedicated itself to handing over the country’s mineral resources to transnational mining corporations and enriching a thin layer of the Peruvian financial elite. Instead, the pseudo-left organizations worked to channel the growing social anger of the working class exclusively against the right-wing fujimoristas in the Congress, while lending credibility to Vizcarra’s pose as a crusader against corruption.

The new Congress, which merely serves out the term of the old one dissolved by Vizcarra, will face a fresh election in barely 18 months. Vizcarra himself has said he does not intend to remain in the presidency after 2021.

The latest elections will do nothing to resolve the profound crisis of bourgeois rule in Peru, under conditions in which the entire capitalist ruling class has been exposed as wallowing in corruption while presiding over ever-widening social inequality.

The greatest fear within the Peruvian bourgeoisie is that the country will confront an eruption of class struggle that will go beyond even the mass upheavals that have broken out all around it, from Chile to Bolivia and Ecuador. The decisive question posed is the forging of a new political movement, independent of the Peruvian bourgeoisie and its “left” representatives, to unite all sections of the working class around a genuine socialist and internationalist program.