Germany: Did AfD-related public prosecutors cover up right-wing extremist attacks in Berlin?

Katerina Selin

With terrorist sympathisers in the police force, neo-Nazi networks in the Special Forces Commandos (KSK) and the armed forces, the involvement of the secret service in right-wing extremist attacks, nobody can continue to close their eyes to the fact that right-wing terrorism in Germany comes from inside the state apparatus and flourishes there.

Just how close the connections and complicity are between neo-Nazis, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), police, the Verfassungsschutz (secret service) and the judiciary is shown by recent events in Berlin.

Demonstration against Nazi attacks on June 26 in Neukölln

Last Wednesday, Berlin Attorney General Margarete Koppers was forced to take over the investigation of the right-wing extremist series of attacks in the Neukölln district. According to a press release, circumstances had arisen “which make the bias of a public prosecutor seem possible.”

Since 2013, at least 72 right-wing extremist crimes, including 23 arsons, have shaken the working-class district in the south of Berlin. The victims were mainly people who are active against right-wing extremism or have an immigration background.

New facts suggest that right-wing extremists within the judicial system have deliberately delayed and prevented the investigation. More and more details are coming to light that point to a network between the state authorities and the neo-Nazi scene.

According to media reports, the accusations concern not only the Berlin public prosecutor “S,” who is directly investigating the case, but also the head of the state security department of the public prosecutor’s office, Matthias Fenner, responsible for politically motivated crimes. Both have now been transferred.

In an interrogation of the right-wing extremist suspect and former AfD politician Tilo P., Fenner is said to have identified himself as an AfD voter and like-minded person. He assured P. that he had nothing to fear from the judiciary. This is shown in the record of a chat surveillance of March 2017, in which P. reported on the interrogation to the second main suspect Sebastian T., a previously convicted Nazi thug and local politician belonging to the neo-Nazi German National Democratic Party (NPD). According to Prosecutor General Koppers, P. is said to have told T. that one felt “in good hands with the public prosecutor’s office because of this statement.”

According to the Legal Tribune Online (LTO), the passage had already been noticed in an evaluation report of the Berlin State Office for Criminal Investigations (LKA) dated September 2019. The victim’s attorney, Franziska Nedelmann, who was able to view this report, demanded to see the original surveillance records. After being denied these, she filed a complaint with the General Prosecutor’s Office on July 10, thus setting the ball rolling.

2018—Attack on Ferat Kocak

What in recent years was repeatedly described by the Berlin Senate and the authorities as “mishaps” and “errors” in the investigations into the Neukölln series of attacks, apparently followed a pattern. The Kocak case is particularly revealing here. In the night of February 1, 2018, Neukölln left-wing politician Ferat Kocak became the victim of a dangerous arson attack on his car. He and his family, who were sleeping in the apartment building next door, only avoided death by a hair’s breadth.

That same night, the car of bookseller Heinz Ostermann also went up in flames—already the third attack on the owner of the left-wing Neukölln bookstore “Leporello.” In 2017, Neukölln Social Democratic Party (SPD) politician Mirjam Blumenthal and IG Metall trade union activist Detlef Fendt were also hit by arson attacks.

Only after pressure from lawyers and the public did it gradually come out that the attack on Kocak (and possibly also the other attacks) was prepared under the eyes and perhaps even with the help of the authorities.

January 2018: Attack planning. The LKA and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (as the secret service is called) learned from an intercepted conversation of the main suspects P. and T. on January 15, 2018 about the planning of a possible attack on Kocak, but did not warn him. The authorities were aware that the suspects were spying on the victim’s apartment. The secret service therefore issued an affidavit to the LKA on January 30, 2018—i.e., two days before the arson attack on Kocak—which was to enable further investigations.

The vice head of the LKA, Oliver Stepien, did not admit this incident until November 2019 in the Interior Committee of Berlin state legislature. The police claimed that they had not warned Kocak because he was not considered to be in danger—even though Kocak is known for his public appearances against the right-wing. Then they referred to the “protection of sources”, a typical argument of the secret services to hold their protective hand over right-wing radicals.

February 2018: House search, but no arrest. According to a report in taz, the police ordered arrest and search warrants against P. and T. as late as the evening of February 1, i.e. only one day after the attack, referring in detail to findings of the secret service. P. and T. were held to be responsible for the attack on Kocak as well as on the bookseller Ostmann. The Tiergarten Local Court thereupon allowed the search but considered the warrants to be insufficiently justified. During the house searches on February 2, 2018, a great deal of evidence was then confiscated, but the evaluation results remained secret. Meanwhile, P. and T. are at liberty and can continue to commit attacks.

March 2018: LKA man meets neo-Nazis. On March 16, 2018, secret service officers observed how a Berlin LKA official named W. first met with the main suspect Sebastian T. and three other neo-Nazis in a pub in Neukölln-Rudow and then drove off with T. in his car. This is the result of research by broadcasters ARD and rbb in April 2019.

The victim advisory centre “Reachout” then reported the incident because it was suspected that the LKA employee had passed on secret information to right-wing extremists at this and possibly other meetings, thus aiding and abetting criminal acts. However, the proceedings were dropped.

Enemy lists with personal data on 500 people—even before 2013

In May 2019, the Berlin Interior Senator (state interior minister), Andreas Geisel, then commissioned a 30-member special commission called “Fokus” to review the Neukölln series of attacks. In February 2020, this disclosed a few interim findings.

Firstly, it corrected the presumed number of victims from 30 to 72. Secondly, in evaluating the computers that had been confiscated from the main suspects in 2018, it found more than 500 personal data records from the years before 2013. Allegedly, these enemy lists, sorted in folders according to topics such as Antifa, politicians, journalists, and police officers could only have been sorted in autumn 2019. LKA head André Rauhut brazenly declared to the Interior Affairs Committee that the lists did not show “any concrete threats”; so far only 30 persons had been informed.

The Fokus commission also stated that besides the AfD member Tilo P. and the NPD member Sebastian T., Julian B. was also considered a main suspect. The neo-Nazi with a criminal record is said to have spied out possible targets for attacks with T. His apartment had already been searched in 2017 because he was suspected of incitement against Jewish institutions as the operator of the right-wing extremist Facebook group “Freie Kräfte Neukölln” (“Neukölln Free Forces”). But the proceedings against him were dropped. Julian B. is also at large.

2016—Police officer in exchanges with AfD and Tilo P.

Not only in the Kocak case, but also the attacks on the Leporello bookstore, it becomes clear that the police, AfD and neo-Nazis are in close contact in Neukölln.

According to research by broadcasters ARD and NDR, the public prosecutor’s office is currently investigating the Berlin police commissioner, Detlef M., because he is said to have passed on police internal information about the attack on Breitscheidplatz in 2016 in a Telegram chat group of the AfD. Numerous Neukölln AfD members belonged to this chat group, including the alleged right-wing terrorist Tilo P.

The policeman in question had already been in contact with district board members of the Neukölln AfD and Tilo P. in autumn 2016. This was reported in June by the daily newspaper taz, which has possession of the relevant email correspondence. According to this, P.’s proposal to visit an anti-fascist event at the Leporello bookstore on December 2, 2016 was discussed. Some AfD members spoke out against it. Ten days after the event, windows were broken at the bookstore and an incendiary device was placed in a Neukölln café.

The right-wing extremist attacks in Neukölln continued unabated this year. Around 1,000 people demonstrated against right-wing violence at the end of June. Earlier, SS symbols had been smeared on the facade of the Syrian bakery “Damascus” on Sonnenallee and a delivery van parked in front of the shop set on fire. A bakery employee told RBB that this was the seventh attack on the “Damascus.”

The role of the SPD-Left Party-Green Berlin state executive

The facts known so far are certainly only the tip of the iceberg. Information that could reveal the true extent of right-wing extremist terror and the complicity of the authorities remains under wraps. The Criminal Investigation Department’s 50-page interim report from February was classified as secret, which the interior senator justified with the words, “We have to protect the ongoing investigations.”

Against the background of the latest revelations, it is clear that the SPD-Left Party-Green Senate (state executive) is deliberately trying to prevent evidence of right-wing extremist penetration of the authorities from coming to light. The seriousness of the situation is proven by the fact that the Attorney General’s Office has now taken over the investigation. The aim is not to uncover but to cover up the extreme right-wing structures.

Koppers was vice president of the Berlin police force from 2010 to 2018, when she was appointed attorney general—in a period in which xenophobic and anti-Semitic crimes increased massively, neo-Nazis were able to carry out their mischief under the eyes of the police and the increasing of police powers was being promoted in Berlin.

Moreover, the transfer of the two public prosecutors is not an isolated case. The influence of the AfD in the judiciary was already evident years ago in the case of Roman Reusch. The AfD Brandenburg executive member was appointed chief public prosecutor in Berlin in 2016. Since February 1, 2018, he has been an elected member of the federal Parliamentary Control Committee, which is supposed to monitor the secret services. This gives the right-wing extremist lawyer access to secret information and internal information of the Federal Intelligence Service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Military Counter-Intelligence Service.

When Berlin’s Justice Senator Dirk Behrendt of the Green Party, Interior Senator Geisel of the SPD and several representatives of the Left Party now pretend to be outraged and call for a committee of inquiry or special investigators in the Neukölln complex, they are primarily trying to divert attention from their own responsibility and prevent any real investigation.

The SPD-Left Party-Green state executive has been promoting right-wing extremism for years and is pursuing AfD policy on the central issues. Amid the pandemic, it is deporting refugees and only in July passed an even harsher police law. Left Party, Green and SPD politicians are constantly shouting for a strengthening of the police. The Berlin police regularly use brutal force against left-wing demonstrators, for example, during the protests following the murder of George Floyd, or last Friday, during the eviction of the left-wing Neukölln pub “Syndikat.” Berlin’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which criminalizes left-wing organizations, also placed the “Ende Gelände” climate movement under observation last year.

Nowhere is this right-wing policy pursued more openly than at Berlin’s Humboldt University, where the Senate and university management under SPD politician Sabine Kunst are making pacts with the AfD and right-wing extremists. A prime example is Professor Jörg Baberowski, a right-wing extremist ideologue who relativizes Nazi crimes and attacks left-wing students verbally and physically. At the behest of the AfD, Kunst sued the RefRat student activist body in 2018 forcing it to provide the right-wing extremist party with lists of names of student representatives from the last 10 years. The instruction to file the suit came directly from State Secretary Steffen Krach (SPD).

What drives the ruling class and its ideologists is the fear of growing protests against social inequality, the shift to the right and militarism. That is why it is arming the state apparatus and encouraging radical right-wing forces, which in case of doubt, serve as a battering ram against the working class.

Right-wing terror cannot, therefore, be banished by appeals to the establishment parties and calls for an official committee of inquiry. That would mean setting the cat among the pigeons. What is necessary is to eliminate the social causes of the right-wing shift: the bankrupt capitalist system that gives birth to war and fascism.

Germany reopens its schools: An experiment in herd immunity

Marianne Arens

Although there are currently more than 1,000 new coronavirus infections per day in Germany, all of the country’s state governments are ruthlessly enforcing school openings after the summer break. This can only be called an experiment in “herd immunity”—a policy with potentially lethal consequences for children, teachers, teaching assistants and their families.

Last Thursday, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 1,045 new infections and on Friday 1,147 new infections. These figures refer to infections measured about 10 days ago. This means that the current rate of infection is very likely much higher. There are over 19 million cases of SARS-CoV-2 worldwide, more than 712,000 people have already died, and in Germany the number of deaths rose to 9,183 on Friday.

In this situation, all state governments are determined to send children back to school without restrictions. This is despite the fact that the increase in new infections has reached a level equivalent to that of mid-March 2020, when all schools and day-care centres were closed and the lockdown was imposed. Now, however, all of these facilities are being reopened. The goal is very clear: get the population back to work so that profit-making can resume and stock markets can soar even higher. Politicians of all stripes and business representatives leave no doubt about their intentions.

Annalena Baerbock, chairwoman of Bündnis 19/Die Grünen, stated categorically in the ARD televisions morning program on Friday, “What must be clear is the top guideline: that schools should never again be completely closed as a first measure.” With this statement, the Green Party leader echoed the demand of Siemens boss Joe Kaeser, who categorically told the newspaper Die Welt, “We certainly cannot afford a complete shutdown anymore.” The newspaper commented that Kaeser was “absolutely right: there must not be a procedure based on the motto ‘Operation successful, patient dead.’ (The patient here is clear: the German economy.) And further: “The fact that day-care centres and schools are closed first and open last must not happen a second time.”

What politicians, managers and journalist are demanding are conditions that will lead to thousands of illnesses and deaths. Just to recall, it was school closures in particular that helped to contain the pandemic initially and prevent deaths. As the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) documented in a study, in the last two weeks of March about 40,600 lives were saved thanks to the closure of schools worldwide. Without the four weeks of school closures from mid-March to mid-April, nearly 1.4 million more people would have been infected worldwide.

On Friday it was announced that there have already been cases of coronavirus at a minimum of at least two schools in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania where classes recommenced last Monday. After a high school teacher in Ludwigslust and a primary school pupil in Graal-Müritz tested positive, both schools had to be closed again.

In Hamburg, where classes restarted last Thursday, the number of COVID-19 infections is rising sharply. According to official figures, there were 80 new cases from Thursday to Friday. In addition to a number of persons retiring from travel, workers at the Hamburg shipyard Blohm+Voss have tested positive. On Wednesday, 60 new infections were detected among shipyard workers and employees of contractors at the shipyard.

Despite all this, teachers and pupils in Hamburg are being forced to attend classes. While the RKI insists on its “AHA” rules for social distancing, handwashing and wearing of masks, pupils will sit together in full classes, without mouth-and-nose protection and any possibility of keeping the proscribed distance of 1.5 metres. In some schools, windows cannot be opened properly, although the aerial emissions from a sick person (as a video simulation from the TU Berlin shows) can fill an entire classroom in just two minutes.

Children, teachers and parents are protesting against the opening up policy and have expressed their anger and sarcasm on Twitter. One wrote: “What is the point of the RKI if even our Ministers of Culture don’t follow its recommendations? School opening without an AHA rule is not merely a case of negligence. It borders on intentional infection.” Others call the ministers of culture “the supreme Corona deniers” and warn: “Do not then say anybody, we could have known the consequences!”

More than 20 teachers have taken legal action against being forced to attend classes. A number of teachers had already undertaken legal complaints in April and May, but in vain. Now the Education Ministry in Schleswig-Holstein has gone so far as to appeal against a ruling. The Administrative Court in Schleswig had ruled in the case of a teacher suffering from lung disease that she should not be forced to attend classes for the time being. The Education Ministry has appealed against the judgment.

An open letter to the mayors of Hamburg, Peter Tschentscher (SPD) and Katharina Fegebank (Greens), as well as the senators for schools and social affairs, Ties Rabe and Melanie Leonhard (both SPD), was signed by more than 800 parents on the first day of reopened schools. The letter opposes the policy, arguing that “a safe and orderly start of school is not possible.” The parents write that they are naturally concerned about the welfare of children and their socio-psychological development. “But the welfare of the child is not possible without health protection.” They demand “urgent improvements to the concept presented!”

It is false, however, to expect the SPD and the Greens, who govern in the city-state of Hamburg, to take such proposals seriously. Hamburg’s school senator Ties Rabe, for example, never tires of repeating his claim that coronavirus is “safer for children and young people than flu.” Against all evidence to the contrary, Rabe declares in a school-start video that children are “not as much at risk as adults.”

The Left Party, which governs in Thuringia, Berlin and Bremen, and the teachers’ union GEW, also cannot be trusted. They are all ruthlessly pushing ahead with the opening of schools because they put the interests of the economy above the life and health of the working population. It is the same politicians who agreed to pump hundreds of billions and trillions of euros of “pandemic emergency aid” into the vaults of banks and corporations.

The World Socialist Web Site, the Socialist Equality Party and its sister parties across the world reject this dangerous experiment. We call on young people, as well as teachers, educators and parents, to take action and fight against it.

In a statement published on July 6 on the WSWS, the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in the US calls for a “nationwide general strike against the reopening of schools.” In order to organize and make such a movement successful, teachers have to “build independent action committees,” “unite with other sections of the working class” and take up a struggle for the transformation of society according to socialist principles.

“All the rights of the working class, even the right to life, depend upon the expropriation of the ruling class and the reorganization of economic life on the basis of social need, not private profit” the SEP writes and continues, “The only way to halt the reopening of schools, stop the spread of the pandemic and prevent millions more infections and deaths is through the mass mobilization of the working class in a revolutionary struggle against the source of all suffering wrought by the pandemic, the capitalist system.”

Sri Lankan election exposes historic crisis of capitalist rule

K. Ratnayake

The Sri Lankan media has responded to the last Wednesday’s election win of President Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) by falsely hailing it as a “people’s victory.” The SLPP won 145 seats while the opposition parties won just 74 seats.

As a result, with the votes of six MPs from political allies, the SLPP will have a two-thirds majority in the 225-seat parliament, enabling it to change the constitution. President Rajapakse has been openly campaigning for the removal of constitutional restraints to the executive presidency which would give him sweeping autocratic powers.

The election result is not a “people’s victory” but an electoral win by a party preparing for authoritarian rule under President Rajapakse who has already appointed a host of generals to his administration. The new cabinet will be officially appointed tomorrow and the new parliament convened on August 20.

SLPP leader Mahinda Rajapakse was sworn in as prime minister by his brother President Rajapakse on Sunday. The ceremony was held at Kelaniya Viharaya in northeastern Colombo, a site mythically claimed to have been visited by Buddha. Significantly, President Rajapakse took his oath in Anuradhapura, the ancient Sinhala capital, in the north-central province. Both leaders are thus signalling the Sinhala-Buddhist supremacism character of their regime.

Sinhala-Buddhist supremacism was the main plank of the SLPP’s presidential and general election campaigns. Its purpose was to whip up hostility against the island’s Tamil and Muslims minorities, divert social tensions and divide the working class across ethnic lines.

The Sri Lankan ruling elite faces a profound economic and political crisis that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. It has backed the SLPP because it promised “strong and stable rule”—i.e., its willingness to suppress rising working-class resistance to Colombo’s austerity policies and attacks on jobs and wages. Like its counterparts internationally, Sri Lankan big business wants the economy restructured and their profits increased by slashing jobs, imposing lower wages and increasing productivity.

The ruling class has turned to the SLPP and its authoritarian plans under conditions of a historic collapse of the United National Party (UNP) and Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the two traditional parties of the Sri Lankan bourgeoisie.

The UNP, the country’s oldest political party, was only able to win one seat, not in a direct contest but a result of its national vote which plummeted to just 250,000. The bitterly-divided party split in February when the majority of its MPs, under the leadership of Sajith Premadasa, left to form the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB).

The factional conflict centred on the electoral unpopularity of longstanding UNP leader and former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. The issue, however, was not a question of personality but the deep-seated hostility of workers and the rural poor to this pro-imperialist party and its attacks on democratic and social rights. The SJB won just 54 seats and 24 percent of votes in last week’s election.

The SLFP, led by former President Sirisena, is all but defunct. The majority of its MPs left the party and joined the SLPP when it was formed in 2016. Sirisena and the remaining SLFP parliamentarians contested last Wednesday’s ballot in an electoral alliance with the SLPP.

Consecutive UNP and SLFP administrations have governed the country since formal independence in 1948. The UNP was established in 1946 while the SLFP was formed in 1951 by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike and other MPs who split in response to rising working class struggles against the UNP. Whether in or out of government, both parties used anti-Tamil communalism to divide the working class and defend capitalist rule. This reactionary agenda culminated in the communalist war in 1983 against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) creating untold devastation for the masses throughout the island.

Wednesday’s elections also exposed the ongoing crisis of the bourgeois Tamil National Alliance (TNA). It won just 10 seats, down from 16 in the last parliament, with its overall vote falling from 515,963 in the August 2015 election to just 327,168.

The Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK), the principal party in the alliance, was formed in 1949 in response to the anti-Tamil communalism. ITAK has a long and sordid history of attempting to secure power-sharing arrangements with the Colombo elite. These political manoeuvres have produced one disaster after another for the Tamil masses.

Formed in 2002, the TNA responded to the LTTE’s defeat in May 2009, by shifting further to the right, and appealing to the major imperialist powers, including the US, to secure their backing for a deal with Colombo.

The TNA supported Washington’s 2015 regime-change operation to oust then President Mahinda Rajapakse and to install Sirisena. It backed Sirisena’s pro-imperialist administration and its suppression of any investigation into Colombo’s war crimes, including the massacre of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians in the final weeks of war, and also supported the government’s austerity measures.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) contested the election in a new front called the National People’s Power (NPP) offering populist demands and calling for a “clean” uncorrupted parliament. It won three seats, down from six in the previous parliament. In 2004, the JVP had 39 MPs.

Established in the late 1960s, the JVP was a radical petty-bourgeois party based on a mixture of Castroism, Maoism and Sinhala patriotism. It is now a party of the bourgeois establishment and since 1994 has aligned itself with every regime in Colombo. This includes joining a coalition with President Chandrika Kumaratunga in 2004. Having fully backed Colombo’s communalist war it is widely discredited among the youth and workers initially attracted to it.

Commenting on last Wednesday’s election, JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said, “This result is not one we can be satisfied with” but added “there is a role for the Opposition outside the parliament as well,” and said the organisation would organise farmers and unemployed. As its previous history demonstrates, the JVP will work with the ruling elites to derail rural poor and youth from turning towards socialism and the working class.

The deep-going alienation of the masses from the political establishment was also revealed by the millions of Sri Lankan citizens who refused to participate in the election. While there are more than 16 million registered voters in Sri Lanka just over 11 million voted—i.e., about 4.7 million did not cast a vote. This is about one million more than the previous national election in 2015, and of those that participated in Wednesday’s election, 700,000 cancelled their votes.

The media rejoicing about the SLPP victory is an expression of their support for the future government’s social assault on all working people. As an August 6 editorial in the Island entitled “Real war ahead” declared: “A democratically elected stable government is a prerequisite for restoring investor confidence, reviving the economy, and improving the country’s credit ratings.”

It is not enough for parties to just call for “stringent measures,” the editorial continued, “The interval in hell, as it were, we have been enjoying all these months will be over soon.” In other words, massive government attacks must be unleashed on workers, the rural poor and youth as soon as possible.

In last Wednesday’s election, the Socialist Equality Party increased its total vote to 780 in the three districts that it contested—Jaffna 146, Colombo 303 and Nuwara Eliya 331. The party’s vote doubled in Colombo, the country’s major working-class centre and in Nuwara Eliya, where the majority of Sri Lanka’s plantation workers live. This increase was amid the COVID-19 pandemic, where party campaigns were limited to online meetings and Facebook sharing of SEP statements and World Socialist Web Site articles.

These conscious votes indicate a growing support for socialism in Sri Lanka. The SEP will intensify its exposure of the Sinhala chauvinist provocations against Tamil and Muslim minorities that seek to divide workers. It was the only party that opposed Colombo’s communalist war against the LTTE and demanded the withdrawal of the military from the north and east of the country.

Our party advances a socialist policy against imperialist war, the coronavirus pandemic and social inequality. We alone call for the working class to break from every faction of the ruling class and independently mobilise—rallying the rural poor and the oppressed—to fight for a workers’ and peasants’ government to implement socialist policies as part of the struggle for international socialism.

US Attorney General Barr gives fascistic tirade against Antifa, Black Lives Matter

Patrick Martin

In a television interview Sunday night on Fox News, US Attorney General William Barr declared that some of the Democratic representatives who questioned him at a congressional hearing two weeks ago were revolutionaries seeking to overthrow American capitalism, in league with terrorists.

US Attorney General William Barr on Fox News

The fascistic rant—whose logical conclusion is the criminalization of all political opposition to the Trump administration—came in the course of an appearance on “Life, Liberty & Levin,” a Sunday night interview program.

Barr began with fulsome praise for the police, attacking the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests against police violence that swept the United States after the May 25 police murder of George Floyd. “The fact is, generally speaking, we have superb police in this country,” he said. “There will be some instances of excessive force, but by and large it’s an excellent police force. And if they’re going to be demonized like this, they’re not going to work in these cities.”

Host Mark Levin, in what appeared to be a choreographed effort, cited a report by an ultra-right think tank on the loosely organized protest group Antifa (antifascist). The Gatestone Institute, which sponsors brazenly Islamophobic “research,” was chaired until 2018 by John Bolton, who then joined the Trump administration as national security adviser.

The Gatestone report cites material produced by the Verfassungschutz, the German secret service agency that has placed the German Trotskyists of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP—Socialist Equality Party) on its surveillance list, while giving its stamp of approval to the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the principal vehicle for the revival of neo-Nazi trends in Germany.

The report presents Antifa as a large, well-organized international conspiracy of tens of thousands of militants, although it is invariably described by supporters as little more than a signboard used by anarchists and other protesters in different localities, who communicate through social media but do not constitute an organization in any real sense of the term.

Barr hailed the Gatestone report—which quotes his own comments about Antifa—and launched into a diatribe against Antifa. “They are a revolutionary group that is interested in some form of socialism, communism,” he said. “They’re essentially Bolsheviks.”

He went on to claim that Antifa used “fascistic” tactics. According to Barr, they infiltrated the mass protests against police violence. “What they do is, they are essentially shielding themselves or shrouding themselves in First Amendment activity,” he said. “They hijack these demonstrations and they provoke violence. And they have various tiers of people from the sort of top provocateurs down to people who are their minions and run the violent missions.”

He continued, “It’s a new form of urban guerrilla warfare. Mao Tse-Tung used to speak about the guerrilla being like fish swimming in the ocean the way the guerrilla moves through the people. The guerrilla hides out among the people as a fish in the ocean.”

The purpose of this demented presentation, issued without the slightest attempt to present any evidence, was to make an amalgam stretching from the alleged violent protesters through Black Lives Matter and other groups organizing the anti-police protests, to the Democratic Party.

Barr described this entire range of political opinion as though it were a unified and coherent political tendency, which he described as “the left,” which was seeking power through a coordinated campaign to remove Trump from office. All those opposing Trump constituted “a Rousseauian Revolutionary Party that believes in tearing down the system.”

The attorney general included the corporate media in this amalgam, claiming that the media deliberately concealed evidence of widespread Antifa violence in Portland, Oregon and other US cities.

“Anyone with eyes can see what’s happening,” he declared. “They see the violence. They see these groups of agitators and their black outfits, their helmets and their shields, which, incidentally, have the hammer and sickle on them most of the time, are rushing the police, causing violence, throwing rocks… You don’t see it on any of the national news. You don’t see it on the networks. You don’t see it on the cable stations. And yet you hear about these peaceful demonstrators, so it’s a lie. The American people are being told a lie by the media.”

There is a definite fascistic content to the type of political amalgam concocted by Barr. Just as Trump tweeted that Black Lives Matter protests constituted “treason”—a crime punishable by death—Barr suggests that “the left” is at war with the Trump administration and “America,” and should be treated accordingly.

Referring to the House Judiciary Committee hearing, where there was mild criticism of federal police tactics in Portland, Barr said that some members of the committee were “true believers” and “essentially revolutionary,” while the majority were “cowards who are mostly interested in getting reelected.”

After reading those words, dripping with menace, it is necessary to remind oneself that Barr is not a Nazi jurist condemning all opponents of the Führer to be hanged. He is the chief law enforcement official of a government that is nominally democratic, where public opposition to the president is legal, and where the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees such rights as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

Despite his phlegmatic demeanor and lawyerly word-juggling, however, Barr has much in common with Carl Schmitt, the principal legal theorist of the Third Reich.

That such an individual is the nation’s chief law enforcement official and presides over the machinery of the “justice system” of the United States testifies to the rotted out, degenerate and profoundly antidemocratic character of “American democracy.” Genuine democracy is incompatible with the staggering levels of social inequality that prevail in the US. More accurately, the United States is an oligarchic society that has yet to fully shed the trappings of bourgeois democracy, but, in the face of mounting social tensions and a growing threat of working-class revolution, is lurching toward dictatorial forms of rule.

Trump’s attorney general is well aware that groups like Antifa and acts of minor vandalism—overturning fences outside federal buildings and setting small fires—are no threat whatsoever to the capitalist system. In his reference to the Bolsheviks, however, Barr reveals his real fears and those of the entire American ruling elite, whether pro-Trump or anti-Trump.

The Bolshevik Party led the first successful mass revolutionary workers’ uprising in history, the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, which established the Soviet Union as the first workers’ state. It is the repetition of that example, on a much wider scale, that is the nightmare of American imperialism and its official thugs like Barr.

For their own political reasons, they choose to lump together the threat from below, from the working class, and their opponents within the ruling elite, in the Democratic Party. But it is the working class that is the real target of the repressive measures that Barr & Co. are preparing.

Lebanese government resigns amid mounting anger over port blast

Jean Shaoul

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced his government’s resignation in a televised address to the nation yesterday evening.

The move came amid mounting fury over last Tuesday’s catastrophic explosion in one of Beirut’s port warehouses storing 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun, left, receives a letter of resignation from Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab, at the presidential palace, in Baabda, east of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Aug. 10, 2020. (Dalati Nohra via AP)

There were angry demonstrations over the weekend leading to violent clashes when security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters and injured more than 700 people.

Announcing the government’s resignation, Diab said he had come to the conclusion that corruption in Lebanon is “bigger than the state.” He added that “This crime” was a result of endemic corruption and called for the trial of those responsible for the deadly blast. He said he was taking “a step back” so he could stand with the people “and fight the battle for change alongside them.”

Diab laid the blame for the “earthquake” that had hit Lebanon on his government’s corrupt predecessors, saying, “They [the political class] should have been ashamed of themselves because their corruption is what has led to this disaster that had been hidden for seven years.”

It is reported that Diab will stay on in a caretaker role. On Saturday, he had announced early parliamentary elections, saying he would stay on for two months.

The government’s resignation followed the resignation of several ministers, including his closest ally, Environment and Administrative Development Minister Damianos Kattar, who cited the government’s inability to carry out reforms.

While the blast’s immediate cause has not been confirmed, the disaster was the result of the criminal neglect and callous indifference displayed by successive governments and the ruling elite. For years, they ignored repeated warnings about the dangers of storing such a powerful chemical without proper safety controls so near to residential areas.

According to Beirut’s Governor Marwan Abboud, the death toll from the explosion has risen to 220, with 110 people still missing, many of whom are believed to be foreign workers and lorry drivers, making identifying them more difficult. More than 6,000 people have been injured. The army has called off the rescue operation at the port because no survivors had been found.

Fully twelve percent of the city’s population—300,000 people—have seen their homes destroyed or damaged by the blast that blew up buildings, shattered windows and set neighbourhoods ablaze. Officials have estimated losses at $10 billion to $15 billion.

With no other shelter available, people are being forced to sleep in severely damaged homes, many without windows or doors. Speaking to the BBC, Rona Halabi, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said, “These people need shelter, they need food… they also need cleaning detergents, they need help in picking up what is left of their homes.”

She pointed out that the blast had caused heavy damage to two water and electricity stations, under conditions where lengthy power outages were already a daily occurrence.

Last week, President Michel Aoun announced an investigation into the cause of the blast, including whether any “external interference” in addition to negligence was a factor. A report is to be forthcoming within four days. Some 20 leading officials are reportedly under house arrest, while others have had their bank accounts frozen.

A judge has begun questioning Maj. Gen. Tony Saliba, who heads State Security. Apparently State Security had compiled a report about the dangers of storing the material at the port and sent a copy to the offices of the president and prime minister on July 20.

Diab, an engineering professor, was installed as a “technocrat” to head the government in January after mass social protests against economic hardship, government corruption and the country’s sectarian political setup forced the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Washington, Paris and Riyadh’s man in Lebanon.

Diab’s cabinet, many of whom were professional people not politically aligned with the main political parties, had the support of the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, which with its allies has the largest political bloc in Parliament.

This earned his government the undying hatred of the Christian and Sunni plutocrats allied with Harari’s Future Movement, which refused to cooperate with the government, leading to the eruption of small but violent clashes between the two rival blocs in recent months. Last June, President Aoun warned that this could spark another civil war in a country that saw a bitter armed conflict between shifting alliances backed by external forces from 1975 to 1990.

The port explosion comes amidst an unprecedented economic and financial crisis exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic that has seen tourism revenues and remittances from the Gulf and the Lebanese diaspora plummet. The ensuing lockdown caused untold suffering among workers, refugees and migrants. The only limited social safety net is provided by sectarian-based parties, and health care is dependent upon the ability to pay exorbitant prices.

In March, the government defaulted on a $1.2 billion Eurobond, later extending it to all its overseas debt, as the collapse of the lira wiped out the foreign currency reserves of the heavily indebted country, fueling inflation and widespread poverty.

Days later, after declaring a state of emergency, the government announced that the central bank would pump dollars into the market to prop up the currency and that it was preparing an appeal to the US-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan. Any such loan would be tied to the usual demand for “free market reforms” that would plunge millions into destitution and cut across key and conflicting interests of the ruling elite.

But above all, an IMF loan would be contingent upon political alignment with the Sunni oil states, with whom relations have cooled over the last six years. Such an alignment would be directed against Iran and, by extension, Syria, conditions that are anathema to Hezbollah. Without acceding to the IMF’s terms, loans pledged at an aid conference by the European and regional powers in 2018 would not be forthcoming.

In addition, last year the US widened its sanctions against Hezbollah, which it has designated as a terrorist organisation, targeting legislators as well as a local bank, forcing it to close, thereby adding to Lebanon’s already severe financial and economic crisis.

Last June, the US’s Caesar Act came into effect, imposing sanctions against the Syrian government and those dealing with it, thereby further undermining Hezbollah’s finances and preventing Lebanon from purchasing Syrian oil.

Washington, Riyadh and Paris have sought to exert “maximum economic pressure” on Beirut, implementing what amounts to a blockade against the country for the purpose of eliminating Hezbollah as a political and military force in Lebanon and Syria as part of their broader campaign against Iran. Their aim is to engineer a return to power by their local agents, the Sunni Future Movement of Hariri and his allies.

On Sunday, French President Macron continued the pressure. Co-hosting a virtual conference with the UN that pledged nearly $300 million in emergency humanitarian aid to Beirut, mainly for health care, education, food and housing, he warned that “it would be strictly monitored.” He added that no money for rebuilding the city would be made available until Lebanon committed itself to implementing political and economic reforms . The forces organising the demonstrations of recent days include the Christian and Sunni parties and ex-generals around Hariri’s US-aligned Future Movement. They are calling for the formation of an interim “salvation” government, “potentially headed by the military” and including bankers and other business figures, to “resolve the humanitarian and economic crisis,” and prepare the way for elections on the basis of a new electoral law—in as much as three years’ time. Their aim is to restore the direct rule of the plutocracy, in the service of imperialism, and limit or eradicate the influence of the “mobsters” in Lebanon and Syria—a euphemism for Hezbollah.

This points to the very real dangers that the legitimate anger of workers, youth and middle-class layers engulfed by the ever-widening crisis will be channeled behind yet another bunch of kleptocrats, this time possibly headed by military generals, and directed against the impoverished supporters of Hezbollah and its allies.

What is absolutely decisive in the present situation is the building of a new revolutionary leadership, advancing a perspective for unifying the working class across all religious, sectarian, national and ethnic divisions, not just in Lebanon but across the region, in the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the building of the United Socialist States of the Middle East as part of a world federation of socialist states. This requires building sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International throughout the region.

Facebook Fellowship Program 2021/2022

Application Deadline: 1st October 2020 11:59pm PST

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Any

To be taken at (country): Any country (excluding US embargoed countries)

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• CommAI
• Computational Social Science
• Compute Storage and Efficiency
• Computer Vision
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• Economics and Computation
• Machine Learning
• Natural Language Processing
• Networking and Connectivity
• Security/Privacy
• Research Outside of the Above: relevant work in areas that may not align with the research priorities highlighted above.

About the Award: Giving people the power to share and connect requires constant innovation. At Facebook, research permeates everything we do. We believe the most interesting research questions are derived from real-world problems. Our engineers work on cutting edge research with a practical focus and push product boundaries every day. We believe that close relationships with the academic community will enable us to address many of these problems at a fundamental level and solve them.

Type: PhD, Fellowship

Selection Criteria and Eligibility

• Full-time PhD students who are currently involved in on-going research.
• Students work must be related to one or more relevant disciplines.
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Number of Scholarships: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Each Facebook Fellowship includes several benefits:

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Duration of Scholarship: Facebook Fellowship Award to cover two years!

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Food Security In India – An Analysis

Bisma Ahad

Food is the basic need and fundamental right of every human being. The United Nations (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 25,1948) used an ecological perspective rooted in social justice to define “right to food”. It emphasizes ” quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumers belong, and which ensure a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear” ‘. Therefore ensuring food security is the responsibility of every nation. Food security has been defined in 2002 by FAO as Ensuring that all people at all times have both physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. India has achieved self-sufficiency in food grains in the 1970s. It has consistently been able to provide enough food for its entire population since the mid-1990s, with a decline in production between 2014 and 2016 caused by drought. But India needs to take various new and improved initiatives to enhance and improve its food security as it faces supply constraints, water scarcity, low per capita GDP, and inadequate irrigation. The Economic Survey said that India ranked 76th in 113 countries assessed by The Global Food Security Index (GFSI) in 2018, based on four parameters – affordability, availability, quality, safety, and natural resources. Therefore food security is a complex phenomenon, which includes a range of factors i.e. poverty, income distribution, international trade markets, agricultural development, human resources management and development policies and programs of the government, population growth, and climatic conditions. Poverty being the main cause of food insecurity as poor households are not able to fulfill their square meals. Thus results in malnutrition, undernourishment, and various health issues. Developing countries, especially India faces the problem of food insecurity due to the economic crises.

Despite various schemes and programs, Initiated by the Indian government to counter food security issues Indian’s biggest challenge remains for ensuring the population the nutritional and enough food. The government introduced many major programs to eradicate food security issues such as the public food distribution system (PDS), Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Entrepreneurs Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY), etc. But these programs fail to reach every section of the society and hunger continue to make vulnerable and deteriorated situation of the poor people. The International food policy research Institution (IFPR) classified the status of hunger into five categories–low, moderate, serious, alarming, and extremely alarming, India falls into the category of alarming. Further studies have indicated that consumption and expenditure on food grain have decreased up to a certain level due to an increase in food prices and enlargement in the consumption of non-food items. Despite the economic growth in recent years around one-third of Indian’s population still lives the poverty line. All these estimates indicate the existence of food insecurity at the micro-level in terms of either lack of economic access to food or lack of absorption of food for a healthy life.

No doubt the Government of India introduced The National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA 2013). It includes the Midday meal scheme, the Integrated Child Development Services scheme, and the Public Distribution System. Further, the NFSA 2013 recognizes maternity entitlements. The main problem in the implementation of the NFSA is how to identify the beneficiaries? Although the Act purposes to cover 67 percent of the population, it does not provide any identification criteria based on which beneficiaries will be chosen. The socio-economic and caste census (SECC) data can give some direction on how this can be done, but it does not provide a clear estimate. Instead of identifying the poor, it would be better to adopt an ‘inclusive approach’ in which all poor and marginalized populations are included and rich people are kept out,  It requires proper verification and counter checks by various departments without being involved in corruption practices. Otherwise, the NFSA will fail to reach its beneficiary or target population.

The overall impact of ICDS and MDM scheme on malnutrition has remained very limited due to a meager allocation of resources, faulty project, and carelessness in implementation. The poor quality of food served under MDM in many schools in different states across the country is a serious cause of concern. In fact, in 2012, the corporations (comprising North, south, and East corporations of Delhi states) found 83 percent meals nutritionally deficient. Moreover, utensils and dining areas were often found to be unclean and unhygienic. The most serious problem in ICDS is related to implementation and accountability. Since children have no ‘voice’ in the system, there is no self-correction mechanism. There is rampant corruption in each phase of the implementation of these projects. Thus results in failure of ICDS and midday meal scheme

PDS (Public Distribution Scheme) was established to provide essential consumer goods at cheap and subsidized prices. The main agency, which provides food grains to the PDS, is the Food Corporation of India (FCI) set up in 1965. Its primary duty is to undertake the purchase, storage, movement, transport, distribution, and sale of food grains and other foodstuffs. But the PDS has been criticized on various grounds. The main motive of PDS was to manage and distribute food stock to the poorest of the poor at affordable and cheap prices so that hunger and malnutrition can be eradicated from the country. But it was found that the poor people are least benefited i.e. only 20% of households are provided the stock with the cost-effectiveness which is very small. Another critic of PDS is the burden of food subsidy, which puts several fiscal burdens on the government. There is also the inefficiencies in the operations of FCI as some researchers and The Bureau of Industrial Costs and Prices (BICP) of the Government of India (GOI) have pointed out several inefficiencies in the operation of the Food Corporation of India. The economic cost of FCI foodgrain operations has been rising because of an increase in procurement prices and other costs that is distribution cost and carrying costs. The inefficiencies in the operations of FCI are due to its highly centralized and bureaucratic mode of operation. To rectify this, experts advocate the ‘toning up’ of the personnel and working of FCI on the one hand and reorganizing the food security system on the other hand. Another flaw in the PDS is that the ration cards are provided to only those people who have their residential addresses and those who are migrant laborers and homeless are left out of the food security system.

The Attack on Indigenous Rights in Brazil

Yanis Iqbal

On 5 August, 2020, the Brazilian Supreme Court ordered President Jair Bolsonaro to institute measures aimed at protecting indigenous people from the Covid-19 pandemic. This ruling is the legal recognition of the totally disastrous anti-indigenous policies of the Bolsonaro government. Like other indigenous people living in the Peruvian jungles, eastern Bolivia, the Ecuadorian Amazon and the Colombian Amazon, Brazilian collectivities too have been disproportionately impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 23,000 members of 190 indigenous groups in the Amazon basin have been infected by the virus and all of these communities share a commonality – they suffer from structural inequalities.

According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), “Indigenous peoples, in particular indigenous women and girls are often disproportionately affected by epidemics and other crises. Indigenous peoples are nearly three times as likely to be living in extreme poverty as their non-indigenous counterparts. They account for almost 19 per cent of the extreme poor”. In Latin America, more specifically, it is estimated that 43% of the 44.7 million indigenous people are poor (living on less than $5.50 a day in 2011 purchasing power parity prices (PPP))and 24% are extremely poor (living on less than $1.90 a day in 2011 PPP prices).

Another UN DESA document states, “Indigenous peoples in nearly all countries fall into the most “vulnerable” health category. They have significantly higher rates of communicable and non-communicable diseases than their non-indigenous counterparts, high mortality rates and lower life expectancies. Contributing factors that increase the potential for high mortality rates caused by COVID-19 in indigenous communities include mal – and undernutrition, poor access to sanitation, lack of clean water, and inadequate medical services. Additionally, indigenous peoples often experience widespread stigma and discrimination in healthcare settings such as stereotyping and a lack of quality in the care provided, thus compromising standards of care and discouraging them from accessing health care, if and when available.”

While Brazilian communities do experience the disadvantageous effects of structural inequalities, their plight has been politically amplified by the Bolsonaro administration which has accelerated extractivism during the Covid-19 pandemic. With more than 23,000 cases and 600 deaths, indigenous Brazilians are dying at a higher rate than the general population and it is estimated that they die of the virus twice as often as the non-indigenous people. Some communities, such as the Arara people, living near the Xingu river basin and the Xicrin in southwest Para state, are on the verge of extermination due to Coronavirus.

These high death rates among the indigenous population are killing knowledgeable elders, the main transmitters of indigenous culture. The recent death of the famous leader, Aritana Yawalapiti of the Yawalapiti people, on August 5, 2020, underscores the cultural loss taking place as the diffusers of traditional knowledge die and the wisdom of indigenous people gets lost.

Behind the soaring statistics on the death of indigenous people in Brazil, one can observe the unmistakable presence of Bolsonarian extractivism. The UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, José Francisco Cali Tzay, has said, “In some countries, consultations with indigenous peoples and also environmental impact assessments are being abruptly suspended in order to force through megaprojects relating to agribusiness, mining, dams and infrastructure.” José Francisco Cali Tzay’s statement, while not explicitly referring to Brazil, accurately describes the consequences of Bolsonarian politics.

In the Brazilian region of Rondônia, “Indigenous organizations have reported the presence of garimpeiros (illegal gold miners) and madeireiros (timber traffickers) who have used the current health crisis as a cover to intensify their profit-driven invasions in the territories where the Karipuna people lives.” Rondônia is a region where, ever since the election of Bolsonaro as the president, the National Mining Agency (ANM) has granted mining permits even for demarcated indigenous lands i.e. lands that have been legally regularized through the federal government and presidential authorization. In 2013, for example, “the Ariquemes Small-Scale Miners Cooperative (Cooperativa Mineradora dos Garimpeiros de Ariquemes or COOMINGA) obtained a small-scale gold mining permit for an area that includes part of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory [which was officially demarcated in 2006]. The cooperative is now the third-largest producer of tin in the country, according to the ANM’s 2018 Annual Mining Report. In 2016, the Rondônia Tin Cooperative (Cooperativa Estanífera de Rondônia) acquired a mining permit to mine cassiterite, the main tin ore, in an area that included segments of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau territory. The largest open-air cassiterite mine in the world is located in Ariquemes, Rondônia.”

The events in Rondônia are directly driven by the extractivist agenda of Jair Bolsonaro which glorifies anti-indigenous hatred and allows extractive capital to exploit previously protected territories. Under his administration, applications to mine on indigenous lands in Amazon have increased by 91% and 4,000 requests have been submitted for mining on 31 indigenous reserves. Moreover, the number of invasions of indigenous areas has increased from 111 in 2018 to 160 in 2019 and in July 2019, 20,000 illegal gold miners had invaded the Yanomami Park, the largest indigenous reserve in Brazil. These illegal miners were “well funded, likely by entrepreneurs, who pay workers and provide them with earthmoving equipment, supplies and airplanes. Three illegal air strips and three open-pit goldmines are in operation within the Yanomami indigenous territory.” As a natural result of the extension of extractivism into ecologically fragile areas, deforestation astronomically increased and “year-on-year deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon rose by 34% between August 2018 and July 2019, felling an area of forest about as big as Jamaica.” All the invasions have been punctuated by regular violence and according to the Human Rights Watch, “Indigenous people who have organized themselves to defend their forests—in the absence of adequate law enforcement—have been threatened, attacked, and, according to community leaders, murdered by people engaged in illegal deforestation.” In July 2019, for instance, 10-15 heavily armed men had invaded the village Yvytotõ of the Wajãpi community and killed one indigenous individual to access the gold reserves located in the village.

The ecocide, ethnocide and genocide of 2019 have continued in 2020 and in the first few weeks of the year, 5 indigenous people have been murdered due to land conflicts. Deforestation has persisted with 529 square kilometers of forest being destroyed in April, 2020, representing an increase of 171% when compared to the same month the previous year. Mining invasions, too, have progressed unabated and the Triunfo Do Xingo area, where many indigenous people live, has been witnessing the aggressive and repeated incursion of miners, cattle ranchers and other commercial actors. In June and July 2020, 3,842 fire alerts have been reported in Triunfo Do Xingo, linked to illegal land grabbing and mining activities, significantly increasing the Covid-19 risks of indigenous people whose co-infection of Covid-19 with other high-prevalence diseases can lead to high mortality rates.

Mining magnates in Brazil have been emboldened to murder indigenous people and invade ancestral lands by the Bolsonaro administration which has secured a suitable investment climate for extractivism. Through the fusion of anti-indigenist rhetoric and pro-mining policies, Bolsonaro has unleashed a war against the 900,000 indigenous people living in Brazil. In terms of rhetoric, the following statements are adequate to show how Bolsonaro has discursively activated the extermination and dispossession of indigenous people:-

• “The Indians do not speak our language, they do not have money, they do not have culture. They are native peoples. How did they manage to get 13% of the national territory”.
• “There is no indigenous territory where there aren’t minerals. Gold, tin and magnesium are in these lands, especially in the Amazon, the richest area in the world. I’m not getting into this nonsense of defending land for Indians”.
• “This unilateral policy of demarcating indigenous land by the Executive will cease to exist. Any reserve that I can reduce in size, I will do so. It will be a very big fight that we’re going to have with the UN”.
• “It’s a shame that the Brazilian cavalry hasn’t been as efficient as the Americans, who exterminated the Indians.”

In terms of policies, Bolsonaro has attempted to implement a “dream” initiative by sending a bill to the Brazilian Congress in February 2020. This bill would open Brazilian indigenous reserves to “commercial mining, oil and gas exploration, cattle ranching and agribusiness, new hydroelectric dam projects, and tourism — projects that have been legally blocked under the country’s 1988 Constitution.” Marcio Santilli, a former head of FUNAI (National Indian Foundation), the agency responsible for indigenous affairs, has said that the dream initiative will “not promote the economic development of the Indians, but guarantee the exploitation by third parties of their natural resources. It would encourage Indians to live from royalties while watching the dispossession of their lands.”

Bolsonaro’s staunch and brutal opposition to indigenous people has continued during the Covid-19 pandemic and in July 2020, the Bolsonaro government vetoed provisions of a law that entailed the government to provide disinfectants, drinking water and a guarantee of hospital beds to indigenous people amid the pandemic. Bolsonaro also “vetoed funding for the states and local governments with emergency plans for indigenous communities, as well as provisions to help give them more information on coronavirus, including greater internet access.” Along with the orchestrated genocide of indigenous population, Bolsonaro is also busy protecting illegal mining from environmental actions. On 6 August, 2020, Bolsonaro’s Defence Ministry suspended operations by the environmental protection agency Ibama against illegal miners on an indigenous reserve in Amazon.

The Defence Ministry has said that the suspension occurred on the request of the Munduruku tribe who apparently want marauding miners to steal their lands. This claim is false insofar that the Munduruku tribe have protested against illegal gold mining operations in their territories in 2019 and have promised to keep on fighting against extractive elites. In fact, a statement released by the Munduruku tribe unequivocally expressed opposition to mining and made it clear that the indigenous group will never request miners to dispossess them: “You are destroying our sacred sites and disturbing our spirit world. This is bringing diseases and death to our people. We will not accept this destruction anymore…Gold mining is dividing our people, introducing new diseases, and contaminating our people with mercury. Mining brings drugs, alcohol, weapons, and prostitution. And greed.”

At the opening of the 74th United Nations general assembly, Jair Bolsonaro has declared that he is representing “a new Brazil, resurgent after being on the brink of socialism.” Now, we can observe how Brazil, revived by Bolsonaro after the supposed curse of socialism, is slaughtering indigenous people for the penetration of extractivism into the entrails of Amazon and other protected regions. Instead of installing sanitary cordons around indigenous territories and efficiently carrying out essential Covid-19 practices – isolation, laboratory confirmation, contact tracing, efficient detection of suspected cases – Bolsonaro has called Coronavirus a “little flu” and a “cold”, denied the infection and death rates and hysterically advanced the interests of the mining sector. Instead of these anti-science and extractivist policies, a science-based and socialist response would have been much better.

In addition to the proper protection of indigenous people living in remote regions, much could have been done to alleviate the conditions of the urban indigenous population which, in the case of Brazil, constitutes half of the indigenous population. This urban population serves as an expendable reserve army of labor for capitalism and consequently, experiences high levels of inequalities in the form of informal employment and gender pay gap. The rate of informal employment for indigenous women and men is 85% and 81%, respectively, compared to 52 per cent and 51 per cent for non-indigenous women and men. Furthermore, indigenous women’s hourly earnings are less than a third of those of non-indigenous men with the same level of education. During the pandemic, it is this indigenous reserve army of labor which is experiencing exploitation along with the indigenous people living in the protected regions.

The present-day mass deaths of Brazilian indigenous people are similar to the colonial ethnocide of late fifteenth and early sixteenth century that dramatically reduced the population from 150 million before 1492 to less than 11 million 100 years later. A native commentary on the colonial conquest of Guatemala and the consequent outbreak of smallpox plague terrifyingly encapsulates the contemporary indigenous situation: “Great was the stench of the dead. After our fathers and grandfathers succumbed, half of the people fled to the fields…The mortality was terrible. Your grandfathers died…we became orphans, oh, my sons! So we became when we were young. All of us were thus. We were born to die!”

As Brazil progresses into the Covid-19 pandemic, it is necessary that Bolsonaro’s extermination campaign be stopped. Brazilian indigenous people suffer from malnutrition and other immune-suppressive conditions, thus increasing their susceptibility to Coronavirus infection. The high immunological vulnerability of indigenous communities has been compounded by Bolsonaro’s crony capitalism that allies itself with extractive elites. While the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) has urged “Governments to intensify protection measures to stop external farmers, settlers, private firms, industries and miners from entering indigenous peoples´ territories taking advantage of the present crisis”, Bolsonaro has clashed head-on with these organizations, opening indigenous territories for extractive robbery. But indigenous resistance to Bolsonaro and his extractive power bloc is in the offing and the statement released by the Brazil’s Indigenous People Articulation (APIB) sets the tone for the future revolt: “we remain firm, as our ancestors did, who for more than 520 years have resisted, fighting, whether for the right to territory, to overcome dictates of the dictatorship, as well as other epidemics, the landowners’ bullets or the lengthy attempt to make our cultures and ways of life invisible.”