Mining and Imperialism in Guatemala

Yanis Iqbal

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the long-drawn-out conflict at the Escobal silver mine in Guatemala – the second- largest in the world – is intensifying. The Escobal mine is located in southeast Guatemala, outside the town of San Rafael de las Flores, approximately 40 km from Guatemala City. Since the beginning of commercial production in early 2013, the mine has been embroiled in a conflict wherein the Xinka, a non-Mayan indigenous group and the fifth-largest autochthonous group in Guatemala, has been resolutely resisting extractivist operations.

On 24 August, 2020, more than 90 Guatemalan and international organizations signed a letter, expressing their concern at the persistent impunity for human rights violations against Xinka land defenders. The letter also highlighted an increase in cases of defamation, threats and criminalization of members of the peaceful resistance of Santa Rosa, Jalapa and Jutiapa since the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the first quarter of 2020, for instance, there were 8 cases of criminalization against defenders from Santa Maria Xalapan.

The increased repression of Xinka people is a result of the current correlation of forces in Guatemala which has tilted the balance in favor of the company operating the Escobal mine. In 2010, Tahoe Resource Group, a Canadian mining company, had bought a majority stake of the rights for three separate exploration and exploitation licenses for gold, silver, lead, and zinc in the Guatemalan departments of Santa Rosa and Jalapa from Goldcorp. The Canadian corporation continued to operate the mine until 2018 when it was acquired by Pan American Silver – a Vancouver-based company – for $1.1 billion. Currently, Guatemala’s President Alejandro Giammattei has appointed Juan José Cabrera Alonso, a former General Director for the Pan American Silver company’s Guatemalan subsidiary, Minera San Rafael (MSR), as Special Secretary to the Vice President. This appointment has translated into a guarantee of investment security for Pan American Silver which can now firmly believe that the state would intervene to facilitate capital accumulation through repression. Quelvin Jiménez, lawyer for the Xinka Parliament (the elected ancestral authority of the Xinka people), says, “Now, Pan American Silver has an operator on the inside to protect its interests,”.

Resistance against the Escobal Mine

The contemporary situation at the Escobal mine is deeply enmeshed in a history of Xinka resistance which has ensured that mining operations perennially encounter the powerful force of class struggle. In 2013, the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) granted an exploitation license for the Escobal mine to Tahoe Resources after rejecting more than 250 complaints about the environmental risks of the mining project. Instead of processing these citizen complaints as necessitated by articles 46 to 48 of the Mining Law, the Director General’s office at the Ministry of Energy and Mining rejected the processing of the complaints and instantaneously granted the mining license. All this while, indigenous communities of the municipalities of San Rafael Las Flores, Nueva Santa Rosa, Casillas and Santa Rosa de Lima in the Department of Santa Rosa, and Mataquescuintla and Jalapa in the Department of Jalapa maintained that they were not consulted prior to the awarding of the licenses. Nevertheless, the company decided to ram through the anti-extractivist countercurrents and had to consequently use lethal force to continue its operations. Between 2012 and 2013, seven people were murdered, 29 individuals were physically injured, and 50 community members were arrested in connection with operations at the El Escobal mine. Between 2011 and 2015, over 125 people were criminalized through various legal proceedings. One particular incident of overt shooting neatly encapsulates the murderous methods employed by mining magnates to operate in the countries of the Global South. Apart from depicting the violence of imperialist extractivism, the case also serves as an example of the revolutionary struggle waged by the oppressed masses of the Global South.

On April 27, 2013, a group of protestors from San Rafael Las Flores approached the entrance of the El Escobal silver mine using a dirt road. To suppress these demonstrations, private security guards hired by Tahoe Resources opened fire on the campesinos, injuring seven of the men. Adolfo Agustín García, one of the men shot by the guards, had his nine-year-old son with him at the demonstration. Tahoe Resources had hired the Golan Group, the same Israeli private security corporation used by HudBay Minerals and Goldcorp to unleash violence against anti-extractivist social movements. In response to the violence, the seven men assaulted by the mining corporation filed a lawsuit in British Columbia in June 2014, accusing the company of negligence for the actions of its security personnel. The case was initially dismissed by Supreme Court Judge Laura Gerow who ruled that the case could not be heard in Canada due to high procedural costs and was better suited for Guatemala’s court system. Her decision was overturned on 26 January, 2017 by the BC Court of Appeal which concluded that Guatemala’s corrupt judiciary placed severe limitations on the plaintiffs’ potential to receive a fair trial. On 30 July, 2019, the six-year long legal battle was brought to an end by Pan American Silver which apologized to the Guatemalan plaintiffs and conceded that “the shooting on April 27, 2013, infringed the human rights of the protestors”,.

Tahoe’s barbarous policies were lent full support by the Guatemalan state which went as far as to enact a campaign of terror to consolidate extractive capital’s dominance. On May 3, 2013, President Perez Molina imposed a 30-day state of siege in the municipalities surrounding the Escobal mine amid a growing number of community-level consultations and plebiscites against mining operations. During the siege, 8, 500 military personnel were deployed in four municipalities and areas of resistance were militarily penetrated by tanks and armored vehicles. The state of siege suspended basic constitutional rights, barred public assembly, allowed the military to indefinitely detain anyone without charge/trial and lifted restrictions on searches and seizures. However, the siege was never authorized by the Guatemalan Congress. For Tahoe Resources, the siege was an important measure through which indigenous resistance to its operations was temporarily subdued. MSR praised the state of siege through a paid ad published in the print media on May 7, 2013. The ad was additionally signed by 36 construction companies which expressed their “respect and support for the government’s decision to re-establish public order and the rule of law in Santa Rosa and Jalapa.”

In spite of state-sanctioned violence oriented towards capital accumulation, the Xinka people did not capitulate to the extractive elites and instead, resiliently opposed the mining bourgeoisie through community actions, international solidarity and organizational strategies. As a result of these revolutionary efforts, the Guatemalan Constitutional Tribunal was forced to halt the Escobal project in 2017 while it investigated allegations of lack of consultation. This judgment was upheld on 4 September, 2018, when the constitutional court confirmed that the Escobal mining license will remain suspended until a consultation in line with ILO convention 169 is completed by the MEM. As per the constitutional court, the consultation comprises of four stages: “1) definition of the area of influence of the project, 2) a pre-consultation phase to determine the process, 3) the consultation itself, and 4) the presentation of consultation results to the Guatemalan Supreme Court.” Flouting the judicial orders of the constitutional court, Tahoe and the MEM declared the completion of stage one of the consultation process on November 15, 2018, without ever informing the Xinka leadership. On top of the patent exclusion of the Xinka people, the company has only included the municipality of San Rafael las Flores – where the mine’s industrial plant is located – as the “area of influence of the project”. In opposition to this definition of the mine’s area of influence, the Xinka Parliament has univocally asserted that the all-encompassing impacts of the mine cannot be reduced to such a small area. It has further criticized the inadequacy of the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) in determining the area of influence with regard to cultural and spiritual impacts.

In the cotemporary period, we are witnessing the direct continuation of ceaseless attempts to sabotage the consultation process laid out by the constitutional court and undercut Xinka resistance. Articulating these regressive efforts aimed at weakening Xinka community’s political potency, a blog post by the NGO Earthworks states: “Rather than the open, inclusive consultation promised in the Court ruling, the Xinka have faced threats, intimidation, and an exclusionary, potentially illegal process that seems to have a preordained outcome: the reopening of a mine that the Xinka say will destroy their way of life”.

Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, attempts are afoot to emasculate the proper participation of the Xinka people. Pan American Silver recently collected signatures and ID numbers from community members who received their donation to dishonestly demonstrate local support for the mining project. Commenting on these manipulative tactics, Luis Fernando García Monroy – on behalf of the Xinka Parliament – said: “COVID-19 isn’t the only health crisis we’re facing. For a decade, communities surrounding the Escobal mine have fought to protect their health from mining activities. Guatemalan courts ordered Pan American Silver to suspend its operations during the consultation and this includes community outreach, which gives rise to tension and conflict. Pan American Silver should tell its employees to stay home and stop trying to buy support for the mine during this significant health crisis,”.

Extractive Imperialism in Guatemala

While the present-day conflict revolving around the Escobal mine is socially situated in the antagonistic relations between the Xinka community and the mining companies, it is also economically embedded in the structures of extractive imperialism in Guatemala. Through this extractive imperialism, the country’s natural resources have been laid open for the over-exploitative practices of multinational companies. The path for this capitalist expansion was paved by the Guatemalan state which instituted a number of laws to attract foreign investment: the new Mining Law of 1997 which reduced the royalty rate for mining companies from 6% to 1% of production value; the General Electricity Law of 1996 which reduced costs for energy-intensive mining projects; the “Maquila Law” of 1988 which exempted exporters from taxes on inputs and the 1998 Foreign Investment Law which expanded rights for foreign investors. With the help of these laws, mineral and metal exports increased from a low of 0.385% of merchandise exports in 2003 to a high of 9.626% in 2011, ten times the rate of Latin America; and mining concessions expanded by over 1000% from 1998 to 2008.

As Guatemala was imperialistically pillaged by transnational companies, a “generalized” atmosphere of extractive capital accumulation was generated. Francisco Mateo, a protagonist of anti-extractivism in Huehuetenango (a city in western Guatemala), a former member of the Departmental Assembly in Defense of Life and Territory in Huehuetenango (ADH) and a member of the Huista Council, a local affiliate of the CPO (Mayan People’s Council), explains how an “integrated” capital accumulation is taking place, comprehensively uprooting entire territories: “We see here a new despojo (dispossession) because we are not talking about a mining project, nor are we talking about an energy project. It is a total concession of territory. Just in Huehuetenango, there are thirty‐six approved mining licenses. There are twenty energy projects, between small, medium, and large. Then there are three petroleum projects in the northern zone…They try to make it seem like these [energy] projects are independent and that they don’t have anything to do with mining. How could that be? Without the energy, there can’t be mining. Thus they are completely interrelated. There is a fusion within capital; there are deals.”

Because of the comprehensive consolidation of extractive capital in Guatemala, there has been a heightened internal war against people who oppose mining and energy projects. To take an example, Bernardo Caal Xol is a Maya Q’eq’chi’ teacher and trade unionist who, for 5 years, has been defending the rights of the communities of Santa María Cahabón who have been affected by the construction of the OXEC hydroelectric plant on the Oxec and Cahabón rivers in the northern department of Alta Verapaz. In response to his activism, companies accused Caal of carrying out alleged acts of violence against employees of NETZONE SA, an OXEC contractor, on 15 October 2015. On 9 November 2018, a court sentenced him to seven years and four months in prison based on trumped up charges. Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, says: “Having reviewed the…criminal proceedings against Bernardo Caal, it’s clear that there’s no evidence of the crimes that he’s accused of. On the contrary, the proceedings against Bernardo show the same patterns of criminalization of human rights defenders that we have documented in the country for years.”

In a similar manner, violence against Guatemalan anti-mining activists has solidified. On the night of 5 August, 2020, unknown persons raided the home of indigenous rights defender Ubaldino García Canan in the municipality of Olopa, Chiquimula. García Canan is a Maya Ch’orti indigenous rights defender and has demonstrated against the operations of the mining company Cantera Los Manantiales. He is also a member of the Maya Ch’orti Indigenous Council of Olopa, and has facilitated the organized articulation of indigenous resistance against extractivism. Attacks on Garcia Canan are politically patterned with another  Maya Ch’orti’ indigenous leader Medardo Alonzo Lucero, also a member of the Indigenous Council and a leader in the opposition movement against the activities of Cantera Los Manantiales, having been murdered on 15 June, 2020, in La Cumbre, Olopa.

The intensification of violence against Guatemalan dissidents is a natural corollary of extractive imperialism which demands unquestioning obedience to the exigencies of metropolitan capital. For extractive imperialism, the availability of exploitable resources is superior to the existence of human beings. Correspondingly, the capitalist forces operating in Guatemala are having no qualms about enacting violence against those whom they perceive to be hindering the process of accumulation. This profit-oriented violence will continue to exist as long as we live under the regime of predatory capitalism which, in the words of Samir Amin, “has become the enemy of all of humanity.”

Australian study reveals rise in mental health problems during COVID-19 pandemic

John Mackay

A study investigating the acute mental health responses of Australian adults during the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed a significant negative impact, in particular on those already vulnerable.

The study was published in PLOS One, a scientific journal focused on the discipline of nature and medicine. Investigators from the University of New South Wales in Sydney obtained responses from over 5,000 adults using an online questionnaire, administered via social media during the then-peak of the pandemic and initial lockdown, from March 27 to April 7.

The questionnaire examined fears and behavioural responses to the pandemic and assessed the severity of physiological distress, such as levels of depression, anxiety and stress, including anxiety about health, contamination fears, alcohol use and physical activity.

The majority of respondents (78 percent) reported their mental health had worsened since the outbreak of the pandemic, with a quarter (25.9 percent) either very or extremely worried about contracting the disease and over half (52.7 percent) worried about family or friends being infected.

Feelings of uncertainty, loneliness and financial worries occurred in 50 percent of those surveyed. Rates of depression, anxiety and stress levels were 65 percent, 50 percent and 64 percent, respectively.

Nearly half (45 percent) of participants reported currently undergoing mental health treatment that included counselling and medications.

Those with a self-reported history of a mental health diagnosis, such as depression and anxiety, had significantly higher distress, health anxiety and fears of COVID-19 compared to those without a prior diagnosis.

The study also found higher rates of distress among those who were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, those who identified as non-binary or a different gender identity, and those whose occupation was a carer or stay-at-home parent.

The authors concluded that these results highlight the need for proactive and accessible mental health services to address these needs, with a particular focus on the most vulnerable, including people with a prior history of mental health problems.

The underlying factors for increased mental health burden during the pandemic can be complex. However, the main causes are thought to involve continued health concern of infection or the social stigma of being infected, the breakdown in social support due to isolation, as well as the anxiety of losing employment or receiving reduced earnings.

The authors noted that similar research has emerged in other countries, including China, Italy, India, Mexico, Spain, the US and UK. These studies also have shown increased rates of psychological distress. While the methods of data collection differed between the studies, however, the Australian study’s results were among those that demonstrated higher rates of poor mental health.

Research into past pandemics, such as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, had shown higher rates of fears, psychological distress, including depression, anxiety and stress and insomnia, and other mental health disorders such as post-traumatic stress in people with pre-existing mental illness. This impact included front-line health care workers and survivors of SARS who had severe or life-threatening cases of the disease.

Evidence of the mental health impact of the pandemic is demonstrated too in the increased demand for mental health services. The helpline Lifeline answered almost 90,000 calls for help in March. That is equivalent to a call every 30 seconds. It was a 25 percent increase over the corresponding month the previous year.

More recently, when the Victorian Labor Party government imposed a total lockdown on Melbourne public housing towers in July, Lifeline statistics showed a 22 percent increase in calls from that state.

When Stage 4 restrictions were later announced for Melbourne, calls to Lifeline from Victoria increased by 30 percent. From the beginning of August, Victorian use of Beyond Blue, another mental health helpline, was also 90 percent higher than across other states in Australia.

Among young people, the mental health service Headspace has seen an estimated 50 percent rise in referrals for young people who “have been admitted to a hospital emergency department because of a mental health crisis,” according to a recent Australian Broadcasting Corporation report.

A week into the Stage 4 lockdown in early August, the Victorian government said data showed a 33 percent rise in children and young people in the state presenting to hospital with self-harm injuries, compared to the corresponding time in 2019.

These results point to a deep crisis in the health care system. According to an Australian Medical Association report in 2018, mental health services are “grossly underfunded.” A “marked lack of capacity at all levels of mental health care” caused “unacceptable delays to care.”

While the federal government claimed it has added $500 million to funding for mental health services during the pandemic, there is ample evidence that this is insufficient.

An interim report by the Victorian Royal Commission into Mental Health last year found that the state’s mental health services were extremely underfunded. If Victoria’s funding were to reach even the national average, it would have required an additional $1.44 billion in 2016–17.

Dr Kerryn Rubin, the chair of the Victorian branch of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists told the Guardian: “The issue now is that simply there are far more people needing support and services than there are people to provide them in the private sector.” Further, community mental health services operated only “Monday to Friday, nine to five.”

Mental health practitioners are often concentrated in wealthier suburbs or charge fees people cannot afford. “Bulk billing” for mental health services, so that patients do not have to pay upfront fees, is not widespread. People can face long waiting times for counselling services or may be ineligible to access support.

Professor Jayashri Kulkarni, director of Melbourne’s Monash Alfred psychiatry research centre, told the Guardian that help lines such as Lifeline and Beyond Blue were relatively easy to access. However, “people who previously would have accessed the private sector are struggling to do that because they can’t get an appointment for four, eight, twelve weeks, at which point in time often something that started off as a minor or moderate problem becomes a severe problem.”

In March, leading mental health expert Professor Patrick McGorry called for an urgent overhaul of mental health services to cope with the aftermath of the pandemic.

“The people who lived through the Great Depression had reduced life expectancy; if you develop a mental illness your life expectancy is reduced,” he said. “It may be that the vocational pathways for a generation of young people are constrained for the next few years and that is going to lead to huge mental health problems and suicide rates as well.”

Despite these calls, the data shows that the services remain woefully inadequate.

Unifor selects Ford Canada as target company to establish “pattern contract”

Carl Bronski

Unifor President Jerry Dias announced Tuesday that Ford Canada has been selected as the “target company” for negotiating a “pattern contract” for collective agreements covering the 17,000 production and skilled trades workers at the Detroit Three automakers’ Canadian operations.

Despite an overwhelming vote in support of strike action by autoworkers at Ford, General Motors and Fiat-Chrysler (FCA) late last month, Dias’ goal is to conclude yet another concessionary agreement with Ford prior to the Monday, Sept. 21 11:59 p.m. strike deadline. Unifor would then seek to make that agreement the “pattern” in negotiations with GM and FCA.

Dias also announced that the union is seeking to negotiate three-year deals with the auto companies in order to synchronize with the next round of United Auto Worker (UAW) contract renewals with the Detroit Three in the United States in 2023.

Since they split along national lines in 1985, both Unifor (the former Canadian Auto Workers) and the UAW have pitted workers against each other in a never-ending race to the bottom. They have worked with their “own” corporate managements to whip-saw jobs and wages back and forth across borders, while promoting, respectively, Canadian and American nationalism, thereby dividing autoworkers and blocking the emergence of a common struggle against all concessions, job cuts, and plant shutdowns.

Dias’ attempt to synchronize contract years is not designed to unite American and Canadian autoworkers in a common struggle, but rather to continue and deepen the fratricidal scramble of each against all.

Dias has complained that the auto investment pledges the Detroit Three made to the UAW in the 2019 negotiations have drained the well for investments in Canada in this contract round. In other words, he intends to create a situation in 2023 where Unifor and the UAW will go head-to-head to determine which union is capable of offering up autoworkers to the auto bosses for the cheapest price.

In naming Ford as the “target company,” Dias is hoping to trade off further concessions on work rules and, at best, meagre wage and benefit “increases” in exchange for the automaker giving a new product commitment for the threatened Oakville Assembly Plant. The company employs about 4,500 autoworkers there, and an additional 1,600 workers at its two engine facilities in Windsor. The cornerstone Oakville plant has already experienced almost 1,000 layoffs in just over a year, and is reported to be the Detroit Three plant in Canada most vulnerable to closure in the near future. Industry analysts citing multiple “well-placed sources” have placed a question mark over operations continuing past 2023, when scheduled production runs of the Ford Edge SUV and Lincoln Nautilus are slated to end.

Although Dias evinced “confidence” that new product can be negotiated for the Oakville plant, Ford management was quick to respond on Tuesday that any deal must leave the company “operationally competitive amidst intense global competition.” The company continued, “In light of global economic uncertainties, it’s more important than ever to maintain jobs in Canada. We’ll be asking our employees to work with us to help shape this new reality.”

Unifor is putting Ford in a position to dictate these terms by effectively ruling out strike action. The last strike as part of regular bargaining with the Detroit Three occurred in 1996, and Dias intends to keep it that way. Referring to the impact of the pandemic on the auto sector, Dias said of the current contract fight earlier this year, “no one is going to want a disruption. And I mean nobody; both the workers and the automakers.”

Talking like a corporate consultant, Dias used his press conference to appeal once again to the big business federal Liberal and Ontario Conservative governments to pony up with billions of dollars of subsidies for the automakers, particularly for electric car production. Unifor is currently engaged in close consultation with the Trudeau Liberal government, with Dias meeting with Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland last week, to help it craft a package of measures to revive corporate Canada’s productivity and profitability.

Giving full voice to the union’s Canadian nationalist outlook, Dias urged the Trudeau Liberal government to fund a “national auto strategy.” Even if government funding is provided on this basis, it will not save a single job. During the financial crisis of 2008-09, the provision of over $13 billion by the federal and Ontario provincial governments to the Big Three was used to consolidate their balance sheets and step up the attacks on workers, including by introducing the regressive two-tier wage system.

Moreover, the restructuring of the auto industry is occurring on a global scale. Autoworkers have nothing to gain by supporting their “own” ruling class in this scramble for markets and profitability, which will invariably result in a deterioration in working conditions for autoworkers in every country.

It is expected that vehicle production in Canada by the Detroit Three automakers will fall another 27 percent over the life of the next contract. The latest layoffs at Ford and the lack of new scheduled product will be used as a battering ram to intimidate autoworkers into accepting yet another round of concessions.

The claim made by Unifor, the CAW before it, and the UAW that jobs can be “saved” through concessions has proven to be a cruel hoax. Workers should recall that in the lead-up to the shuttering of the GM Oshawa truck plant in 2010 and the GM Oshawa assembly plant in 2019, Unifor justified the imposition of concessions-laden contracts with the claim that iron-clad guarantees had been secured to keep both facilities open.

In the current round of bargaining, Fiat-Chrysler and General Motors are also intending, with Unifor’s connivance, to use threatened job losses to extort givebacks. At FCA’s Brampton assembly facility, major investments are needed to retain jobs. Two vehicle models would need to be added at FCA’s Windsor Assembly to replace the 1,500 third-shift jobs that were chopped earlier this year. Also under threat is FCA’s Etobicoke aluminum casting plant and half of the 1,300 jobs at GM’s St. Catharine’s propulsion and engine facility.

Autoworkers must recognize that their jobs and livelihoods cannot be defended with nationalist appeals to corporate bosses and capitalist governments to support “their” auto industry. Instead, they must take as their starting point the understanding that they share the same basic interests—secure and decent-paying jobs, workplace safety, an end to two-tier wages—as their class brothers and sisters in the United States, Mexico, and internationally.

In response to the global offensive being waged by automakers to cut costs and increase the pace of work, Canadian autoworkers must establish independent rank-and-file committees to seize control of the contract struggle from Unifor, unify their fight with autoworkers in the United States and Mexico, and demand the restoration of all concessions and job security for all.

Such a struggle would receive powerful support from autoworkers in the US, who have begun to establish rank-and-file safety committees to combat the dangerous working conditions in the plants jointly imposed by the automakers and the corrupt UAW amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic, and by Mexican autoworkers, who bravely conducted job actions earlier this year to press for the temporary shutdown of the North American auto industry.

Opposition to Unifor’s pro-corporate, nationalist course is mounting among rank-and-file workers, as shown by the broad support for a petition demanding that the full details of any agreement Unifor negotiates be made public well before ratification votes. In the past, Unifor has used highly-selected “highlights” brochures to conceal critical information about concessions from rank-and-file workers so as to ensure support for sell-out deals.

A veteran worker at the FCA assembly plant in Windsor wrote to the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter, “A number of people are concerned about the continued regression of our wages. The erosion of solidarity with the recent hires. The fear of the coronavirus. The lack of concern by the management and union for workers’ rights and safety. The list is a mile long.”

A recent retiree from the Oakville assembly plant added, “Bargaining for products and investments are not the focus of the majority of Canadian auto workers. And, as we saw from the last contract, future investment is never a guarantee to jobs. We were promised a $1 billion investment this year. Over the years we have given up raises, vacation pay, sick leave, and benefits for product allocation and investment. These companies will renege on these two issues if they can profit from it.”

The worker also addressed the corruption of the UAW, which he insisted is not an exception but the rule. “The thought of these guys selling us out for personal gain has also been a topic of discussion at ratification during the last 4 contract ratification meetings,” wrote the worker. “I was not surprised when the UAW leadership was indicted.”

Collapse in oil prices threatens social and political unrest in Middle East and North Africa

Jean Shaoul

The collapse in oil prices earlier in the year, along with cuts in oil production and the world-wide recession following the COVID-19 pandemic, is having a devastating impact on economic and social conditions in the oil-producing countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

The repercussions spread far beyond the oil producers’ borders.

Oil prices, which started the year at around $60 a barrel—nearly half that of a decade ago—fell to $40 in March and plummeted into negative territory before rising again to around $40 a barrel in recent weeks. This year, oil revenues are expected to be around $300 billion, down from $575 billion in 2019 and more than $1 trillion in 2012.

While oil production may just be profitable at $40 a barrel, none of the Arab states except Qatar can balance their budgets at this level. The worst affected, Algeria and Oman, need prices to rise to $157 and $87 a barrel, respectively. Even the largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, which relies on oil for 70 percent of its budget, needs $80 a barrel to balance its books.

In June, the International Monetary Fund estimated that the economies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar—would shrink by 7.6 percent this year, while Iraq’s economy is expected to contract by 7.5 percent and Iran’s by 6 percent, on top of a 7.6 percent decline in 2019 and 5.4 percent in 2018 due to Washington’s unilateral pull-out from the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Since March, the Arab petro-states have slashed public expenditure—including the salaries of public sector workers, who form 90 percent of regular, full-time workers—raised sales taxes and petrol prices, all of which have fallen hardest on the poor.

Subventions, which for the corporate sector have far exceeded any poverty relief measures, have been borrowed on the international money markets and are eating into foreign currency reserves. Even Saudi Arabia, which faces a budget deficit for 2020 equal to 16 percent of GDP, has only two years’ reserves left at current spending rates. More tax rises and privatisations are on the agenda, with its giant desalination plant, the world’s largest, up for sale.

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, known as Sabic, one of the world’s largest petrochemicals producers, lost $592 million in the second quarter of this year compared to a $570 billion profit in the same period last year, and is seeking to raise $1 billion via a bond issue.

The pandemic has also decimated all the sectors earmarked for diversification outside the oil industry: aviation—in particular, the airlines Etihad and Emirates—tourism, hospitality, real estate and logistics. While the annual Haj and Umrah to Mecca brought in 2.6 million pilgrims last year, this year’s cancellation of the pilgrimages is expected to result in losses of some $15 billion. Iraq’s religious sites have been similarly affected.

Unemployment is expected to rise to 13 percent in Saudi Arabia, where it is estimated that around 20 percent of its 34 million population already live in poverty, as it cuts back its social safety net.

The first and hardest hit have been the Gulf’s 30 million migrant workers from South Asia, the Philippines and the MENA region, who outnumber citizens in four of the six Gulf states. As restrictions and curfews made work all but impossible, many found themselves stranded.

Unable to return home due to travel restrictions, and in some cases, notably India, the refusal of their home country to accept them due to fears they would spread the coronavirus, they were left without income, often with months of wages owing. While companies were ordered to provide them with food and accommodation, no action was taken to ensure they complied, forcing migrant workers to depend on charities to survive. Without work, most have lost their health insurance, leaving them without medical care and medication.

Now, as international flights resume, some states have begun deporting foreign workers to their countries of origin. Many are refusing to leave without receiving their unpaid wages and end-of-service gratuity payment—part of their employment contract—that is usually around one month’s salary per year of employment.

Not only have migrant workers suffered appalling hardship during the lockdown, but they have also been unable to send home part of their wages in remittances to their families. Remittances constitute as much as 10 percent of GDP in several countries, with some of the worst affected in the Middle East, including the West Bank and Gaza (17 percent), Lebanon (14 percent), Yemen (13.7 percent) and Jordan (10 percent). The loss of remittances means the end of a vital lifeline for many.

As well as starting to deport migrant workers, most of the Gulf states are refusing to issue new work visas, as they implement long-planned “labour localisation” programmes and cut back on public sector jobs that have been the traditional source of employment for Gulf citizens.

This will have a major impact on neighbouring Arab countries. More than 2.5 million Egyptians, or nearly 3 percent of the total population, 5 percent of Lebanese and Jordanian workers and 9 percent of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, work in the rich oil-producing states. If they can continue to work in the Gulf, it will be at lower rates of pay. If not, they will be back home in countries with some of the highest rates of unemployment and lowest pay in the world, particularly among young graduates. To cite one example, doctors earn $185 a month in Egypt, a fraction of what they earn in the Gulf.

The downturn in the Gulf states’ economies will mean fewer imports from their neighbours and fewer jobs. About 21 percent of Egypt’s exports went to the Gulf, 32 percent of Jordan’s and 38 percent of Lebanon’s. The pandemic and the recession have also affected regional tourism, which constituted 10 percent of GDP in Egypt and Jordan, and 18 percent in Lebanon in 2018. While most visitors come from Europe, Gulf tourists stay longer and spend more as they seek to avoid the crushing summer heat at home.

Oil revenues enabled the Gulf monarchies to placate sections of the working class at home and shore up suitably subservient ruling elites elsewhere as they suppressed their own working class, via grants and loans—particularly following the Arab Spring in 2011 that saw mass protests across the region against social inequality and hated governments.

For years, Saudi Arabia acted as banker of last resort for Jordan and Lebanon, until their foreign policies diverged from Riyadh’s. Together with the UAE, in 2013 it provided $30 billion in aid to Egypt’s brutal dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (although its largesse evaporated after el-Sisi declined to send troops to fight in Yemen), and $3 billion to the new military-dominated regime in Sudan, while Qatar has provided aid for Hamas in Gaza. That generosity is not set to continue.

Ordinary people will be made to pay for the economic crisis accelerated by the pandemic. Mass unemployment, the gutting of welfare systems, such as they are, and a stepped-up assault on wages and conditions flow inexorably from the government handouts to the region’s kleptocrats.

Economic developments in the Middle East’s richest countries testify to the interconnectedness of the world economy and presage a mounting social catastrophe that will provoke a new revolutionary upsurge of workers throughout the region.

In the last year, there has been a fresh wave of working-class struggles across the region, including strikes and mass protests in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, public service workers’ strikes in Israel and mass teacher strikes in Jordan. These must be elevated into a conscious struggle for socialism that brings together all sections of the working class in each country, across the region, and throughout the world against capitalism for the socialist reorganisation of society.

UK government blames young people as COVID-19 surges

Thomas Scripps

Late Tuesday night, as has become standard for coronavirus statements, the UK government announced that social gatherings, indoors or outdoors, would be limited to six people from next Monday, September 14.

Down from 30 previously, the measure is designed to disguise the fact that the government’s reopening policy proceeds unchanged even as infections rise exponentially, and to provide it with an opportunity to shift responsibility for its crimes onto young people.

The six-person rule does not apply to workplaces or schools, and groups of six can continue to visit pubs, bars, and restaurants. As if to underscore the tokenistic character of the measure, organised sporting fixtures are also exempt. Wherever there are profits to be made, or children who need minding so their parents can return to work, public health concerns disappear.

The six-person limit will be accompanied by a new asinine government health slogan, “Hands-Face-Space,” supposedly encouraging hand-washing, the wearing of face masks and social distancing. This comes on the heels of the infamous “Stay Alert-Control the Virus-Save Lives” message.

The real political intentions behind these new interventions were summed up by Conservative government Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who noted in an interview on Monday that cases were rising fastest among young people, before saying, “The question is, how much are you willing to risk the lives of yourself and others by breaking the social distancing rules?” and, “Don’t kill your gran by catching coronavirus and then passing it on.”

The outrageous misrepresentation perpetrated by this callous statement is that the renewed spread of the virus is down to failings of individual responsibility. Limiting gatherings to six has been justified with reference to incidents of illegal raves and house parties—given pages and pages of coverage in the press.

At best, it is only mentioned in passing that although the highest levels of infection are in people in their 20s, the rise in cases is spread across the working-age population. Or that young people are more likely to work in public-facing roles like hospitality—the front lines of the government’s own “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme—more likely to work in insecure employment, where taking precautions against the virus is frequently impossible, and more likely to be forced to live in shared accommodation.

In a circle that cannot be squared, the government simultaneously expresses “concern” over the “sharp rise” in cases amongst young people, while pushing forward its drive to reopen schools that have already become a breeding ground for the virus. Just one week after the reopening of schools, England has seen 223 COVID-19 infections, with 28 in Wales, 64 in Northern Ireland and 103 in Scotland (with a much smaller population than England, which opened schools earlier), taking the UK total to over 400.

The exponential spread of the virus will escalate dramatically this month, with the return of students and staff to universities—the very demographic now being demonised for its supposed poor behaviour.

All of which is to say nothing of the fact that by far the worst killers of grandparents in the UK are Matt Hancock and his boss, Boris Johnson! They not only presided over the transformation of care homes into killing fields this spring, as hospitals were emptied into unprepared facilities and the resulting infections claimed tens of thousands of lives but have now turned back to the “herd immunity” strategy they were forced to reluctantly and temporarily abandon in March.

The government’s public health announcements are made to distract from these crimes and from the fact that it is their reopening of the economy which is producing the conditions for a second surge in infections. Official figures are already beginning to reflect the consequences. In the past three days, the UK has recorded daily new infection totals of 2,988, 2,958 and 2,460. The seven-day average now stands at 2,198, up from around 500 in late June. This spread also underscores the fraud of “local lockdowns,” now covering millions, but which do little or nothing to contain the virus.

The duplicitous character of media commentary is underscored by their downplaying of this very real threat, even as they castigate young people. The BBC, in what reads like a government press statement, published Wednesday morning, “Five reasons why rise in cases is not all it seems.” These reasons are: “1. The ‘peak’ [in recorded daily infections] was a massive underestimate, 2. Extra testing is a factor, 3. Testing is targeted at hotspots, 4. Hospital admissions aren’t rising with cases,” and “5. Young people are testing positive at higher rates.”

Indeed, a direct comparison with the figures recorded during the first peak is distorted by the fact that the government’s woeful testing capacity at the time means those figures are likely underestimates of the real number of infections per day. But this is hardly a cause for comfort. Virus cases are rapidly increasing and are not confined to the young. They will reach the catastrophic levels seen earlier this year. At which point, hospital admission will rise rapidly as winter approaches, with a hundred National Health Service trusts at or above capacity and six overwhelmed completely, according to the Guardian, “even if COVID pressures are closer to May’s lower levels.”

Moreover, this increase takes place under conditions where the test-and-trace system is failing, with people unable to access the test-booking website and being sent to testing centres hundreds of miles from their home to receive one. In the seven days ending August 26, just 69.4 percent of close contacts of infected people were reached by contact tracers—the lowest weekly percentage since test-and-trace began.

As for testing being targeted at “hotspots,” these are now appearing all over the country. Seventy-nine local authorities have rates of infection higher than 20 per 100,000, the level at which an official “concern” is registered. The idea that extra testing is wholly responsible for the present increase, or that it is nothing to worry about because it is concentrated among young people, is a lie. The team behind the Covid Symptom Study App, with over a million participants, issued a report this week saying, “We are now confident that this rise is statistically significant and that we are definitely seeing a rise in COVID cases in the UK. This is backed up by our R [Reproduction] value, which is currently 1.2 for England, Scotland and Wales and 1.3 for Northern Ireland.”

In an interview with ITV on Monday, Professor John Edmunds—a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE)—said that the reproduction rate (R rate) for the country was “already above 1 and we’ve opened schools. So this is a risky period.”

He added that he was “quite worried that schools have just returned, cases are increasing now exponentially. They are increasing exponentially now, from a relatively low level. But they are increasing.”

“The epidemic continues to increase and then we have Christmas. And that is very difficult. What is Christmas? Well, it’s meeting with your family very close. Restaurants and pubs and stuff like that. And it’s all high risk. And it’s all indoors. Indoors makes a difference.”

“Schools have gone back. Universities are high risk. They are going back in the next couple of weeks. And the government is trying to get us back into work and back on the tube and buying our sandwich from Pret-a-Manger, and things like that. That will have an epidemiological effect.”

BBC coverage could have been authored by the government’s press spokesperson. Health correspondent Nick Triggle wrote on Monday, “New figures show the UK faces an ‘impossible balancing act’.” Echoing Boris Johnson’s statement in March that “families are going to lose loved ones,” the BBC journalist wrote, “Keeping the death toll anywhere near zero is, sadly, going to be impossible.” Success, in his view, meant keeping the death toll below the appalling 41,500 fatalities officially recorded this spring. In fact, the government’s own “reasonable worst-case scenario” predicts 85,000 additional deaths.

Austria: No protection for population despite rising coronavirus infections

Markus Salzmann

Austria has played a leading role in Europe’s lifting of protective measures against the coronavirus pandemic. As a consequence, the number of new infections in the country is once again rising sharply. The government headed by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (Austrian People’s Party, ÖVP) has responded to the crisis by continuing to place business interests above the lives and health of citizens.

On September 9, Austria recorded over 500 new infections during the previous 24 hours, approaching the highest increase since April. According to official figures, more than 30,500 people throughout Austria are now infected with the coronavirus, and 747 have died.

In relation to its population, Austria is thus in the upper range of daily new infections in Europe. In Germany, with nine times as many inhabitants, the daily number of new infections is currently around 1,500.

A dramatic increase in infection rates can be observed throughout Europe. In Germany, the highest number of new infections since the spring was reported in August. In France, more than 6,000 new infections per day have been registered in the past week.

Croatia and other Balkan countries are becoming hotspots, while Hungary has closed its borders to neighbouring countries due to the rapidly increasing infection rates. The extreme right-wing government led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is using these measures to further enflame nationalism in the midst of the pandemic. The Orban government accuses foreigners and refugees of spreading the virus. At the same time, schools in the country opened on September 1 without any special safety measures.

At the end of August, Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz reacted to the drastic increase in infections with a “statement on the current situation.” He hardly mentioned the increase in coronavirus cases and the precarious situation of many Austrians who have lost their jobs or suffered wage losses as a result of the pandemic and can barely make ends meet. Instead, he promised more money and relief for Austrian businesses and the wealthy.

He declared that Austria would lose around 7 percent of economic output this year, but that a “comeback” would take place next year. He said that for this to succeed, in addition to the existing €50 billion in rescue and aid measures, Austria must improve its competitiveness. The country’s economy would receive multiple forms of fresh assistance, including tax relief for companies. Further aid packages could also not be ruled out.

On the other hand, the government is not prepared to support the rising number of unemployed and those who have gotten into financial difficulties due to short-time working benefits.

Business representatives praised Kurz’s speech. The Chamber of Commerce commented that he presented “a sustainable location strategy at the right time.” The Federation of Austrian Industry expressed a similar opinion. For his part, Kurz acknowledged that he had held intensive talks with numerous business representatives over the past few months.

As reported by the press, Infineon CEO Sabine Herlitschka, Voestalpine CEO Herbert Eibensteiner, Andritz CEO Wolfgang Leitner, Boehringer Ingelheim CEO Philipp Lattorff, Deutsche Bank Supervisory Board Chairman Paul Achleitner and the Austrian heads of Google, Microsoft and Apple, as well as representatives of the energy and telecommunications industries, were all guests in the Chancellor’s Office. Although nothing was revealed about the content of the talks, it is clear that the main aim was to shift the burden of the pandemic onto the backs of ordinary citizens.

The President of the Austrian Federation of Trade Unions, Wolfgang Katzian, also held talks with Kurz. The trade unions have avoided any criticism of the government since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis.

At the same time, Kurz made clear that there would be no new tranche of protective measures for the population. In response to specific questions, the Chancellor replied that a decision on “further measures” would be taken next week. The clear goal was “to prevent a lockdown.”

The Austrian government had already lifted almost all restrictions imposed to contain the coronavirus at the beginning of May. Despite the rapid spread of the pandemic throughout Europe, the Kurz government was considered a pioneer with its “opening up policy,” which now has deadly consequences for more and more people.

Since January, Kurz has been ruling in a coalition with the Greens, after his coalition with the extreme right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ) collapsed last year. The change of coalition partner, however, has not changed the anti-working-class course of the government. The Greens have essentially continued the right-wing policies of the FPÖ.

Rudolf Anschober, the Green Minister of Health, whose ministry bears primary responsibility for the massive spread of the infections, vilely blamed young people for their lack of “risk awareness.” In fact, it is the government that rejects any sort of effective protective measures.

According to the news magazine Profil, the Austrian Ministry of Education insists that there should be no compulsory wearing of masks in classes, despite the risk of infection. When the polytechnic in Vienna Währing sought to circumvent the minister’s decree and introduce compulsory masks during lessons via its own house rules, a spokeswoman for the Minister of Education Heinz Faßmann (ÖVP) promptly responded that this was “not an option.”

The school responded by declaring that the required social distancing between students could not be guaranteed and that the obligation to wear masks should be only lifted during breaks or if there was a maximum of 15 students in the class room. The ministry, on the other hand, referred to its decree that does not provide for masks in classes, knowing full well that the schools would thus become hotspots for infections.

It is not only the ÖVP and the Greens, however, which categorically reject the protection of workers and young people. All the other parties agree on this issue. The Social Democratic SPÖ, which governs in the capital city of Vienna along with the Greens, is publicly calling for help for the city’s ailing health system, while playing down the rising infection rate and agreeing with the business-friendly measures of the federal government.

Regarding the rising infection figures in Vienna, vice mayor Birgit Heiben (Greens) explained that Vienna is a city of millions and is testing widely, which was the reason for the high numbers of infected.

More and more studies show that the protective measures taken at an earlier stage could prevent the virus from spreading. “As soon as protective measures are withdrawn, cases start to rise again,” virologist Judith Aberle told the Standard.

A study commissioned by Philips Austria has also revealed the massive shortage of nursing staff in Austria. With 713 nurses per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018, there were significantly fewer staff than in comparable European countries. In Germany the corresponding figure was 1,351 nurses and in Denmark 1,046.

In addition, there has been barely any increase in personnel since 2008, and all non-medical health staff are inadequately deployed, according to the portal boerse-express. A further increase in hospital admissions due to new coronavirus infections, will quickly exhaust the capacities of the country’s health care system, making it impossible to guarantee adequate care.

Australian intelligence agencies raided Chinese journalists in June

Oscar Grenfell

The Chinese government and press revealed yesterday that four journalists employed by the country’s state media outlets were subjected to police raids and interrogation by Australian intelligence agencies in late June.

They also exposed the fact that two Chinese nationals, who are well-known academics, had their visas cancelled at the recommendation of the Australian Intelligence and Security Organisation (ASIO), the domestic spy agency, and that several journalists left the country after ASIO interrogations.

Taken together, the revelations underscore a dramatic deterioration of relations between Australia and China. This has taken place in the context of the Australian political and media establishment’s fulsome support for a major escalation of US diplomatic, economic and military provocations against Beijing this year.

The Trump administration has intensified the anti-China campaign initiated under Democratic Party President Barack Obama, aimed at ensuring US hegemony in the Asia-Pacific. Its Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has made bellicose statements, indicating that the US position on China amounts to regime-change, and has encouraged further moves against supposed “Chinese influence” abroad, including in Australia.

The ASIO raids have underscored the anti-democratic and repressive character of Australia’s “foreign interference” laws, passed in 2018 by the Liberal-National government and the Labor Party and hailed by the Trump administration as a model to be emulated internationally. The legislation, particularly directed against China, creates the conditions for criminal prosecutions of individuals and groups connected to any “foreign principal.”

It was introduced amid a frenzied campaign from the political and media establishment, along with the US-connected intelligence agencies, alleging without any evidence pervasive “Chinese interference” in Australian politics, and virtually every aspect of society. The raids on the Chinese nationals were only made public by Chinese media, in response to reports this week that two Australian journalists hastily departed Beijing on the advice of the Australian government.

Media reports, and a government statement, initially suggested that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Bill Birtles and the Australian Financial Review’s Mike Smith had been in imminent danger of detention and even prosecution by Chinese authorities.

Comments by Birtles since he arrived back in Australia have painted a more complicated picture. He wrote that last week he had been told by the Australian embassy that he should leave China post haste. At the time, Birtles “didn’t want to leave. I felt safe and things seemed normal.”

It was only on Wednesday night last week, hours before Birtles was to leave China that police officers knocked on his door and requested an interview. The next morning, he went to the Australian embassy, at his own initiative, to seek advice. Only then did Australian officials instruct him not to leave the embassy grounds. Smith also stayed in the building for several days. According to the reports, the only condition placed on the two journalists by China was that they consent to an interview before leaving the country.

From Birtles’ statements, a murky picture emerges, with a distinct hint that what could have been a relatively minor, but unpleasant matter for the journalists involved, was deliberately transformed into a major international incident by the Australian authorities. When Birtles and Smith left China this week, they had not been detained or arrested by the police at any point. Birtles wrote that he “had become a pawn in a much bigger diplomatic stoush.”

Birtles and Smith were reportedly questioned by Chinese police about Cheng Lei, a news anchor for Chinese state media’s CGTN network. She was detained in mid-August, in an investigation into unspecified “criminal activities endangering China’s national security.” Cheng is an Australian citizen. For whatever reason, though, the response to her imprisonment by the Australian government and corporate press has been decidedly muted.

The reports by Chinese state media yesterday, revealing the raids against some of their representatives in Australia, were clearly aimed at pointing to the hypocrisy of the Australian government and media statements of outrage over the questioning of Birtles and Smith.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian provided details of the Australian police operations. The four Chinese journalists had been raided on June 26. Their laptops had been seized “and even children’s tablets and electronic toys for their kids.” They were employed by Xinhua News Agency, China Media Group and China News Service.

Zhao added: “As we understand, the Australian side hasn’t provided any reasonable explanation so far for searching and hasn’t returned all the seized items to our journalists.” He demanded that the Australian government end “such blatant irrational behaviours, stop harassing and oppressing Chinese personnel in Australia under whatever pretext.”

The June 26 police action took place the same day as ASIO agents and federal police officers raided the Sydney home and office of Shaoquett Moselmane, a little-known Labor Party backbencher in the upper house of the New South Wales state parliament. Details of the raid were leaked to the press, who duly camped outside Moselmane’s house before it occurred and then wrote lurid articles presenting him as a patsy, or worse, of the “Chinese Communist Party.”

Moselmane, who was immediately suspended from the party by Labor’s leadership and forced to seek indefinite leave from parliament, later spoke out against the witch-hunt he was subjected to. He revealed what the media must have known, but concealed, at the time—that he was not the target of a “foreign interference” investigation.

Instead, it was his part-time parliamentary staffer John Zhang who was in the crosshairs.

Aside from the fact that Zhang is Chinese, and has been involved in Chinese community organisations, the publicly-released “case” against him, at least as presented in the media, appears to hinge on the fact that Moselmane has made favourable comments about China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and has warned of the US campaign against Beijing while Zhang has worked in his office.

Zhang has initiated a Supreme Court challenge to the allegation that he engaged in “reckless foreign interference” and that he acted “on behalf of, or in collaboration with” the “Chinese state and party apparatus.”

At least part of the case against Zhang is based on his and Moselmane’s participation in a private chat group. According to a report in the Australian, some of the Chinese journalists who were raided were also reportedly in the chat group.

In an apparently related development, Chinese scholar and media commentator Chen Hong and Australian studies scholar Li Jianjun, recently had their visas cancelled at ASIO’s recommendation and were denied re-entry to Australia. The Australia bureau chief of China News Service, Tao Shelan, and China Radio International’s Sydney bureau chief, Li Dayong left Australia after ASIO questioning. Two others reportedly departed in similar circumstances.

The academics appear unlikely agents of Chinese “interference.” Li Jianjun had received grants from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to undertake a Ph.D at Western Sydney University in Australian literature. Chen Hong has been visiting Australia for decades and has met with multiple prime ministers. In 1994, for instance, former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke asked Hong to serve as his translator in China. In other words, he is well known to Australia’s political and media establishment.

Chen told the Australian that he received a notification from Australia’s Home Affair’s department early last month, informing him that his visa had been cancelled because ASIO had “assessed you to be directly or indirectly a risk to security.” There was no elaboration or evidence and Chen strongly rejected the imputations.

The only “evidence” against Chen appears to be that he has criticised the US-Australian anti-China campaign and was a member of the private chat group with Zhang and Moselmane. Li was also reportedly a participant.

A chilling portrait emerges, of academics and journalists being targeted by intelligence operatives, solely because of their political views and their connections to Chinese academic institutions. Chen said that the chat group had been used to arrange dinner parties and other social gatherings.

Of the journalists who were raided, the Australian, clearly basing itself on material from official sources, stated: “It is understood the four journalists were not spies inserted into Australia, posing as reporters, but journalists who had become engaged in espionage or foreign interference.”

Put into plain English, they were not spies. But they were treated as though they were, likely because they had made statements challenging the war drive against China, and were thus considered fair game in the “foreign interference” witch hunt.

The revelations are a warning that the Australian ruling elite has placed the population on the frontlines of an aggressive US confrontation with China that could rapidly spiral out of control and lead to war. The world wars of the last century were preceded by the same sort of diplomatic incidents, murky allegations and escalating retaliations between states that are being witnessed now.

They also demonstrate that the drive to military conflict is incompatible with democratic norms, and is being accompanied by attacks on democratic rights that will increasingly target, not only Chinese academics and journalists, but domestic social and political opposition.