Fiji and Australia to negotiate new military pact

John Braddock

The announcement that Fiji and Australia are negotiating a new military pact is another significant step in the intensifying US-led build-up to counter China’s influence in the southwest Pacific.

The Status of Forces Agreement will facilitate Fijian and Australian defence personnel to undertake exchanges and joint deployments and allow the two forces to exercise in each other’s jurisdiction. According to an official statement, the “landmark” agreement recognises the “growing sophistication of defence engagement between Fiji and Australia.”

HMAS Parramatta, left, sails with USS America, USS Bunker Hill and USS Barry in the South China Sea. (Image Credit: U.S. Navy/MC3 Nicholas Huynh)

The negotiations were initiated at the second annual Defence Ministers’ Meeting involving Fiji’s Inia Seruiratu and Australia’s Linda Reynolds on 24 November. Reynolds declared the relationship was going from “strength to strength.” She praised Fiji’s deployment of a military unit to support Australia during last summer’s bushfire crisis. Australia and Fiji worked “shoulder-to-shoulder” in response to challenges from COVID-19 to Tropical Cyclone Harold, Reynolds said.

Both ministers stressed the importance of a “collective response to the security challenges” in the Pacific. The two countries’ armed forces should “work closely together to develop the capability and interoperability we need to help maintain a resilient and secure region,” Reynolds said. Seruiratu added that they must “move quickly to support one another, when required.”

Under Australia’s Pacific Maritime Security Program, Fiji received its first Guardian Class naval patrol vessel in March with a second scheduled for handover in 2023. Canberra will also fund and oversee construction of a new Maritime Essential Services Centre that will incorporate Fiji’s Navy Headquarters, Maritime Surveillance and Rescue Coordination Centre, Coastal Radio and Fiji’s Navy Hydrographic Service.

An Australian-funded regional security centre is also being established in Vanuatu. The Pacific Fusion Centre will host analysts and share information on “maritime risks,” “disinformation,” illegal fishing, drug smuggling, human trafficking and climate change security. A team of 21 analysts from 14 Pacific Island nations began training in Canberra a year ago to staff the centre.

The initiatives are part of the Australian government’s “Pacific Step Up” strategy, launched in 2018 to counter China’s growing influence, along with the New Zealand government’s “Pacific Reset” policy. Both regional imperialist powers are determined to ensure their continued dominance in what they regard as their “own” neo-colonial backyard.

Following the 2006 coup that installed Fiji’s current prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, Canberra and Wellington imposed diplomatic and economic sanctions, concerned it could destabilise the region and open the way for China. The sanctions backfired, with Bainimarama adopting a “Look North” policy, seeking and receiving economic, diplomatic and military aid from China, Russia and elsewhere.

Australia and New Zealand have made it a priority to restore relations. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern visited Fiji in February, only the second visit by a NZ leader since 2006. Her Labour Party government is bolstering military connections. In the largest project of its type, a NZ Defence Force team has been in Fiji since October, to “train, coach, mentor and embed alongside” Fijian military personnel.

Vanuatu is also involved in the escalating geo-political tensions across the Pacific. An official visit by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands in 2019 was the first by an Australian leader to the supposed Pacific “family” in more than a decade.

The Australian Defence Force has increased its engagements with Vanuatu’s police, alongside training and exercises. In February, a visiting Australian naval ship docked at a Chinese-built wharf in northern Vanuatu. The wharf was the subject of an alarmist media beat-up in 2018 in which the Sydney Morning Herald declared that China had pressured Vanuatu to build a permanent military facility, a claim the Vanuatu government vehemently denied.

The moves by Australia and New Zealand are in lock-step with Washington’s advanced preparations for war against China, begun under President Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” and continued by the Trump administration. The Pentagon is planning to re-establish the US Navy’s First Fleet, which was deactivated nearly 50 years ago, to bolster its offensive positioning in the Indo-Pacific alongside its Japan-based Seventh Fleet.

US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien told Radio NZ on October 27 that US Coast Guard cutters will also be deployed to American Samoa and Guam. The armed high-speed vessels will patrol and “enforce US laws,” while “partnering” with other Pacific nations. He falsely claimed that China is “threatening the rules-based order that’s kept the peace since World War II.”

O’Brien revealed that he had spoken with Ardern, who told him she was “pleased with the idea of more US law enforcement on the high seas.” Ardern’s previously undisclosed commitment, made in the midst of the campaign for New Zealand’s October 17 election, underscored the suppression of any public discussion of the country’s role in the US build-up to war.

Competing geo-strategic pressures have been escalating over the past 12 months. The impoverished states across the southwest Pacific are seeking to reduce their dependence on Australia and New Zealand by increasing economic relations with China. Meanwhile, rifts over climate change have intensified regional disputes, particularly over Canberra’s refusal to limit coal production.

The Solomon Islands last year sealed diplomatic relations with Beijing, ending 36 years of relations with Taiwan. Kiribati also announced it would similarly switch diplomatic relations. Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province, now only has formal relations with Palau, Nauru, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands in the Pacific.

Washington reacted with alarm to these developments. The US State Department has just announced it will spend $US200 million on programs for Pacific nations. Sandra Oudkirk, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, accused China of increasingly “problematic behaviour,” including “predatory economic activities” that undermined “good governance.”

Nations such as Palau in the northern Pacific and PNG will receive the funding, Oudkirk said, to “promote development” and protect their fishing industries against competition from China. She declared that Pacific islands were “essential partners in fostering a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

The US Defense Department has also held talks with leaders of Palau and PNG regarding the establishment of an American military presence in both countries. Australia is already developing a joint naval base on PNG’s Manus Island to host Australian and US warships.

US President-elect Joe Biden has also signaled a more aggressive posture towards the Middle East, Russia and China. “America is back. We’re back at the head of the table once again,” Biden recently declared. “America’s going to reassert its role in the world.”

Washington’s Pacific allies are falling into line. In a conversation with Ardern on November 23, Biden stressed that he wants to “reinvigorate” the bilateral relationship. Morrison and Ardern have invited Biden to visit Australia and NZ next year for the 70th anniversary of the ANZUS military alliance between the three countries.

Eight protesting inmates demanding COVID-19 protection shot dead in Sri Lankan prison

Pradeep Ramanayake

At least eight inmates were shot dead and over 70 injured on Sunday when security forces opened fire on a prisoners’ protest at Mahara Prison, 15 kilometres from the capital Colombo.

Ten of those injured are in a critical condition at nearby Ragama Hospital, the hospital’s deputy director told the media. Another 61 injured prisoners, he said, had tested positive for COVID-19 and were being treated in a special unit.

Relatives of victims at Mahara prison demanding information about their family members (Credit: Shehan Gunasekara)

The protesting prisoners were demanding prison authorities provide proper protection from COVID-19, which is rapidly spreading through the Sri Lankan prison system. The inmates wanted to be transferred to coronavirus-free locations and given regular PCR tests.

Senaka Perera, a lawyer with the Committee for Protecting Rights of Prisoners, said the Mahara inmates were frustrated with the prison officials who had ignored their month-long call for coronavirus testing and the separation of infected prisoners.

As of yesterday, more than 1,098 COVID-19 infections and two deaths have been reported in Sri Lankan prisons this year. At least 198 infections are from the Mahara facility.

Prison guards, backed by hundreds of police special task force and riot squads deployed by the government, were mobilized on Sunday to suppress the protesting prisoners. While it is unclear whether the police were involved in the shootings, gunfire was still being heard early yesterday morning.

Prison officials said two guards had been taken hostage by the inmates. They were later rescued and admitted to the hospital with injuries. Authorities claim that a kitchen and medical store had been set on fire by the prisoners.

Family members and relatives, who are acutely aware of previous brutalities by guards and police against the inmates, remained outside the prison pleading for information. Later police dispersed them. Yesterday hundreds of relatives gathered outside Ragama Hospital, blaming authorities for the deaths and injuries at the prison.

The shootings at Mahara Prison are the latest in a series of government crackdowns on prisoners demanding COVID-19 protection and proper healthcare. On November 18, one inmate was shot dead during a provocation at Kandy’s Bogambara Prison where 175 prisoners have been infected with the virus.

Protests have erupted in the past two weeks at prisons across the country, including Welikada, Magazine, Mahara, Bogambara, Boossa, Kuruwita, Angunukolapelassa and Negombo, as infections have spread throughout the island. Yesterday, several inmates began a rooftop protest at Negombo Prison demanding proper protection, testing and treatment.

The Rajapakse government responded to the killings at Mahara by seeking to blame “rioting prisoners,” without mentioning any of the inmates’ legitimate demands about COVID-19.

Relatives of victims outside Ragama hospital (Credit: WSWS Media)

Addressing parliament yesterday, Prison Reform Minister Sudarshini Fernandopoulle attempted to justify the shooting of unarmed inmates, claiming that the guards had no choice but to open fire to prevent a break-out.

Fernandopoulle went on to ludicrously declare there was, “an invisible hand which activated suddenly and we are ready to conduct an independent probe to uncover who is behind the riot.” The situation in Mahara, she insisted, was a part of “a trend of unrest.”

Parliamentary opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, who failed to condemn the violent attack on the prisoners, called on the government to appoint a committee to probe the “unrest.”

Justice Minister Ali Sabry later announced a five-member committee headed by a retired high court judge to investigate. This committee, like all its previous government-appointed predecessors, will be used to deflect popular anger and suppress the truth.

Fernandopoulle’s allegation about a “hidden hand” is a patent lie. Sri Lankan prisons are overcrowded with each facility containing more than three times the number of people it can accommodate and ripe for a massive spread of the virus.

Although the capacity of the Sri Lanka’s 22 prisons is 12,000, there are currently more than 30,000 detainees, according to official government data. About 20,000 are in custody on remand without bail, while a significant number have been convicted of minor offenses but unable to pay the fines.

Committee for the Protection of Prisoners Secretary Sudesh Nandimal told the media that prisoners were under severe pressure because of the lack of COVID-19 protection, inadequate food and medical supplies and harassment by prison officials. He alleged that when protests erupted at Mahara, prison officials launched a series of provocations and then allowed the killings to occur.

While the violent repression of prisoners in these facilities is not new it has been increasing in recent months. Two inmates were killed and six more injured in March this year when guards opened fire during unrest at Anuradhapura Prison in Sri Lanka’s North Central Province.

At the same time, the infamous pretext used by police of “shooting while attempting to flee” to justify the killing of remanded prisoners or those in custody, is on the rise.

One recent alleged example was the death last May at Mahara Prison of a young inmate. Police said he died in an accident while trying to escape but relatives later claimed he had been brutally beaten and tortured by prison officials. No proper inquiry has been held.

In line with rising public criticism of these repressive actions, the toothless Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has drawn attention to the increased number of individuals who have died in detention during President Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s administration. The commission has written to the Inspector General of Police, stating that eight such extra-judicial killings have taken place since last June.

The Mahara Prison killings are not an aberration but point to the repressive environment deliberately created by the Rajapakse government as COVID-19 spreads through the island. As of yesterday, the country’s COVID-19 cases climbed to over 26,000 cases and the death toll rose to 118.

On November 17, Rajapakse imposed an Essential Services Order on the country’s 15,000 port workers who were raising concerns about having to work amid rising workplace infection rates. Three days before the Mahara prison attack President Rajapakse appointed retired Admiral Sarath Weerasekara as the new cabinet minister for public security.

Workers and the oppressed masses must regard the bloody repression at Mahara Prison as a warning about the dictatorial preparations being made by the Rajapakse regime to suppress social unrest more broadly.

Rent debt “bomb” points to depth of social crisis in Australia

Mike Head

Nearly one million tenants may be in rental debt and hundreds of thousands could face eviction as COVID-19 pandemic moratoriums on evictions end around Australia, according to a report released last week.

The report by Better Renting, a non-government advocacy group, sheds further light on the extent of the poverty and financial stress throughout the working class. This social crisis is intensifying even though limited lockdown measures have, for now, prevented the pandemic from resurging to the catastrophic levels being suffered in the US, Europe and many other parts of the world.

State-owned housing in Victoria (Wikimedia)

The prospect of widespread evictions has already developed in Queensland, where the state Labor Party government ended eviction protections for residential renters on September 30, and in the Northern Territory, where the Labor government refused to even mandate an eviction halt.

In other states and territories, the eviction moratoriums will end early next year, mostly in March, just as the federal government scraps the JobKeeper wage subsidies and JobSeeker payments in which millions of working-class households have depended to avoid destitution.

This rent debt “bomb” is also growing amid worsening unemployment and under-employment, regardless of the efforts of the corporate media and governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike, to paint a rosy picture of “economic recovery.”

In its report, Better Renting analysed publicly available data on rent deferrals and negotiations. It estimated 5 percent to 15 percent of tenants Australia-wide may be in rental debt, which would equate to 324,000 to 973,000 people.

“These are people who could lose their current home if they remain in rental debt and landlords begin issuing termination notices as moratoriums are lifted,” the report stated.

Citing research from the Consumer Policy Research Centre, the report said there were other tenants who had “debt in the mailbox.” That meant they prioritised paying their rent but instead racked up debts to credit card or utilities companies. The Consumer Policy Centre found two in five renters have credit card debt or debt to a “buy now pay later” company.

The rental debt estimates drew on Better Renting’s own surveys and others by the Australian National University, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, the University of NSW, the Consumer Policy Research Centre and the property management platform MRI. Overall, Better Renting said it analysed survey data from 20,000 renters.

In March, the self-proclaimed “National Cabinet” of federal, state and territory leaders, agreed to limited and temporary protections against residential evictions. They feared a social explosion as kilometre-length queues—not seen since the 1930s Great Depression—formed outside government unemployment and welfare offices.

The moratoriums sought to prevent the eruption of struggles against evictions that would have produced widespread homelessness. Renters were among the worst affected sections of the working class as the pandemic hit. A previous Better Renting survey found that nearly two-thirds of tenants had lost income due to the economic crash triggered by the pandemic.

That survey found 16 percent of respondents reported skipping meals to save money, while 44 percent said they had “struggled to make ends meet with rent and bills.” That was despite the JobKeeper scheme and the temporary doubling of the sub-poverty JobSeeker unemployment benefit.

However, the government measures gave no guarantee of protection from eviction—many landlords still tried to remove impoverished tenants—and they left renters liable for deferred rental payments and at risk of accruing huge debts. No government required landlords to reduce or even defer rents.

That is because residential rent is a lucrative source of revenue, mostly going to the largest corporate investors and wealthiest layers of society, not small landlords. There is an estimated annual transfer of over $40 billion from private renters to landlords.

Since March, the federal, state and territory governments have handed more than $400 billion to business via subsidies, tax cuts and cheap loans, but they have refused to protect tenants from the impact of the pandemic.

The previous Better Renting survey found that of the tenants who lost income, only 9 percent asked for and received a “satisfactory” rent reduction. It reported that 20 percent had their request for rental relief denied, while 7.5 percent had their rent deferred, meaning they would have to pay the reduced rent back as a debt at a later date. A further 4.5 percent received a “trivial reduction.”

Even these results might be an underestimate of the housing crisis. An interim Victorian parliamentary report into the pandemic, released in August, found that Consumer Affairs Victoria had registered 17,852 rent reduction agreements by July 5, representing just 3 percent of all rental households in that state. The average weekly rental decrease was only 27 percent, or $155 per week.

The Labor government in Queensland has been the most blatant in exposing tenants to eviction. While ending the residential protection, it extended its eviction moratorium for commercial tenants until the end of the year. That state’s legislation also allows for “no fault” evictions, meaning that in many cases, where leases have expired, landlords can act unilaterally.

In scrapping the residential moratorium, the then state housing minister, Mick de Brenni linked the move to the drive to fully reopen the economy. “Because of our strong health response, we’ve been able to keep the economy more open and we’ve already started delivering Queensland’s plan for economic recovery,” he stated.

The latest official jobs figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) dent such pro-business claims of “recovery.” Unemployment is still intensifying. In seasonally adjusted terms, in October the jobless rate increased 0.1 points to 7.0 percent—1.7 points higher than a year earlier. That meant nearly one million jobless, and nearly a quarter of a million over the year.

These statistics are vast under-estimates, because they only count anyone not working more than an hour a week. Even so, the ABS unemployment rate among young workers, aged 15 to 24, increased 1.0 points to 15.6 percent, up by 3.1 points over the year.

The under-employment rate decreased by 1 point to 10.4 percent, but remained 1.9 points higher than a year earlier, leaving the total “underutilisation” (unemployment plus under-employment) at 17.4 percent, or almost 2.5 million workers.

Surveys conducted by the commercial polling agency, Roy Morgan, indicate that the real situation is much more severe. Its unemployment estimate is 12.8 percent, with under-employment at 9.4 percent, making a total of 22.2 percent, or 3.15 million workers.

As well as rushing to end its eviction restrictions, the Queensland government was also the first in the country to freeze the wages of public sector workers, including nurses and teachers. As this demonstrates, the union-backed Labor Party is spearheading the imposition of the burden of the pandemic onto working-class families.

Mass unemployment, outright wage cuts and rental evictions on a large scale last occurred in Australia during the 1930s, producing explosive social struggles. Such a convulsions are again looming, making it essential to build a new socialist leadership in the working class.

Young people speak out about the unprecedented collapse in their living conditions since the pandemic began

Noah Ryan & Nick Barrickman

A majority of the United States’ young adult population has been forced to place its life on hold as the pandemic has erased the opportunity to move out of their parents’ homes or otherwise gain independence. This is the reality that has been exposed by a recent Pew Research Center report showing 52 percent of people between the ages of 18-29 are living at home with their parents.

According to the study, this is the highest share of young people living at home since the end of the Great Depression in 1940. As shocking as it is, this number belies the actual social crisis that is hidden beneath it.

The cover of the COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding report (Credit: covidstates.org)

The psychological impact of the chasm that has opened up between expectations for the future and the objective conditions facing millions of people is reflected by a national survey conducted by researchers from four universities and published this month by the COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding. The survey on mental health conditions for people in Generation Z, or young adults between 18 and 24, is a damning depiction of the mental and psychological destruction being wreaked on this generation.

According to the research, about 47.3 percent of young people experienced some sort of depressive symptoms during the last few months. The most common causes for depression seen in this age group are closure of schools (51 percent), working from home (41 percent), and suffering a pay cut. This compares to only 3.4 percent of people in this age group in 2013-2014 reporting suicidal thoughts, anxiety or sleep disruption.

“I’ve never been in a situation in my life when I was financially comfortable,” said Dasilva, whom has been forced to live with relatives along with her husband since spring. In a conversation with the World Socialist Web Site, she explained that her family in Michigan, where she lives, has caught COVID-19. This includes her aunt, uncle and cousin.

Prior to the pandemic, Dasilva and her husband were part of the performance industry. However, as live music venues, theatre and other creative arts have been upended, she admits that she has “no idea where I see myself in five years.”

In addition to her financial situation, Michigan has once again become hard-hit by the coronavirus. The state ranks ranked eighth in the country with almost 390,000 COVID-19 cases and over 9,500 deaths since March.

Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer re-imposed a 3-4 week shutdown of restaurants and bars across the state last month without any new financial aid for those affected. While being largely ineffective to stem new outbreaks—since the auto factories and other large workplaces remain open without any significant restrictions—the shutdowns will continue to devastate the retail and service industry, which largely employs young people.

David, a 21-year old student and grocery worker in Virginia, told the WSWS that the “state of the economy scares me.” During the first weeks of the pandemic, millions were laid off on a weekly basis, leading to tens of millions of people unemployed or underemployed. Even as millions are cut off from the last remnants of unemployment benefits which expire at the end of this month, hundreds of thousands continue to apply for assistance from their states on a weekly basis.

“Being stuck with parents, it used to be something that people would get made fun of for,” David said sarcastically. “Now we can see that this is a real concern for society.” Speaking about his own personal circumstances, David explained “I live with my parents but my mother was furloughed for three months” during spring. “She didn’t get paid anything during this time, she is labeled an ‘independent contractor,’” a term businesses often affix to workers in order to avoid paying them unemployment or healthcare benefits.

“I had to pay the bills. While the bill collectors lowered the cost of the mortgage and things like that, I was the only one working” in the entire house, he said. On top of this, David’s grandmother, a food stamp recipient, passed away during summer. Not only did this further traumatize family members, “but she was the only other person in the house getting any sort of financial support,” he said.

“I’m an essential worker,” he said in conclusion. “I was going to quit my job to pursue a career [in visual arts], but that field isn’t hiring right now. I don’t know when things will be normal again. I don’t know when I’ll be able to see my friends. This is a struggle.”

As misery among the working population grows millions are turning toward politics of a decidedly left-wing and anti-capitalist variety. According to a survey conducted by YouGov this year, the support for socialism among young people has increased significantly. Among the Gen Z group, support grew from 40 percent in 2019 to 49 percent this year. The report also indicated that 60 percent of Millennials are looking for an alternative to capitalism.

Mark, another young worker that was laid off in September, said that his plans to move out of his parents’ house “pretty much vanished” when COVID-19 emerged. “There aren’t any jobs beyond entry level, with horrible $10-12 per-hour pay.”

Speaking about the living situation for his friends, he said “those that can afford it are living together as roommates.” Even this poses difficulties, due to the fact that “landlords are increasing rent.” Mark explained that he had heard stories about states setting up courthouses simply to deal with the growth in evictions as moratoriums on owed rent expire.

“The unemployment benefits [made available by the CARES Act] were super helpful,” he said. “But when the expanded $600 weekly pay ended in July, jobs didn’t come back.” Mark said he had a job lined up with the local county government but the pandemic forced the office to furlough workers.

“The coronavirus proves that under the current system, capitalism can’t deal with the issue of joblessness,” he concluded. “It makes you wonder what things will be like when there are no expanded benefits for people.”

Labour Division Between Hindutva Fascism and Capitalism

Bhabani Shankar Nayak

History is about forgetting and remembering within different waves of time. If a society fails to view its present in the mirror of history, that society condemned itself to the dustbin of future. The Indian society is in such a dangerous crossroad. The despicable ideology of Hindutva led by RSS, evil politics of BJP and horrific policies of Modi government threatens the lives, livelihood of Indians and weakens India and Indian democracy. The failure of Modi led BJP government is written in all fronts of governance from home fronts to foreign policies.

The agricultural policies of Modi government ruined the life and livelihoods of Indian farmers and destroyed agricultural economy in India. The myopic foreign policies of Modi government have isolated India within the neighbourhood and outside South Asia. The vile of Hindutva politics and its inhuman actions have defamed India in world among the community of nations. The dismantling of state led welfare policies, planning and institutions by the Modi government led to the collapse of health, education and industries. Modi’s economic policies have ruined small and medium businesses in India. The growth of unemployment, crime, hunger, homelessness and insecurities are direct outcomes of BJP led Modi government and its directionless policies. These policies manufacture crisis that ensures suffering of millions of Indians. It is a Hindutva shock therapy that breeds enormous political power for the growth and stability of Hindutva fascism in India.

As India and Indians are suffering under multiple forms of crisis in different steps of their lives, Indian corporations and their multinational brethren continue to multiply the mountain of their profits. Hindutva fascism derives its economic, political, social and cultural strategy from European fascism and Nazism. There is a clear labour division between fascists and their capitalist crony corporations. The historical brotherhood between Nazis and corporate capitalism continue to thrive in India today as it has happened in Europe during and after world wars. The European and American corporations were not only sympathetic but also collaborated with fascists and Nazis for ideological reasons. Capitalism is concomitant with all illiberal and undemocratic forces in society today in search of profit. Their organic and historical relationship reveals itself with same motivation accelerated by Hindutva rule in India.

The Dehomag; a subsidiary of the IBM has supplied technology to identify Jews during nationwide census operation in Germany. The company has also provided punch card machines and sorting systems devices to identify and exterminate Jews in concentration camps. It was a lucrative business for the IBM. The German auto designer Ferdinand Porsche and his company has helped to develop the Volkswagen cars as per the order of Hitler. The Volkswagen had used slaves from the concentration camps to expand its car production and profit. Similarly, Hugo Boss has used slaves from the concentration camps to produce uniforms for the Nazi regime. He was also a sponsoring member of the Schutzstaffel (SS), the Nazis’ paramilitary wing. The media corporations like the Associated Press have worked as Nazi collaborators. The Coca-Cola Company’s Fanta business was booming with the help of Hitler’s Youth. The corporations like the Kodak, Bayer, Ford, BMW, L’Oréal, Bosch, and many banks were beneficiaries of Nazi rule in Germany. Human miseries were the foundation of corporate profit under Nazism. The death of democracy and freedom were twin foundations on which fascism and corporate capitalism grew together in 19th and 20th century Europe.

The Hindutva rule led by Modi is not only following the ideological footprints of European Nazism and fascism but also following strategy of labour division between politics and economics for the success of Indian and global corporations at the cost of Indian lives and livelihoods. The shameful alliance between India corporations and Hindutva fascism is pushing India and Indians into a miserable chapter of history by ruining the present. The Hindutva forces decided to control the state power with the help of electoral politics dominated by one party whereas Indian corporations and their global brethren can control Indian economy and resources while Indians suffer under multiple forms of miseries. The democratic deficit, economic crisis, cultural and economic turmoil witnessed in India today is not Hindutva method of madness but a clear and historical strategy of labour division between Hindutva and corporations.

Indian capitalist class and higher caste’s complicity with Hindutva fascism breeds all forms if crisis and conflicts in India. Social, economic, political and cultural crisis consolidates the power of fascists and their crony capitalists. Both benefit from the crisis. The ever-willing industrialists and business partners of fascism and Nazism have failed to save Hitler and his rule. The Fuhrer’s thousand-year plan has collapsed within a decade. Hitler died by suicide and his regime collapsed like a pack of cards with the horror of death and destitutions. But Hindutva forces will not find their hiding place. Like any other anti-fascist struggles, people will follow the path of unity, peace, liberty and justice.   The Indian industrialists, celebrities, fashion designers, media houses and capitalist classes cannot save Hindutva led fascist Modi government in India for long. All illiberal and undemocratic forces sink under the waves of historic liberation struggles of the masses. History has witnessed the collapse of all empires and dictators. Hindutva fascism can bite the dust sooner if we can resolve to fight both capitalism and fascism together. This is the only long-term alternative for the survival of India and Indians.

The Muslim world’s changing dynamics: Pakistan struggles to retain its footing

James M. Dorsey

Increasing strains between Pakistan and its traditional Arab allies, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, is about more than Gulf states opportunistically targeting India’s far more lucrative market.

At the heart of the tensions, that potentially complicate Pakistan’s economic recovery, is also India’s ability to enhance Gulf states’ capacity to hedge their bets amid uncertainty about the continued US commitment to regional security.

India is a key member of the Quad that also includes the United States, Australia and Japan and could play a role in a future more multilateral regional security architecture in the Gulf.

Designed as the backbone of an Indo-Pacific strategy intended to counter China across a swath of maritime Asia, Gulf states are unlikely to pick sides but remain keen on ensuring that they maintain close ties with both sides of the widening divide.

The mounting strains with Pakistan are also the latest iteration of a global battle for Muslim religious soft power that pits Saudi Arabia and the UAE against Turkey, Iran, and Asian players like Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Islamic movement.

A combination of geo- and domestic politics is complicating efforts by major Muslim-majority states in Asia to walk a middle line. Pakistan, home to the world’s largest Shiite Muslim minority, has reached out to Turkey while seeking to balance relations with its neighbour, Iran.

The pressure on Pakistan is multi-fold.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan charged recently that the United States and one other unidentified country were pressing him to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.

Pakistani and Israeli media named Saudi Arabia as the unidentified country. Representing the world’s second most populous Muslim nation, Pakistani recognition, following in the footsteps of the UAE and Bahrain, would be significant.

Pakistan twice in the last year signaled a widening rift with the kingdom.

Mr. Khan had planned to participate a year ago in an Islamic summit hosted by Malaysia and attended by Saudi Arabia’s detractors, Turkey, Iran and Qatar, but not the kingdom and a majority of Muslim states. The Pakistani prime minister cancelled his participation at the last moment under Saudi pressure.

More recently, Pakistan again challenged Saudi leadership of the Muslim world when Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi complained about lack of support of the Saudi-dominated Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for Pakistan in its conflict with India over Kashmir. The OIC groups the world’s 57 Muslim-majority nations. Mr. Qureshi suggested that his country would seek to rally support beyond the realm of the kingdom.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on a visit to Pakistan earlier this year, made a point of repeatedly reiterating his country’s support for Pakistan in the Kashmir dispute.

By openly challenging the kingdom, Mr. Qureshi was hitting Saudi Arabia where it hurts most as it seeks to repair its image tarnished by allegations of abuse of human rights, manoeuvres to get off on the right foot with incoming US President-elect Joe Biden’s administration, and fends off challenges to its leadership of the Muslim world.

Pakistan has not helped itself by recently failing to ensure that it would be removed from the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force, an international anti-money laundering and terrorism finance watchdog, despite progress in the country’s legal infrastructure and enforcement.

Grey listing causes reputational damage and makes foreign investors and international banks more cautious in their dealings with countries that have not been granted a clean bill of health.

Responding to Mr. Qureshi’s challenge, Saudi Arabia demanded that Pakistan repay a US$1 billion loan extended to help the South Asian nation ease its financial crisis. The kingdom has also dragged its feet on renewing a US$3.2 billion oil credit facility that expired in May.

In what Pakistan will interpret as UAE support for Saudi Arabia, the Emirates last week included Pakistan on its version of US President Donald J. Trump’s Muslim travel ban.

Inclusion on the list of 13 Muslim countries whose nationals will no longer be issued visas for travel to the UAE increases pressure on Pakistan, which relies heavily on exporting labour to generate remittances and alleviate unemployment.

Some Pakistanis fear that a potential improvement in Saudi-Turkish relations could see their country fall through geopolitical cracks.

In the first face-to-face meeting between senior Saudi and Turkish officials since the October 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, the two countries’ foreign ministers, Prince Faisal bin Farhan and Mevlut Cavusoglu, held bilateral talks this weekend, on the sidelines of an OIC conference in the African state of Niger.

“A strong Turkey-Saudi partnership benefits not only our countries but the whole region,” Mr. Cavusoglu tweeted after the meeting.

The meeting came days after Saudi King Salman telephoned Mr. Erdogan on the eve of a virtual summit hosted by the kingdom of the Group of 20 (G20) that brings together the world’s largest economies.

“The Muslim world is changing and alliances are shifting and entering new, unchartered territories,” said analyst Sahar Khan.

Added Imtiaz Ali, another analyst: “In the short term, Riyadh will continue exploiting Islamabad’s economic vulnerabilities… But in the longer term, Riyadh cannot ignore the rise of India in the region, and the two countries may become close allies – something that will mostly likely increase the strain on Pakistan-Saudi relations.”

Private sector and Conservative Party cronies reap over £17 billion in government contracts during pandemic

Robert Stevens

Vast profits were made by a small number of UK companies during the first wave of the pandemic, in what was akin to war profiteering.

At least 15 companies handed contracts without tendering or oversight had connections to the Conservative government in what is being described as a “chumocracy”.

A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) into 8,600 contracts signed during the pandemic found that government officials awarded contracts worth £17.3 billion to private sector firms. Of this £10.5 billion (58 percent) was awarded directly without any tendering of contracts. £12.3 billion was paid out by government for the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and £2.9 billion in Testing and Tracing contracts.

Health Minister Matt Hancock at a Downing Street media briefing during the pandemic

The government utilised European Union procurement laws to sidestep having to put contracts out to competitive tendering that is supposedly designed to ensure best value for money.

Several huge contracts went directly to friends of government ministers and others with close connections to government figures. Some awarded lucrative contracts worth hundreds of millions had no experience of working in the medical supplies industry.

To push through awarding contracts without the usual scrutiny, the government set up, via the Department of Health, a high priority channel to process the claims of individuals wanting to supply PPE that had been raised by ministers, MPs, peers and senior NHS staff.

According to the Times, “About one in ten suppliers whose offer was processed through this channel (47 out of 493) obtained contracts to supply PPE, compared with less than one in a hundred suppliers that came through the ordinary lane (104 of 14,892). It [the NAO] added that the sources of the referrals to the high-priority lane were not always recorded on the team’s case-management system.”

Among those receiving contracts was Alex Bourne, who used to run a pub, The Cock Inn in Thurlow, frequented by Health Secretary Matt Hancock. The pub is located close to the Hancock’s former constituency home in Suffolk.

Hancock attended the pub’s reopening after a refurbishment in 2016 and nominated it for an award the following year. Before he moved from his constituency home in 2018, Hancock posted a photo of himself pulling a pint in the pub with Bourne on his parliamentary website. When the deal became public knowledge, Bourne, a former captain in the British army, commented, “I know Matt Hancock, he’s not a friend, he’s an acquaintance.”

Bourne won a government contract for supplying medical vials, a business he had no expertise in or even basic knowledge of, by sending a personal WhatsApp message to Hancock. He wrote, “Hello, it’s Alex Bourne from Thurlow.” The message set in train a fast-track process under which it is estimated that Bourne received contracts worth at least £30 million for supplying vials for coronavirus tests. Bourne and Hancock exchanged text and email messages over several months, with Bourne also admitting, according to the Guardian, that he participated in a Zoom meeting in August “attended by Hancock, [Prime Minister] Boris Johnson and several dozen suppliers in the Covid test-and-trace programme.”

Literally anybody, with the right connections, was able to reap lucrative rewards from the public purse.

In 2018, Bourne set up Hinpack, a manufacturing company which produced plastic cups and takeaway boxes for the catering industry. It was through repurposing this company that Bourne was able to win his DHSC contract.

NHS products of the kind Bourne was to manufacture must be produced in a sterile environment. Bourne had no “clean rooms” from which to produce products vitally important to public health. Instead, the Guardian reported, Bourne “paid a manufacturer of bouncy castles and blimps to make him a specially commissioned inflatable structure to unpack and decontaminate incoming supplies, which his lawyers described as a room that was intended to be ‘comparatively contamination-free’ but ‘not medical-grade sterile’.”

From this makeshift operation Bourne supplied the National Health Service, via several distributors, with tens of millions of vials and 500,000 plastic funnels for test samples.

Conservative Party councillor Steve Dechan won several contracts to import PPE from China. Dechan was elected to Stroud Town Council as a Liberal Democrat, before defected to the Tories in 2018. In the 2019 general election he campaigned for sitting Tory MP Siobhan Baillie.

P14 Medical, also known as Platform 14, was suffering large financial losses in 2019 but was able to win the contract without any tendering process. In July the government published who had won a number of contracts, with P14 securing the third largest awarded. P14, specialists in pain management technologies, won three PPE supply contracts worth £272 million.

Dechan commented after the contract details were made public, “I only know a couple MPs through local campaigning on issues, only met ministers (no current ones) on [general election] campaign trails. Never discussed PPE.”

Several firms securing contracts were connected to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s former chief advisor, Dominic Cummings. Open Democracy noted last month, “Public First is run by James Frayne--who has been a close associate of Cummings for more than 20 years--and Rachel Wolf, a former Gove adviser who co-wrote the Conservative Party’s 2019 election manifesto.”

During the pandemic Public First secured more than £1 million of public contracts without tender.

Cumming worked with a company, Faculty, on the Vote Leave campaign in 2016. During the COVID crisis, Faculty was awarded three contracts worth £3 million for data analysis.

Ayanda Capital (specialists in currency trading and offshore property), were named in the NAU report after winning a PPE contract worth £253 million. The Daily Mail noted, “The deal was brokered by Andrew Mills, who was one of 12 advisers to the Board of Trade, chaired by International Trade Secretary Liz Truss. Mr Mills is also a ‘senior board adviser’ to Ayanda Capital.”

UK-based private healthcare corporation Randox, which develops, manufactures and markets diagnostic reagents and equipment for laboratory medicine with a distribution network in 145 countries, was granted nearly £500 million to provide private-sector testing. Despite it having to recall 750,000 flawed test kits its contract was extended. Among Randox’s board members is Tory MP Owen Paterson, who is paid £100,000 a year by the firm.

In August, a Sunday Times investigation found that 12 contracts were handed out to three firms with links to Conservative Party members or donors.

Meller Designs won deals worth £163 million, including for supplying hand sanitiser and face masks. The firm, normally supplying home and beauty products to high-street retailers, is run by Tory donor David Meller. Meller has gifted £65,000 to the Tories over the last decade. He was previously a trustee of the right-wing Policy Exchange thinktank, founded by Gove. The Byline Times website noted, “Meller Designs recorded turnover of £12.8 million in 2019 and £13.7 million in 2018. If the company didn’t trade for the rest of 2020, its turnover would have increased elevenfold on the previous year, based on these Government contracts alone.”

Another major Tory donor, Steve Parkin, has given the party more than £500,000. A firm he founded, Clipper Logistics, secured a £1.3 million contract to distribute PPE.

Prior to the pandemic, the government slashed the national stock of PPE supplies by 40 percent in a criminal cost cutting measure. To offset the disaster they created, the Tories allowed literally anyone to supply PPE. A £32 million PPE contract was awarded to PestFix Ltd, a pest control company in Sussex.

Among those cashing in the PPE supply bonanza was Florida-based jewellery designer Michael Saiger.

Saiger was handed UK government contracts worth £200 million without any competition. The Daily Mail reported on the profiteering involved, “Some [contracts] appear to have been negotiated at well above normal market rates. For example, in a £70.5 million deal signed in May, the taxpayer acquired 10.2 million surgical gowns at an effective cost of £6.91 each. That was nearly 50 percent more than the average market price (£4.60) at the time, and seven times the pre-pandemic cost of £1.05.” It added, “It appears that when he signed the various DoH contracts… Saiger, a former male model, did not have a manufacturer in place to fulfil various aspects of them. He also had no obvious prior experience of supplying medical equipment or shipping it in large quantities to Europe.”

Saiger enlisted Gabriel Gonzalez Andersson, a Madrid-based businessman, to assist with “procurement, logistics, due diligence, product sourcing and quality control” of PPE. Andersson ended up being paid £21 million by the UK taxpayer for his work on just two government contracts to supply the NHS. Details of the profiteering only emerged after being raised as part of legal proceeding in a court case in Miami.

The BBC reported that Saiger signed three more agreements to supply the NHS in June with millions of gloves and surgical gowns. “When the UK government paid up, his go-between, Mr Andersson, would have been in line for a further $20m in consulting fees. But the court documents allege that once the agreements had been signed, Mr Andersson stopped doing any work for Mr Saiger.”

It is unclear, said the BBC, if “Andersson received any of the money for this second batch of deals. This led to PPE deliveries being delayed to NHS frontline workers, Mr Saiger claims, and the company ‘scrambling’ to fulfil the contracts by other means.”

Sri Lankan government orders schools to reopen, threatening thousands with COVID-19

Pradeep Ramanayake

The Sri Lankan government reopened schools last Monday, creating the conditions for a catastrophic spread of COVID-19 among school populations. The decision was taken in defiance of widespread opposition by parents, teachers and students.

Students washing hands in plastic basins established in schools in July (WSWS Media)

The government closed all schools on March 13 in response to rising national concern over the rapid global spread of the highly infectious virus and reopened on July 6. Confronted three months later with a sudden increase in infections, the government closed them again on October 5.

Schools in the Western Province, where the highest number of cases have been reported, however, did not reopen and last week education authorities were forced to quickly close schools in other provinces.

All schools in Kandy city were closed a day after last Monday’s “re-openings,” along with several schools in Kurunegala district, Ambalangoda in the south, the central hills plantation area, Kilinochchi in the north and Kalmunai in the east.

On Tuesday, it was reported that the parents of two children from the same family attending two major schools in Ambalangoda tested COVID-19 positive. Almost all of the 8,000 students at those schools did not attend the following day. Twenty-five students and eight teachers from these schools are now in quarantine.

According to reports, only 10 percent of students attended Sri Lankan schools last Monday, indicating that most of the population had rejected Education Minister G.L. Peiris’s “assurances” that schools were safe. Even after repeated urging by government health authorities and the media only about 50 percent of students had attended by Friday. Teacher attendances were also noticeably low, despite having been directed by education authorities to report for work.

COVID-19 cases are surging across the country with infections recorded at many state institutions and workplaces, including factories and universities, and in remote villages. The government, however, is attempting to conceal the real situation with an inadequate number of tests being carried out.

Empty Sri Lankan class room (WSWS Media)

According to the current official figures, the number of infected in Sri Lanka is over 23,500 and the number of deaths is at 116. About 16,000 of these infections have been diagnosed since the beginning of October.

Education Minister Peiris, citing a World Health Organization (WHO) warning that the pandemic was expected to last for another two and a half years, declared that school closures this long would mean the “shutdown of children’s futures.”

The minister has no concern about the “children’s future” but is attempting to dismiss the WHO’s warnings to justify reopening schools but without adequate safety measures and testing regimes in place.

Earlier this month, President Gotabhaya Rajapakse, like his counterparts around the world, declared that it was necessary to “carry out normal activities while controlling the disease.” In other words, people should accept living with the deadly pandemic in order to maintain the profit interests of big business.

Rajapakse’s mantra was repeated by the secretary to the education ministry, Kapila Perera, and Army Commander Shavendra Silva, head of the Prevention of COVID-19 Outbreak Taskforce.

Appearing on national television last Wednesday, Silva was asked about how to change the population’s attitude towards the “new normalcy.” He responded by declaring, “We gave examples [to people] of how we have worked successfully during the pandemic.”

Silva claimed that grade 5 scholarship and advance level examinations were held without any problem. Limited reports, however, indicate that scores of teachers and students were infected during these examinations.

Classes being conducted without social distancing (WSWS Media)

Colombo, in fact, has left it up to each school through a committee headed by the principal to decide on holding classes. Principals, however, have criticised the government, saying it was attempting to pass all responsibility for coronavirus infections in the schools onto the committees.

In another indication of its contemptuous attitude to students, teachers and their families, the government has only allocated 37 million rupees ($US200,000) to more than 6,000 schools that reopened on Monday. If divided by the number of schools, this will not even cover one day’s minimum healthcare at each school. Hand sanitation currently consists of water basins and soap that have been placed at the school entrances.

A majority of teachers and students attending school travel long distances each day on congested public transport services and in most schools up to 40 or 50 students share small class rooms.

Government “concerns” over the health and education of students are bogus. The budget allocation for health in 2021 is 30 billion rupees less than 187 billion rupees allocated in 2019 and education has been reduced from 166 billion rupees in 2019 to 126 billion in 2021. By contrast, spending on defence and the police will be 440 billion in 2021, up by about 50 billion from 2019.

Several teachers spoke last week to the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) about the school re-openings.

A teacher from Getambe school near Peradeniya, said: “There is total chaos in society. Most of the students travel by bus and, like the crowded classrooms, this is impacting on student attendance. Is the government trying to kill people? It has also used the pandemic to avoid paying teachers a salary increase.”

Referring to the government’s imposition of an Essential Services order on port workers, he added: “I denounce the forceful driving of port employees to work by declaring it an essential service.”

A teacher from the Western Province explained that it was not possible to maintain safe physical distancing in schools: “The government claims that it has restarted schools out of concern for the people. This is a lie and aimed at assuring people that they now have to live with the pandemic. What is the limit? How far do we have to go with this? People have to fight against this situation.”

A Madampa Central College teacher in Ambalangoda said: “We were instructed to hold online lessons during the period when the schools were closed and although we did it, only 20 percent of students attended. Without providing the necessary technological facilities for students it is not possible to carry out this sort of undertaking.”

A teacher from St. Joseph’s College in Maskeliya said: “I strongly condemn the government decision to re-open the schools, particularly in this Maskeliya area, where my school is and several virus cases have been located. Our students are mostly plantation workers’ children, who live in very poor housing conditions and without proper basic facilities.”

There are four main teachers’ unions in the plantation areas, including the Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU), the Up-Country Teachers Forum, Up Country Teachers Federation, and a Ceylon Workers Congress-affiliated union. The St Joseph’s College teacher explained that some of these unions had released statements calling on teachers and students to take safely measures themselves.

Although the CTU had criticised the government for not implementing proper safety measures, he said, all these unions had supported the government and the re-opening of schools.

On Monday the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) teachers’ group issued a statement on the WSWS Sinhala language site entitled, “Oppose the reopening of schools under unsafe conditions! Build Safety Committees of Teachers Students and Parents to Save Lives from the pandemic!”

The statement called for the closing of all schools and universities until the pandemic was brought under control: full payment of the salaries of teachers and other employees; increased COVID-19 testing; proper facilities for online education; and the provision of adequate training for teachers to conduct online classes.

The statement explained that these demands would only be realised in struggle against the capitalist profit system and would involve the working class rallying the poor and oppressed mass in the fight for socialism and a workers’ and peasants’ government in Sri Lanka.