Mass farmer protest rattles India’s far-right BJP government

Wasantha Rupasinghe & Keith Jones

An agitation by farmers demanding the repeal of recently adopted agrarian “reform” legislation has become a major political crisis for India’s far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.

Tens of thousands of farmers who police had blocked from entering the Delhi National Capital Territory and bringing their demands to the seat of India’s government late last week have been encamped at Delhi’s borders for the past six days. Their tractors and trucks are blocking several major roads into Delhi from the neighbouring states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, and the farmers have vowed to remain until their demands are met.

The farmers are protesting three laws that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP rushed through parliament in September, at the same time as they were attacking workers’ right to strike and gutting restrictions on plant closures and mass layoffs. Long demanded by big business, the IMF and World Bank, the BJP’s agrarian “reform” laws are aimed at strengthening the power of agri-business at the expense of farmers and consumers. They promote contract farming, undermine the government-regulated system of agricultural markets (known as mandis ), and will open the door, farmers fear, to abolishing the Minimum Support Price for certain basic commodities.

The farmers are also demanding the government abandon its proposed Electricity Bill 2020, which would eliminate or greatly reduce subsidized power rates for farmers.

The Narendra Modi-led national government orchestrated a massive security operation last week to prevent the farmers from bringing their protest to India’s capital and largest city and, if possible, from ever reaching Delhi’s borders.

The BJP state government of Uttar Pradesh and the nearby BJP-ruled state of Madhya Pradesh deployed paramilitary forces to block convoys of protesting farmers from approaching the capital. In Haryana, which borders Delhi to the south, west, and north, the BJP-led government was even more aggressive. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar ordered the state’s border with Punjab, one of the principal centres of the protest movement, sealed as of Nov. 25, and invoked Section 144 of the Criminal Code under which all gatherings of more than four people are illegal. Several dozen leaders of farm organizations were taken into “preventive custody” and police were mobilized throughout Haryana to block farmers from traversing the state.

Nevertheless, by Friday, the day that the “Delhi Chalo” (Let us go to Delhi) mobilization was to converge on the capital, tens of thousands of farmers from Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand had reached Delhi’s border near Tigri in the south and Singhu in the north. There they were met by barricades of barbed wire and sand-laden trucks, tear gas and water cannon.

The authorities succeeded in preventing the protest from reaching Delhi. However, their actions have only served to anger the farmers and muster sympathy for them among broad sections of working people across India. According to media reports, the numbers camped at Delhi’s borders have grown to well in excess of 100,000 people. At one border point, the line of protesters reportedly stretches for 30 kilometres (19 miles).

The head of a farmers’ union in Uttar Pradesh who intends to join the agitation later this week told CNN, "We are trying to be wary of COVID but we don't have an option. It is a question of life and death. We are the ones who have provided food, milk, vegetables when the whole country was in lockdown. It is the government who has put us at risk by introducing these laws during COVID."

The Modi government has clearly been rattled by the militancy and determination of the farmers. BJP representatives have oscillated between suggesting that the farmers have been duped by the opposition or are led by treasonous elements. Last week, Amit Malviya, the head of the BJP’s IT cell, sought to whip up communal animosity against the protesting farmers, many of whom are Punjabi Sikhs, when he blamed the agitation on Maoists and “Khalsitanis.” The latter is a reference to the reactionary movement to create a separate Sikh state, Khalistan, which was ruthlessly suppressed by the Indian state during the 1970s and 1980s.

Initially the government refused to meet with leaders of the Delhi Chalo protest, which is supported by more than 500 kisan sabhas (peasant unions) and other farm organizations, until the agitation was called off. Later it made talks conditional on the farmers agreeing to move to a large field and fair ground in north Delhi, the Nirankari Samagan Ground. Some accepted the government’s offer. But the vast majority of farmers have refused, arguing that relocating their protest to a field far from the heart of Delhi and where they will be surrounded by security forces would be akin to agreeing to their jailing or kettling.

The government’s greatest fear is that the farmers’ protest will serve to fan growing social opposition within the working class.

The launch of the Delhi Chalo was timed to coincide with the Nov. 26 one-day general strike called by the country’s major central labour federation and supported by numerous independent unions. Tens of millions of workers walked off the job across India to demand the scrapping of the BJP’s “labour” and “agrarian” reforms, a halt to privatisation, and emergency financial support for the hundreds of millions whose meagre incomes have been slashed as a result of the government’s ruinous handling of the pandemic.

On Sunday evening, Home Minister Amit Shah met with Agriculture Minster Narendra Singh Tomar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to discuss the crisis. Rajnath Singh’s involvement underscores that the BJP government is preparing to deploy the military and, if need be, use lethal violence to suppress the farmer agitation.

But the BJP recognizes such action could backfire, serving to set India ablaze, and thus is now maneuvering to find “a political solution” to the crisis.

Yesterday, Tomar and the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Pyush Goyal held talks with protest leaders, and a further round of talks has been scheduled for Thursday.

On the government’s part, the talks are a charade. Big business is adamant that no substantive changes be made to the “reform bills,” and Modi and his chief henchman, Amit Shah, are keenly aware that any retreat would derail their drive to restore the profitability of Indian capitalism through a promised “quantum jump” in “pro-investor” reforms. On Sunday, Modi used his monthly radio address to once again sing the praises of the farm bills that the government rammed through parliament with virtually no debate in September.

The government will use the offer of further talks, perhaps a handful of cosmetic concessions, and veiled threats of repression to try to prevail on the protest leaders to call off the agitation.

It will also seek to exploit the class and political cleavages within the farmer movement and among the rural masses. Many marginal farmers who eke out a livelihood on tiny plots of land are supporting the protest movement. But it is politically led by prosperous farmers with close connections to sections of the political establishment. Moreover, the farm agitation fails to address the crying social needs of the landless peasants and agricultural workers, who constitute the majority and most oppressed section of the rural masses.

Last but not least, the Hindu supremacist BJP will rely on its ruling class political opponents, whom it routinely vilifies as “anti-national,” to help bring the agitation to an end.

All the major opposition parties are claiming to support the agitation for the repeal of the farm bill, and the Congress Party state governments in Punjab and Rajasthan encouraged the Delhi Chalo movement. But the Congress Party, true to its historic role as the premier party of the Indian bourgeois, is now pressing the farm leaders to wind down their agitation.

The Congress Chief Minister in Punjab, Captain Amarinder Singh, urged the farmers to accept the government’s “offer” to relocate their protest to the fair ground and hold talks. He is now claiming that the farmers have “already won half the battle” because they have brought “the Union government to the negotiating table.”

Strikes by Kia and GM workers continue in South Korea

Peter Symonds

Thousands of workers in two major auto corporations in South Korea—Kia and GM Korea—have conducted a series of strikes to demand pay increases, improved conditions and job security. The stoppages are part of far broader discontent, anger and unrest among auto workers internationally over job losses, deteriorating conditions and the health threats posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yesterday, General Motors workers voted down an agreement reached last week between the company and the Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU) to shut down industrial action. The vote is all the more significant as it took place following a renewed threat in mid-November by Steve Kiefer, president of GM’s international operations, to shut down the company’s operations in South Korea.

The union has been engaged in months of negotiations with GM management that began in July and was finally forced to call a series of partial four-hour stoppages last month at the company’s plants.

A striking GM worker in South Korea last year (Credit: AP photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Central to the demands of workers is for an increase to their basic wage, which has been frozen since 2018. The wage freeze was part of a “rescue” package stitched up by the union, the government and General Motors after it threatened to end its operations in South Korea.

In the current negotiations, the union had demanded a basic monthly pay rise of 120,000 won ($US108) as well as annual performance bonuses of 22 million won and guarantees of continued operations at both GM plants in Bupyeong beyond 2022 when production of existing models ends.

“We are not only striking over wage issues, but also over job security at our No. 2 plant in Bupyeong, which hires about 1,200 workers,” union official Jung Jai-heon told the media. The union also called for some subcontract workers to be hired as full-time staff with pay and benefits to match.

Last week, however, the KMWU dropped the demand for basic pay rate increases and accepted a sell-out agreement that included an annual bonus of just 4 million won, together with promises to invest $190 million in Bupyeong starting next year to keep the plants open. The company dropped its demand to double the length of the contract period from one to two years.

In effect, the union accepted a continuing wage freeze, a reduced bonus and a worthless pledge from the company to continue its operations in Bupyong. As has repeatedly been the experience in country after country, the auto giants—in league with the unions—use the threat to shut their operations to extract concessions from workers and government subsidies, only to turn around and close their doors at a later date.

On November 18, Reuters reported the comments of top GM official Steve Kiefer who complained that GM Korea had lost production of 60,000 vehicles as a result of shutdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic and the partial strikes by workers.

“That’s having a very significant short-term financial impact,” he declared, adding that it was “making the country non-competitive.”

Despite the fact that GM signed a binding agreement in 2018 to keep operating in South Korea for at least 10 years, Kiefer declared that its long-term future in the country was in doubt and canvassed Asian countries, including China, as alternatives. “As of now, we’re losing confidence that we’re going to be able to continue to invest in that country [South Korea], he told Reuters.

Despite the threat, a clear majority of GM workers—53.8 percent of more than 7,000 union members—rejected the agreement reached last week. KMWU bureaucrats are due to meet today to decide on further negotiations and any industrial action.

Under the tentative agreement, GM Korea offered to provide 4 million won ($3,600) per union worker in performance-based pay and bonuses for the year of 2020 instead of unfreezing basic salaries.

As of yesterday, Kia workers were continuing four-hour partial strikes for higher pay and bonuses at the company’s plants in Gwangmyeong and Hwaseong, both near Seoul, and Gwangju, in the south of the country. Four-hour stoppages took place on three days last week.

Like GM workers, Kia workers want an increase in their monthly basic pay. The union is demanding a 120,000 won ($104) rise per person, as well as 30 percent of the company’s annual operating profit to be allocated to performance-based pay, and an extension of the retirement age from 60 to 65.

Similarly, workers are concerned about their jobs. The union is calling for the components required for the manufacture of electric and hydrogen vehicles to take place inside existing Kia plants, rather than at an affiliated parts company, Hyundai Mobis.

Kia, whose profits have been hard hit by closures earlier in the year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has failed to reach an agreement with the union.

The KMWU has already reached a sell-out deal with Kia’s bigger affiliate, Hyundai Motor, to impose a wage freeze on its workforce—only the third time ever that the basic wage of workers at the company has been frozen. The union, which conducted no strikes during the negotiating period, agreed to the wage freeze in return for various bonuses, including company shares and gift certificates.

The KMWU is the largest union within the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). The KCTU, which postures as left-wing and militant, has worked to prevent any outbreak of discontent despite widespread attacks on the working class this year under the pretext of the COVID-19 pandemic. The union has deliberately kept negotiations with the auto companies separate so as to prevent any unified struggle by workers.

At the same time, the KCTU has tacitly accepted the demands of government and big business to impose the burden of the pandemic on workers by agreeing to cut costs to boost profits and “international competitiveness.” The prospect of job losses has been used as a threat to try to bludgeon workers into agreement. The unemployment rate hit 4.5 percent in May—its worst level in over a decade—and in October again jumped to 4.2 percent.

In opposition to the divisive tactics of the union, auto workers need to take matters into their own hands, establish their own rank-and-file committees and seek to unify with other sections of workers in South Korea and internationally. The political basis for such a struggle has to be a socialist program, including placing the auto plants under public ownership and the democratic control of the working class.

Indian Toyota workers continue month-long strike against speedup

Arun Kumar

Over 3,000 workers at two Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM)-owned car assembly plants in Bidadi, about 50 kilometres from Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore), the capital of the southern Indian state of Karnataka, are continuing a four-week-long strike in defiance of the state government’s back-to-work order.

The workers have rejected the TKM’s demand to produce about 100,000 cars a month, instead of 80,000, in order to boost its global competitiveness and profits.

TKM has a total workforce of 6,500, of which 3,460 are unionised and work on the assembly line. The remaining employees include supervisors and office staff, many of whom are required to work on the assembly line, under Toyota’s Genchi Genbutsu (go and see for yourself) philosophy, especially to break strikes.

Striking Toyota workers locked out outside the factory

The workers began a sit-in strike on November 9, demanding the reinstatement of a suspended TKM Employees Union (TKMEU) leader Umesh Gowda Alur. He was victimised for raising with the management the workers’ mounting anger over unbearable workloads. The management imposed a lockout the following day, exploiting COVID-19 social distancing guidelines to throw the workers out of the premises. Seeking to intimidate workers, TKM suspended another 39 for supposed “acts of misconduct,” even though the facility had been closed.

Big business is concerned over the strike’s possible spread to other sections of workers who face similar conditions. Karnataka Employers Association president B.C. Prabhakar sent a letter to state Chief Secretary T.M. Vijay Bhaskar, demanding repressive measures, including “immediate steps to declare curfew around the premises of TKM, Bidadi,” and “stringent action, including the arrest of troublemakers and also to bar them from entering the Bidadi area.”

The Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Karnataka state government banned the strike, while also demanding an end to the company lockout from November 18. The company seized on the government’s order to force workers back to work under its own speed-up conditions. When that attempt failed due to workers’ opposition, TKM imposed a lockdown again on November 23, with the complicity of the state government.

In an interview with the Times of India, TKM deputy managing director Raju Ketkale called on the state government “to take appropriate action” against the workers. This was a call for repressive measures to force workers to submit to the company’s harsh conditions.

Speaking to the World Socialist Web Site, a striking worker said TKM posted two notices on the company gate wall. One prohibits workers taking their mobile phones to the shop floor. The other “said if any worker after returning to work is tested positive to COVID-19, the company will not take responsibility for his treatment and will not grant paid leave for the curing period.” This reflects management’s callous attitude toward the safety of workers as the coronavirus pandemic spreads throughout the country.

Commenting on the media and government hostility to the strike, the Toyota worker said, “We don’t get any support from the main media. If any media men come, first they go and meet the management and publish whatever it says. They edit workers’ comments before publishing them. Our union leader went to meet and sought the support of the local MLAs [state legislative assembly members] and MPs [national parliament members], but no one came forward to support our cause.”

The worker agreed on the need for an international mobilisation of workers to confront the globally-connected employers’ onslaught against workers. “As you say, not only Toyota workers but millions of workers participated in the November 26 general strike in India. That shows that the vast majority of workers are facing a common problem.”

Even before COVID-19, the global auto industry was in crisis. It has never faced such a slump. Over 230,000 workers lost their jobs in July 2019. Then the pandemic intensified the crash. Moody’s Investors Service told the media that Indian auto sales would decline at least 30 percent in 2020, following a fall of over 40 percent in the seven months to July.

Maruti Suzuki Chairman RC Bhargava laid out the agenda of the corporate elite at an All India Management Association event. He declared: “India has the capability to become a lower cost country than China if the industry and the government work together.” This means that the Indian auto companies must conduct an assault on the jobs, wages and working conditions of workers, backed by brutal government repressive measures.

Bhargava’s own company launched a government-backed vendetta against the determined struggle of thousands of workers at the Maruti Suzuki assembly plant at Manesar in northern state of Haryana against slave labour conditions in 2011-12. As a result, 13 militant workers, including all 12 executive members of the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union, an independent union formed by Manesar workers, were sentenced to life imprisonment in March 2017. They were framed up on murder charges.

While TKM workers are confronted with a government-company onslaught, the TKMEU has made no attempt to mobilise the support of other autoworkers. Instead, the union has turned to various parties of the political establishment, which are all committed to defending the profit interests of companies like Toyota.

The TKM workers are involved in a struggle not just against a single ruthless employer, but big business as a whole, its political representatives and the state apparatus. To stop the union leaders isolating their struggle, the TKM strikers must turn to their class brothers and sisters in the auto industry and other sectors throughout India and internationally.

To defeat the deepening attack on jobs, wages and basic democratic rights and the accompanying state repression, workers need new organisations, including action committees controlled by rank-and-file workers themselves, and a socialist perspective.

The Indian trade unions are mostly tied to the various capitalist parties, including the Stalinist Communist parties, and to the national framework. Like the unions around the world, they have responded to globalisation by suppressing working class opposition in order to attract foreign investment.

The courage and militancy of struggling workers are not sufficient to defeat this offensive by the global corporations, governments and unions. Workers need a socialist strategy to unify their struggles worldwide against the capitalist profit system.

Bangladesh Boosts Bay of Bengal Blue Economy

Vijay Sakhuja

The stage is set for the development of the deep sea Matarbari Port Development Project (MPDP) in Bangladesh. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has agreed to provide US$ 25.4 million in financial assistance for the project and a Japanese consulting company, Nippon Koei Joint Venture, has been short listed to provide engineering-related services. The MPDP is expected to commence commercial operations in 2026, and would be capable of receiving  8,500 TEU post-Panamax vessels. Plans are also underway to enhance the port’s capacity to 2.8 million TEUs annually by adding more berths in the future. The MPDP emerges in the background of the “Big-B” concept, i.e. Bay of Bengal Industrial Growth Belt, which was announced by Bangladesh and Japan in 2014. The port is being linked with a national highway and the MPDP includes construction of a connecting road.

There are at least two major spinoffs that would accrue to Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal region. First, it will reduce Bangladesh’s “dependence on the feeder vessels to ferry export-import goods from different foreign ports.” Nearly 90 per cent of Bangladesh’s trade is carried onboard ships that operate out of three ports—Chattogram, Mongla and Payra. In 2017-18, Chattogram port accounted for 98.43 per cent of Bangladesh’s seaborne container trade and the balance was moved through Mongla port. Bangladesh relies on major container transshipment ports in Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia for its international containerised trade.

Second, the MPDP potentially provides the much-needed impetus to short sea shipping in the Bay of Bengal. According to Bangladesh’s State Minister for Shipping, Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury, the MPDP could develop as a “regional hub of connectivity.” Short sea shipping in the Bay of Bengal region has been high on the regional countries’ agenda and a start has already been made with the commencement of services between Port Blair in India’s Andaman & Nicobar Islands, and Aceh in Sumatra, Indonesia. Similarly, connectivity between Port Blair and Ranong (Thailand) can provide the much-needed impetus to short sea shipping in the Andaman Sea. In this context, it is useful to mention that the Indian government has announced INR 10,000 crore to build a container transshipment hub in the Nicobar Islands. It would involve “container transshipment terminal with the Free Trade Warehousing Zone in South Bay, Great Nicobar Island to provide Indian shippers an alternative to Colombo, Singapore and Port Klang (Malaysia) transshipment ports.”

While the MPDP’s contribution to the Bay of Bengal region’s Blue Economy potential is widely welcomed and acknowledged, it is also necessary to keep in mind the strategic dynamics that have been at play in the region, which remain deeply rooted in the security calculus of the regional countries. Given the dual nature of maritime infrastructure projects, these are often viewed as a security challenge, particularly when such projects involve China. A useful example is the Chinese Belt Road Initiative (BRI), under which several port development projects in the Indian Ocean have attracted strategic concerns. Doraleh (Djibouti), Gwadar (Pakistan) and Hambantota (Sri Lanka) have often been labelled as Chinese naval outposts that facilitate operations by the Chinese Navy. It is not surprising that Chinese assisted port projects in Bangladesh and Myanmar have been a matter of concern for India. Similarly, China’s Kra Canal project—which involves building a channel across south Thailand and can potentially reduce shipping distances by at least 1,000 kilometers—has engendered security concerns in India.

While the tensions between economic opportunities and strategic concerns have been a feature of many of the Bay of Bengal maritime infrastructure plans and projects, a new opportunity has emerged for Bangladesh to lead the regional Blue Economy. The concept of Smart Ports is resonating across the maritime world and according to experts, only ‘smart ports’ will survive where to play roulette online for free. Industry 4.0 technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, Big Data, Autonomous Systems, etc are “up-scaling the efficiency of the maritime connectivity eco-system,” Among the major container ports with which Bangladesh conducts container trade, the Port of Singapore is highly digitalised, and Sri Lanka’s Port of Colombo has taken some initiatives in this direction. It will be useful to explore Industry 4.0 technologies that can be part of the MPDP operations.

In fact, these technologies have a major role to play in the development of Blue Economy and will be critical for marine spatial planning, including port development projects. Bangladesh has positioned Blue Economy as high priority and the political leadership has given it the top position among the drivers for national growth. The next step should be to invest in Industry 4.0 technologies that add to improving efficiency and bring added value to the MPDP and Blue Economy in the Bay of Bengal.

Deutsche Telekom Women’s STEM Award 2021

Application Deadline: 14th March 2021

Eligible Field(s): Cloud, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security and Networks of the Future. 

Type: Award

Eligibility: Your bachelor or master thesis is (almost) completed? You studied a STEM subject (Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics)? Perfect. Apply below

Eligible Countries: Any

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:

• The most convincing piece of work from one of the growth areas will be awarded 3.000 Euros.
• In addition, each growth area will be awarded 500 Euros.
• A jury of experts will review all of the papers submitted and select the winning pieces of work together with our external jury member until end of May.
• We will inform the winners in writing and invite them to our price giving ceremony.

How to Apply: Apply here with your thesis and convince our jury!

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

UK Conservative government moves to end national lockdown with Labour Party backing

Robert Stevens

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government is ending the national lockdown and will vote today to re-introduce the Tier system that will be in place over the Christmas period.

The government is ending a lockdown that, despite its partial character and schools and workplaces remaining open, has cut coronavirus infections cases by a third and under conditions in which infections are still high.

The R (Reproduction) level of the virus has fallen below 1 (to an estimated 0.88) for the first time since August. But any progress made is to be torn up so that corporations can reap profits in the run-up to Christmas, with millions of people being allowed to meet together in family groups over a five day period. In a politically criminal decision that will lead to countless deaths, the government announced that all shops will be allowed to open for 24 hours for the entirely of December and January.

Clinical staff care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, England, May 5, 2020 [Credit: Neil Hall Pool via AP]

This is happening even as Imperial College's monthly React survey of 105,000 people between November 13 and 24 found that are still 72,000 infections per day--down from around 100,000 per day at the end of October.

Hundreds of deaths are still being reported daily, with the 205 announced Monday taking the total to almost 60,000. The government tally is manipulated, with a host of other estimates from reliable sources estimating the true number of fatalities at well above 70,000.

According to the government’s own figures nearly 16,000 hospital beds are filled with COVID-19 patients, not far off the peak in April of almost 20,000. Nearly a third of England’s hospital trusts have exceeded their first-wave peak of Covid patients undergoing treatment, according to analysis published by the Guardian. National Health Service (NHS) trusts in South Somerset and Devon “treated more than twice as many Covid patients on at least one day last week as they did at the peak of the first wave in spring.”

Any new surge in infections, the only possible result of ending the national lockdown, threatens to quickly overwhelm the NHS.

That is why the government is doing everything to claim that the NHS is able to cope and has plenty of spare capacity. On Sunday Tory MP John Redwood tweeted, “Why not open and staff all the Nightingale hospital capacity they need for CV 19 cases and get the rest of the NHS back to full capacity for everything else? No need to scare us with the idea the NHS will not cope.”

His tweet was met with a barrage of denunciations from the public, pointing out that there are not enough staff to run the NHS at full capacity, let alone the seven Nightingale field hospitals if they were reopened. Sky News journalist Mark Austin felt compelled to reply, “Staffed by who exactly? Last I heard there are 28,000 NHS staff off with Covid, isolating or off because children sent back from school. Where are the highly trained ICU nurses going to come from?”

The crisis at just one NHS trust over the weekend exposes the government as liars. On Saturday, the critical care unit at Royal Stoke University Hospital was forced to increase its alert level, as 38 of its 322 Covid patients were placed on ventilators—meaning that it had just seven spares. The hospital was forced to reach an agreement with NHS trusts in Birmingham and Coventry and Warwickshire to transfer critically-ill patients and the situation is being reviewed daily. Stoke had warned before declaring the major incident that it was already facing "unprecedented pressures" as Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire reported a further 374 infections in the 24 hours before the crisis.

The biggest refutation of government justifications to end lockdown is the fact that 99 percent of the UK’s population are to be placed into the top two “High” and “Very High” tiers, with 55 million people remain banned from mixing with other households indoors until the five day Christmas exemption. Around 23 million people across 21 local authorities, including substantial parts of the north of England and the Midlands, are in tier three. Most of the population, including London, and the Liverpool city region will be in tier two. Only largely rural Cornwall and low population areas of the Isle of Wight and Isles of Scilly will be under Tier 1.

That the virus is still a major threat is entirely the result of the government homicidal herd immunity policy. As a result of the spring national lockdown, including schools being closed for months, before everything was disastrously reopened allowing the virus to again spread out of control, the number of patients being treated in hospital for COVID-19 fell to as low as 740 nationally on September 11.

A substantial section of Tory MPs in the 70 plus strong COVID Research Group (CRG) oppose further Tier restrictions and have threatened to vote against new measures today, unless substantial concessions are given them by Johnson. The CRG said up to 100 of the Tories overall 364 MPs could rebel.

In response, over the weekend the prime minister sent the CRG a letter insisting that the new measures had a “sunset” expiry date of February 3. Johnson also pledged that all tier allocations would be reviewed on December 16. The government plans that a Cabinet Office committee chaired by Johnson will “take the final decision on tier allocations”. These will be announced on Dec 17 and come into force on Dec 19.

A separate letter was sent to reassure CRG leaders Mark Harper and Steve Baker.

MPs would be given a further vote on whether restrictions could be extended in January. Sections of the CRG are insisting that a vote on whether to renew must come soon after Christmas, with one Tory MP, Nus Ghani, telling the Sun newspaper, “These restrictions must only last for four weeks. There must be another vote in early January because I refuse to lock my constituency into such severe restrictions and throw away the key for two whole months.”

The CRG demanded that Johnson publish assessments of the health, economic and societal impacts of the virus, which the government agreed to.

The right-wing Daily Mail editorialised Monday, “End tyranny of tiers”, declaring, “These blanket restrictions have pushed the whole economy to the edge of an abyss. To drag it back… Johnson must loosen the shackles now. Fine words must be followed by radical action.”

The profit lust of the ruling elite was summed up in the pro-Labour Party Daily Mirror ’ s banner headline Monday, “Go shop for Britain".

The article cited the British Independent Retailers Association declaring, "It's the most important December ever for retailers.” Representatives of big business spoke out to denounce further Tier restrictions, as the Centre for Economics and Business Research claimed it would cost the economy £900 million a day. Pizza Express chairman Luke Johnson asked on the BBC’s Newsnight, "Where is the cost-benefit analysis of the lockdowns? … A lot of these businesses are hanging by a thread. Pubs didn’t even shut during the blitz in the second world war. And yet we are destroying the industry, with thousands of jobs.”

With a Tory rebellion likely whatever concessions Johnson makes, the government is reliant on the support of the Labour Party to get its agenda through. Tory Environment Secretary George Eustice said that the situation was a “national emergency” and “Like all these things, it will depend on what other parties do, yes. It will depend on what the Labour party choose to do… it’s not the time really for any political party to play political games.” Labour said Monday evening that it will not oppose Johnson "in the national interest" and will abstain in the vote. 

Labour’s collusion in this crime extended to the demand that the government should suspend peak rail fares over the Christmas period in anticipation of a surge in demand, as people travel to see families and friends.

Trudeau government appeals ruling on illegal actions of Canada’s secret police

Hugo Maltais

Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is appealing a May 15 judgment against the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Rendered by Judge Patrick Gleeson, the ruling concerned numerous cases in which CSIS obtained Federal Court warrants authorizing intrusive surveillance by hiding from the court that the information supporting its warrant requests had been obtained illegally.

According to press reports, Judge Gleeson’s 151-page decision highlighted seven cases where CSIS acted in this manner. But the number of cases was clearly higher, since according to the same reports, the current CSIS director, David Vigneault, had personally approved more than 10 operations involving “potentially illegal activities.”

Justin Trudeau (Credit: Twitter)

Although all details of the seven cases were expunged from the public version of Gleeson’s decision, which was released on July 16, it appears that they all related to efforts by CSIS to infiltrate Islamist terrorist groups in Syria (and perhaps elsewhere in the Middle East) in order to obtain information about Canadians who may have joined their ranks. By paying members of these groups to spy on its behalf, CSIS violated—and knew it was violating—Anti-Terrorism Act prohibitions on the financing of terrorist activities.

Judge Gleeson’s decision was the result of an investigation ordered by the Federal Court on the basis of suspicions that CSIS and government lawyers had systematically withheld information in violation of their “duty of candour”—in other words, that they had lied.

“Having approved operations that were on their face illegal,” the ruling stated, “the service then collected information which in turn was put before this court in support of warrant applications, without notifying the court of the likely illegality.”

This is the third time in recent years that the Federal Court has ruled that CSIS lied to it. In the 2016 Related Data case, the Federal Court concluded that it had unknowingly issued warrants on the basis of information obtained illegally from an extensive metadata collection and retention program.

The case of the illegal terrorist informants involved not only CSIS and government lawyers, but also unnamed top government officials who authorized operations they knew to be illegal. This included senior personnel within the Department of Justice and the Privy Council Office, which directly advises the Prime Minister and oversees the implementation of his decisions.

“The circumstances,” Gleeson continued in his judgment, “raise fundamental questions relating to respect for the rule of law, the oversight of security intelligence activities and the actions of individual decision-makers.”

With the blessing of the Justice Department, CSIS persisted in these illegal operations and deliberately concealed them from the court in order to obtain warrants long after the department’s own lawyers had officially determined in January 2017 that they were illegal.

Vigneault sought to exonerate himself by saying that when he took office as head of CSIS, in June 2017, he wasn’t properly informed of the controversy surrounding these operations. Briefly interrupted after they were deemed illegal, the operations were resumed with the sanction of the department of justice in March 2017.

In press releases issued on July 16, the Trudeau government and CSIS indicated that they would accept Judge Gleeson’s decision, while seeking to minimize and justify what happened. They presented the illegal actions as a minor technical infraction, and glossed over the fact that CSIS and the government had systematically lied to the court.

CSIS claimed that in paying informers it was only doing what every other intelligence agency does, and the Ministers of Public Security and Justice, Bill Blair and David Lametti, asserted that “at no time was the safety of Canadians at risk, nor were our rights and freedoms.” As if the government and the premier intelligence agency breaking the law and lying to the courts does not constitute an arrogation of state power and thus implicitly threaten and violate Canadians’ rights.

All this is now compounded with the Liberal government’s attempt to overturn Gleeson’s ruling. This can only be interpreted as an invitation to the national security apparatus to continue to lie to the courts.

The government appeal is all the more remarkable in that Judge Gleeson did little more than issue a public reprimand to CSIS and their government overseers. He refused to impose any consequences on them for breaking the law and lying to the court. Nor did Judge Gleeson rule that any evidence that the state had obtained illegally should be declared inadmissible in any future court cases. Instead, he developed a pseudo-legal test that gives judges full discretion to accept the evidence if it is in the “interest of the community [because of] the seriousness or imminence of a threat to the security of Canada.”

Judge Gleeson’s sole “corrective” was to recommend the government order a thorough investigation of CSIS’s adherence to and attitude toward its “duty of candour.” The desired review will never take place, as evidenced by the federal government’s decision to appeal the judgment rather than order a review of CSIS’s adherence to the law.

The timidity of Justice Gleeson’s judgment is not surprising. The handful of Federal Court judges appointed to hear national security cases behind closed doors are fully integrated into Canada’s security apparatus. Their role is to provide judicial cover for a reactionary service whose main task is to monitor and spy on the Canadian population so as to defend Canadian capitalism and its state.

This explains the judge’s sympathy for the spies and their lawyers, whom he criticized above all for “breaking the bond of trust between the Court and CSIS and its lawyers.” The anti-democratic implications of the gross violation of the rights of Canadian citizens by CSIS are not worthy of mention in the judgment, other than a reference or two, rhetorically, to the importance of the “rule of law.”

In the end, the judgment, which was released to the media by the Federal Court despite the secrecy that normally surrounds national security matters, was a public relations ploy by the Canadian state. Accordingly, Judge Gleeson issued several warnings to CSIS that such behaviour would “undermine public confidence in the [Canadian Security Intelligence] Service” as a “vital national institution.”

The real objective of the section of the establishment on whose behalf Judge Gleeson speaks is not to “reform” CSIS or even to end its illegal practices. Rather, its goal is to ensure that CSIS works even more closely with the Federal Court to foster the “democratic” image of the national security apparatus among Canadians, so the intelligence agency has the greatest latitude in carrying out its function as a key instrument to surveil and repress social opposition to the government, the capitalist elite, and its agenda among the population in general, and especially the working class.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage across Canada, exacerbating social inequalities and class tensions, there is great concern in ruling circles that opposition to its right-wing policies is taking increasingly militant forms.

The Trudeau government intends to confront this challenge by continuing to increase the powers of the security forces, while camouflaging its anti-democratic actions, as it has done since coming to power in 2015, with phony “progressive” posturing. Its ability to do so, despite implementing a massive military spending increase, further integrating Canada into Washington’s military-strategic offensives around the world, slashing tens of billions from health care spending, and spearheading a homicidal back-to-work/back-to-school policy amid the coronavirus pandemic, is entirely bound up with the support it receives from the trade unions and NDP.

Just before the 2019 election, which saw Trudeau reelected as leader of a minority government, the then Liberal-controlled Parliament passed Bill C-59, an Act on Matters of National Security. This legislation expands the repressive powers of the state, particularly those of CSIS and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE). Canada’s primary foreign surveillance agency, CSE connived with CSIS in the illegal retention and use of metadata that was the object of the Related Data case.

Bill C-59 was promoted as a democratic reform of the law the Harper government passed in 2015, with Liberal support, that in the name of “fighting terrorism” gave vast new powers to Canada’s national security apparatus. However, Bill C-59 retains the fundamental provisions of Harper’s law—whose powers were so sweeping that even the Globe and Mail termed it a “police state” bill—while adding further anti-democratic measures.

One of the most important changes made by Bill C-59 was to give almost absolute immunity to CSIS agents who violate Canadian laws in the course of their operations. This means that since the Liberals’ legislation came into force on June 21, 2019, the criminal activities revealed by Judge Gleeson are perfectly legal.

In order to hide the reactionary nature of its new legislation, the Trudeau government has touted the creation of so-called review mechanisms, including an intelligence commissioner and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency.

However, as the WSWS explained in its analysis of Bill C-59, these mechanisms, like the Federal Court, “are nothing more than a fig leaf, aimed at providing the intelligence agencies with a legal-constitutional cover.” They have no binding power over CSIS and they conduct their “watch-dog” oversight activities in complete secrecy, well beyond the eye of Parliament, let alone public scrutiny.

Judge Gleeson wrote that their predecessor, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, had been well aware of CSIS’s illegal activities for several years, but had neither succeeded in stopping them nor seen fit to reveal them to the public.

In November, shortly after the Trudeau government announced its appeal of Gleeson’s judgment, it let it be known that it is exploring the possibility of creating a centre to facilitate the declassification of historical Canadian secret service documents. This was an obvious attempt to deflect attention from the government’s cover-up and complicity in CSIS’s ongoing crimes.

Were such a body to be created, it would be used to project a false image of transparency, and, as indicated by comments from various “security experts,” to glorify the country’s intelligence agencies.

The “security experts” quoted in the media criticized Canada for lagging behind its allies in disclosing historic national security and intelligence files, while suggesting that a declassification centre would strengthen public support for CSIS and other arms of the state security apparatus by raising “Canadians’ awareness of the practice, importance and challenges of national security.”

Like the Gleeson ruling, “sensitizing” Canadians to a glorified history of CSIS and its predecessor, the RCMP Security Service, is part of the ruling elite’s preparations to suppress any mass movement in opposition to austerity, imperialist aggression, and its prioritizing of profit over human lives amidst the worst pandemic in a century.

Deaths mount as Spain’s PSOE–Podemos government escalates assault on migrants

Alice Summers

At least nine migrant workers died last week attempting to reach the Canary Islands, a Spanish territory off the west coast of Morocco. The deaths occurred as a boat carrying 30–40 mostly Moroccan migrants sank after hitting rocks close to the northern shore of the island of Lanzarote.

While nine bodies of young men in their twenties and thirties have so far been found, many of the 28 survivors who had been aboard the raft indicated that five women and three children had also travelled with them, who have not yet been located.

Refugees rescued in the Mediterranean in 2014 © Italian Navy/M. Sestini

According to the International Organisation for Migrants (IOM), which is affiliated with the United Nations, over 500 people have so far died this year on the West Africa migration route to the Canary Islands, with the majority of deaths occurring in October and November. The death toll is already well over double that of 2019, when the IOM recorded 210 fatalities on this sea crossing. These figures are a minimum estimate, the IOM stressed, with the actual loss of life feared to be much higher.

The latest deaths come as the Spanish government steps up its attacks on refugees seeking to make the journey to Europe, announcing late November that they would build prison camps across the island chain to hold migrants pending deportation. The Socialist Party (PSOE)–Podemos government has refused to allow the thousands of desperate people trapped on the archipelago to be transferred to the Spanish mainland, stating that to do so would be a “pull factor.”

Speaking at a press conference on the island of Tenerife at the end of November, Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos reaffirmed that migrants will not be transferred to the Spanish mainland, cynically declaring that the internment camps at military bases across the islands are intended to provide “the most dignified [humanitarian conditions] possible” until refugees can be deported to their countries of origin.

If migrants are transferred to the mainland, Ábalos claimed, “we will not stop being the entry door to Europe. We cannot send a message that these things are possible. …”

Spain has appealed to the European Union (EU) to intervene in the crisis in the Canary Islands, with Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya calling for the signing of a “European migration deal.”

“Migration needs a European approach,” Laya declared. “It is not enough that Spain, Italia, Malta and Greece are doing our good work.” In other words, the Spanish Foreign Ministry is demanding that the EU more equally share out the burden of incarcerating, deporting or allowing desperate refugees to drown on the ocean crossings.

In late November, PSOE Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez despatched Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and Foreign Minister Laya to West Africa to negotiate agreements with regional governments to prevent refugees from travelling to the Canary Islands, and for the rapid deportation of those who do arrive on the archipelago.

Spain has already arrived at an agreement with Senegal, with Foreign Minister Laya and her Senegalese counterpart Aïssata Tall Sall announcing the conclusion of a deal on November 22 that will see the deportation of all of the Senegalese migrants who are in Spain “illegally” back to their country of origin.

Spain will also reinforce its security presence in Senegal, increasing the number of Civil Guard and National Police members in the West African country, supposedly to combat people-trafficking operations, as part of a joint offensive with Senegalese authorities. The agreement will allow Spain and Senegal to “jointly fight against irregular immigration, clandestine [immigration],” Laya stated, “which is in the hands of criminal networks.” Laya emphasised Spain’s plans for mass deportations, declaring: “Those who use illegal routes will have to return to their country. …”

Interior Minister Marlaska also travelled to Morocco in the hope of securing a similar deal, reportedly demanding that the North African country reinforce its Atlantic coast and work with Spain to implement the forced repatriation of Moroccan migrants.

According to elDiario.es, authorities in the Canary Islands have been handing out summary expulsion orders to migrants within days of them arriving at the port of Arguineguín in Gran Canaria, in flagrant violation of their right to claim asylum. The migrants, who had had no access to lawyers, despite having the right to legal aid within 72 hours of their arrival, had received deportation notices signed by the Government Subdelegation in Las Palmas, the regional capital of the island of Gran Canaria.

According to Judith Sunderland, acting deputy director for Europe and Central Asia for the charity Human Rights Watch, who visited Arguineguín at the start of November, none of the migrants she interviewed had spoken to any lawyers or had the expulsion orders explained to them in a language they could understand before being made to sign it.

Speaking to Canarias Ahora, Sunderland stated: “All of them told me that they had not understood that the document they had been given was an expulsion order. Those who had understood something told me that the Police had explained that the paper meant they had been registered, and it could be used to identify them if they were stopped by the Police.”

These brutal policies are being carried out with the full collaboration of the “left populist” Podemos party, who, despite token criticisms of the treatment of refugees and claims to support the transfer of migrants to the mainland, have refused to oppose these measures.

Speaking last Thursday before the joint committee for the Coordination and Monitoring of Spanish Strategy, Podemos leader and Spanish Vice President Pablo Iglesias declared that while he supposedly disagreed with the PSOE’s refusal to transfer migrants to the Spanish mainland, his party had to “accept” that their minority status in the government would not allow them to act.

“I am not going to continue along these lines because I think that I am being clear,” Iglesias stated. “In politics, unfortunately, what most counts is not being right or having good ideas, but having sufficient forces.”

There is overwhelming popular hostility to the persecution of migrants and refugees. It is precisely these “forces” that Iglesias seeks to contain and suppress. Podemos’s refusal to wage any serious struggle in defence of migrants has handed political initiative to the far-right, who are calling for an even more brutal crackdown on migrants.

Last week, the national spokesperson for the far-right Vox party, Jorge Buxadé, launched into a fascistic tirade against refugees at a press conference, declaring that Spain was in the grips of a “veritable migrant invasion” and calling on the Armed Forces to intervene.

“In the face of an invasion, the state has to defend itself with all means,” Buxadé stated. The government must use “all the measures at its disposal,” he demanded, including the “intervention of the Armed Forces and a naval blockade of the Canary Islands.”

The inaction of Podemos underscores that no serious fight against the ruling class’s anti-refugee policies can be waged through appealing to factions of the capitalist political establishment. The working class must unconditionally defend the right of workers across the world to live and work in the country of their choosing, with full citizenship rights and in safety. This can only develop in opposition to all the reactionary pseudo-left parties across Europe, who have fully collaborated with the brutal anti-migrant policies of the whole European Union, as part of a struggle for socialism.

Kremlin pressures Lukashenko to give up power in Belarus

Clara Weiss

After almost four months of mass protests against his rule, Alexander Lukashenko, who claims to have won the August 9 presidential elections, indicated last Friday that he will step down early next year once the country adopts a new constitution.

The statement, which was quoted by Belarusian state media, was vague, however. Lukashenko said, “I am not making a new constitution for myself. With a new constitution, I will no longer work with you as president.” He then raged against “democracy” which, in his words, had earlier led to the ruin and collapse of the country.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko speaks during a meeting with officials in Minsk, Belarus, August 27, 2020 [Credit: Sergei Sheleg, BelTA Pool via AP]

On Sunday, the Belarusian police again violently cracked down on opposition protests and arrested at least 300 people. Maria Kolesnikova, the main opposition leader who is not jailed in Belarus or gone into exile, stated that the opposition would not enter into dialogue with Lukashenko until opposition leaders have been freed.

The statements by Lukashenko followed on the heels of a visit by Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov to Minsk on Thursday in which he stressed the need for Minsk to make constitutional changes.

Lavrov pointed to the “hostile attitude” of the West—NATO and the EU—toward both Russia and Belarus and stated, “we are, of course, interested in a stable and calm situation in Belarus. In our view, a constitutional reform initiated by the leadership of the country would contribute to such a situation.” Lavrov described rumors that Moscow is in negotiations with the opposition as “lies.”

Media reports earlier suggested that Russia is working on the release of the ex-CEO of Belgzprombank, a Belarusian subsidiary of the Russian state gas company Gazprom, Viktor Babariko, who has also been a leader of the opposition.

Russian media reported that Lukashenko and Putin struck a deal in Sochi back in September. While the details of the agreement are unclear, it reportedly involves constitutional changes that limit the powers of the president, and the basis for a transition of power in Minsk. The Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that political experts interpret Lukashenko’s latest statement as an attempt to “fool” the Kremlin yet again as to his intentions about actually fulfilling the agreement.

The EU has also been stepping up pressure on Lukashenko. Yet a new round of sanctions targeting officials of his government went into effect last week. According to Russian press reports, further sanctions might target not just Belarusian but also Russian officials and businesses.

Russia has been backing the Lukashenko regime amid the protests, largely in response to the aggressive intervention of the EU in the conflict and its support for the opposition.

However, relations between the Kremlin and the Lukashenko regime have been tense, both before and after the protests. Throughout his rule, Lukashenko has sought to balance between the EU and US, and Russia. In the year leading up to the August election, his government undertook significant steps toward closer relations with NATO, and Minsk welcomed US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last January, the first such visit of a high-ranking US official to the country in decades. Lukashenko has also maintained closed ties to the Ukrainian governments that followed the US- and German-backed coup in Kiev in 2014. Along with the EU, the Zelensky government turned on Lukashenko, however, over the protests.

Belarus is the last state on Russia’s western borders that is not directly integrated into NATO or the EU. The fact that the Kremlin is now stepping up pressure on Lukashenko is bound up with both geo-strategic and domestic considerations.

Not least among them are the US elections and the announcement by president-elect Joseph Biden of his national security team. His appointees are an assembly of war criminals who were active in the Obama administration which orchestrated, among other things, the 2014 coup in Ukraine which triggered an ongoing civil war in the East of the country, as well as the almost decade-old civil war in Syria.

Unlike other foreign leaders, Putin has not congratulated Biden on his clear electoral victory. In a November 22 interview, Putin pointedly referred to Biden as a “presidential candidate.” He said, “We’ll work with anyone trusted by the American people. But who in particular is given this trust should be indicated either through the political custom of one side conceding the other’s victory, or the final election results should be released in a legitimate and legal manner. The president-elect should be named, the incumbent president should recognize the results of the election, and all legal actions should be completed.”

The refusal by the Kremlin to acknowledge Biden as the president-elect has less to do with sympathies for Trump, who, contrary to what the anti-Russia campaign by the Democratic Party has suggested, has in fact, stepped up the sanctions regime against Russia and delivered lethal weapons to Ukraine. Rather, there is enormous nervousness in the Kremlin about the political instability in the US itself, and fear of the consequences of both a potential coup by Trump, which would likely be preceded by a war against Iran, and a Biden presidency. The past few weeks have seen a series of major provocations by the US and Israel against Iran, most recently the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist.

A war against Iran would directly threaten Russian interests in the Middle East, while a Biden presidency is expected to further ratchet up tensions in Russia and also increase direct US support for forces such as the Belarusian opposition.

Under these conditions of growing geopolitical uncertainty and tension, the Kremlin is trying to push for a resolution of the crisis in Belarus as rapidly as possible so as to avoid both a more direct conflict with the US, and secure a transition to a government that would allow it to maintain at least some influence over the country.

At the same time, the Kremlin is concerned about the ongoing social instability on its borders.

Just like the EU, the Russian oligarchy was initially above all concerned with the mass strikes that erupted in August and September against Lukashenko. These strikes also hit factories delivering manufacturing goods to Russian companies, including arms companies. While the strike movement was temporarily brought under control through a combination of violent repression by the regime and above all the political intervention of the opposition and affiliated trade unions, class tensions remain high.

Having lost all confidence in the ability of Lukashenko to control the mass protests, even through violent repression, the Russian oligarchy is fearing that a prolongation of his rule in the face of mass opposition threatens to provoke a strike movement that could well outstrip that of August-September, and spread to Russia and other countries.

The second wave of the coronavirus has hit Belarus hard. The Lukashenko government has pursued a policy of herd immunity from the very beginning of the pandemic. Now, the country of just under 9.5 million people has officially over 135,000 cases, no doubt a vast undercount of the real numbers as testing remains extremely limited. Over 37,000 of these occurred over the past month, and over 11,000 were added last week. The economic crisis is even more severe. As real wages continue to decline, the government is discussing raising the prices for several staple items, including bread, meat, diary produce and sugar. In several regions, public transportation fares have already been raised.