Chinese defence minister visits Nepal to boost political and military ties

Rohantha De Silva

Last week’s visit to Nepal by Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe was aimed at strengthening political and military ties between Kathmandu and Beijing. The landlocked and poverty-stricken Himalayan country has become another focal point in the geo-political rivalry between India and the US on one side, and China on the other.

Wei’s high-level trip, which occurred as tensions increased between Nepal and its southern neighbour India, is a part of Beijing’s efforts to counter Washington’s economic-strategic offensive. Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi has effectively transformed his country into a front line state in the US war-drive against China.

During his 10-hour visit, Wei, who is a serving People’s Liberation Army (PLA) general and a state councillor, met with Nepalese Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Army Chief Purna Chandra Thapa, before flying to Pakistan.

China's Minister of National Defence Wei Fenghe in 2018 (Photo: James N. Mattis/Wikipedia)

Oli reiterated Nepal’s commitment to a “One-China policy” and that Nepalese land will never be allowed to be used against China. He also said that his government was committed to recent agreements reached between the two countries and that Kathmandu wanted to learn from China’s “steadfast progress on socio-economic fronts.”

Wei is the most senior Chinese official to visit Nepal since Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trip last year and only the second defence minister to visit in the past two decades. The visit, he declared, was aimed at “enhancing mutual military assistance” and further strengthening relations. The general promised to safeguard Nepal’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity. While India was not named, Wei’s remarks were clearly related to Kathmandu’s border dispute with New Delhi.

As the Kathmandu Post reported on November 30, the “major takeaway” of Wei’s visit “is an understanding on resuming Chinese supplies of various non-lethal military aid to Nepal, which had been halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.” It noted that the “resumption of training and student exchange programs, and following up on defence assistance” were also discussed.

On arriving in Nepal, Wei went first to the Nepalese Army headquarters where he was received with a guard of honour. He spent two hours there before meeting Oli.

An official Nepalese Army statement said: “Wei and the delegation viewed both the proposals positively and affirmed that bilateral cooperation should resume as soon as possible, including the exchange of high-level visits. Wei also pledged to provide additional assistance to the Nepal Army in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.”

A three-member Chinese delegation arrived in Nepal several days prior to Wei’s visit and raised various “concerns” with Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who are co-chairmen of the Stalinist Nepal Communist Party (NCP) and Bahadur Deuba, leader of the main opposition Nepali Congress.

While the delegation’s “concerns” have not been revealed, they probably discussed an ongoing factional dispute between Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, and allegations by the Nepal Congress that China was grabbing land which belonged to Nepal.

Beijing is heavily involved in efforts to patch up factional differences inside the NCP between Oli and Dahal over the control of the state and party apparatus. Dahal wants Oli to resign as either prime minister or party chair. Chinese Ambassador to Nepal, Hao Yankee, is reportedly mediating between the factions to keep the current government in power.

Relations between Nepal and China were greatly enhanced after the current Oli administration came to power in May 2018 on an anti-Indian platform. Beijing fears that any collapse of the NCP-led government due to factional conflict between Oli and Dahal could reverse its ties with Nepal.

Although India remains Nepal’s largest trading partner, Kathmandu is a member of China’s $US1.4 trillion Road and Belt Initiative and hopes to open up trade and investment opportunities. Kathmandu has also signed a transit treaty with Beijing to use Chinese ports for its foreign trade and reduce its dependence on Indian ports. Nepal has already joined China’s internet service, ending India’s previous monopoly on cyber connectivity in the country.

While Nepal is landlocked and squeezed between India and China, its access to the outside world is mainly through India, a geographical factor exploited by New Delhi to pressure Kathmandu. Nepal’s relationship with India, however, has been strained since 2015 when New Delhi imposed an economically damaging five-month fuel blockade on Nepal, prompting an agreement with Beijing for emergency fuel supplies.

Nepal has also blamed a number of Indian-built dike-like structures along the Indo-Nepal border for the flood damaging of thousands of hectares of land. Relations hit another low in November 2019 when India published a map showing a disputed area in northwest Nepal as Indian territory.

Wei’s visit occurred as India is increasing its efforts to bring Nepal into its geopolitical orbit. Indian army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane visited Nepal for three days in early November following a trip by Samant Kumar Goel, head of India’s Research & Analysis Wing (RAW)—the country’s external intelligence agency, and a two-day visit later in November by Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Sharing.

India has traditionally considered Nepal, which is strategically located on the Chinese border, within its sphere of influence and is determined to prevent losing Kathmandu to China. In its efforts to woo Nepal, New Delhi is not just defending its own geo-political interests but also functioning as a key military-strategic partner of Washington and its economic and military aggression against China.

India is also a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or QUAD, which includes the US, Japan and Australia, and is aimed against China. This de facto anti-China military alliance has hardened in recent times as indicated by the participation of all four countries in recent Malabar war games sponsored by India.

Washington’s belligerent actions against China are politically destabilising the whole region and greatly enhanced the danger of a major military conflict in Asia-Pacific.

“Red-tagging” accusations at the centre of elite conflict in the Philippines

John Malvar

Political forces associated with the fascistic administration of President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines are escalating a McCarthyite “red-tagging” witch-hunt, alleging that legal political organisations are secretly part of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and actively supporting “terrorism.” The dispute is an initial salvo between rival sections of the elite in the mounting political tensions leading up to the May 2022 presidential election.

The Philippine Senate Committee on National Defense and Security, Peace, Unification and Reconciliation last week concluded a three session investigation into claims that the political parties that comprise the Makabayan bloc were secretly controlled by the CPP.

The Senate committee called witnesses, introduced as former cadre of the Communist Party, who raised charges that the elected legislators of the Makabayan bloc were in fact members of the CPP, which has been outlawed as a “terrorist” organisation.

Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte (Presidential Communications Operations Office/Wikipedia)

The Makabayan bloc is the legislative coalition of the various sectoral political groups under the umbrella of Bayan. Bayan comprises a wide array of groups, including Gabriela (a women's rights organisation), Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU, a labor union group), a peasants’ organisation, multiple youth organisations, student groups, religious organisations of a political bent, etc. The list is extensive.

Over the past six months, a number of activists of these organisations have been targetted for persecution. Some have been killed in extrajudicial assassinations, others have been arrested.

Behind the red-tagging attacks on Bayan is the powerful apparatus created by the Duterte administration, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). The NTF-ELCAC was formed in December 2018 with an annual budget of nearly 20 billion Philippine pesos ($US415 million), a staggering sum dedicated exclusively to anti-Communist propaganda.

The Anti-Terrorism Act, passed in July 2020, extended the power of NTF-ELCAC. It authorised warrantless wiretapping, surveillance, and arrest without warrant for up to 24 days of anyone accused of terrorism, by the Anti-Terrorism Council, of which NTF-ELCAC is a core member. The Anti-Terrorism Act goes into full effect in 2021.

Duterte is targetting Bayan because he knows that it will play a central role in channelling mass support behind the elite opposition in the next election, and will be involved in any behind-the-scenes machinations for his ouster.

Neri Colmenares, a three-term legislator of the Makabayan bloc, made this point explicitly in a press conference on November 2. He declared that “behind the red-tagging of the progressive party-lists is the government’s electoral agenda to cripple the opposition in the coming 2022 national elections.” He stated that they “would campaign for the opposition” and that “the administration would utilise its resources to remain in power.”

The red-tagging attack on Bayan and its member organisations is a key component of the political faction in the ruling elite. While Duterte, by funding NTF-ELCAC and creating the climate of extrajudicial killings, has sharpened the McCarthyism considerably, “red-tagging” as an aspect of ruling class rivalry has a half-century long history in the Philippines.

Bayan and its affiliated organisations share a common political line with the Stalinist CPP: an orientation to the formation of an alliance with a section of the capitalist class in the name of nationalism. Both the CPP and Bayan insist that the tasks for a revolution in the Philippines are not yet socialist in character but national and democratic only, and that a section of the capitalist class—the so-called national bourgeoisie—will play a progressive role and are a necessary ally of workers and peasants.

In service to this program, the CPP and the legal organisations that follow its political line have concluded alliance after alliance with different sections of the political and economic elite in the Philippines, with disastrous results for working people. There is hardly a single oligarchic family or political party to which the CPP has not at some point been tied.

This fact gives a somewhat farcical and deeply hypocritical character to the entire bloody affair. The CPP and Bayan supported Duterte as mayor of Davao City for decades and enthusiastically backed his first year as president. Representatives of Bayan served on his cabinet and Jose Maria Sison, founder and ideological leader of the CPP, issued numerous statements hailing the “progressive” character of the Duterte administration.

Duterte cultivated this relationship. He delivered speeches in front of a hammer-and-sickle flag, proclaimed himself a “socialist,” and posed with raised fist for photographs with the representatives of Bayan.

The class function of Stalinism, and therefore of the Maoist CPP and Bayan, is to channel working class and peasant opposition behind the interests of a section of the capitalist class. When the party’s relations with Duterte broke down, largely due to the intervention of the Philippine military, the CPP began to look to form an alliance with the ruling class opposition.

During the heyday of Bayan’s relations with the newly elected president, the bourgeois opposition to Duterte denounced his ties to Communists. Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who rose to political prominence as a murderous member of the Philippine National Police, openly engaged in red-tagging. Lacson now chairs the Senate committee investigating red-tagging. He declared that the burden of proof rests on those making accusations against the Makabayan bloc, and stated that he would look into legislation criminalising red-tagging.

The hypocrisy is universal. Duterte red-tags his former allies; the elite opposition, former red-taggers, now decry red-tagging; and Bayan and company denounce as a fascist Duterte, whom they assisted to power, and turn to ally with those whom they previously denounced.

The ruling class opposition to Duterte remains a political minority. It is organised around the Liberal Party (LP) of Vice President Leni Robredo.

Bayan has called for the criminalisation of red-tagging. Their Liberal Party allies in the Senate have declared that they are looking at crafting a bill to carry this out.

LP Sen. Francis Pangilinan said it was “worth looking into.” Sen. Risa Hontiveros, of the pseudo-left Akbayan Party, stated that said she “would consider it.”

A core constituency of Akbayan's founding membership were breakaway groups from the CPP in the 1990s, and Akbayan shares a common nationalist program with Bayan. Akbayan, however, effectively merged with the Liberal Party during the Benigno Aquino III administration, and shares a common slate with the LP. In the past, Akbayan has denounced Bayan as “front organisations” of the CPP, and Bayan has decried this red-tagging. The CPP and Akbayan have now aligned, however, behind the same set of bourgeois interests.

The Senate hearings did not have the result that Duterte sought. On November 30 he bluntly stated in a press conference that the Makabayan bloc were members of the Communist Party. National Security Advisor Hermogenes Esperon, Jr., a leading figure in NTF-ELCAC, declared that they were pursuing “the disqualification of the Makabayan bloc before the Commission on Elections.”

On December 4, the human rights group, Karapatan, a member of Bayan, filed a criminal complaint against Esperon, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Southern Luzon Command chief Lt. Gen Antonio Parlade, and Presidential Communications Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy—all ranking NTF-ELCAC officials. The complaint charged them with crimes against humanity.

The McCarthyite allegations of NTF-ELCAC, armed with the power of the Anti-Terror Act, are an imminent threat to the Filipino working class. The full force of reaction and authoritarian rule is being prepared to crack down on any emergence of mass unrest and opposition in the country.

The CPP and the organisations that follow its political line oppose red-tagging as a means of securing an alliance with ruling class opponents conspiring against Duterte. The forces with whom the CPP is currently allied have in the recent past waged a similar McCarthyite campaign.

It is impossible to fight against McCarthyism, red-tagging, and reaction on the basis of the Stalinist program of the CPP. The only way forward for the Filipino working class is to fight for its own independent class interests. This requires a break from every section of the capitalist class and their political props in the CPP and Bayan.

Food prices, waste rise as food insecurity affects tens of millions in the US

Alex Findijs

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruption to the food supply chain in the United States. Farmers who lost their markets have been forced to let millions of pounds of food waste even as tens of millions of workers suffer from food insecurity.

In 2019, 35 million Americans suffered from food insecurity. Two-thirds were able to obtain enough food to eat through food assistance programs or altered eating patterns, while one-third suffered from a reduction in food intake.

Researchers from Northwestern University believe that the number of food insecure households has more than doubled this year, affecting 23 percent of all American households. Households with children have seen this rise to 29.5 percent.

El Rancho grocery store in Dallas, Tuesday, May 12, 2020. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

This immense food crisis for the working class has been caused by sudden job loss, the refusal of the United States government to provide sufficient financial aid during the pandemic and a significant increase in food prices.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has reported an average inflation of four percent for food items in 2020, double the 20-year average.

Throughout the year, food prices were incredibly volatile. The consumer price index (CPI) for food rose by 2.7 percent in April alone—the largest one month jump since February 1974—and the cost of groceries rose by 5.6 percent between June and July according to Food Business News.

The cost of dairy products collapsed by 17.4 percent from January to May before soaring back up by 24.5 percent in June. The collapse in price was accompanied by millions of gallons of milk being dumped every day by dairy farmers who could not find markets, all while millions went hungry.

The USDA expects 2020 to close with a price increase for fresh vegetables between two and three percent, while the price increase for meat products will average between seven and eight percent.

The rise in food prices places an incredible burden upon working class families who were already suffering before the pandemic.

The bottom 20 percent on American households spent an average of $4,400 on food in 2019, totaling 36 percent of their income. With the Congressional Research Service finding that more than half of households making less than $75,000 a year experienced some loss of income this year, these price increases in food will have a considerable impact.

However, while prices for consumers rose considerably, the prices that farmers received did not.

The futures prices for important farm products like corn, wheat and livestock have fallen by five to nine percent. In August, the retail price for beef was around five percent higher, while the farm price was twenty percent lower.

USDA chief economist Robert Johansson expects cash receipts for farmers to decline by $31 billion this year compared to predicted figures from before the pandemic.

A significant portion of this loss has been offset by government farm assistance programs that have provided tens of billions of dollars to farms hurt by the pandemic. In total, government farm assistance payments amounted to $46.5 billion for fiscal year 2020, 52 percent more than in 2019.

This funding could help save many US farmers from financial ruin, but which farms received this money is a different matter.

Little information is available about who received how much of the funding, but data on farm income provides an insight into how wealthy farmers may have benefited the most from these programs.

The average net cash income of farms grossing over $1 million dollars in sales—3.9 percent of all farms—is expected to be $858,000 in 2020, a 21 percent increase from the previous year and a 19 percent increase over the USDA’s forecasts from February 2020.

Increases in retail prices cannot explain this phenomenon alone, especially considering the overall loss in expected income that has occurred.

Meanwhile, 80 percent of farms sell under $100,000 worth of products and are expected to average just $8,000 in income this year. This is an increase from the prediction in February that small farmers would lose $2,600, but it is clear that large farms benefited the most.

The volatile and unpredictable economic situation that farmers have faced has also resulted in the loss or destruction of millions of pounds of food throughout the pandemic.

In May and June, the Dairy Farmers of America was reporting that farmers were dumping 14 million liters of milk every day as demand for milk products imploded.

After meat processing plants temporarily slowed production, farmers with nowhere to sell livestock euthanized hundreds of thousands of pigs.

The Washington Potato Commission estimates $1 billion in losses for Washington State’s gross domestic product. Farmers lost $29 million from the 2019 harvest and the lack of demand going into the 2020 pandemic.

As a result, farmers cut production for 2020 by 13 percent, or 729,120 tons, with the potential to see farmers lose a further $300 million.

A study on agricultural production losses during the pandemic in the United States published this October by William Ridley and Stephen Devadoss found extensive financial losses in vegetable and fruit production.

They estimate upwards of $48 million dollars in total losses this year for major produce such as apples ($5 million), lettuce ($16 million) and grapes ($4.5 million). While these losses are measured in dollar value, they are related to disruptions in the labor force and the ability to harvest and sell agricultural products.

The total amount of food lost during the year is unknown, but these figures provide an insight into the scale at which the food supply chain in the United States has been disrupted and the immense losses that American farmers and workers have suffered as result of the ruling elite’s criminal response to the pandemic.

The unseen plight of undocumented workers in the US during the pandemic

Melody Isley

The United States marked another grim milestone this week, reporting a record 2,921 deaths due to COVID-19 on Thursday. The country has recorded a total of over 288,000 deaths since February and 15 million total cases.

Despite these horrific numbers, there still remain hundreds of thousands of unreported infections and thousands of deaths that are left out of official counts. Undocumented workers in the US are at a unique risk of being under-reported, as their lack of citizenship and the ever-present threat of detention and deportation prevents them from seeking assistance, medical or otherwise.

During the crisis triggered by the pandemic, the undocumented, a particularly abused and exploited section of the working class, face even greater challenges than before. These workers live not just in fear of deportation, homelessness, or destitution, but are increasingly forced to suffer the prospect of contracting COVID-19 alone, unseen, and denied care.

Workers at an apple orchard in Yakima, Washington, June 16, 2020 (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Making up nearly 6 percent of the American workforce, undocumented workers fuel industries like agriculture, manufacturing, meatpacking and animal husbandry, as well as the broader service industry, which includes food services, building and outdoor maintenance, and construction.

Across the United States, more than 2.5 million farm workers and almost 2 million food service workers are undocumented immigrants, constituting almost half of all farm workers in the United States and almost a quarter of food service work. Undocumented workers provide up to 30 percent of the labor in the service industry in California.

Despite the “essential” label tacked onto these industries during the pandemic, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has refused to require or enforce any kind of COVID-19 safety measures for workers.

COVID-19 has ripped through the agricultural industry and its “essential” workers. Research by Purdue University estimates that more than 145,000 farm workers have tested positive for COVID-19. This number, while staggering, does not include temporary laborers as well as those who could not be tested—most likely undocumented workers.

The Immokalee Region of southern Florida, a region known for its significant immigrant population and year-round tomato growing, reported more than 1,000 COVID-19 cases in October. At a watermelon farm in Florida’s Alachua County, 90 of the farm’s 100 workers tested positive for the disease over the course of a month.

According to a recent study from UC Berkeley, farm workers in California have contracted coronavirus at nearly three times the rate of other workers. In the San Joaquin Valley of Central California, one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world and by far the most active in the US, one county reported almost 28,000 cases and 522 deaths, with rates growing astronomically between August and December. More than 1,180 agricultural workers in Santa Barbara County have tested positive, revealing only a fraction of the actual scale of the spread.

Like in agriculture, meatpacking workers and others in food production have a significantly increased risk for contracting the virus. California’s Central Valley also set another US record with the largest outbreak from a single farm when 400 employees tested positive at a poultry farm in Merced County. In Los Angeles, the Farmer John meatpacking plant, the largest such facility in the state, racked up tens of thousands of dollars in wrist slap fines for unsafe conditions which resulted in more than 300 employees contracting COVID-19 during the month of November alone.

Tyson Foods, the world’s second largest meat processing company, recently made international headlines after managers placed bets on how many workers would contract the deadly virus at a pork plant in Waterloo, Iowa. The company has reported that more than 10 percent of their 100,000 employees have contracted the virus—a record for the industry. In Perry, Iowa, home of one of the largest Tyson facilities, more than 730 workers have tested positive, making up more than 10 percent of all cases in rural Dallas County.

All told, eight percent of all COVID-19 cases in the US so far can be linked to meatpacking plants. When there is an outbreak at a farm or packing house, these “essential” workers are unable to physically distance at work and also at home due to cramped living quarters. As these cases develop, it becomes a distinct possibility that half if not the majority of workers at a given facility will contract the virus.

Compounding the existing pains of financial instability and the constant fear of deportation, undocumented workers face amplified challenges during the present crisis as they have no access to state or federal financial assistance, no opportunities for remote work, and are likely to take on whatever low-paying, precarious position they can find in the labor market, risking their lives in the process.

Miguel, an undocumented restaurant worker for more than 10 years, painted a devastating portrait of the difficulties facing undocumented workers across the US in a recent interview with the World Socialist Web Site .

He explained that while many undocumented workers are left behind and harassed by the US government, they still “work those jobs that American citizens don’t want to do. We clean toilets, we clean the offices, we’re doing the hard labor to keep this country running. We keep it clean, we keep it fed… and no one sees us.” Despite being on the front lines of the pandemic and fueling much of the US economy, undocumented workers are given even less resources than others, while also being actively terrorized by the government.

Many undocumented workers have lost their jobs, forcing them to move-in with three or four other families to afford a place to stay. “A lot of them have become homeless during COVID,” Miguel explained. “They don’t have a place to go, they don’t have a place where they can get help.”

According to the US Census Bureau, immigrant workers are over four times more likely than US-born citizens to live in overcrowded conditions—a situation that already is troubling but is even more worrisome during the COVID-19 crisis and contributes heavily to the disproportionate rate of infection in immigrant communities.

Miguel worries that “kids from undocumented families are going to be left behind because they don’t have the resources.” As undocumented parents are denied resources, their children, including those who are US citizens, suffer alongside. He explained that since many parents are unable to afford to pay for internet service, children risk falling behind academically as classes move online. "Kids are being forced to go to Starbucks to sit outside on the sidewalk or sit outside the library to do their homework and go to their online classes," Miguel noted.

While some workers have the limited ability to take time off for testing or quarantine, undocumented workers lack even these insufficient measures. Miguel said, “We are disposable. You get sick? You get fired. And that’s the end of it.”

In San Diego, the family of one undocumented farm worker spoke to CBS8 about their struggle. The children of the farm worker reported that their father had contracted coronavirus from a coworker in the fields and developed severe symptoms, leading to his death.

The family, undocumented and citizens alike, feared that testing would pose a serious risk to their safety as COVID-19 testing requires a certain amount of personal information to be aggregated into a national database. The father died without access to testing and had been actively barred from proper resources and care due to his undocumented status. The family is now forced to grieve in anonymity due to continued fears of deportation. Their father’s death will be unreported by the government and unseen in the official death toll of the pandemic.

Many undocumented people live in mixed-status households, and more than 90 percent of immigrant parents have children who are American citizens. Living in a mixed-status household puts every member of the family in a precarious position. Even if some are citizens, they often report feeling unable to ask for help from any government affiliates, ranging from local police to local hospitals and financial relief agencies, for fear that they could potentially put their undocumented family member at risk for identification and deportation.

These fears are entirely justified, considering that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has conducted some of its largest raids in history during the pandemic. The WSWS reported in September that a record-breaking raid saw more than 2,000 immigrants taken into custody, primarily from their homes since a pandemic stay-at-home order was in place.

A scientific and humane response to the COVID-19 crisis would include free and abundant access to resources like rapid testing and treatment for all people, as well as widespread financial assistance for all workers and their families, regardless of citizenship or work status. But this is not possible under capitalism in which everything, including workers’ lives, is subordinated to the demands for ever greater profits. Workers must take up the fight for socialism to reorganize society under the democratic control of the international working class to meet the needs of all, rather than the financial interests of a few.

Medical workers protest across Mexico as President AMLO continues to downplay pandemic

Andrea Lobo

Exhausted after eight months of the pandemic, fearful of a new surge, and threatened against speaking out, health care workers across Mexico have been involved in a growing wave of demonstrations against unsafe conditions, lack of pay and over other demands.

Ajusco Medio Hospital workers march on November 30 (Facebook, Myriam Lira)

The country has reported several new records of daily cases since November 25, while the seven-day running average of daily deaths has nearly doubled since mid-October to 570. In total, the country has reported 1.1 million cases and 108,000 deaths, the fourth highest death toll in the world. But testing is remarkably low, with about half of tests coming out positive.

Hospitals are rapidly filling up again. After nearly 150,000 health care workers have contracted the virus and almost 2,000 have died, they still lack the necessary protective equipment.

On Monday, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that Mexico is in “bad shape” and that rising cases and deaths were “worrisome.” Alluding to Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO), who often doesn’t wear masks in public and constantly minimizes the danger of the pandemic, the WHO chief added, “We would like to ask Mexico to be very serious … and we expect leaders to be examples.”

Since early November, protests in hospitals have included rallies, marches and several threats of strikes. These have concentrated in the two main hotspots of the pandemic in the country, Mexico City and the state of Chihuahua, which borders Texas.

As countries all over the world face spikes due to capitalist governments refusing to carry out the necessary shutdowns to contain the virus, recent weeks have also seen an upsurge in strikes and other forms of protests among health care workers internationally—from Spain to Chile, South Africa, Kenya, and the US states of Pennsylvania and New York.

Protesting workers in the Mexican capital and its metropolitan area have denounced insufficient protective equipment, personnel and medicines. A worker at the Carlos MacGregor Sánchez hospital in Mexico City said COVID-19 patients are being intubated while conscious because of a shortage of anesthetics, while there is a ratio of one specialist per 10 patients. At the José Vicente Villada Hospital in the State of Mexico, a worker explained to Noticias por el mundo: “We are not at 100 percent capacity because patients are dying quickly. Five died on Friday and were taken to the refrigerated truck.”

Throughout November, workers at the Ajusco Medio Hospital in Mexico City have carried out several marches and roadblocks to demand the formalization of all contracts on an equal basis, and to protest the lack of any wage increase in 10 years.

Ajusco Medio Hospital workers marching on November 30 (Facebook, Angel Mora Martínez)

Medical workers at the Women’s Hospital of Chihuahua carried out a demonstration to protest lack of equipment and personnel—exposing the fact that this had resulted in deaths of patients and even postponed births due to a lack of gloves. The union SMEEICH has threatened to strike.

Workers at the ISSTE Hospital in Chihuahua city carried out a demonstration occupying an entrance this week, denouncing the administration and the trade union, which both simply ignore their demands. One nurse revealed that a co-worker died of coronavirus while waiting in line to be attended, while another explained, “The staff works tooth and nail; we all suffer a lack of equipment and are worried about our health. At least four people are dying each day; the areas are saturated.”

The National Union of Workers for Mexico’s Health (UNTSM), a group of health care workers organized on social media in response to the pandemic, organized a mobilization in Mexico City on November 27.

José Benito Gómez Velasco, a nurse who traveled from Chiapas to Mexico City for the UNTSM protest, demanded the formalization of nurses’ contracts with all social benefits. “We demand a stop to repression by the authorities for asking for protective equipment,” he said. “The reinstallation of all health care workers fired during the pandemic is urgent.”

In Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, hospital workers have also carried out several marches and threatened strikes. They are demanding the payment of a promised COVID-19 bonus, and the stipulated Christmas bonus and aguinaldo —an end-of-the-year bonus paid across Latin America and Europe that in Mexico involves the payment of an extra fortnight. “They are withholding those payments. We need them to pay our bills and we can’t afford them without our bonus and a guinaldo ,” said a nurse to Border Report .

Doctors at the Women’s Hospital in Chihuahua have also told reporters that, just like the factory workers and others who show up at their hospitals sick, they too are denied tests, forcing them to get tested at their own expense.

Doctors at the Regional Hospital of Chihuahua also carried out several days of protests outside the building during breaks to demand unpaid bonuses. “What we know is that in Chihuahua they tell you: there is no money, and there is no money,” said a doctor to reporters.

Nurses at the Central Hospital of San Luis Potosí took to social media on December 1 to protest against being overworked, while not getting paid salaries, the aguinaldo and other benefits.

Nurses protest unpaid salaries and bonuses at the Central Hospital of San Luis Potosí

On Wednesday, in response to the growing pressure from medical workers and the WHO, AMLO, the Mexican president, likened any lockdowns to “dictatorship,” insisting “the fundamental thing is to guarantee liberty.” He then relativized the need to wear masks, claiming, “Everyone is free. Whoever wants to wear a mask and feels safer is welcome to do so.”

Meanwhile, the National Guard his government created is being deployed across the country against protests, including by medical workers. Just last month, six guardsmen were arrested for persecuting and shooting down farmers protesting a hydroelectric plant causing a drought near Chihuahua City. They killed one woman.

Also on Wednesday, the AMLO administration began its “Programa Paisano” which will receive approximately half a million Mexican citizens living in the United States and Canada for the holidays, despite an existing ban for nonessential travel across the US-Mexico border. The United States is currently seeing record cases.

López Obrador, who has aligned himself with the efforts of Donald Trump to establish a presidential dictatorship in the US underpinned by fascistic anti-immigrant forces, published a video on social media encouraging the migrants to risk their lives and those of their loved ones for the holidays. “You deserve the best of treatment, to be received like heroes—our migrant countrymen,” he said.

The only “best treatment” and “liberty” his administration is defending is that of the corporate elite to extract profits from workers facing unsafe conditions and of Wall Street to keep plundering Mexico’s public treasury, with AMLO prioritizing debt payments over health expenditures and social assistance during the crisis.

The overwhelming of the hospitals, and the infections and deaths among health care workers are the direct result of these deliberate policies of social austerity and reckless reopening of nonessential businesses, which subordinate the lives of workers to the profits of the ruling class.

Growing protests in Germany against lethal policy of opening schools

Gregor Link

The decision by German politicians to keep schools, day-care centres and businesses open under unsafe conditions is daily costing the lives of hundreds of people, who die a completely avoidable and agonizing death. On Wednesday, the number of deaths in Germany reached a new high of 512 deaths—the day before it was 487. Another 17,000 to 19,000 people are currently infected every day, and many fall seriously ill.

Nevertheless, the federal and state governments are sticking to their homicidal herd immunity policies, and on Wednesday, again spoke out against the closure of schools and nonessential production. In doing so, they are continuing deadly policies and putting tens of thousands of lives at risk. The positive test rate has risen sharply in recent weeks and now stands at 9.3 percent—almost twice as high as the threshold of 5 percent set by the World Health Organisation (WHO), a level above which the pandemic threatens to spiral out of control.

Crowds of pupils in a school in Dortmund-Hacheney, Germany

“We can see that the health authorities are increasingly exhausted,” said Professor Lothar Wieler, president of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI—the German government agency responsible for disease control and prevention), at a press conference on Wednesday. “For example, they are no longer able to determine where those affected have contracted the disease. We are seeing more and more outbreaks in old people’s homes and nursing homes.” In some regions, Wieler said, hospitals were once again at the limit of their capacity. The number of serious outbreaks and deaths was increasing “from week to week.” Due to the time lag between infection and death, “many more” were to be expected.

Virologist Christian Drosten, from Berlin’s Charité hospital, also confirmed on Twitter on Wednesday, concerning the figures in the RKI report, that these were “minimum measures” due to “under-testing” and that “late reports could therefore be expected.”

The fact that November was by far the deadliest month of the pandemic to date is a devastating indictment of the criminally inadequate government action aimed solely at protecting the corporate balance sheets of German corporations, stabilizing the financial markets and not endangering Christmas shopping.

A key role in this calculation is played by schools and day-care centres—not as safe places for education and free development, but as “custodians” of children who should not get in the way of their working and profit-producing parents.

With a view to schools, Wieler conceded that “naturally” an “infectious event” was also taking place there and added, “We are seeing more and more outbreaks in school settings. By [Wednesday] we had received news of a total of 636 outbreaks in schools. In the last four weeks, that was 64 outbreaks per week.”

To protect “grandma and grandpa,” the RKI president called for the coronavirus rules (wearing a mask, maintaining a safe social distance, regular ventilation) to be followed and warned the population of the devastating consequences of poor “compliance.” He did not mention a word about the government’s responsibility.

But students, parents and teachers know only too well that individual adherence to the rules is not enough to ensure safety from the contagious virus in crowded schools and day-care centres. While children and young people come to school with sleeping bags, hot-water bottles and umbrellas to avoid freezing or being snowed on due to the open windows and sub-zero temperatures, protests and school strikes for safe education are growing throughout the country.

As reported by broadcaster WDR, students at the Schiller School in Bochum went on strike on Wednesday against forced attendance at classes amid the pandemic, “to protect their own health and that of their families.” According to the school management, half of the students stayed away from lessons, and in the upper school, “a maximum of five percent” of students were present. Student representative Abdelbari Shniba told the broadcaster, “The anger about the current coronavirus schools’ policy is, of course, great. This is mainly because it is the top priority of this state government to enforce in-person lessons by all means.” He emphasized “that we are not per se striking lessons, but in-person lessons.”

According to press reports, the district government of Arnsberg, in its role as school supervisory authority, made it clear in an “objective discussion” with the students “that there is no room for exceptions from the nationwide regulations.” School administrators could only set up distance learning “in consultation with the responsible school supervisory authority” if in-person teaching could no longer be guaranteed “due to a lack of personnel capacities caused by the coronavirus”—in other words, only if masses of teachers had already become victims of the pandemic.

In Frankfurt, hundreds of students went on strike on Monday to demand safe education and a model alternating in-person with at-home lessons. Three hundred students took part in a demonstration at 11 a.m., called by the Frankfurt am Main City School Board (SSR). As the hessenschau television news reported, the students were demanding the provision of additional buses and trains for peak hours and a tightening of hygiene rules in schools. “Regular lessons in full classrooms are a danger to students, teachers and their families,” explained SSR board member Hannes Kaulfersch.

The school strikes in Bochum, Frankfurt and other cities follow the pattern of protests and school occupations that have taken place in France, Poland and Greece in recent weeks and months. They are part of a nascent international mass movement of students and workers against the European governments’ herd immunity and austerity policies.

Resistance is also growing among teachers. In a video statement on Instagram that went viral, teacher and author Bob Blume states, “Actually, you don’t even need to read Kafka anymore—you just have to look into the latest regulations.” This was particularly evident in the refusal of state governments to close schools or equip them safely: “If the incidence value is too high for us, we simply set the limit higher!” He had “to bring forward all class tests,” so that “students now have to write three class tests a week” and were literally “bombarded” with tests.

Meanwhile, he said, there was a lack of “resources for school administrators, who sit in school until the evening.” While he publicly condemned the situation, Blume said, “no one among the politicians was interested.” He summed up their attitude toward the pandemic and schools by saying: “Students simply don’t matter. Teachers don’t matter, school administrators don’t matter—it all simply doesn’t matter at all.”

Andrei Priboschek, editor of the educational magazine News4Teachers, has also sharply criticized the arrogance and inaction of government politicians in an open letter to the prime ministers of the German states.

Given the hypocritical admission by Bavarian State Premier Markus Söder that “practically one plane crashes every day in Germany,” Priboschek said, “the question arises as to why you don’t care about air traffic control (to keep the analogy). On the contrary: you do everything possible to maintain mass air transport without restrictions. Worse still: you even drive people into the aeroplanes.”

Instead of ensuring safety in schools or closing them down, government politicians had agreed “that schools could introduce hybrid in-person and at home teaching, if the local incidence value is over 200—but even then, only occasionally and when it suits the respective state government.” And this despite the “hundreds of outbreaks in educational institutions” noted by the RKI.

The result of this decision was that “aeroplanes ... continue to fall from the sky day after day, while in day-care groups and school classes, around 13 million children, young people and their educators and teachers are brought together every day practically unprotected, in the case of schools this is even obligatory due to compulsory education.”

The News4Teachers editor also contradicts the lie that keeping schools open has something to do with educational fairness: “For decades ... we have known that 20 percent of students—those from poor families—are well and truly disconnected. ... And what have you done for these children in the past 20 years? Nothing.” There were “no cross-cutting school concepts” for distance learning, no adapted curricula and examination schedules, “no digital equipment” and no additional teaching staff to ensure that students could repeat the “messed up school year” voluntarily.

Instead, “millions of children and hundreds of thousands of teachers have to sit in schools every day at single-digit temperatures in conditions that you and your staff in state chancelleries and ministries would never accept. The federal government provides its top officials on business trips with a second ticket for air and rail travel, so they don’t have anyone sitting next to them during the flight or trip. State administrations have equipped state parliaments and ministries with mobile air filters. They conduct their meetings via video conferencing software and sit behind Plexiglas screens in the state parliaments. But day-care centres and schools must continue as if there were no pandemic.”

Their “dishonesty towards families, educators and teachers,” Priboschek concludes, meant the German state premiers were “not one jot better” than the US president and notorious liar, Donald Trump, whose government is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

To stop the murderous “profits before life” policy, students, teachers, educators and parents need a socialist perspective, and must take their safety in their own hands. An important step on this path was marked by a networking meeting last Friday, called by the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE). By an overwhelming majority, the meeting adopted a political resolution calling for the formation of rank-and-file committees to prepare strikes for safe education.

The resolution stresses that “resistance in schools must be linked to workers’ struggles for safe workplaces and to defend jobs. It must be part of a broad mobilization for a general strike that places the needs and health of the people against the profit logic of capitalism.” Instead of transferring billions to the corporations, the following demands must be implemented: Close schools and day-care centres and prepare safe education! Invest billions in safe and good education! Full compensation for lost wages for parents who have to care for their children!

Alternative for Germany shifts further to the right

Peter Schwarz

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is positioning itself ever more openly as a fascist party. This was underscored by its party congress held last Saturday in Kalkar, North Rhine-Westphalia.

The congress’ proceedings were dominated by bitter conflicts between party leader Jörg Meuthen and the neo-Nazi “Wing” (Flügel) around Thuringia state AfD leader Björn Höcke. But this is merely the form through which the entire party shifts further to the right, tests out its political options and searches for a social base for a mass fascist movement.

AfD leader Jörg Meuthen (Photo: Robin Krahl / CC BY-SA 4.0)

Many media outlets portrayed the congress as a conflict between the bourgeois and right-wing extremist forces. But they did the same in 2015, when Frauke Petry ousted party founder Bernd Lucke, and in 2017, when Petry suffered the same fate. At the time, Meuthen was pulling the strings to engineer Petry’s ouster in collaboration with Höcke, the party’s honorary chairman Alexander Gauland, and parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel. Meuthen has cooperated closely with the right-wing extremists ever since. No journalist can explain how this promoter of right-wing extremists has suddenly become a standard bourgeois politician.

In his speech, Meuthen warned the 600 delegates to moderate their manners and statements. He called for more distance from militant coronavirus deniers, criticised “the pushing and shoving around” in parliament, where guests invited by AfD deputies threatened deputies from other parties, and attacked the honorary chairman Gauland, who had spoken of a “coronavirus dictatorship.”

“But is it really wise to talk about a coronavirus dictatorship?” asked Meuthen. “We don’t live in a dictatorship, otherwise we would hardly be able to hold this congress as we are doing today.”

Meuthen is above all concerned that a too explicit presentation of the AfD’s right-wing extremist positions could scare off some voters. The party’s poll numbers are currently well under the level of support it received in 2017, when the AfD emerged as the third largest party with 12.6 percent of the vote. “People will stop voting for us due to such incidents,” complained Meuthen. “We won’t be successful by appearing increasingly aggressive, rude and uninhibited.”

At the congress, Meuthen enjoyed support from delegates in western Germany, who are concerned about losing their parliamentary posts and thus their incomes. However, less than a third of the delegates applauded his speech. Around half of the delegates and the remainder of the party leadership opposed him, which culminated in bitter recriminations. Some loudly called for him to resign and held up red voting cards in protest. The party congress organisers turned the microphone off when several angry speakers opposed him. Gauland described Meuthen’s speech as aimed at “splitting” the party and accused him of bowing before the domestic intelligence agency.

Unlike previous congresses, the Kalkar gathering did not result in a split. A motion denouncing Meuthen’s “splitting behaviour” was not put to a vote. Meuthen and his opponents have no differences over content. They all advocate the same right-wing extremist, xenophobic, chauvinist and authoritarian policies. They merely have tactical disagreements.

At the end of the congress, 89 percent of the delegates voted to accept the main motion of the federal commission on social policy. The document is a racist and volkish manifesto. It incites hatred against foreigners and contains no genuine social demands or policies to redistribute wealth.

Social policy is for the AfD above all a means to resolve the “demographic crisis” and increase the birth rate. “An increase in the birth rate to a sustained level of 2.1 children per woman is the only way to stabilise and retain our social systems, and also to maintain our culture and the continued existence of our people,” stated the motion.

Immigrants should be barred from social welfare to the greatest extent possible and repatriated to their countries of origin, it continues. Large sections of the motion amount to a diatribe against foreigners. For example, it blames “the migration of poorly-trained and low-qualified migrants since the 60s” for “the disappearance of German virtues.”

The social policy measures proposed by the AfD cannot even be described as modest. The age of retirement should be freely chosen in line with several options, which would either contribute to an increase in old-age poverty or elderly people in the workforce.

Politicians, the self-employed and newly hired state officials, excluding soldiers, police officers and judicial employees, should be brought into the obligatory pension system and no longer be financially supported by the state—a populist demand aimed at appealing to anger towards those “at the top” while doing nothing to overcome social inequality. The wealthy and those with high incomes would be left unscathed.

The AfD also proposed a form of child premium. Families should receive €20,000 of the parents’ pension contributions in the form of rebates through the tax system, and the state should transfer €100 each month into a savings account for every child who is born as a German citizen and leads their life in Germany.

The AfD is despised among wide layers of the population and has fallen well below 10 percent support in many opinion polls. Their influence is secured thanks above all to the established parties, and the official “left” in particular, for two reasons.

Firstly, the “left” parties are responding to the global capitalist crisis and the coronavirus pandemic with renewed attacks on the working class and lower middle class. As the banks and major corporations are flooded with cash from the government and central bank and the share markets reach new record highs, workers are losing their jobs or being forced to work under life-threatening conditions. Small business owners and the self-employed are being forced into bankruptcy.

The government policies implemented by the Left Party, Social Democrats and Greens do not differ on these issues from the Christian Democrats (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU), or Free Democrats (FDP). This provides the AfD with the opportunity to fish for support among desperate layers of the population with National Socialist demagogy.

Secondly, the establishment parties are deliberately paving the way for the AfD. They welcome them into the media and parliaments. The further the AfD shifts to the right, the closer the established parties collaborate with it. The right-wing extremist terrorist networks in the army and police, which have close ties to the AfD, are systematically covered up by the intelligence services and judiciary.

The true relationship between the established parties and the AfD was shown clearly in Thuringia in February, when the CDU, FDP and AfD jointly voted in a new minister president. After he was forced to resign in the face of a wave of protests, Left Party Minister President Bodo Ramelow reached out the hand of cooperation to the AfD and cast the deciding vote to give the party the prestigious post of a parliamentary vice president in Thuringia’s state parliament.

In Saxony Anhalt, the CDU and AfD are currently cooperating closely to block a planned increase in the broadcast licence charge. Their opposition to the unpopular measure is a pretext to pave the way for a government coalition including the AfD.

The promotion of the AfD by the establishment parties has objective roots. The ruling class is relying on the right-wing extremist party to enforce its policies of militarism, the strengthening of the repressive state apparatus, and social spending cuts against mounting opposition among the population. The coronavirus policies pursued by the federal and state governments are virtually identical with those of the far-right “Lateral Thinkers” movement and the AfD. A few activities in the sphere of private life are restricted, but the real super-spreader events—schools, workplaces, and public transport systems—remain open without any safeguards. Profits must flow unhindered, even if this costs large numbers of human lives.