US Special Forces sent into Mozambique amid growing civil war

Bill Van Auken

Amid an escalating armed conflict in Mozambique, the Pentagon has sent US Special Operations troops into the southern African nation. The deployment of these troops, described as “trainers” and “advisers,” and justified in the name of the endless “war on terrorism,” provides fresh confirmation of the Biden administration’s global escalation of US militarism, including on the continent of Africa.

Announced in the middle of last month, the US deployment has come amid a sharp escalation in the civil war being fought in Mozambique’s northern-most province of Cabo Delgado, where the Mozambican government is confronting an insurgency among that region’s predominantly Muslim population.

US special forces commander addressing Mozambican marines on March 15 (US Embassy Mozambique)

The latest fighting has centered in the town of Palma, a hub for the exploitation of the country’s natural gas fields, which was seized by the rebels at the end of last month, sending an estimated 11,000 people fleeing to the port city of Pemba on the Indian Ocean. According to the United Nations, some 670,000 have been displaced since fighting began in the region in 2017.

Commander Chongo Vidigal, the chief of the government forces sent to retake Palma from the rebels told the media Sunday that the area was now “safe.” An earlier attempt to bring reporters to the scene, however, was aborted after the helicopter flying them to the town came under fire.

The main objective of the military operation was to secure the site of a $60 billion liquefied natural gas project initiated by the French energy giant Total, which has demanded a 15-mile secure perimeter as a condition for its continued presence. Having resumed operations only on March 24 after shutting down its facilities following an earlier rebel offensive at the beginning of the year, Total has shut down again, pulling all of its employees out of the region. In addition to the French-based energy transnational, Italy’s ENI and the US-based ExxonMobil also have interests in Mozambique’s natural gas reserves, believed to be among the largest on the planet.

Just days before the dispatch of the US special forces troops, on March 11, Washington designated “ISIS-Mozambique” as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization,” paving the way for the US military intervention. The US Embassy in Maputo said that Washington “is committed to supporting Mozambique with a multifaceted and holistic approach to counter and prevent the spread of terrorism and violent extremism.”

The “ISIS-Mozambique” label is an invention of the US State Department. Locally, the insurgents are known as al-Shabab, Arabic for “the youth,” and have no connection to the Islamist insurgent group based in Somalia that goes by the same name. While the Islamic State has issued videos falsely claiming responsibility for the Mozambican insurgency’s attacks, there is no evidence of operational links between ISIS and the rebellion in northern Mozambique, much less of it posing any threat of international terrorism.

The government of President Filipe Nyusi in Maputo, Mozambique’s southern capital, has pushed the “terrorist” label, and Washington has eagerly embraced it. Their aim is to cover up the complex political and social roots of the conflict and to justify a counterinsurgency campaign aimed at defending the interests of a ruling national oligarchy, transnational energy corporations and global finance capital.

The roots of the insurgency in Cabo Delgado lie in the conditions of stark inequality that characterize Mozambique, where, according to figures released before the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than half of the population live under conditions of absolute poverty. Wealth is monopolized by a small ruling elite dominated by the ruling FRELIMO (Front for the Liberation of Mozambique) party and its cohorts and concentrated in Maputo.

Cabo Delgado, among the least developed areas of the country, has seen increasing amounts of wealth extracted from beneath its soil with the development of the natural gas projects as well as ruby mining. Virtually none of this wealth, however, has benefited the impoverished masses. Muslims, who are a minority in Mozambique, constitute more than half of the province’s population. Political domination of the province, however, has been monopolized by the predominantly Catholic Makonde ethnic group, of which President Nyusi is a member.

The immediate spark for the armed conflict came in 2017, after the government sought to suppress a layer of Muslim youth, some of them educated in Saudi Arabia, who had sought to introduce a stricter form of Islam and challenged older Muslim clerics with ties to the FRELIMO regime.

FRELIMO, considered at the time one of the most radical of the African nationalist movements, came to power in 1975 after a 10-year-long armed struggle against Portuguese colonialism. Independence came after the overthrow of Portugal’s Salazar dictatorship in 1974. It was followed, however, by 15 years of bloody civil war in which the apartheid regime in South Africa, the white minority regime in Rhodesia and the US Central Intelligence Agency backed a counterrevolutionary movement known as RENAMO (Mozambique National Resistance) in a bloody conflict that would claim a million lives.

That today’s FRELIMO regime of President Nyusi is calling on the very same forces against which the movement fought in the independence struggle to assist it in suppressing an insurgency speaks volumes about the organic incapacity of the bourgeois nationalist movements to realize the aspirations of the African masses for freedom from foreign domination, democracy and social justice. As in South Africa, Zimbabwe and elsewhere on the African continent, Mozambique’s former “freedom fighters” and self-styled Marxists have turned themselves into a gang of corrupt millionaire politicians and comprador capitalists.

In addition to the US Special Operations troops that have been deployed to Mozambique, Portugal, the country’s old colonial master, has announced that it is sending at least 60 special forces “trainers.”

The Mozambican security forces have also relied heavily on a South African-based private military contractor, the Dyck Advisory Group (or DAG), which consists of South African mercenaries commanded by Lionel Dyck, a former colonel in the Rhodesian army. The DAG has been charged by Amnesty International with crimes against humanity, including dropping so-called barrel bombs on population centers, firing machine guns from helicopters into crowds and attacking schools and hospitals.

While US troops have gone into Mozambique on the pretext of fighting “terrorism,” the Pentagon under President Joe Biden is acting under the same guidelines set by the National Security Strategy enacted under Trump at the beginning of 2018, which stressed that “Great power competition—not terrorism—is now the primary focus of US national security.”

Africa constitutes a key battleground in the “great power competition” between the US and China that is undergoing a sharp escalation under the Biden administration. China has surpassed the US as the continent’s number one trading partner and lender, while engaging in widespread infrastructure projects under its “Belt and Road” initiative. Washington fears being locked out of a strategically important market and source of raw materials and is seeking to compensate, as elsewhere, with military intervention, with the peoples of Africa suffering the consequences.

Jordan prince told to stop “destabilising activities” after more than a dozen arrests

Jean Shaoul

In an unprecedented move, Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi has accused Prince Hamza, the former crown prince and half-brother of King Abdullah, of plotting with foreign and local parties to destabilise the country.

The details are far from clear as the Jordanian authorities have released little information. Hamza is believed to be under house arrest, although officials deny this, while 14 to 16 former insiders have been arrested. According to the government-controlled Petra News Agency, all who were “arrested, among others, for security reasons” were unnamed except for Sharif Hassan bin Zaid and Bassem Awadallah.

Hamza, the 40-year-old son of the late King Hussein and his fourth wife Noor, attended an elite school in Britain before going on for military training at Sandhurst. Designated Abdullah’s successor until 2004, and then largely sidelined, Hamza has caused tensions within the palace by forging links with disaffected members of Jordan’s powerful tribes, the East Bankers, who form the bedrock of support for the monarchy and feel marginalised by the presence of the West Bankers, the Palestinians displaced by Israel in the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948-49 and 1967.

On Saturday afternoon, after the Jordanian Armed Forces chief of staff visited Hamza at his home to give him an official warning to stop his “destabilising activities,” the BBC published a video of Hamza, passed on by his lawyer, in which he denied being part of any “conspiracy or nefarious organisation or foreign-backed group.”

In the video, Hamza claimed he had been placed under house arrest, with his telephone and internet connections cut, as part of a crackdown on critics. He lambasted the ruling elite in very general terms for its rampant corruption and nepotism, the outlawing of opposition and dissent, including any criticism of the king, and the all-pervasive security and intelligence services, all of which is common currency.

On Monday evening, Hamza signed a letter of loyalty to Abdullah, following a meeting with Prince Hassan, the king's uncle, and other princes, just hours after saying he would disobey orders by the army not communicate with the outside world after he was put under house arrest.

Awadallah, 56, was economic secretary to the Jordanian premier between 1992 and 1996, and headed the royal court in 2007. After his sacking the following year, he took up a business career in the Gulf, and is believed to have spent the last few years working as a consultant for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, advising him on the privatisation of Saudi Arabia's Aramco oil company.

Bin Zaid is a distant relation of the Jordanian royal family with extensive business activities in Riyadh, where he once served as King Abdullah’s special envoy to Saudi Arabia.

Others arrested are reportedly Hamza’s close associates, including his office manager, bodyguards and palace manager, as well as several former state officials.

Safadi said that the security agencies had detected interference and communications, including some with foreign entities, on the “ideal timing” for taking steps towards destabilising Jordan’s security, although he stopped short of calling it an attempted coup. He added that these plots were carried out in parallel with extensive discussions between Prince Hamza and key figures in the Jordanian society that sought to encourage them to undermine national security, with Hamza coordinating his activities with Awadallah. A man linked to a foreign security service, reportedly an Israeli businessman, had contacted Prince Hamza’s wife to offer a plane to fly them out of the kingdom.

On Sunday, Hamza’s mother, Queen Noor, took to Twitter to describe the allegations against her son as “wicked slander,” as his supporters defended him, claiming he was being set up by the king and his son, Crown Prince Hussein, to intimidate Abdullah’s critics and cover up for the government’s corruption and economic mismanagement.

Washington immediately reaffirmed its support for Abdullah, with whom it has recently reached a defence agreement allowing free entry of US forces, aircraft and vehicles into Jordan, although it does not authorise American forces to carry out combat actions within the country.

The Gulf petro-monarchs, none of whom—whatever their differences with Abdullah—are anxious to see the kingdom destabilised, rushed to offer him their support. Relations have soured in recent years as Abdullah refused to allow Saudi Arabia to mount air strikes against Syria from Jordanian territory or support Riyadh in its dispute with Qatar, leading to a lengthy freeze on Saudi aid to Jordan.

Abdullah also fears that the price for formal relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, envisioned under the Abraham Accords, will be the transfer of control of Jerusalem’s holy sites, especially the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, from himself to the Saudi monarch, even though the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty grants Jordan special status there.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has remained notably silent. Relations between the Israel and Jordan have deteriorated in recent weeks amid a very public spat between Netanyahu and Abdullah, following Netanyahu’s refusal to allow Crown Prince Hussein to visit the al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem with his own security detail last month, prompting Hussein to cancel his visit.

Jordan then barred Netanyahu’s flight over its air space to make what would have been his first official visit to the United Arab Emirates, forcing Netanyahu to cancel his visit and try, unsuccessfully, to ban flights between Jordan and Israel and delay approving a request by Jordan for water.

The crisis gripping Jordan, hailed for decades by the imperialist powers as an oasis of stability in a region wracked by decades of US-led wars and conflicts, has been long in the making. The desert kingdom was carved out of the former Ottoman Empire by the British in the aftermath of World War I as a client state to promote its interests in the oil-rich region. Without oil or other natural resources other than phosphates, it was never a viable state, and deliberately so.

Jordan was from the beginning dependent on external aid, first from Britain, then the United States, which provided some $1.4 billion and hundreds of millions more in refugee aid last year, and later the Gulf States. It is ruled by a monarch, the scion of a sheikh from the Arabian Peninsula, who appoints and dismisses prime ministers at will as a means of deflecting criticism away from his own corrupt rule. Without a semblance of democratic norms, and with censorship and surveillance widespread, Jordan rests on a system of military patronage.

The country has been profoundly destabilised by the 2003 US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq and the proxy war to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, orchestrated by the US, its Gulf allies and Turkey. Jordan has added more than one million Iraqi refugees and 655,000 registered Syrian refugees in addition to a similar number of unregistered Syrians refugees to its population, now numbering over 10 million.

The pandemic has exacerbated the already fragile economy, whose growth in the previous three years had slowed to just 2 per cent a year. Tourism has been gutted, which accounted for nearly 20 percent of GDP, along with remittances from the Jordanian diaspora working in the Gulf, another 12 percent of GDP.

With COVID-19 cases rising and deaths numbering more than 7,200, a public hospital in Al-Salt, close to the capital Amman, ran out of oxygen two weeks ago, which killed at least six people and fueled unrest and demonstrations.

Government debt is expected to rise to 112 percent of GDP, while estimates of growth for 2021 range from a paltry 1.4 percent to 2.5 percent. In March 2020, the International Monetary Fund approved $1.3 billion in emergency financing, but this is unlikely to be enough. Official unemployment is now 25 percent, undoubtedly a pale reflection of the actual unemployment and underemployment rate, as hundreds of thousands of Jordanians have been forced to quit their jobs in the Gulf.

The coup allegations and the absence of any means within Abdullah’s autocratic regime for the Jordanian working class—East Bankers, Palestinians and refugees alike—to express its social concerns and interests testify to the contradictions wracking the global capitalist system. While the economic circumstances are different, this “oasis of stability” faces a crisis of bourgeois rule no less than its neighbours Lebanon, Israel and Iraq.

Abdullah will undoubtedly seek to use the coup allegations to extort financial and political concessions from the new Biden administration and his erstwhile regional allies to prop up his tottering regime.

The Jordanian working class must likewise turn to its allies, the working class throughout the region, to take power, eradicating the arbitrary borders imposed by the imperialist powers and expropriating the regime’s ill-gotten wealth in the context of a broad international struggle of the working class against capitalism and for the building of socialism.

Myanmar: Protests continue despite fierce military repression

Robert Campion

Over two months since the coup by the Myanmar military on February 1, violence and mass arrests by the junta have failed to stem protests calling for the reinstatement of the democratically-elected government.

According to the activist group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), at least 16 people were reported killed over the Easter weekend bringing the total to 564, while a further 299 were given arrest warrants. These numbers are likely higher due to an almost-complete internet blackout in the country.

Protesters shout slogans during a protest against the military coup in Mandalay, Myanmar, Sunday, Feb. 28, 2021. (AP Photo)

Following a surge of violence in the final weekend of March, which saw 169 civilians killed including 14 children, anti-coup demonstrations have reportedly become smaller and shorter.

On Saturday, security forces in Monywa reportedly opened fire on pro-democracy protests killing at least four people and wounding several more.

Speaking to Reuters via a messaging app, one unnamed protester said, “They started firing non-stop with both stun grenades and live rounds. People backed off and quickly put up… barriers but a bullet hit a person in front of me, in the head. He died on the spot.”

According to the Bago Weekly Journal, an online news site, a man was shot and killed in the southern town of Thaton, while another was wounded by police in the southern town of Bago.

In the largest city of Yangon, demonstrators held an “Easter Egg Strike,” chanting protests and decorating eggs with anti-coup slogans, including “Spring Revolution.” Early Monday morning, demonstrators in the second largest city of Mandalay called for the release of deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi and for international intervention.

Killing by the junta has been wanton and indiscriminate. It was reported last week by the non-government organisation, Save the Children, that at least 43 children have been killed by armed forces in Myanmar since the start of the coup. The youngest known victim was six years old.

Raids have also been conducted against hospitals. On March 30, the security forces raided Sanpya hospital and other hospitals in Yangon. Many lost the right to treatment as the junta prepared to arrest patients in advance. Pinnya Alin Library, which was converted into a makeshift medical centre, was also destroyed, leading to further deaths.

A third member of Suu Kyi’s deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) was also allegedly tortured to death by security forces in Naypyidaw. U Kyaw Kyaw, an executive member of the NLD’s branch in the capital’s Zabuthiri Township, died on March 30.

Censorship escalated Friday with wireless broadband providers ordered to end their services. This follows the ending of mobile networks and public wifi earlier in March in a bid to block the organisation of and reporting on protests. Only those with fibre networks installed have access to the internet, and that at significantly reduced speeds.

At least 56 journalists have reportedly been arrested and charged under draconian state-security laws. Local news outlets are still suspended.

Under these repressive conditions, a CNN news team arrived in Myanmar on the invitation of the military which is desperate to counter negative international press coverage. In a carefully managed tour, CNN news correspondent Clarissa Ward was escorted throughout Yangon on the weekend by a military convoy.

The day prior to the arrival of the CNN team, a leaked memo signed by police Maj Myo Khine Oo stated:

“Every stage of the process must be done step-by-step in accordance with [riot control] procedures, and responsible officers at all levels need to supervise police to ensure that they do not go beyond [these] limits.”

The directive was confirmed as genuine to the website Myanmar Now by dissidents in the police force.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an ex-military officer explained, “It is obvious. When CNN was present, security forces were on hidden sentry duty. Soldiers and police were kept as invisible as possible.”

Vendors and local residents also confirmed a heavy police presence although most were not in uniform.

In the wake of the CNN team, locals who were approached at random and questioned have subsequently been detained by security forces. On Friday in Mingaladon Market, five people were taken into custody by plainclothes officers.

One witness reported two young women being taken away. “The two girls were shouting, wanting to know why they had been arrested. They also asked why nobody was helping them. The officer asked if anybody dared to help them. He said it in a “threatening manner,” said the witness, who added that the officer was carrying a gun.

The lack of press coverage has meant the significant delays in reporting important strikes by workers.

Reports emerged only last week of a critical strike by hundreds of skilled workers at military-owned factories, taking part in anti-coup demonstrations beginning on March 7. Responsible for making military vehicle parts, the workers are employed in five factories across the country including Yangon, Magway, Myaing, Myingyan and Htone Bo.

According to Myanmar Now, at least 193 workers at the Htone Bo plant said they were striking, roughly a third of the workforce. Sixty-five were confirmed in Magway, 34 in Myaing but involvement at the rest is unclear. The strikes, though small, were highly significant as they had the potential to spread and to undermine military control of the country. They were only partially dissipated by the military leadership and the personal intervention of Major General Ko Ko Lwin, vice chief of Defence Industries.

According to the Irrawaddy, reprisals have begun taking place against police stations and administrative offices in cities and towns throughout the country. In late March, more than two dozen were attacked by incendiary devices and hand grenades, and 21 members of security forces were either killed or injured in the attacks.

Protesters have continued to show considerable courage and determination in the face of the junta’s bloody repression. However, the limited character of their demands—the reinstatement of Suu Kyi’s NLD government that has collaborated closely with military and defended its crimes against the Rohingya—acts as an impediment to the broad involvement of workers.

A struggle for democratic rights necessarily has to be based not on appeals to the “international community”—that is, the major imperialist powers—but to the working class on the basis of fighting for its basic social rights and a decent standard of living that Suu Kyi and the NLD are incapable of addressing. That signifies a political struggle based on a socialist perspective.

Train derailment kills 48 in Taiwan

Ben McGrath

A train derailment in Taiwan last Friday has left 48 people dead and 198 more injured. The number of fatalities could rise as victims succumb to their injuries and others are identified.

Authorities are currently attributing the cause of the derailment to an improperly parked truck at a construction site that slid down a hill and stopped on the tracks before colliding with the train.

Workers try to remove a part of the derailed train near Taroko Gorge in Hualien, Taiwan on Saturday, April 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

The accident is the worst derailment in Taiwan in four decades. The eight-carriage train called the Taroko Express was carrying 496 people when the crash occurred at 9:28 in the morning. Of that number, 372 were seated passengers, 120 were standing and four were train staff.

People were traveling for the beginning of the Qingming holiday weekend. Qingming, or Tomb-sweeping Day, is an occasion when many in Taiwan and throughout China travel to clean the graves of ancestors and spend time with family members.

The accident took place near the city of Hualien on the east coast of Taiwan. The train model is one of the fastest in Taiwan and typically travels at a top speed of 130 kilometers per hour. The train was emerging from a tunnel when it struck the construction vehicle. Several of the carriages and their passengers were stuck inside the tunnel and unable to escape.

A passenger posted a video on social media describing how the accident occurred. “Our train crashed into this truck,” he stated, showing the wreckage. “The truck rolled down, and now the whole train is twisted.”

Rescuers did not begin to arrive until shortly after 11 a.m. As the train lost power and was stuck inside the tunnel, many passengers were forced to wait in the dark train for over an hour before rescuers were able to guide them out through the carriages. Others were able to smash windows and escape the wreckage by crawling along the top of the train. While all survivors were freed from the train by Friday afternoon, recovery work continued throughout the weekend and it will likely take a week before the entire site is cleared.

Lin Chi-feng, one of the first responders, told Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) that the scene “was a living hell. Chairs were mangled, objects were scattered all over the floor, and blood was everywhere.”

Among those killed were the train’s driver, Yuan Chun-hsiu, who was only 33, and his assistant. Yuan had activated the emergency brake on the train shortly before it struck the construction vehicle, according to the train’s conductor.

Lee Yi-hsiang, the manager of the construction site where the vehicle was located, was arrested on suspicion of negligence for failing to ensure an emergency brake on the truck was applied properly. He was initially released on bail on Saturday. However, that decision was reversed on Sunday following an appeal by prosecutors and he has been ordered detained for two months.

As is the case whenever such preventable disasters occur, government officials have been quick to offer phony words of condolences to cover up the fact that little to nothing will be done to address relevant safety issues. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen visited survivors in hospital on Saturday, and stated, “This heartbreaking accident caused many injuries and deaths. I came to Hualien today to visit the injured and express my condolences to the deceased passengers’ families. We will surely help them in the aftermath.”

Transportation Minister Lin Chia-lung admitted on Friday that not enough had been done to ensure railway safety following the last major train accident in 2018, saying “clearly the speed and results of the reforms were not enough.” The 2018 derailment took place in Yilan in the northeast, killing 18 people and injuring 187. Prior to that, the largest train accident was in 1981 when 31 people were killed. Lin stated in a Facebook post that he would resign as soon as the initial rescue work ended.

The accident raises a number of questions, including why there was no proper barrier between the construction site and the railroad tracks and why the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA), which operated the train, oversold so many standing tickets to passengers. As is too often the case, safety is often sacrificed on worksites in order to speed up construction and cut costs. Passenger safety is also sacrificed in order to maximize profits.

Whatever the individual role of the construction site manager may be, it is clear that the Taiwanese authorities will use him or some other scapegoat in an attempt to stop people from drawing the conclusion that these types of accidents are caused by a broader, profit-driven disregard for safety.

Friday’s derailment also follows an accident in February when two maintenance workers were struck and killed by a train while a third was injured in eastern Taitung County.

Wei Yu-ling, the secretary-general of the Taiwan Labor Railway Union (TLRU), stated that the recent accidents “exposed the inner problems of the Taiwan Railways Administration from top to bottom.” Despite the record of negligence, Wei said she expected the government to conduct a thorough investigation, essentially telling workers to place their faith in the very authorities who have created the conditions for the recent accidents.

Wei’s comments demonstrate that the union has no intention of carrying out a fight for workers’ safety.

The TLRU has sold-out its membership in the past, most recently when 200 station workers with the Yilan County branch pledged not to work over the April 2 to 5 holiday weekend. The branch has a total membership of 1,200. Workers stated they would strike to protest a new TRA work scheme that would cut their monthly overtime pay by approximately $NT11,000 ($US392).

The union opposed the plans for a stoppage, declaring that it was not “authorised.” A groveling TLRU statement declared that “Disputes between management and workers should be resolved with wisdom and unity, but the Tomb Sweeping Day holiday is not the time to settle them.”

COVID-19 outbreaks skyrocket at US colleges and universities as new variants emerge on campuses

Emily Ochiai & Andrew Timon

As the US death toll approaches 600,000, universities and colleges across the country are reemerging as hotspots of COVID-19 outbreaks. The spike in cases is a direct result of thousands of students returning to campuses after spring break, despite the critical lessons from the disastrous fall semester reopenings.

Four months into the arrival of the COVID-19 vaccine, universities are still far from having vaccinated all current students, contrary to what many had promised. To further exacerbate the situation, in addition to numerous spikes in coronavirus cases, colleges are now reporting cases of the new COVID-19 variant found on their campuses.

Perkins Library, Duke University (Photo: Wikipedia)

Since the start of this year, it is estimated that more than 120,000 cases are linked to colleges and universities and 530,000 since the start of the pandemic. A data-driven study on 30 large universities revealed that a spike in campus infection rates preceded a peak in the surrounding counties by less than 14 days, implying that universities had become COVID-19 superspreader sites.

A survey by the New York Times shows that at least 18 colleges have reported more than 1,000 cases in 2021 alone. At least 15 college institutions detected new COVID variants. Readers should note that not all testing conducted at college campuses are capable of detecting and differentiating between the variants, so it is expected that the actual numbers are higher.

The reopening drive can be seen across the country, including Republican- and Democratic-controlled states. Infections are rising at college campuses, with those in Florida and Arizona reporting among the worst numbers of outbreaks. Adding fuel to the fire, over the past month mask mandates have been lifted in at least six states, including Texas, totaling some 37 million people.

In Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis issued an order to nullify all public health measures imposed by local governments, cases have skyrocketed with a total of 2,077,032 infections since the start of the pandemic and 6,017 cases on April 2.

The University of Florida in Gainesville has observed the highest case number for 2021, with 2,138 confirmed cases between January and March and a total of 8,894 since the start of the pandemic. According to the university’s testing dashboard, there were more than 130 confirmed cases on campus over the past five days. The second highest case count at a university is Arizona State University ,which had 1,822 cases for 2021 and 6,327 since the start of the pandemic.

Compared to other states, Texas had the second highest case number of cases, at 2,401,898, and third highest number of deaths, 47,725, since the start of the pandemic. University of Texas at Dallas has recorded at least 247 cases on campus, with 193 of them being students. Tragically, a German language professor there recently passed away after contracting the virus.

University of Texas at Austin (UTA) recorded a total of 1,226 student cases and 225 staff cases in 2021 alone. The university has seen 3,896 cases among faculty, staff and students since the start of the pandemic. It can be estimated that more than six percent of the entire student body have been infected since the start of the pandemic.

According to the UTA president, three staff have died from COVID-19. Within the span of just two weeks between March 17 and 30, Texas A&M University, which had kept classes open throughout the pandemic, recorded 278 cases. Between August 8, 2020 and January 2, 2021, the university recorded a total of 4,890 cases.

In Colorado, 19 total outbreaks have been listed active on multiple campuses. University of Colorado at Boulder recorded a total of 3,334 cases, and University of Denver recorded 929 cases.

The disastrous conditions are the same for Democratic-controlled states, such as Washington, New York and California. Washington State University registered 73 new infections over the past weekend alone. The cases at New York University’s Washington Square campus nearly tripled between March 18-29 with the positivity rate on a 14-day rolling average jumping from 0.28 percent to 0.81 percent.

On February 1 University of California, Berkeley students were instructed to self-sequester and stay in their dorms as much as possible for a week, after the university reported a surge of 44 new cases which increased the weekly infection rate from 0.4 percent to 1.2 percent, a threefold jump.

Northeastern University had 135 cases between March 25-31. Boston College had 134 positive cases between March 22-April 4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had 221 cases in the month of March.

A number of college campus administrations are requiring mandatory asymptomatic testing. This allows campuses to pose as having drastically lower rates of infection compared to testing within the larger population, which is biased toward those with symptoms and higher positivity rates.

This can be seen at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), which touts a public COVID Dashboard displaying a graph comparing the percentage of positive cases among students, campus employees and San Diego County as a whole. However, its weekly mandatory COVID-19 testing for students sets up the fallacious argument that the campus is safer because it has a lower positivity rate relative to the county but omits the bias in the sample.

UCSD announced that it will vaccinate 5,000 campus community members per day. But five days into the start of vaccination, only 2,847 vaccines were administered in total, far from what was promised.

At the University of San Diego (USD), the campus went into lockdown over a spike in cases of 291 between January 24-February 12. It is estimated that 11 percent of all students living in residential housing have tested positive.

In addition, COVID-19 variants have been detected at a number of campuses. Students at University of Pittsburgh had a large outbreak last week with over 76 cases of the UK variant (B.1.1.7), which is known for its higher transmission and death rates.

At least 15 college institutions have recorded cases of the infectious and lethal COVID-19 variants, including University of Michigan; Tulane University; University of California, Berkeley; University of Miami; University of Texas at Austin; University of Washington; Davidson College; University of Central Florida; University of Virginia; Michigan State University; University of Pittsburgh; Penn State; University of Memphis; Duke University and University of Arizona.

All of these universities except Duke University have found the UK variant (B.1.1.7) on their campuses, while researchers at Duke University have found that the California (B.1.427/B.1.429) and New York (B.1.429) variants were seen on campus following the holiday break. It can be predicted that most college institutions across the United States are having similar experiences.

Although outbreaks on campuses are undoubtedly the responsibility of university officials, students are continuously scapegoated for the rise in infections.

The fact of the matter is that on-campus housing and in-person lectures that university officials are aggressively promoting are simply not suitable for keeping an adequate social distance for containing the virus.

COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in 2020, with the death toll reaching 568,000 since the start of the pandemic. The national death rate in 2020 increased by 16 percent compared to 2019, which is the largest percentage increase in a single year since World War I. Although the current national case number is lower compared to the peak in January, the pandemic is far from over.

In an effort to cover up the bipartisan policy of reopening, the Democratic Party together with the corporate media have produced dishonest narratives that the Biden administration has been carrying out measures to contain the pandemic. Throughout his presidential campaign, Biden repeated that his administration will “listen to the science,” but in reality, he has been continuing the same homicidal policy of reopening schools and businesses that former President Trump spearheaded in the interests of preventing any loss in corporate profits.

Mass opposition to the reopening of schools and universities is appearing forcefully among educators and students at every level. Teachers and educators across the nation are forming rank-and-file committees to oppose in-person instruction. Students and university professors are voicing their criticism towards the university administrators’ decisions for full reopening of campuses.

College and K-12 campuses have become one of the key battlegrounds for the fight to save lives and end the reckless policies of the financial oligarchy that prioritize profit over human lives. It is urgently necessary to shut down all nonessential businesses, allocate resources for safety measures such as online learning, and implement policies based on science and genuine democracy. The mobilization of students, educators and the whole working class is essential in fighting against the homicidal policy of the profit-driven financial elites.

School strikes erupt throughout the UK

Tania Kent

Strikes have erupted in the education sector across the UK alongside other disputes in the public sector, transport, health and energy. These strikes express an initial yet significant growth in the class struggle.

Employers have used the pandemic as a pretext for ramped-up exploitation of their workers. The crocodile tears over “disadvantaged children” and “lost learning” have been used as an ideological weapon to force children back into school so that their parents can return to work and produce profits.

For educators, the “return to school” has been a return to cuts, job losses and the victimisation and harassment of those who oppose Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government agenda. The education unions have played a key role throughout the pandemic in suppressing opposition to unsafe workplaces, opposing the campaigns led by educators for the closure of schools. They supported the “big bang” reopening of schools in March, despite the high levels of infection and lack of safety protection for staff and children.

Strikers at West College Scotland on the picket line (credit: EIS Twitter)

The unions in every sector continue to play a criminal role in policing opposition to the cuts to jobs and services, being escalated as the economic impact of the pandemic and massive corporate bailouts is placed on the shoulders of the working class. They have suppressed industrial action throughout the last year in the name of “national unity”, allowing big business and the Conservative government to launch an assault on jobs, wages and conditions.

Lecturers at 26 further education colleges across Scotland began a two-day strike last Wednesday, following a one-day strike the previous week. Called by the Educational Institute of Scotland Further Education Lecturers’ Association (EIS-FELA), its members are protesting plans by Colleges Scotland to replace lecturer posts with lower-paid instructor posts. Further strikes are planned.

A one-day strike involving all six further education colleges in Northern Ireland took place March 24, called by the University and College Union (UCU) in a pay and workload dispute.

Many more actions are being kept isolated to individual schools to prevent a unified campaign across the education sector. Since February, there have been the following strikes in colleges and secondary, primary and special schools:

* Workers at Shrewsbury Colleges Group held three days of strike action from February 25 and a further nine days are planned throughout March and April in defence of victimised National Education Union (NEU) rep John Boken. He was targeted after raising complaints about racism in the college.

* NEU members in Greenwich, south east London, are voting on whether to strike to defend victimised union rep Kirstie Paton, a member of the NEU’s executive committee. Paton, a teacher of 20 years at the John Roan School, Maze Hill, Blackheath, used a trade union branded social media account to highlight fears that some lateral flow tests (LFT) may not be reliable. The action will be taken across the borough. United Learning, the Academy chain which now runs John Roan, are taking action against Paton on grounds of gross misconduct.

* Strike action continued last week in Hackney, at an independent school for children with special educational needs, amid allegations of bullying and intimidation by senior managers at Leeways school, run by the Kedleston Group. The strikers have restated demands first made in December for the 2.75 percent pay rise received by many teachers in 2020, as well as complaining of the “lack of decent sick pay”. There are allegations of poor educational resources, a lack of outside recreation space, and temperatures inside the building being so cold that “staff and students frequently wear coats”. Two staff members have been dismissed since the beginning of the dispute, including a union rep. School leaders are reported to have threatened to dismiss staff en masse if the strike is not called off.

* Staff at Moulsecoomb Primary School in Brighton, members of the NEU, GMB and UNISON, took strike action following an announcement by the Department for Education that three new academy sponsors are being considered. The staff and local community are opposed to the academisation of the school.

* Teaching staff at the University of Central Lancashire have voted to strike in a dispute over job losses. The university said about six posts at the Faculty of Culture and Creative Industries were at risk. More than 250 workers have already taken voluntary redundancy. A national consultative ballot over pay involving all UCU further education members will take place from April 19.

* UCU members working for Novus, an education provider in England’s prisons, are balloting for strikes over coronavirus safety concerns.

* Teachers are on strike at Gateshead school in Newcastle over claims of threats and intimidation by management. Some members of staff at the Eslington and Furrowfield Schools Federation, a group of special schools in Gateshead, are taking industrial action over “management practices”. Fifteen days of action have begun.

* Staff at Langley School in Sutton Coldfield are set to take the first of several days of strike action from Wednesday, February 24, according to the NEU. The issues are particularly related to heating, ventilation and cleanliness at the school.

* Beal High School in Redbridge took the first of six days of strike action on March 25 over a refusal by the school to renegotiate a sickness pay policy. Members of NASUWT union plan to strike from April 20 to 29 over “restructuring, redundancy and failure to consult”.

* Cleaners at the prestigious South London Roman Catholic Girls’ School La Retraite took two days strike action at the end of March with a pledge for a further 40 days over “unlawful wage deductions”, “poverty pay” and “institutional racism”. The strike has now ended with the school agreeing to back-pay sick pay in line with teachers and to a 24 percent wage increase. The dispute erupted after the cleaners’ hours were cut in the run up to Christmas and their wages withheld after a month-long walkout in February over COVID-19 health and safety concerns.

* Members of the Argyll College EIS-FELA branch are being balloted for strike action over the decision to make lecturers compulsorily redundant during the pandemic. An indicative ballot earlier this month put support for strike action at 76 percent on an 82 percent turnout. This statutory strike ballot opened mid-March and closes on April 15. It comes one day after lecturers at Argyll College took strike action over the ongoing national dispute to replace lecturers with instructor assessors.

Report highlights modern slave labour in Pacific fishing industry

John Braddock

A new report has found that fishing companies operating in the Pacific are doing little to stop slavery on their boats. The tuna industry in particular is rife with allegations of modern slavery in its supply chains, with few protections for workers against forced labour.

The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre report, All at sea: An evaluation of company efforts to address modern slavery in Pacific supply chains of canned tuna, surveyed dozens of the world’s largest canned tuna brands. It concluded that while more than four in five have published statements on human rights, this “doesn’t translate” into efforts to end slavery.

Front cover of “All at sea” report (Source: Business and Human Rights Resource Centre)

The global fishing sector, the report asserts, “is rife with allegations of abuse—human trafficking, debt bondage, withheld wages, physical and sexual abuse, extreme sleep deprivation, medical neglect and even murder. In some instances, fishers have reportedly been held captive at sea for years at a time.”

With the COVID-19 pandemic, tuna sales have skyrocketed as consumers world-wide have stocked-up on canned goods. Yet the fishermen working in the multi-billion dollar industry, estimated by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to number 40 million, face some of the worst abuses. Nearly half a million seafarers are trapped at sea due to travel restrictions, border closures and other measures introduced by governments to contain the spread of the coronavirus, a situation described by the UN as a “humanitarian crisis.”

Phil Bloomer, executive director of the Centre, declared: “Too many Pacific tuna fishermen that put food on our tables face abuse and confinement every day. Put simply, the brands who put the cans on their shelves are failing to provide adequate duty of care to these workers who furnish their products.”

This is simply an evasion—vast numbers of seafarers, including boys, are ruthlessly exploited to sustain the profits of global conglomerates which rely on the most oppressed social layers, mainly from Asia, to toil in their distant-water fleets. Yet the report eschews the fundamental class issues at stake. It excises any reference to the working class and declares the issue is one of “human rights”—a term more palatable to the political and corporate elites the business-oriented Centre is seeking to influence.

Among the 35 companies surveyed, representing over 80 different tuna “brands,” the report found “glacial progress on actions which really matter to workers trapped in modern slavery.” Only six companies have revised due-diligence processes in two years; oversight of recruitment is “almost non-existent”; just half a dozen have policies protecting migrant workers; most lack remediation plans to address reports of slavery, and only two prohibit vessels using flags of convenience. Less than a third of company complaint systems are accessible to supply chain workers.

The worst offending companies include major suppliers to the metropolitan markets—Safcol, Costco, Walmart, Ocean Brands, Starkist, Alliance Select Foods, American Tuna, Pegasus Food and C-Food International.

Fishermen unload fish following a fishing trip in the Gulf of Thailand in Samut Sakhon Province, west of Bangkok, Sept. 3, 2013 (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File)

Several harrowing cases, based on interviews with fishing crews, are cited. These include:

In 2020, a number of Indonesian crew deaths reportedly occurred aboard the Long Xing 629, as well as on other fleet vessels operated by the Chinese-owned Dalian Ocean Fishing. Crew members told of brutal conditions, including being physically assaulted. The vessel participated in numerous at-sea trans-shipments allowing it to stay out longer, with some working on board for over a year without docking at port.

Also in 2020, a fisheries observer from Kiribati was found dead in his cabin on the Taiwanese purse seiner, Win Far 636, operated by Kuo Hsiung Fishery. His death is alleged to have been caused by a massive blunt trauma to the head, but nobody has been prosecuted. As an observer he monitored endangered species by-catch and illegal dumping. He was the tenth Pacific fisheries observer reported to have died at sea in the last decade.

Two Indonesian seafarers also spoke of their recent experiences in Fiji. They worked on Chinese-owned and flagged vessels, and had been hired by recruiters who deducted fees from their salaries and retained their personal official documentation. On arrival in Fiji, they were taken to their vessels without being allowed to report to the Indonesian Embassy.

The two men detailed inhumane conditions, which included living in close quarters and working more than 20 hours per day. They described their meals as “disgusting and inedible.” One of them was forced to work when he had a “finger cut so deep that my bones were visible and seemed to be about to break off.” Their concerns were consistently suppressed and hidden from inspectors.

Other reports are emerging from Fiji. Radio NZ reported last month that 20 Filipino workers accused Goundar Shipping, Fiji’s largest ferry operator, of abusive treatment and non-payment. They were brought to Fiji almost three years ago and found themselves working in unsanitary, unsafe conditions seven days a week. The men claimed the company held back their passports and refused to supply tickets home after they raised concerns. A Philippines manning agency, Able Maritime, has since had its licence suspended.

In another case, an Indonesian fisherman on board the Yu Shun 88, a Taiwanese flagged tuna longliner, has recently been repatriated from Fiji. Auckland human rights lawyer Karen Harding said the fishermen on the boat, which carries up to 17 people, were forced to work for 18–20 hours a day in “abject” conditions. The captain had taken the passport, the seaman’s book and withheld pay as a security bond. Beds were infested with fleas, food was spoiled and there was no fresh soap or water for showers. All at sea maintains that if these companies would only adopt the proper policies and procedures, all these issues could be resolved. A handful of successful companies, it contends “have shown it is both commercially viable and a moral imperative to emancipate workers caught in modern slavery.” Governments should be pressured to “mandate comprehensive human rights due diligence by companies, throughout their operations and supply chains.”

This perspective is entirely bankrupt. The explosion of oppressive working conditions, low pay and extreme hardship is an international phenomenon, across all industries. It is a product of the relentless drive for escalating profits at the heart of globalised capitalist relations of production and cannot be addressed by appeals to the ruling elites.

New Zealand trade unions have called on the country’s Labour-led government to “put Fiji on notice” over the Goundar case. International Transport Workers Federation spokesperson Paul Tolich said NZ unions supported calls by their Fijian counterparts for “greater recognition” by the Fiji government so they could “better stand up for all workers, migrant or local.” “Stronger unions are the best way to support workers to speak up without fear,” Tolich declared.

In fact, the trade unions have never waged any campaign to demand decent wages and conditions for foreign crews, including those exploited by their “own” New Zealand operators. The reactionary nationalist position of the Maritime Union of New Zealand is that foreign vessels should be excluded from the country’s fishing waters, with preference given to New Zealand ships, manned by crews who pay union dues.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has failed to condemn any of Fiji’s frequent attacks on basic rights. Under Labour’s pro-Washington “Pacific Reset” policy, the New Zealand government is cementing diplomatic relations with Fijian leader Frank Bainimarama in order to better establish him as a bulwark against China’s influence in the Pacific.

America Unchurched: A Sign of the Times

Thomas L. Knapp

For the first time in its more than eight decades of surveying Americans’ religious attitudes and practices, Gallup reports,  church members constituted only 47% of the US population in 2020 — down 23% since 1999, prior to which the percentage seldom dipped below 70%.

Why the precipitous drop, and what might it portend for the future?

“The decline in church membership,” the Gallup report says, “is primarily a function of the increasing number of Americans who express no religious preference.” In 2000, Americans who didn’t consider themselves religious at all comprised 8% of the population. Today, 21% answer to that description.

While there’s obviously an interrelationship there, I suspect it’s more complicated than the former being “primarily a function of” the latter.

For one thing, not being a believer may be as much effect as cause. The child who isn’t raised in church, or whose family isn’t as involved in that church as families used to be, is probably less prone to either religious belief or church affiliation as an adult.

Also, churches are far from the only community organizations struggling to maintain their membership numbers.

In 1973, America boasted more than 4 million Boy Scouts from a population of 215 million. Today, that number is 2.3 million from a population of 330 million.

Despite three decades of continuous war, creating millions of eligible members, veterans’ organizations like the American Legion are in decline as older members die and younger prospects pass on the affiliation.

We hear a lot about social fragmentation and political polarization these days, and these numbers are probably relevant to those problems.

As a libertarian, I’m inclined to see the hoary hand of the state behind all bad things, and I can a make a case for that here. The increased reach of the welfare state makes the charity functions of churches and other social organizations less urgent, while the grasp of the regulatory state makes operating physical establishments more expensive. One can almost hear Mussolini muttering from beyond the grave: “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

But if that’s part of the cause, it’s far from the whole cause.

It’s no coincidence that the decline in physical group participation maps closely to the growth of fast and affordable Internet access.

Back in the old days (i.e., the childhoods of those over 50), meeting with others who shared our interests meant physically traveling to a central location. Today,  it is  (or at least can be, as a year of pandemic has shown) as simple as opening your laptop or picking up your phone.

That phenomenon comes with down sides. We’re self-segregating into echo chambers where our priors are affirmed and those who disagree are unwelcome.

But it also comes with up sides, such as instant, on-demand fellowship, across vast distances, with others who share our interests.

We’re in the midst of the most tumultuous social changes in decades, if not centuries.  Churches, and the rest of us, are going to have to ride this storm out and hope for sunnier weather on the other side.