Czech charade and its masterminds

Slavisha Batko Milacic

The investigation into the Vrbetice explosions in the Czech Republic quickly turned into a comedy. First, the country’s respected President Milos Zeman, obviously hating to go down in history, started making uncomfortable comments and casting doubt on the stated cause of the blasts. Then the media began to talk about the dark past of the owner of the ammunition that blew up in 2014. In addition, the 7-year fruitless probe into the twin explosions made the Czech special services look absolutely unprofessional. Adding to the absurdity of the whole situation, the head of the Czech military intelligence, Jan Beroun, issued a statement alleging that Moscow had prior knowledge about the Czech accusations and was preparing to respond to them. In fact, the country’s top intelligence officer thus admitted his organization’s complete incompetence by inferring that leaks had been made when planning a new media hoax. Therefore, quite unsurprisingly we saw a different kind of statements coming out from Prague in early May –this time about the absence of any direct evidence of Russian participation and the possible closure of the case. It looks like that some people in Washington had finally been able to get through to Prague and remind it about the meeting that President Joe Biden will have with his Russian colleague Vladimir Putin in June and that faulting Russia for every imaginable sin, would hardly be seen as a show of loyalty on the part of America’s Czech ally.

As a result, not a year goes by without the Czech Republic finding itself in an position trying to spoil relations with Russia and curry favor with the United States. Last year, the whole world was shocked by the cynicism of the head of the Prague-6 district Andrzej Kolář, who dismantled the monument to the Soviet marshal, who saved Prague from total destruction during WW2, and now it is the turn of the Czech special services, which are unable to investigate explosions that happened seven years ago. There is an impression that due to the fact that the Czech intelligence service is unprofessional, certain foreign centers of power are putting direct pressure on the Czech government, with the aim of worsening relations between the Czech Republic and Russia.

So, another anti-Russian performance arranged by the Czechs has missed the point, regardless of Biden’s attempts to mend ties with Moscow. It looks like the Czechs are much better at demolishing monuments to Russian generals and rewriting history than implementing such complex projects as falsification of intelligence operations. Before the scandal with the explosions in Vrbetica erupted, the world did not know about deliveries of decommissioned Czech and Bulgarian weapons to Donbass, or about the Bulgarian “merchant of death” Emilian Gebrev. Now the name of the supplier of old ammunition to the Warsaw Pact countries is well known.

During the late-1990s, this onetime second-rate crime boss became one of the first to strike gold – weapons gathering dust in the warehouses of the disarmed Bulgarian army – and immediately started shipping them to war-torn neighboring Yugoslavia, to African tribes, mired in their endless conflicts and to multiple other clients, spending some of the profits to finance the election campaigns of the “right” politicians. Old Bulgarian ammunition was in great demand because despite their desire to join NATO, many newly independent states kept fighting with old Soviet weapons. Therefore, Gebrev was literally goldbricking from ammunition supplies. A few years before the 2008 Ossetian-Georgian conflict, Emilian, helped by his friends at the Georgian Defense Ministry, managed to sell artillery shells for Georgian howitzers with a 1,000 percent mark-up. By the way, because explosives and detonators have an expiration date, not all of that ammunition was suitable for use. Gebrev and his partners were doing business, and not seriously preparing for war, so everything was going smoothly until the US military instructors took a closer look at the suspect ammo.

During firing tests, only three out of ten shells exploded, and in the rest the explosives had either deteriorated or their fuses rusted. Gebrev quickly fixed this problem and before long he had several dozen Gypsies painting the shells and putting in new fuses in violation of all imaginable safety precautions. There were occasional explosions, of course, but Gebrev’s people knew how to resolve issues with the police. Moreover, now Emilian started supplying Ukrainian weapons to Georgia, which was preparing for war with its great northern neighbor. Meanwhile, Kiev couldn’t even imagine that it wouldn’t be long before Ukraine would need weapons itself. The 2008 conflict brought a disgrace to the Georgian army as neither Gebrev’s shells, nor Ukrainian air defense systems proved to be of any help to Tbilisi. Only an order from Moscow prevented Russian soldiers from marching through the streets of the Georgian capital. Emilian Gebrev did not abandon the Georgians though, and immediately went down to work to restore that country’s military potential. The problem was, however, that since the defeated Georgian army had to be rebuilt virtually from the ground up, President Saakashvili began to switch to US-made weapons, for which Gebrev had neither ammunition nor spare parts. A new market soon came up though and in 2011, Emilian and his companions began to supply weapons to Syria and Iraq, and not necessarily to those countries governments. The end-user certificates were cleverly forged and used Soviet military equipment was sent to terrorists from Ukraine, Eastern Europe and African countries only to be eventually destroyed by the Russian air force.

Business was brisk and already in 2013, Gebrev had to borrow money and buy two Bulgarian arms factories that had been sitting idle since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. And just in time, because in the spring of 2014, Ukraine’s new pro-Western authorities were horrified to find that they had nothing to regain Crimea and Donbass with because the weapons they needed to do this had long been sold by Gebrev and his partners. Unfortunately, the Bulgarian arms baron himself did not go anywhere and before very long his arms factories were working virtually round the clock. Indeed, you need lots of shells to bombard the million-strong Donetsk and kill women and children. However, Gebrev apparently failed to size up the potential of the market and soon his shells stopped exploding, just like they did before. On the one hand, it was beneficial to the Ukrainian army, which could blame its defeats on low-quality ammunition. On the other hand, faced with multiple humiliating defeats, Kiev wanted to figure out what was wrong with the ammunition. And then, just a month and a half later, two explosions followed, and very timely too, taking many secrets with them. The only thing that we have not yet been able to find out is whether the arms shipment that went up in the air had already been paid for by the Ukrainian side?!

Gebrev learned his lessons and was finally able to assess the potential of the Ukrainian market. The Czech Republic’s liberal arms legislation allows him to sell arms to just about anyone – from terrorists to rogue anti-democratic regimes. Friends from Czech intelligence services are always ready to lend a helping hand and all troubles can be attributed to Russian intelligence. In autumn 2014, it did not even occur to the Czechs to look for any Russian trace in the warehouse explosions at Vrbetice, where security was lacking, to say the least. However, times are changing, people are beginning to believe any lies, and so old Gebrev’s life is becoming easier and more comfortable.

Israel kills 24 in Gaza as Netanyahu steps up provocations on Jerusalem Day

Jean Shaoul

Israel launched air strikes against Gaza, the besieged Palestinian enclave, killing 24 people including children.

Militants had earlier fired a few rockets at southern Israel and the Jerusalem area, in a day characterized by massive violence against the Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.

Israel’s military announced it had beefed up its forces on its border with Gaza and was suspending a major drill to prepare for a possible escalation.

Palestinians evacuate a wounded man during clashes with Israeli security forces at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Earlier in the morning, 1,000 security forces stormed the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem as worshippers were praying, firing stun grenades, tear gas and rubber bullets, while snipers took up positions on rooftops, injuring more than 330 Palestinians. More than 700 Palestinians have been injured in just a few days by Israeli security forces in Jerusalem and across the West Bank.

Police locked hundreds of worshippers inside the mosque, prevented doctors and medical teams from entering the compound and attacked and beat up those who sought to help the injured. They forced their way into the compound’s health clinic, where they sprayed pepper gas and lobbed stun grenades at those receiving treatment there.

The storming of the mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, provoked angry demonstrations around the country, including in the northern Arab city of Umm al-Fahm and the nearby Wadi Ara, as well as in Jaffa which has witnessed protests over the past week against plans to take over Palestinian-owned houses for a Jewish yeshiva.

The crackdown on Jerusalem Day—the anniversary of Israel’s illegal annexation of East Jerusalem, captured from Jordan in the 1967 War—ahead of the planned Flags March by Israel’s settler groups and far right forces through Arab neighbourhoods, was another provocation designed to precipitate a war with the Palestinians.

It was by far the most violent crackdown in the weeks of mounting tensions and bloody repression by Israel’s security forces since the start of Ramadan on April 12, amid protests against land grabs by Israeli settlers, settlement expansion, and the planned eviction of scores of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah, north of Jerusalem’s Old City. A factor in the explosive state of social relations has been the impact of the pandemic that has left thousands of young people without work.

The planned eviction is part of the government’s broader process of judaicising the city, making it impossible for the Palestinians to ever set up their own mini-state with some part of East Jerusalem as its capital. Far right legislators, including Religious Zionism chairman Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir of Jewish Power have led their supporters through Sheikh Jarrah, taunting the Palestinians, chanting “death to Arabs”. Smotrich called on the right-wing parties in talks with opposition leader Yair Lapid, who heads Yesh Atid and is trying to cobble together a coalition to replace Netanyahu, to halt all talks with Mansour Abbas and his United Arab List, denouncing him as a “terror” supporter.

On Thursday night, more than 100 Palestinians were wounded, with 21 needing hospitalization, after hundreds of far right Jewish Israelis marched through Jerusalem’s streets and confronted Palestinians. On Friday night, more than 200 Palestinians were injured, of whom 88 had to be taken to hospital, after several hundred riot police stormed the al-Aqsa mosque compound, provoking bloody confrontations with worshippers. There were violent clashes at Sheikh Jarrah as several hundred worshippers went to show their solidarity with residents.

On Saturday night, 80 people were injured, including a one-year-old, when clashes erupted outside the Old City, while on Sunday, 14 people had to be treated for injuries after riot police attacked Palestinians protesting the Sheikh Jarrah evictions.

There have also been demonstrations against Israel’s brutal crackdown in East Jerusalem and in support of the Sheikh Jarrah families in a number of Arab towns and villages in Israel, as well as in the port city of Haifa and the northern city of Nazareth, and in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank that were met with heavy handed repression.

These demonstrations in the last few days of mainly young Palestinians mark an unprecedented involvement of Israel’s Palestinian citizens in anti-government protests. It is a spontaneous movement, increasingly alienated from its traditional leaders—the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, Hamas in Gaza and the Arab leaders in Israel.

On Sunday, flatly rejecting international condemnation of the planned evictions of Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, Netanyahu declared Israel “firmly rejects” pressure not to build in Jerusalem. Turning truth on its head, he proclaimed that Israel would not allow any extremist element—meaning the Palestinians—to undermine peace in Jerusalem, “We will impose law and order aggressively and responsibly. We will continue to safeguard freedom of worship for all religions but will not allow violent riots.” “I say to the terror groups: Israel will respond with force to any act of aggression from the Gaza Strip,” he added.

He refused multiple entreaties from international figures as well as his own security officials to postpone the Jerusalem Day Flags March, limit the number of participants and change the route, so as not to enter the al-Aqsa compound. He and Public Security Minister Amir Ohana insisted on letting the march go ahead without any changes to the route, with the police offering thousands of officers to escort the march. Netanyahu defended the security forces, praising their “just struggle” and commending the “steadfastness that the Israeli police and our security forces are currently displaying.”

On Monday afternoon, barely an hour before the march was due to start, the organisers announced they were calling it off telling the police they were ceding responsibility to them even as thousands of religious and ultra-nationalist youth were assembling. This came shortly after the authorities, reportedly in response to an order from Netanyahu, decided to reroute the march away from the Old City, including Damascus Gate and the Muslim Quarter, in Palestinian East Jerusalem.

It was at this time that Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group that controls Gaza, which has been subject since 2007 to an illegal blockade by Israel and latterly by Egypt, issued “an ultimatum until 6pm” to Israel to withdraw its security forces from the al-Aqsa mosque compound and Sheikh Jarrah. As the ultimatum expired, the Israeli military activated sirens, the Knesset was evacuated, and the Flags March dispersed after reports of rocket fire in the Jerusalem area.

Netanyahu called for a national security cabinet meeting in preparation for increasing turmoil ahead of Eid al-Fitr that marks the end of Ramadan on Wednesday evening, May 12.

French active-duty soldiers publish letter threatening a military coup

Will Morrow & Alex Lantier

On Sunday evening, French neo-fascist magazine Valeurs actuelles ( Current Values ) published a new letter signed by up to 2,000 active-duty military personnel. Denouncing Muslims and France’s working class suburbs, it endorses an April 21 coup threat in Valeurs actuelles issued by 23 retired generals and also confirms that active-duty officers support such a coup.

A soldier stands guard under the Eiffel Tower as France marks the end of a two-year state of emergency, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017 in Paris. (Christian Hartman, Pool via AP)

The April 21 letter demanded President Emmanuel Macron act to stop an alleged “Islamization” of France and threatened a coup. Inaction, it said, would lead to an “explosion and the intervention of our active-duty comrades in a perilous mission to protect our civilization’s values and safeguard our compatriots on the national territory.” In such a “civil war,” the April 21 letter added, “the deaths, for which you will be responsible, will number in the thousands.”

The May 9 letter, also addressed to Macron and the government, declares: “Yes, our superiors are correct in the content of their letter, in its entirety. We can see violence in our cities and towns. We see communalism growing in public areas, in the public debate. We see hatred of France and of its history becoming the norm.”

Warning of a coming “civil insurrection” in France, it asserts that the army will follow the government’s orders to fire on the people: “Yes, if civil war breaks out, the army will maintain order on its own soil, because it will be asked to do so. That is even the definition of civil war. No one can desire such a terrible situation, neither our superiors nor ourselves, but yes, again, civil war is being prepared in France and you know this perfectly well.”

This letter must be taken as a warning to the working class in France, across the NATO alliance, and internationally. World capitalism faces its deepest social and economic crisis since the 1930s due to the pandemic and mounting working class anger after governments’ calls to “live with the virus” have led to millions of deaths. The threat that far-right networks in NATO’s tightly integrated armed forces could organize coups and set up bloody dictatorships is deadly serious.

It comes not only after Donald Trump’s historically unprecedented attempt to organize a coup on January 6 in Washington, to halt the certification of his election defeat, but after a six-month campaign of coup threats by fascist officers in the Spanish army. These officers began their coup plotting after strikes in Spain, Italy and across Europe compelled European governments to organize a hard lock-down in the initial months of the pandemic last year.

A campaign is clearly underway in French military and neo-fascist circles to prepare a coup. On April 17, far-right politician Philippe de Villiers published a hysterical, fascistic appeal in Valeurs actuelles titled “I call for an insurrection,” blaming among others the Communist Manifesto, identity politics and Swiss bankers for the pandemic.

Four days later—on the 60th anniversary of the failed April 21, 1961 Algiers putsch by generals hoping to prevent Algerian independence from France, a putsch that de Villiers’ father supported—the first coup threat appeared.

On May 7, Le Parisien reported that Valeurs actuelles was contacting active-duty personnel to publish a new letter, which appeared two days later. The magazine’s director, Geoffroy Lejeune, told the Le Parisien the new letter had been widely circulated in the army and received between several hundred and 2,000 signatures. Unlike the April 21 letter, none of its authors or signatories have been identified.

Significantly, the authors of the May 9 letter declare that their willingness to open fire on the French people comes from their deployments both in neo-colonial wars abroad and in policing operations at home. “We are those that the newspapers have called the ‘generation of fire,’” it states, adding that in “Afghanistan, Mali, the Central African Republic or elsewhere, a certain number of us have seen enemy fire. Some have lost comrades. They gave their lives to destroy the Islamism to which you are making concessions on our soil.”

“Almost all of us have experienced Operation Sentinel,” it adds, referring to former Socialist Party President François Hollande’s deployment of 10,000 troops inside France after the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo terror attacks: “We have seen our suburbs abandoned, accommodation to crime. We have suffered attempts to exploit us by numerous religious communities, for whom France signifies nothing—nothing but an object of sarcasm, contempt, even hatred.”

The letter also denounces Macron as a traitor, claiming that it is resisting collaboration with Islam as Resistance fighters opposed the French government’s collaboration with the 1940-1944 Nazi occupation of France during World War II. “The warning cry of our superiors echoes earlier events. Our elders are Resistance fighters of 1940 whom, often, people like you called traitors while legalists, out of cowardice, cut deals with evil to limit the damage,” they write.

This equation between Nazi rule and the presence of millions of Muslims who work and live peacefully in France is an odious political lie. It is a further warning that this letter, published in the far-right press, is a fascistic conspiracy against the working class. It is urgent that workers be politically alerted and organized to oppose the risk of a bloody, far-right coup.

The task of mobilizing opposition to plans for a coup and a dictatorship cannot be left to the state authorities or established political parties, which are complicit in the coup plot.

Since the April 21 letter appeared, Macron has maintained a deafening silence on the coup threat. His government worked to downplay its significance, noting that the first letter was issued by retired officers. This is despite the well-known fact that “retired” officers maintain connections to their active-duty counterparts and are used to make political statements in such situations. Since then, the government has been forced to admit that it found at least 18 active-duty personnel among the signatories of the April 21 letter.

Unsubmissive France leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon insisted that the letter had little support in the army and appealed to Macron to investigate the letter, trying to promote illusions that the Macron government itself would fight the coup threat.

The latest letter by active-duty soldiers explodes such arguments, making clear the April 21 letter has significant support within the military brass. It is apparent that the government’s weak response to the earlier letter is emboldening the far-right officers to accelerate their coup plotting.

This trend continued yesterday. Defence Minister Florence Parly spoke briefly on the latest letter during a visit to a French airbase in Creil, stating, “this column uses the tone and references of the far-right with the aim of dividing our nation.”

Mélenchon criticized the May 9 letter for “dividing” the army and its authors as “cowards” for remaining anonymous. Objecting to the letter on the nationalist grounds that it weakens the army’s ability to wage war around the world, Mélenchon stated that “the strength of the army is its cohesion. For it to be coherent, we must proscribe not only political disputes in its ranks, but also divisive views that invite soldiers to turn against the population.”

Such comments only encourage the coup plotters, who know very well that, especially amid the pandemic, Macron and Mélenchon are far more afraid of working class opposition than of a coup and rely on the security forces against the population.

Macron has systematically built up the police powers of the state. After hailing Nazi-collaborationist dictator Philippe Pétain to encourage riot police attacking “yellow vests” in November 2018, he deployed the army in March 2019 for policing operations in Paris. These troops were authorized to open fire. Now, he is passing a “global security” law to ban filming of police.

Both the April 21 and May 9 letters, in their denunciations of “Islamization,” echo Macron’s reactionary “anti-separatist” law, premised on the lie that France is threatened by a mass separatist Islamic movement.

High school students in France protest against holding of final-year exams amid pandemic

Kumaran Ira

Since last Monday, high school students have been mobilising against the Macron government, which wants to proceed with final-year high school exams in classrooms despite the pandemic. The students are demanding the cancellation of the examinations and the certification of high school diplomas via continuous assessment throughout the year.

Students arrive at school in Versailles, west of Paris, Monday, May 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

The Macron government has begun the ending of the limited lockdown announced at the end of March, including the reopening of schools over the last two weeks despite the large number of COVID-19 cases each day. These protests are part of an international wave of strikes and demonstrations by youth. The year 2020 saw a wave of mobilisations in Greece and Poland against in-person studies, and a wave of strikes to demand a halt to work in non-essential industries. This movement is continuing and intensifying.

Many high schools were blocked last week in France, including in the Paris region, Toulouse, Grenoble, Annecy, Bordeaux and Bayonne. The main entrances to the schools were blocked with fences, rubbish bins and pieces of wood, with students organising on social media. The blockades continue this week, with 200 high schools blocked across France. The government has responded by sending in the police to crack down on the students.

In front of a number of high schools, signs read “Continuous examinations” and “Precarity kills.”

On Friday, high school students organised protests outside the Charlemagne, Sophie-Germain and Victor-Hugo high schools in Paris. According to actu.fr, “clashes broke out at the Victor-Hugo high school, when the police intervened to remove the students who were blocking the school with bins. Tear gas, shields and truncheons were used to repel the students.”

In Seine-Saint-Denis, the d’Alembert high school in Aubervilliers, the Jacques-Feyder high school in Epinay-sur-Seine and the Flora Tristan high school in Noisy-Le-Grand saw student protests.

“We’re not ready, we haven’t had enough classes, either online or face-to-face,” said Adam, a student at Flora Tristan high school in his second-last year. “In terms of continuous assessment, most of us have a really good average, whereas if we are put in front of a test, from one day to the next, we will not be ready to answer a question...”

In other big cities, blockades have been organised in front of schools. “The Bagatelle high school in Saint-Gaudens was blocked on Monday 3 May. The next day, it was still blocked, as was Pierre d’Aragon in Muret and the Paul Mathou high school in Gourdan-Polignan,” said Paolo Carbonnel, federal leader of the National Union of High School Students (UNL) in Toulouse.

A joint statement from the UNL and the National Student Movement (MNL) said: “For 14 months now, we have been studying in calamitous conditions with online learning, class cancellations and a lack of teachers. ... The epidemic reinforces the inequalities that have already been present for years within the schools of the Republic. For months, the government has been … taking decisions from day to day, from week to week.” They demand “the total cancellation of the tests for all high school students.”

Last Wednesday, the high school and teachers unions organised a demonstration in front of the National Assembly, on the initiative, in particular, of the Federation of Parents’ Councils (FCPE). On the same day, the Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, received unions to discuss possible additional arrangements.

At the end of the meeting, Blanquer announced that the “grand oral” test, the flagship test that is to be held for the first time this year, would be maintained as planned. However, for the philosophy test, the continuous assessment mark will be retained if it is better than that of the written test.

For their part, the unions said the government was not providing real solutions and called for a mobilisation of high school students on Monday. “The movement will continue, will grow. On Friday, there were 210 high schools blocked, despite all the repression. We are calling for a mobilisation of high school students on Monday,” said Antonin Nouvian, secretary-general of the National High School Movement (MNL) on Saturday morning on Europe1.

By negotiating with Macron, the trade union apparatuses want to prevent the movement from gaining momentum and turning into a workers’ struggle against the murderous policy of “living with the virus” advocated by Macron and the ruling class. They are doing everything to control the movement, focusing on the sole question of the final-year exam, in order to isolate the movement within France and cut it off from the working class. Moreover, they are not calling for the closure of schools to prevent the spread of the virus.

The student movement, on the other hand, is a manifestation of broader anger rising across Europe and internationally at the ruling class’ criminal policy in response to the pandemic. The unions are working closely with the state to end lockdown measures, having negotiated trillions of euros in bank and corporate bailouts.

This policy, deliberately pursued by the capitalist states to defend the interests of banks and big business at the expense of human lives, has already killed millions, including over a million in Europe.

In recent months, many countries in Europe and around the world have seen strikes by workers, teachers and students. Teachers, including in France, England and the United States, have objected to keeping schools open while the virus is spreading.

Last autumn, Greek students supported by teachers and parents occupied schools across Greece to protest against the dangerous return to classrooms amid a resurgence of the virus in the country. Students in Poland also mobilised against the reopening of schools amid a spread of the virus.

The current school protest comes as the number of cases remains high throughout France, with hospitals still struggling with large numbers of cases. Despite warnings from several epidemiologists that new variants are circulating and pose a great risk, Macron is preparing to lift restrictions in order to continue his policy of “herd immunity.”

Refusing to close businesses and schools to contain the virus, Macron repeatedly said that the country must “live with the virus.” Society must “take into account the consequences” of measures stop the virus, including on “the economy.”

As high school students express their anger against Macron, it is a matter of turning this anger into a political struggle against the Macron government and the European Union. To lead it, a turn must be made to the working class and a broad coordination of struggles against Macron’s policy of “living with the virus.”

COVID-19 infections soar in Alberta as third wave continues to rampage across Canada

Janet Browning

Alberta had the highest per capita number of active COVID-19 cases of any region in North America last week, reaching 562 cases per 100,000 residents. If Alberta were a country, it would have the second-highest infection rate in the G20 behind only Argentina.

In this Thursday, April 29, 2021, photo, Sherry Cross Child, a Canadian resident of Stand Off, Alberta, receives a COVID-19 vaccine at the Piegan-Carway border crossing near Babb, Mont. (AP Photo/Iris Samuels)

The rapid increase in infection rates across the province is part of Canada’s surging third wave. In Ontario, the number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care (ICU), currently close to 900, is more than double the upper limit set by the provincial government for providing regular levels of care. Manitoba has emerged over the past week as the jurisdiction with the third-highest infection rate in North America, behind only Alberta and Michigan. On Saturday, Manitoba reported the death of a woman in her 20s.

The main source of COVID-19 spread in Alberta, as across Canada, is workplaces. Many of the new infections are being registered in the province’s tar sands oil operations around Fort McMurray. This is a direct product of the hard right United Conservative Party’s open economy policy. Since the outset of the pandemic, Premier Jason Kenney has stridently refused to impose any restrictions on the activities of Alberta’s oil corporations and related industries, with the result that growing numbers of young, otherwise healthy working-age people are being laid low by more infectious and deadly COVID-19 variants.

Newfoundland and Labrador is a major source of migrant labour for Alberta’s energy sector. As of May 4, the Newfoundland government warned on its COVID-19 website of outbreaks at numerous worksites in northern Alberta. These included: CNRL Albian Oil Sands Site, CNRL Jackfish, Cenovus Foster Creek, Cenovus Sunrise Lodge, CNOOC Long Lake Lodge, IOL Kearl Wapasu Oil Sands Site, Canadian Natural Resources Horizon Oil Sands Site, Syncrude Aurora, Syncrude Mildred Lake Oil Sands Site, Suncor Base Plant, Suncor Firebag, Suncor Fort Hills, Suncor MacKay River, Michels Canada, Oilsands Industrial Lodge, and Grand Prairie Royal Camp Services. Media outlets in Alberta have not reported these outbreaks.

The Kenney government’s “profits before lives” strategy, which is identical to that pursued by Ontario’s hard-right Premier Doug Ford and British Columbia’s New Democrat Premier John Horgan, is aimed at protecting the multi-billion profits of the province’s energy, mining and meatpacking sectors at the expense of the health and lives of working people and their families. Reports have emerged that medical staff at the province’s hospitals have been briefed on the triage protocol, which is when doctors and nurses have to take decisions about who should receive and be denied care based on their likelihood of survival.

Dr. Darren Markland, of the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton, told CHED 630 News, there “is truly a problem with imposing appropriate scientific measures to control health policy. The people we are seeing are young. They look like us or our children. And there is nothing else wrong with them, other than they are ‘essential’ workers who have been put into pretty untenable circumstances. This is clearly a failure of political will.”

Markland was one of many doctors and pediatricians who signed an open letter to Kenny last week. The letter warned of a projection of between 300-320 COVID-19 patients in ICU by the end of May. “This whole concept of 450 ICU beds is really not a sustainable number because it can’t be staffed and even if it could the level of care we deliver would probably not be our normal standard of care,” he said.

The mounting health care crisis was illustrated April 30 when Lisa Stonehouse, a healthy 52-year-old widow, died of blood clots to her brain after being turned away by the Grey Nuns Hospital emergency room in Edmonton, several days earlier. Lisa’s teenaged daughter insisted she seek medical care when she suffered persistent headaches immediately after getting her first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, said the death was confirmed to be linked to vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT).

Kenney and his government have responded to the deepening crisis by slandering the population for its alleged non-compliance with COVID-19 restrictions. “It is as astounding as it is aggravating,” the premier told a May 3 press conference, “that 14 months into this, more than 2,000 deaths in Alberta alone, that we still have many people in the province who don’t even believe that COVID is real, who think that it’s a big government conspiracy or hoax. The reason we are at this critical stage of the pandemic in Alberta, with record high daily case counts and intensive care numbers, is precisely because, for whatever reason, too many Albertans are ignoring the rules we have in place.”

This is rich coming from Kenney, who spent the first months of the pandemic describing COVID-19 as no worse than the flu; has systematically ruled out any effort to stop the spread of the virus in workplaces; and permitted far-right UCP members, who make up about a quarter of his parliamentary caucus, to agitate against any COVID-19 restrictions whatsoever.

Contrary to the portrayal of Kenney by the trade union bureaucracy and its pseudo-left hangers-on like Fightback as the single source of Alberta’s problems, the UCP government’s policy of mass infection and death is being carried out in close collaboration with the federal Liberal government. Last Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Kenney spoke on the situation in the province, with Trudeau stressing the necessity for “close federal-provincial collaboration on the vaccine rollout and managing the impacts of the third wave in the province.” Trudeau, whose government has fronted the Canadian ruling elite’s back-to-work/back-to-school policy and insisted in last September’s Throne Speech that any future lockdowns should be localized and short, said nothing about the mass infections in the energy sector or Kenney’s blaming working people for spreading the virus.

The unions have also played a central role in enforcing Kenney’s “open economy” policies. While the Alberta Federation of Labour has sharply denounced Kenney for his mishandling of the pandemic, this has not stopped the union bureaucracy from issuing pathetic appeals to the hard-right UCP government to protect workers. They have refused point blank to organize any industrial action to safeguard the health and very lives of the workers they claim to represent. On the odd occasion when walkouts and protests do occur, such as the one-day wildcat strike launched by health care workers last fall, the unions submit to the suppression of these struggles through the labour relations system, which victimizes the strikers by imposing fines and other individual penalties.

This suppression of worker opposition has given the UCP government a free hand to prioritize corporate profits over the protection of human lives. Kenney’s government relaxed public-health measures beginning in February, after a devastating “second wave” had grudgingly forced it to impose limited restrictions. It permitted restaurants to open, expanded capacity for retailers and churches, opened salons, and allowed more activities in gyms. Despite warnings that a third wave was imminent, and pressure from teachers and parents, he refused to close schools. As predicted, when the rules were relaxed, infections skyrocketed. In early April, the province finally closed indoor dining, yet allowed patios to remain open.

Last week, in part due to the public outcry over the sudden death of a healthy 17-year-old girl in Calgary from COVID-19, the government shifted classes for junior and high school students to online learning and closed indoor fitness activities in hot spot areas.

Despite rising case counts, restrictions on community care and senior facilities were relaxed yesterday to allow indoor visits of up to four people and outdoor visits of up to five people. Residents are allowed to have up to four designated support people, as opposed to two, that visit to help staff care for them.

In an attempt to bolster public opinion, Kenney announced that anyone born on or before 2009 would be eligible to sign up for a first vaccine dose May 10, after weeks of rejecting the idea of giving students and school staff any priority for vaccinations. Kenney has focused on rolling out vaccines in his recent press releases, claiming they will give Albertans the “best summer ever.” Vaccines are, in fact, in short supply. On Monday, May 3, some first-dose vaccine appointments for immune-compromised individuals in Edmonton known personally by this author were cancelled on short notice due to lack of vaccine availability.

It is the same story in Calgary, where pharmacy owners cancelled hundreds of appointments. “Some weeks we don’t know when we’ll be receiving the vaccine or we don’t know how many vaccines we’ll be getting until weeks, sometimes days, before we receive [them]. It’s been a little challenging. Our phones just don’t stop ringing all day,” Crowfoot Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy owner Randy Howden told Global News. At Britannia Pharmacy, owner Susan Elzein cancelled hundreds of appointments when shipments were cancelled two out of the last three weeks. She told Global, “I had no choice but to cancel 150 people that I had and then the phones started ringing off the hook. People started dropping by the pharmacy angry at us.” She has asked people to redirect their frustration to the provincial government.

Under-employment soars to record high in Australia

Mike Head

Behind the endless government and media claims of a “recovery” in the Australian economy and a rapid drop in unemployment, the COVID-19 pandemic is being used to accelerate the decades-long offensive against workers’ jobs and conditions.

Workers attempting to practice social distancing while waiting to enter Leichhardt Centrelink office (WSWS Media)

In particular, full-time jobs are being eliminated and replaced by part-time, temporary and casualised work, driving down wages and working conditions throughout the working class.

Tonight’s federal budget is set to step up this assault by allowing the remaining international students and temporary visa holders to work unlimited hours, but only if they accept jobs in the low-paid hospitality and tourism sectors.

At the end of March, the Liberal-National Coalition government had already intensified this process, by simultaneously terminating its JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme and slashing JobSeeker dole payments back to pre-pandemic, sub-poverty levels.

These moves effectively coerce workers into jobs with sub-standard pay and conditions, often filling gaps left by the loss of the previous main sources of super-exploited labour—students, immigrant visa holders and visiting backpackers.

Released last week, but buried by the corporate media, the latest employment data from the Roy Morgan polling company shows 1.31 million workers were unemployed in April. That was down 332,000 on March, leaving an unemployment rate of 9.0 percent, the lowest since before the pandemic hit in early March 2020.

However, the drop was offset by a rise in under-employment, which increased by 268,000 in April to 9.3 percent of the workforce. “Under-employment” measures workers who are employed but wanting more hours. That is, they are working part-time or as casuals, yet needing more work to survive financially.

In total, 2.66 million workers—18.3 percent of the workforce—were either unemployed or under-employed in April, a small decrease of 64,000 on March, when Prime Minster Scott Morrison’s government made its JobKeeper and JobSeeker changes.

Compared to early March 2020, before the government was forced by workers and the public as a whole to institute a limited nation-wide lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19, there are over 500,000 more workers either unemployed or under-employed.

During April, full-time employment rose by 129,000 to 8,534,000. But there was a far greater rise in part-time employment—up 413,000 to 4,757,000. Part-time employment hit a new record high, while full-time employment returned to around pre-pandemic levels.

These figures are substantially higher than the official data produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), primarily because the ABS does not count as jobless those who worked more than one hour a week, nor those who worked zero hours for “economic reasons.”

No ABS figures have yet been released for April, but in March—before the JobKeeper-JobSeeker cuts—its unemployment estimate dropped from 5.8 percent to 5.6 percent. The ABS also reported there were 1.1 million people under-employed, for a total of 1.93 million unemployed or under-employed (14.0 percent).

Despite the ongoing toll on workers, Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine, like other business commentators, said the results had vindicated the government’s decision to end JobKeeper and “wind back” JobSeeker payments. In releasing the company’s April data, she said “Australia’s employment markets have powered through.”

This hubris disguises what is actually happening. The pandemic has both temporarily driven up domestic consumer spending—because no one can travel overseas—and pressured more impoverished workers into taking poorly-paid and insecure jobs.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg yesterday admitted that the boost to the economy from spending, by people unable to leave the country, was only a “pandemic effect, not a permanent one.”

Interviewed by Nine Media newspapers—the Melbourne Age and the Sydney Morning Herald—as part of his pre-budget public relations pitch, he said tonight’s budget would be predicated on reopening the international border in 2022 and restoring net migration to the pre-pandemic level, which was 239,700 in 2018-19.

In the meantime, the 350,000 remaining student visa holders will be permitted to work unlimited hours in hospitality and tourism, removing the current cap of 20 hours per week. Temporary visa holders will be able to shift to a COVID-19 “pandemic event visa” for up to a year, if they also take up jobs in those industries.

The Australian Financial Review enthusiastically reported that the tourism and hospitality industries will join agriculture, food processing, healthcare, aged care, disability care and childcare as “critical sectors,” allowing workers to be eligible for the “408 visa subclass.”

Significantly, the reported labour shortages in these industries have not produced any uplift in wages, which have stagnated since the 2008-09 global financial crisis. Average wages growth is currently sitting at a record low 1.4 percent, well below the official Consumer Price Index, which rose 0.6 percent in the first three months of this year—an annual rate of 2.4 percent. Moreover, that average figure disguises the outright pay cuts taking place among the worst-paid workers.

These figures expose the lie that lower jobless rates will lead to higher wages in the “labour market.” This claim has been made in every recent federal budget, with repeated predictions that annual wages growth would rise to around 3.5 percent “in a few years.”

The Labor Party opposition has also long peddled the illusion that better wages will flow from larger profits. Moreover, together with the trade unions, Labor peddles reactionary nationalism, blaming overseas workers, not capitalism and the ruling class, for deteriorating living standards.

Opposing the government’s plans to increase migration, Labor leader Anthony Albanese criticised the reliance on temporary migrant workers, saying they should be replaced by “investing in training Australians.” This serves to pit workers against each other, along national lines.

For all the hype about “recovery,” the worsening global pandemic will increasingly impact on the world and, therefore, the Australian economy, even if major COVID-19 outbreaks do not erupt in Australia, Epidemiologists have warned, however, that this is almost inevitable.

In the July-to-September quarter of 2020, Australia recorded the biggest three-month fall in resident population since the depths of World War I, during which 334,000 young soldiers were sent to the battlefields of Europe. That drop removes the main component of the country’s economic growth over the past four decades.

So far, Australia’s corporate elite has been kept afloat by soaring iron ore prices and exports to China, near-zero interest rates and the pouring of hundreds of billions of dollars into business “stimulus” packages, subsidies, incentives and cheap loans. The handouts have boosted profits and the wealth of the super-rich, but the cost is now being extracted from the only possible source—the labour power of the working class.

Molycop threatens steel jobs in Australia as it demands increased tariffs

Patrick Davies

Steel products manufacturer Molycop has threatened to shut its plant in Newcastle, around 170 kilometres north of Sydney, and destroy up to 300 jobs unless the federal government’s Anti-Dumping Commission agrees to increase tariffs on imports, particularly from China.

Inside a SAG milling factory (Molycop.com)

The threat was issued last month by Molycop’s Australasia president Michael Parker. The existing tariffs on imported steel products, due to expire in September, range from 11.7 percent to 57 percent.

Parkers’s statement is bound up with preparations launched last December by Molycop’s owner, the US-based private equity firm American Industrial Partners (AIP), to sell the enterprise which is valued at around $2 billion.

Locking in favourable tariffs will be important to AIP’s bid to attract potential investors.

Interested parties so far include multi-billion-dollar investment firms such as Blackstone and Brookfield, as well as other global companies in the mining industry. Predatory private equity giants are short-term investors that ruthlessly restructure companies, ripping up jobs and conditions, to cut costs then resell at a profit.

By threatening to end local steel production, which Parker described as a potential “loss of another sovereign capacity,” the company is tapping into the Liberal-National government’s anti-China campaign. Australia is fully aligned with the US preparations for conflict against Beijing, and the government has emphasised the need to develop national-based manufacturing capacities to guarantee supplies in the event of war.

In an interview with CEO Magazine in April, Parker said Molycop’s local steelmaking capacity provided a “fully integrated supply chain,” enabling the company “to assure supply to customers” by avoiding international trade disruptions.

Molycop has 12 facilities internationally that manufacture steel grinding balls and rods and other specialised products, primarily used in the mining industry. The Newcastle plant operates an electric arc furnace to process recycled steel and also manufactures train components. The company produces for some of Australia’s largest gold, copper and lithium mining companies.

Once considered the jewel in the crown of Australian steel producer Arrium, Molycop was sold off to AIP in 2016 for $1.6 billion after Arrium went into administration owing debts of $4.3 billion.

After just over four years of ownership, AIP hopes to pocket $400 million from the potential sale of Molycop, on top of before-tax and depreciation annual earnings of around $US200 million.

Steel businesses have used threats to end production for decades to intimidate workers into accepting job destruction and lower wages. The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union of Australia (CEPU) and the Australian Workers Union (AWU) have so far made no public statement on the impending sale or Parker’s threats.

However, in line with their long-standing collaboration with Molycop and other companies, they will assist with any cost-cutting measures.

Since 2015, all three unions have helped Molycop keep pay increases below inflation and maximise profits. The AMWU and CEPU accepted company demands for no wage increase in 2015, followed by 1.5 percent in 2016 and 2017.

In 2018 the current enterprise agreement, which expires this year, locked in a dismal 2.5 percent increase over 3 years. The combined management-union attempt to push this EA through met significant opposition from workers, with a 45 percent vote against.

The AWU, which covers other workers at Molycop, has also ensured that since 2017 wage increases have not exceeded 2 percent a year.

Demonstrating that they had no intention of defending conditions in the lead up to the most recent agreements, none of the unions at Molycop even made an application to take industrial action with the industrial regulator, the Fair Work Commission.

Workers are hostile to the collaboration of the unions with the company. One worker who spoke to the WSWS said: “The unions here are toothless tigers.” Other workers confirmed that union representatives rarely visit, and when they do, they speak to management, not workers.

For decades, steel unions have helped employers destroy thousands of jobs. This began in the early 1980s, with thousands of jobs lost in Newcastle, Wollongong and Whyalla. It accelerated in the past decade, when a major global slump in steel prices saw massive job losses internationally, including 500,000 in China, and thousands more across Europe and North America.

When Arrium collapsed in 2016, the AWU worked closely with the administrators to impose a 10 percent pay cut to slash $17 million in labour costs at the company’s steelworks and mine in Whyalla. This was part of a $300 million cost-cutting package to prepare the Arrium assets for sale. In previous years the union assisted in the destruction of over 900 jobs at Whyalla.

In 2019, the AWU and AMWU used the threat of total closure of BlueScope’s steel plant at Port Kembla to push through wage-cutting agreements. Four years earlier, in 2015, the unions had worked with BlueScope to impose the destruction of 500 jobs and a three-year pay freeze.

The unions have been in the forefront of efforts to channel workers’ outrage at job destruction into calls for successive governments, Liberal-National and Labor, to impose ever-greater protectionist measures.

This includes demands for intensified “anti-dumping” legislation, blaming cheap steel from China for job losses. Such demands have nothing to do with defending jobs. On the contrary, they split workers along national lines while assisting the corporate drive for greater sacrifices from the workforce to make companies “internationally competitive.”

The real perspective of the trade unions is to ensure the profitability of Australian companies, while cementing themselves into privileged positions within a bureaucracy that protects the capitalist class.

Economic nationalism is central to the trade war measures being advanced by governments everywhere. The experiences of the 20th century show that this program leads inexorably to militarism and war.

Despite governments everywhere turning to increased protectionism, massive job destruction has continued. In the United States, the 25 percent steel tariff introduced by Trump in 2018 has not prevented the steel industry shedding 1,900 jobs since 2016. By mid-2019, a further 175,000 manufacturing jobs had been lost as a result of higher steel prices due to the tariffs.

The international assault on the wages and conditions of steel workers is the product of the irrational organisation of the global economy on the basis of profit and nation-states. That means the threat to jobs, wages and conditions at Molycop will continue regardless of the potential buyer.

Bangladesh power project workers face witch-hunt after police killings

Wimal Perera

A Bangladeshi high court last week ordered the S. Alam group, a major Bangladeshi conglomerate, to pay compensation to the family of workers killed when police brutally attacked a protest at the SS Power Plant construction site at Banshkhali in Chittagong. The Chinese-funded project is being built by S. Alam.

Bangladesh police (Nahid Sultan/Wikimedia Commons)

On April 17, local police opened fire on 2,000 protesting workers at the site, killing five young workers on the spot and injuring at least 21 others, some critically. Another worker succumbed to his injuries on the same day and one more four days later. Human rights groups have said about 50 people were injured in the police attack.

According to the media, those killed were Shuvo (23), Rahat (24), Ahmad Reza (19), Raihan (17), Rony Hussain (22), Shimul Ahmed (19), Rajeul Islam (25). They are among the hundreds of thousands of young workers who have migrated from rural areas to urban centres where they are harshly exploited in the construction, garment and other industries.

Police violence against workers and the poor in Bangladesh is escalating under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s increasingly authoritarian government.

Yesterday evening, the Bangladeshi media reported that police shot and injured eight garment workers at Ha-Meem Group in Gazipur near Dhaka who were demonstrating to demand a 10-day Ramadan holiday.

Last week’s ruling against the S. Alam Group was made after the high court heard two petitions from human rights groups. It ordered the conglomerate to pay 500,000 taka ($US5,900) compensation within 45 days to each of the families of the seven dead workers.

While the court declared that $3,600 offered by the S. Alam was inadequate, the amount it ordered was also grossly inadequate. The human rights groups petitioning the court had called for $353,000 compensation to each of the families of the deceased. They also demanded the punishment of the police killers and the withdrawal of all cases filed against the workers.

The high court, however, simply asked for all reports on the incident to be forwarded to the committees now investigating the incident and ordered the state to respond within six weeks. One committee is headed by the police and other is being conducted by the local administration.

The SS Power Plant construction workers were protesting over unpaid wages, unscheduled cuts in their working hours and for a Ramadan holiday and reduced hours during the religious festival. Some reports indicated that workers have not been paid for about three months in a situation.

Company management, the regional administration and the police are now conducting a witch-hunt against construction workers involved in the protest.

Two separate cases have been lodged with Banshkhali police station falsely accusing more 3,500 workers over the demonstration. The regional administration has also filed separate cases. Sub-contracting companies that hire the construction workers have told the media and human rights groups that their employees, fearing more police harassment, have gone into hiding.

Living conditions for workers at the power plant site are inhumane, with accommodation overcrowded and unhealthy, toilets unhygienic and adjacent drains overflowing with human waste.

Construction worker Abdul Gani explained to the media how employees are exploited by the subcontracting companies. “A syndicate takes 5,000 taka ($59) in advance for the worker’s job, 2,000 taka for clothing and 10 percent of the monthly salary of each worker…

“Before the [COVID-19] lockdown, we worked for 12 hours without any overtime and the salary was 18,000 taka for two shifts. After lockdown work hours were reduced to 10 hours, but no overtime [paid].”

Speaking to the media, villagers living near the massive building site have denounced previous cover-ups of police assaults in the area. In April 2016, four villagers were killed by police and another in February 2017 after they protested against the forcible acquisition of their land for the 3,000-acre project.

Two family members—one who lost two of his brothers and another who lost her husband—previously filed murder cases against the police. But as a New Age editorial noted on April 30, “The police investigation, conducted over more than three years, could not identify any of the killers.”

The mass demonstration at the SS Power Plant project erupted amid rising anger amongst Bangladeshi workers over the worsening COVID-19 pandemic. The grossly understated official death toll from the coronavirus is nearing 12,000 with the total number reported infections surpassing 775,000 as of Monday.

While the Hasina government has declared a limited lockdown, starting on April 5 and until May 16, all big businesses are still operating, putting profits ahead of human life.

The Daily Star noted on April 23, that police intelligence and other state authorities are expecting strikes and demonstrations. It reported that in Chittagong alone, “two government regulatory bodies have apprehended that 67 garment factories may face labour unrest over payment of salaries and [religious] festival bonuses.”

Police told the newspaper that they were “coordinating” with companies and workers to avoid the unrest. The brutal crackdown yesterday on protesting Ha-Meem Group garment workers in Gazipur makes clear how the state and big business will deal with the “unrest.”

The reaction of the Bangladeshi Stalinists and the trade unions to the bloody police attack on protesting construction workers last month has further exposed the treacherous role of these organisations.

The Communist Party of Bangladesh-led “left” party alliance, the unions they control and several garment workers unions initially demonstrated against the police shooting, calling for a judicial inquiry and compensation to the victims.

These protests were designed to dissipate workers’ anger and foster illusions that the government could be pressured to defend basic democratic rights. Almost four weeks since the SS Power Plant construction site killings, the Stalinists and the unions are now silent.