Pakistan economy unravels as IMF imposes ever harsher conditions

Sampath Perera

Even as Pakistan’s government implements brutal International Monetary Fund-dictated austerity measures, the US-dominated international lender is pushing for even more sweeping “reforms” before allowing Islamabad access to a previously agreed tranche of $1.1 billion from a 2019 loan.

While the country is on the verge of state bankruptcy, its impoverished population is subjected to systematic hunger and destitution due to the impact of decades of austerity, last summer’s devastating climate-change driven floods, and soaring prices. All indications are that the conspiratorial “negotiations” between the IMF and Islamabad are being used to pressure Pakistan to undertake a geopolitical realignment away from China and towards reviving its long-standing but recently strained partnership with US imperialism.

An Afghan youth gives alms to a beggar woman in Daman-e-Koh park, north of Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, February 9, 2023. [AP Photo/Rahmat Gul]

An IMF delegation visited Islamabad between January 31 and February 9. However, instead of the visit concluding with the release of desperately needed funds, IMF officials demanded that the highly unpopular interim coalition government led by Shehbaz Sharif further increase electricity prices and raise interest rates. These measures would further exacerbate the catastrophic social crisis facing the country’s 230 million people.

According to IMF official Esther Perez Ruiz, Pakistan must also present “firm and credible assurances that there is sufficient financing to ensure… (its) balance of payments is fully financed.” The IMF insists that there is a $7 billion gap in financing, while Islamabad asserts that the gap is only $5 billion for the fiscal year ending in June.

The IMF’s fresh demands come as the agency has imposed a de facto embargo on virtually all external financing options for Islamabad, including from its traditional Gulf allies of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Islamabad had a reprieve from this Catch-22 situation last week when China extended a $2 billion loan. The reason for Beijing’s policy shift remains unclear, but in welcoming it Pakistani political leaders and opinion-makers were quick to reiterate that China is the country’s “all-weather friend.” The Chinese government had previously indicated that an agreement between Islamabad and the IMF would be essential for the provision of further financial assistance.

On Feb. 28, the global rating agency Moody’s lowered Pakistan’s credit rating by two more notches to “Caa3,” reportedly the lowest in three decades. It cited the country’s “increasingly fragile liquidity and external position” by way of explanation. Pakistan lacked the funds to pay for three weeks of imports, it added.

The current impasse has nothing to do with any reluctance on Islamabad’s part to impose ruthless austerity measures. Former prime minister Imran Khan’s government was promptly removed in April 2022 after he reversed IMF-demanded subsidy cuts in the face of country-wide protests. Khan had previously implemented two rounds of some of the toughest austerity in the country’s history. In the final year of his government, Khan shifted the country’s foreign policy towards a closer alliance with Russia and deepened ties with China, prompting concern and anger in Washington.

Sharif’s Muslim League (PML-N) and the People’s Party (PPP) assumed power in a coalition with the approval of the military, long the most powerful political actor in the country and the linchpin of the alliance between the Pakistani bourgeoisie and US imperialism. The express aim of the new government was to implement IMF austerity, which it has done. As soon as it took office, it worked to patch up ties with the US. While Khan initially accused the US of involvement in his ouster, he has since repudiated this claim as a means to curry favour with Washington, placate the military, and pave a path for his potential return to power.

Khan is attempting to exploit the popular opposition to ruinous IMF reforms and seething anger against Islamabad’s decades-long reactionary partnership with US imperialism that has led the country from one disaster to another. He is cynically posturing as an opponent of IMF austerity and US bullying and wars. The government, meanwhile, is attempting to implicate Khan in a politically motivated corruption scandal. With an arrest warrant from a court hearing pending, his supporters rallied in Lahore this week to demand early general elections. Armed with an anti-democratic ban on public gatherings imposed by the provincial government, the police attacked Wednesday’s rally and killed at least one Khan supporter.

The ruling elite is increasingly concerned that the political turmoil and social crisis could escape its control, resulting in the development of mass opposition to its ruthless austerity measures like last year’s popular upsurge in Sri Lanka that forced president Rajapakse to flee.

A March 1 report in the widely read English language daily Dawn cited unnamed officials who compared the current impasse with the IMF to a “1998-like situation,” when Islamabad was sanctioned for carrying out nuclear weapons test, and claimed that “foreign capitals (are) working for Pakistan’s ‘meltdown.’” According to one official, “This time some powers had Pakistan’s missile programme in mind.”

Neither the quoted officials nor Dawn named the countries being referred to. However, the only plausible candidate is the US, which not only dominates the IMF but has a record of ruthlessly leveraging it to advance its geostrategic aims.

Pakistan remains under constant pressure from the US for its increasingly close economic and defence partnership with Beijing. Washington publicly opposes the strategic $66 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor initiative, which it denounces as the cause of Islamabad’s debt crisis. Washington’s determination to escalate the war against Russia in Ukraine is intimately connected with its advanced preparation for war against China, which American imperialism views as its chief strategic rival.

On March 2, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security blacklisted 14 “entities” in China and Pakistan for “contributing to ballistic missile programs of concern,” including Pakistan’s missile program, “and for involvement in unsafeguarded nuclear activities.” While this is not the first time such actions have been taken against Pakistani entities, these measures are always aimed at bullying Islamabad to line-up with Washington’s geostrategic agenda.

Prominent PPP leader Raza Rabbani, once a close aide to the assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and a longstanding member of Pakistan’s senate, demanded on Monday that Sharif explain the “pressures” Islamabad is coming under to a joint session of the parliament’s lower and upper houses. Rabbani questioned “if our nuclear assets are under pressure” and demanded to know “if our strategic relationship with China is under threat or we are being called up to play [a] role in the region which will facilitate the military presence of an imperialist power.” Rabbani also wanted to know the reason for the “reluctance of friendly countries” to assist Islamabad.

It is worth recalling that in June 2021 Prime Minister Khan, questioned by an HBO Axios interviewer on the stationing of the CIA in Pakistan, declared, “There’s no way we're going to allow any bases or any sort of action from Pakistani territory into Afghanistan. Absolutely not.”

Another noteworthy development was Pakistan’s statement last month denying reports that it is supplying “defence items” to Ukraine. Due to its close Cold War alliance with Washington, during which it armed Islamist fighters against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan, and later as an ally of the fraudulent “war on terror,” Pakistan is armed with US fighter jets, artillery, and other military equipment. Pakistan’s military maintains relations with Washington independently of the civilian government.

Pakistan has developed a range of “strategic” nuclear weapons and nuclear-capable missile systems in addition to an arsenal of “tactical” nuclear weapons to compete with its geostrategic rival India.

The crisis of Pakistan’s bankrupt capitalist economy is hardly unique. It has been exacerbated by the continuing ravages of the global pandemic and the inflationary pressure around the world resulting from the ongoing war in Ukraine. Despite having made no contribution to this crisis, the working people and the poor, who encompass the overwhelming majority of Pakistan’s population, are encountering a social catastrophe of unprecedented scale.

Before the country’s central bank, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), raised its trend-setting policy rate by an unprecedented 300 basis points to 20 percent in response to IMF demands, the rupee was in a tailspin, falling to over 278 rupees per dollar on March 2. While it subsequently recovered somewhat, a further devaluation is likely due to the IMF demanding the “free floating” of the currency. For comparison, the rupee stood at 179.5 per dollar in March 2022.

Prior to the devaluation of the rupee, the understated official inflation rate was recorded at 31.5 percent, the highest since 1975. The rate stood at 41.07 percent last week when the prices were compared to the same week’s previous year.

In addition to crushing inflation, the brutal austerity program is being imposed on top of the unprecedented level of devastation caused by last summer’s floods that inundated one-third of the country, producing $30 billion in damages. A total of 30 million people were directly impacted.

Dawn quoted Muhammad Khan, a cart pusher in an industrial market in Lahore, who said his earnings barely allow him to provide his family with two meals a day. “With a family of six, we need at least 20 rotis [a round flatbread native to the Indian subcontinent] twice a day, which cost a staggering 600 rupees [at a rate of 15 rupees each]… basic family meals cost me more than 1,000 rupees a day ($3.63) and I cannot make that kind of money every day given my age and health,” he said.

Niaz Ahmed, a loom worker from Faisalabad, said, “Falling ill, especially to any life-threatening ailment, is almost a death sentence for a poor [person] now.” The report contrasted the 25,000 rupees ($90.69) monthly minimum wage to unprecedented price hikes in all essentials, the increasing joblessness and added, “Even normal medicines are out of middle-income group’s reach.”

Georgian government withdraws “foreign agents” bill after two days of NATO-backed protests

Jason Melanovski

After two days of Western-back protests in Tbilisi, Georgia’s ruling “Georgian Dream” party has withdrawn a “foreign agents” bill that was viewed by the US and the EU as a threat to their interests. Georgia, a country of 3.7 million in the southern Caucasus, is regarded as strategically important in the NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, which has destabilized the entire region.

The protests that began on Tuesday saw violent clashes between the police and demonstrators and the arrests of dozens of people. The bill, titled “On Transparency of Foreign Influence,” was intended to force organizations such as media outlets and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to disclose whether they are backed by foreign money. Under the proposed legislation, organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad could be labeled “foreign agents.”

Similar anti-democratic measures were passed in Russia and intensified in June of last year, amid fears that Western governments, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, would ratchet up their support for so-called “civil society” groups and institutions.

Such organizations have been heavily funded by both the United States and the EU since the fall of the Soviet Union, and played a prominent role in staging the so-called Georgian “Rose Revolution” in 2003 and the Ukrainian “Orange Revolution” in 2004. In reality, no revolutions took place, and both cases merely marked the installation of US and NATO friendly regimes hostile to Moscow.

In 2014, Ukraine’s Western-funded “civil society” allied with the country’s far-right neo-Nazi groups to undemocratically bring down the Russian-backed government of Viktor Yanukovych and install a NATO puppet regime.

While the bill that the Georgian government sought to pass this week constituted an attack on democratic rights, there was nothing progressive about the political orientation of the protests in the country’s capital. In class composition and political outlook, they resemble those of 2003 in Georgia or 2004 and 2014 in Ukraine: they are rooted predominantly in layers of the middle class and led by the country’s pro-Western opposition. Protesters have been waving EU, US and Ukrainian flags and, from day one, the demonstrations were endorsed by US and EU officials. 

The withdrawal of the bill is an indication of the intense pressure exerted by NATO and the pro-Western opposition on the Georgian government.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—all NATO and EU members who have played a prominent role in escalating the war in Ukraine and promoting anti-Russian sentiment—condemned the draft law.

“We call on the Parliament of Georgia to responsibly assess the real interests of the country and refrain from decisions that may undermine aspirations of Georgia’s people to live in a democratic country which is advancing towards the EU and NATO,” the chief diplomats of each country wrote in a statement on the situation.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price made clear that the US viewed the bill as part of a larger struggle tied to the conflict in Ukraine and Washington’s ongoing proxy war against Russia.

“Parliament’s advancing of these Kremlin-inspired draft laws is incompatible with the people of Georgia’s clear desire for European integration and its democratic development,” Price stated.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky threw his support behind the protesters, thanking them for waving the Ukrainian flag.

“We want to be in the European Union and we will be. We want Georgia to be in the European Union, and I am sure it will be,” Zelensky stated. “We want Moldova to be in the European Union, and I am sure it will be. All free peoples of Europe deserve this.”

The French-born Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili has opposed the bill from the beginning and called for “a quicker and shorter path” into both NATO and the EU for Georgia. He described the introduction of the bill as part of a plot hatched in Moscow.

“Clearly, Russia is not going to let go very easily, but Russia is losing its war in Ukraine,” Zourabichvili said in an interview with CNN.

The ruling Georgian Dream has likewise supported the country’s integration into the EU and NATO, but it has at the same time tried to maintain good relations with Moscow. In contrast to Zourabichvili, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, who is also the chair of Georgian Dream, supported the bill and called protesters part of the “radical opposition.” Since 2012, the party has pledged to “normalize” relations with Moscow over the breakaway region of South Ossetia. 

In 2008, then-Georgian President and darling of the United States, Mikheil Saakashvili, set off a disastrous war with Russia, after he initiated an artillery barrage on the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali. At least 162 civilians were killed.

The Georgian Orthodox Church, which plays a prominent role in Georgian society and politics, has likewise supported the “foreign agents” bill, as the institution views Western encroachments on its territory by other religious organizations and LGBTQ groups with hostility.

Amid the ongoing NATO-backed war in Ukraine, the protests in Tbilisi and the efforts by NATO against the bill make clear that the imperialist powers will not accept attempts by the Georgian Dream party to balance between Moscow and the West. They expect complete obedience to their plans to subjugate Russia and the entire former Soviet Union.

Second biggest bank failure in US history as Silicon Valley Bank collapses

Nick Beams

Silicon Valley Bank, servicing high-tech start-ups as well as their investors, was shut down yesterday in the second biggest bank failure in US history.

With $209 billion of assets, the SVB demise has been eclipsed only by the failure of Washington Mutual in 2008 at the start of the global financial crisis.

Santa Clara Police officers exit Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, California, Friday, March 10, 2023. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is seizing the assets of Silicon Valley Bank, marking the largest bank failure since Washington Mutual during the height of the 2008 financial crisis. [AP Photo/Jeff Chiu]

Less than 18 months ago, SVB had a market value of $44 billion. Now it is in the hands of receivers at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) which moved in after an attempted $2.5 billion capital raising failed.

On Thursday, the SVB chief executive was reassuring customers and investors that despite its problems the bank was on a sound financial footing. All to no avail.

SVB was no small operation. It was the sixteenth largest bank in the US and deeply integrated into Silicon Valley high-tech, serving around half of all new start-ups funded by venture capital investors.

The extent and rapidity of the collapse was highlighted by a senior executive at a multi-billion venture capital fund who commented to the Financial Times: “SVB’s 40 years of business relationships supporting Silicon Valley evaporated in 14 hours.”

SVB’s failure is a direct product of the interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve, instituted at the fastest pace in 40 years, in a bid to crush the growing wages upsurge of the working class in the face of the highest inflation rate in four decades.

As money poured into the high-tech sector as a result of the Fed’s previous ultra-easy monetary policies, SVB sought to find a safe haven for its extra cash holdings by investing in supposedly safe US Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities.

A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article on the SVB demise began by posing the question of how it was that a bank, which had bought some of the safest assets in the world, could have failed in just two days?

It noted that the bank’s securities portfolio rose from about $27 billion in the first quarter of 2020 to around $121 billion at the end of 2021.

This increase was the direct result of the Fed’s massive $4 trillion injection into the financial system after the market freeze of March 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But as the Fed started lifting interest rates last year and the yields on Treasury bonds, and other debt increased, their market value fell—yields and bond price move in opposite directions—and SVB incurred significant losses.

It has been calculated that it has suffered a $15 billion loss on the $91 billion worth of long-dated securities which it held.

The other major factor was the change in money flows. Instead of receiving new money from investors, trying to get in on the ground floor for the next high-tech rocket, many of SVB’s clients began to make withdrawals as they burned through cash.

The collapse sent a shock wave through similar banks and the banking system more broadly.

Trading in the banking groups PacWest, Western Alliance and First Republic was suspended for a period as their shares experienced sharp falls because they were seen to be similar to SVB.

First Republic shares ended the day 15 percent down and the fall in the other two was 38 percent and 21 percent respectively.

First Republic issued a statement pointing to its “continued safety and stability and strong capital and liquidity positions.” Such statements essentially mean nothing because if any bank says otherwise, or even indicates all is not well, it can trigger a collapse.

And the market has reason to question the position of First Republic. Its latest annual reports disclosed a significant gap between the market value of its assets, mostly loans, and their book value.

The WSJ reported that the market value of its “real estate secured mortgages” was $117.5 billion as of the end of last year, compared to their book value of $136.8 billion.

“The fair-value gap of that single asset category was larger than First Republic’s $17.4 billion of total equity,” the article noted. It said the total value of the company’s financial assets was $26.9 billion less than was shown on the balance sheet, adding that a spokesman for the company had refused to comment on the divergence.

There are likely to be significant immediate follow-on effects from the FDIC takeover of SVB. Deposits of up to $250,000 are federally insured. But the vast majority of SVB customers fall well beyond that category with the bank reporting at the end of last year that out of $173 billion in total domestic deposits $151 billion were uninsured.

As it became clear the bank was facing major problems on Thursday, investors tried to get their money out and place it elsewhere.

Silicon Valley start-up companies are facing major problems as a result of the collapse with one industry representative tweeting it was an “extinction level event.”

Such is the significance of the SVB collapse and its possible effects on the banking sector, which has experienced falls on Wall Street in the past few days, that the US Treasury Department issued a statement saying it had met with top officials from the Federal Reserve, the FDIC and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which all have some role in overseeing the banks, to discuss the situation.

The statement said Treasury secretary Janet Yellen expressed “full confidence in the banking regulators” and noted that the banking system “remains resilient.”

Of course, it could not really say anything else. But all manner of issues remain. New regulations, put in place after the 2008 crisis, failed to prevent the market freeze of March 2020 for which financial regulators, nearly three years on, have failed to provide an explanation, much less a solution.

Moreover, the massive injection of money by the Fed in response to that event, some $4 trillion, which fueled a new round of unprecedented speculation in all financial markets, has created the conditions for a new crisis as interest rate hikes continue.

Three years and 21 million dead from the COVID-19 pandemic

Bryan Dyne

Three years ago today, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) formally declared COVID-19 a pandemic. At the time, there were about 120,000 reported cases and less than 5,000 deaths worldwide.

The official death toll of the pandemic now stands at 6.9 million, but the best estimate of the true amount of men, women and children that have died is at least 21 million, three times official figures. That is, more than 21 million people would be alive today if the pandemic had been contained when it first emerged in early 2020.

For context, in three years, the coronavirus pandemic has killed more people than all the casualties of World War I. In the United States alone, there are 1.1 million official deaths and an additional 300,000 excess deaths, including at least 1,705 children. The overall per capita death rate is steadily approaching that of the 1918 flu pandemic.

In addition to those who have died, tens of millions continue to suffer from a vast array of symptoms that have been grouped under the name Long COVID. Just last week, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that those with Long COVID are at high risk of “cardiovascular events and excess all-cause mortality.”

In a rational, scientifically organized society, humanity would currently be celebrating the beginning of the end of the disease three years ago. The WHO’s declaration would have been part of a worldwide mobilization to test for and trace the virus, to care for those who contracted COVID-19 and to develop treatments for those afflicted with any unforeseen long-term symptoms.

The unprecedented scientific advances of the past 150 years would have been wielded to full effect and the novel and deadly pathogen would have been eliminated and ultimately eradicated.

Under capitalism, however, the anniversary was marked by the end of the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. For the past three years, the tracker has served as a cornerstone for monitoring real time cases, deaths and other necessary data to end the coronavirus.

Johns Hopkins has said the reason for shutting down is that states have stopped reporting data. Going forward, those who relied on Johns Hopkins will now be essentially blind to the spread of the ongoing pandemic.

More importantly, from the perspective of the capitalist governments, especially the Biden administration, the end of the Johns Hopkins tracker is part of a policy that treats the pandemic as over. Even as 500 people on average die each day in the US and thousands internationally, there is no coverage in the media of the disease.

Biden’s term in office has been characterized by the effort to convince the population that the threat has passed. During his period in office, he ended all remaining mitigation measures, including masking. The US has led the way to the abandonment of all restraints on the spread of the virus throughout the world.

The process reached new heights at the start of the Omicron wave in November 2021, when the variant was declared “mild” and all pretenses of policies to halt the spread of the disease were dropped. Biden foisted responsibility for the continued spread of the pandemic on those that were unvaccinated, claiming that all people who received the vaccine were “protected from severe illness and death.”

The White House initiated a campaign aimed at, in the words of Politico, “conditioning Americans” to accept permanent mass infection through the suppression of data. The White House instructed states to reduce the frequency of testing. In January, the Department of Health and Human Services no longer allowed hospitals to report daily cases and deaths, and by the end of the year the CDC had ended daily reporting.

At every turn, Biden’s actions have been guided by the same interests as those of his predecessor Donald Trump, of placing profits over lives. Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, the focus of the American ruling elite has been to use the pandemic to transfer astronomical amounts of money to the financial oligarchy.

From the standpoint of these social interests, the lives of the population, and particularly older Americans and disabled people who are disproportionately affected, were valueless. This is what CDC Director Rochelle Walensky meant when she declared in January of last year that it was “encouraging” that chronically ill people made up a large proportion of deaths.

Leading politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, as well as major media figures were all aware in January 2020 of the immense danger of the virus that had emerged in Wuhan, China. Their focus, however, was not on saving lives but saving the wealth of the ruling class.

And thus did the capitalists feast. A report by Oxfam from January showed that the wealth of the world’s billionaires increased by $2.7 billion a day since the pandemic began, collectively increasing their wealth by $26 trillion since 2020.

As profits have soared, so has the death toll. The third anniversary of the pandemic also occurred alongside an update of excess deaths caused by COVID-19 from the Economist.

The policy of mass death in the US has been implemented internationally. Beginning late last year, China, the one holdout in the policy of mass infection, abandoned its Zero-COVID measures, under the pressure of international finance capital. The death toll is colossal, by some estimates more than 1 million.

The pandemic has also provided an opportunity for fascist ideologue Steve Bannon and his Chinese expatriate co-thinkers to invent and promote the Wuhan lab lie, the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was developed in a Chinese lab, possibly with US funding, and unleashed upon the world. Over the course of the pandemic, this lie, which has no basis in scientific fact, has been seized upon across the US political spectrum to demonize China and shape public opinion for war.

The Wuhan lab lie has also been utilized to foment attacks on scientists and science more generally. The dangers of the pandemic, especially of Long COVID, were obfuscated, and scientists who have spent decades as leaders in the field of epidemiology have been vilified.

In contrast to the response of the ruling class to the pandemic, the working class sought to take action to save lives. As the pandemic spread in March 2020, workers spearheaded plant closures and other measures that ultimately forced the lockdowns in 2020 and parts of 2021.

That the lockdowns were ended before the pandemic was suppressed was the direct result of right-wing and fascistic provocations championed by Trump and his ilk in other countries, such as Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and ex-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to prematurely end the lockdowns and get workers back on the job and pay for the bailouts.

Moreover, ending the lockdowns had bipartisan support and was promoted as the correct policy by the corporate media. It was during this time that New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman coined the phrase, “the cure can’t be worse than the disease.”

Significantly, despite the relentless propaganda campaign during the past three years to minimize the dangers of the disease, many are still concerned about the virus and are trying to protect themselves. A Gallup poll published Thursday showed that 15 percent of Americans are still completely or mostly isolating themselves and that 35 percent are at least partially isolating themselves.

US Director of National Intelligence confirms end of “strategic ambiguity” over Taiwan

Andre Damon

Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines confirmed that US President Joe Biden was stating the official position of the US government last year when he pledged to send US troops to war against China if it invaded Taiwan.

During the hearing, Utah Republican Representative Chris Stewart said, “In the past, the President has said pretty clearly that we would respond with military action if China were to invade Taiwan. And then shortly after that the administration kind of walked back those comments, but it didn’t occur just once, it occurred several times.”

He asked Haines, “has there been a change in the administration’s policy regarding ambiguity?”

Haynes replied, “you are right in recognizing the president’s comments on this issue,” adding, “In this particular case, I think it is clear to the Chinese what our position is based on the president’s comments.”

Heads of CIA, FBI and National Intelligence testify on global threats to U.S. security

On four separate occasions, US President Joe Biden said that the United States would go to war with China over Taiwan.  In September, Biden was asked during an interview, “so unlike Ukraine, US forces, US men and women, would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion?”

Biden replied, “yes.”

After this and each of the previous statements, the White House issued a clarification, saying that Biden’s remarks did not reflect the official policy of the United States.

Asked to clarify Biden’s remarks in September, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that Biden was answering a “hypothetical” question, adding, “When the President of the United States wants to announce a policy change, he will do so. He has not done so.”

Haines’ statement makes clear that Biden’s remarks were in fact the official policy of the United States, and the policy of “strategic ambiguity” has been ended. Previously, the US was deliberately ambiguous as to whether it would join Taiwan in a war with China—a policy that sought to rein in Taipei as well as Beijing.

Haines was testifying alongside CIA Director William Burns, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and representatives of the NSA and DIA in one of multiple hearings held by the House and Senate this week focusing on the US conflict with China.  

Their testimony was based on the annual threat assessment issued by the Director of National Intelligence that declared that China is seeking to become “a major power on the world stage” and is working to “undercut U.S. influence.”

In remarks before the House Homeland Security committee Thursday, congressman August Pfluger declared:

The US is now locked in a pure competition with the CCP in which the Chinese government is seeking to place itself at the top of the global world order while degrading America’s power militarily, diplomatically and economically.

In a separate hearing Wednesday by the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Representative Anthony Gonzalez, who had just returned from a visit to Taiwan as part of a congressional delegation, declared “I know what war looks like, we’re at war.”

He went on to say,

I mean, this is a war, maybe a Cold War. But this is a war with China, with the People’s Republic of China every single day, are invading Taiwan via their cyberspace. …I spent five years as as an air crewmen flying against China. I know exactly. When they come out and they intercept our aircraft. They're doing that every single day. And there's a danger in that because everything is fine until there is an accident, a spark, if you will, that turns a Cold War into a hot war.

During the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Thursday, members discussed openly what a war with China would look like. Congressman Jim Himes noted, “Rand did a study in which they estimated that Chinese GDP in the event of a conflict would contract by a staggering 25 to 35 percent. US GDP could contract by 5 to 10 percent, if there was conflict in the Taiwan Strait.”

That study was titled “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable.” The study concluded that:

Each side’s increasingly far-flung disposition of forces and growing ability to track and attack opposing forces could turn much of the Western Pacific into a “war zone,” with grave economic consequences.

But, on the upside, the report noted, the war might potentially be “mild,” involving “tolerable” losses.

Belligerent threats against China at the House and Senate hearings were coupled with efforts to scapegoat China for the COVID-19 pandemic. In his opening remarks to a hearing Wednesday by the Senate intelligence committee, Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner declared, “Let’s be clear, despite China’s denials, it is entirely fair for us to ask whether the virus that has killed at least 6.8 million people so far, might have been accidentally released from a lab in Wuhan.”

The abandonment by the White House of “strategic ambiguity” goes together with the de facto ending of the one-China policy, which effectively recognized that Taiwan was a part of China and pledged not to encourage Taiwanese separatism.

Under the the national defense authorization passed last year by the White House, the United States has pledged to directly arm Taiwan. It is also quadrupling the number of troops stationed on Taiwan and will be training Taiwanese troops in Michigan, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The United States, which has already provoked a war in Eastern Europe that has led to over 200,000 casualties on both sides, is rapidly moving to escalate its conflict with China, a nuclear-armed power and the world’s second-largest economy, with incalculable consequences for the whole of humanity.

Ethiopia: The Agony of Tribal Nationalism

Graham Peebles

In whatever form it manifests, whether it’s distaste for foreigners, refugees and asylum seekers, a nationalistic economic policy or flag-waving patriotism, tribal nationalism is a cancer upon the world. Violent, ugly, and often deadly, it creates and strengthens divisions, often resulting in war, one after another after another throughout history.

Ethiopia is a land rich with ethnic diversity: Some 70 tribal groups live within this ancient nation, all with their own cultures, traditions, and dialects. Tolerance, understanding, and cooperation are essential within such a bountiful landscape.

Since 2018, when the repressive, TPLF-dominated EPRD regime was swept aside and the current government, led by Prime-minister Abiy Ahmed, took office, Ethiopia as an integrated stable nation has been under attack from tribal nationalists of one creed or another. Having forced the US-backed Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) terrorists to disarm, the threat facing the country now comes from extremists within the Oromo region: The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF); its armed wing the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA); the Qeerroo Oromo youth organization; sympathetic/coerced forces within the Oromo Regional Authority (ORA); radicalized elements within the district militia, the Oromo Special Forces (OSF); and many suspect, secessionist elements within the federal government itself.

This brutal coalition seems focused on eradicating the Amhara people from the Oromo region, reducing the overall Amhara population and forcing the creation of an Oromo Republic. They are engaged in a deadly campaign of destruction, threatening to tear the country apart, a project which by any definition qualifies as genocide.

Death, displacement and division

A significant date in the campaign to purge Oromo of Amhara people is the Burayu Massacre of 14-16 September 2018, five months after PM Ahmed became prime-minister and invited exiled political groups to return to Ethiopia. Buoyed by the return of the OLF, a gaggle of Oromo thugs (including radicalized youth), under the banner of ‘Abe Torbee’ (People of the Weak), attacked Amhara people, property and businesses, killing, mainstream media reported, 23 people. Since then thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, have died; hundreds of thousands internally displaced – in a country with the highest number of displaced persons in Africa.

The UN estimate it to be around 5.5 million, but when many of those scattered are living not in organized UNHCR refugee camps, but in makeshift shelters, abandoned buildings or simply on the land, collating accurate statistics is virtually impossible. Suffice to say, huge numbers of men, women, and children, who were living simple, often grueling lives in rural/semi-rural Ethiopia, are destitute, traumatized, and frightened, as a result of the terrorist actions of either the OLF/OLA and associated gangs, or the TPLF.

Ethnic cleansing (a deeply repugnant, inflammatory term, like ‘genocide’) forms the cornerstone of a coordinated Oromo strategy aimed at igniting social unrest and institutional instability in which power becomes usurped, or consolidated. To this end, an assault was made on The Ethiopia Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC) by Oromo nationalists on 22 January.

Three Orthodox bishops unilaterally declared the creation of the “Holy Synod of Oromia”; arguing that their decision was prompted by the failure of the EOTC to offer religious services in tribal languages. This is a hollow justification: EOTC priests routinely preach in regional languages and have always done so. To the dismay of many, the government in the form of PM Abiy, appeared to support the ‘rebel bishops’. Amhara Association of America (AAA), an Ethiopian NGO based in the US, is one of a growing number who believes the government was party to the action. In a statement, they condemned “in the strongest terms the Abiy Ahmed regime’s ongoing persecution of religious leaders and attempt to divide the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC).”

This attack, on the most trusted national institution, had nothing to do with the church, rather it is part of a political campaign to divide people along ethnic lines and control the populace by infiltrating the EOTC, which is a cornerstone of life for millions of Ethiopians. The ‘rebel bishops’ were swiftly excommunicated by the Tewahedo Church, and across the country hundreds of thousands of people united in solidarity with the EOTC.

Aggression and hatred

At the violent core of Oromo nationalism sits the OLF, regarded (erroneously) after their return to Ethiopia in 2018, as a legitimate political party, and the OLA, officially labelled as terrorists. The OLF and OLA are two arms of one entity united by a single ideology of aggression and hatred. Their primary goal, as spelt out on the OLF website is: “To lead the national liberation struggle of the Oromo people against the Abyssinian colonial rule [a ‘struggle’ that would not exist save for the OLF]……to exercise the Oromo peoples’ inalienable right to national self-determination to terminate a century of oppression and exploitation.” They talk a lot about the ‘empire state of Ethiopia’ (which they appear to associate with Amhara people), policies of ‘divide and rule’ and ‘oppressed people’.

Under the former TPLF-dominated EPRDF government, a brutally repressive dictatorship, the Oromo people, like many others, were cruelly persecuted and oppressed – see Amnesty International report. Anger (widespread among Ethiopians) towards the TPLF, would then be understandable. But far from attacking them, the OLF stood with the TPLF during its two year war (2020-2022) against the Ethiopian State, and is now carrying out ethnically driven atrocities, primarily (but not exclusively) against Amhara people.

These are civilians, not members of an ‘evil empire’, who are being killed and terrorized, their livestock slaughtered and homes destroyed: AAA estimates that in January alone “over 5,885 houses [in Sheger City on the outskirts of Addis Ababa] belonging to non-Oromo owners (mostly ethnic Amharas) were demolished,” resulting in tens of thousands of displaced Amharas. “The demolitions [which are ongoing] were carried out by a task force from the Sheger City administration (Oromia Regional State) in collaboration with Oromia Special Forces (OSF), Oromia police, and local Qeerro (ultranationalist Oromo youth). The Oromia Region security forces [OSF] were also implicated in various abuses against residents including arbitrary arrests and bodily injuries.” The targeted actions, the killings, the destruction of property and false arrests are carried out with total impunity.

Where is the federal government, a government which promised so much when it took office in 2018? Where it should be protecting the Amhara community, arresting those responsible for the killings and dismantling terror groups, it appears largely impotent, or worse, as a growing number of Ethiopians believe, is complicit. The regional authority, the ORA, is undeniably implicated, and this body is accountable to the federal government led by Ahmed.

Thus, criticism and suspicion of the government, PM Ahmed in particular, is mounting; ranging from allegations of direct involvement in the Oromo nationalists’ plan, to criminal neglect; political weakness amid powerful Oromo voices (in the ORA and within the governing party); or total incompetence.

Accusations and mistrust that has been compounded in recent weeks by a series of repressive measures. In addition to the attempted church coup d’état, the regime has arbitrarily detained Ethiopian journalists/media workers, suspended media outlets, clamped-down on protests, arrested demonstrators and restricted access to social media; curtailed celebrations of Adwa (Ethiopia’s victory over the Italians at the battle of Adwa 1 March 1896), a national moment of collective pride; and arrested anyone wearing t-shirts with the image of Menellik II, who was enthroned at the time of the battle.

These restrictive acts hark back to the repressive TPLF-led regime (in power for 27 years), when human rights were utterly ignored and fear was widespread. Some dictatorships are born into tyranny, others slide into darkness one repressive act at a time, until one-day paranoia reigns.

The dark stain of duplicity

The first duty of government is to safeguard the populace. The Amhara people, persecuted on and off for generations, are being killed by terrorist gangs and radicalized Oromo groups including the OSF, and the Ahmed government is completely failing to protect them. More than that, by their inaction they are allowing the killings and demolitions to take place, day after day, week after week – giving the ethno-nationalists a green light for their barbarism.

Such criminal indifference by a government does indeed equate to complicity, and throws the light of suspicion directly on the PM. He doesn’t visit IDCs to speak with victims or initiate investigations to establish what happened, fails to offer federal support, reparation and, crucially justice.

A recent incident demonstrates the prevailing attitude of the Ahmed regime to the murders and suffering of Amhara people: In the first week of February, the OLA attacked Amhara residents in an Internal Displacement Camp (IDC) in Anno town, East Wollega. AAA report that 41 people were killed by the terrorists and 12 left injured. At the same time the PM was in Europe visiting Heads of State in Italy and France, where he was filmed smiling happily as he sat in luxury, chatting. No mention was made in press statements or interviews of the murders that had occurred in his absence, or the ongoing ethnic slaughter. Why not? Safeguarding civilians under threat and hunting down perpetrators of mass killing/s should be his and his government’s absolute priority.

A word one hears routinely applied to Ahmed is narcissist – is he more concerned with his international image than the lives of his fellow Ethiopians? Like many such ‘leaders’, no doubt he his focused on his ‘legacy’. Well, unless he acts swiftly and resolutely to the mass killings in Oromo a dark stain of duplicity, and potentially genocide, will run across any such bequest.

The Ethiopian government is not alone in ignoring and thereby facilitating the killing of Amhara people. From what I can see, there has not been a single statement of concern, condemnation or support from the ‘International Community’, i.e. America and her mates. All of whom, following the US lead, were quick enough to make one false accusation after another against the Ahmed government when the country was under attack from the US-backed TPLF. Now, when criticism and suspicion is warranted and a degree of external (diplomatic) involvement justified, urgently needed in fact, not a peep, from any government, Prime-Minister or President.

And barely a by-line in the corporate media, certainly nothing in the world’s loudest voices, the BBC and CNN. Following the lead of the US State Department, both institutions consistently spread propaganda and lies about the Ethiopian government during the TPLF-initiated war. Western governments (and media) approach to foreign affairs is largely dictated by US foreign policy, which is rooted in arrogance and paranoia, and is currently obsessed with Russia and China.

The US administration, the EU, UK etc., are certainly not concerned about the killing of thousands of Amhara people. Unless of course it results in the total destabilization of Ethiopia and an opportunity presents itself for US intervention. Until then, the position seems to be, let the killing continue, after all the victims of tribal hatred are only poor black Africans.

Neglect by the Ethiopian government, Ethiopia’s neighbours, global powers, and the African Union (where, at the recent AU summit, while talking about finding ‘African solutions to African problems, Ahmed shamefully failed to mention the Amhara’s plight/problem), which has also been deafeningly silent, in public at least, arms the gunmen; encourages yobs to smash and burn homes; gives no value to the lives of those men women and children being attacked, and thereby grants license to the terrorists to continue. Stand up, stand up all who are aware of this horror in our midst and demand that the Ethiopian government acts to stop the carnage.

Violence and Resistance in Israel and Palestine Ramps Up

Haley Morrow

Photograph Source: TSGT KEVIN J. GRUENWALD, USAF – Public Domain

Just this week, elite fighter pilots of the Israeli Air Force’s 69th squadron refused to attend training.

This is one of many acts of resistance against the new Israeli government, which is the most right-wing and nationalist in Israeli history. This new government is run by Benjamin Netanyahu, who won the election for Prime Minister in November. Netanyahu’s coalition is known for, among other things, anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism.

For weeks, protests have erupted against the Israeli government, most notably the government’s call to change the judicial system. These changes will limit the power of the Supreme Court and strengthen the power of Netanyahu and the Israeli Knesset (parliament) to overrule the judicial system. Conveniently, it will also immunize “Bibi” against multiple corruption charges.

Pandering to the most avowedly misogynist and openly racist Knesset members in order to assemble his ruling coalition, Netanyahu has set the stage for a hard right slide into autocracy, including stripping many of their human rights. Jaffa teacher Yaara Ben Geraluf noted, “This government will not be any good for women, for LGBTQ, for the impoverished people…and of course for Palestinians.”

Since the beginning of the year, Israeli forces and Israeli settlers have killed more than 70 Palestinians, and enraged Palestinians have killed 11 Israelis. Just this past Tuesday, Israeli forces killed six Palestinians and injured 11 during a raid of a camp in Jenin, West Bank. Netanyahu claimed that one of the six people killed was responsible for killing two Israelis last month. This sparked more settler violence in the West Bank.

On February 23rd, the Israeli government approved more than 7000 new settlement homes in the West Bank. Settlement in Palestine is one of the largest problems the Palestinians face. Since 1967, when Israel occupied the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Amnesty International reports that some 600,000 settlers have seized more than a quarter-million acres of Palestinian land and demolished more than 50,000 Palestinian homes.

Palestinians are forced out of their homes and stripped of their land, their olive orchards, and communities when Israeli settlers take over. Friction and violence between settlers and Palestinians are thus a daily occurrence. Israeli forces patrol the settler communities, “protecting the settlers.” Hundreds are killed, and thousands are injured yearly due to the settler violence.

With settlement in the West Bank, Israeli strips Palestine of its ability to build a strong economy. Natural resources, such as water and agricultural production in the West Bank are controlled by Israel. This restricts Palestinians from accessing these resources.

Settlement also prevents Palestinian freedom of movement as nearly five million Palestinians are forced to go through checkpoints and roadblocks just to move around, often even from a family farmhouse to their own farms, frequently taking literally hours to cross the checkpoint. Continued settlement not only adds to the tension in the region but directly undermines the possibility of a two-state solution.

Violence between the Israelis and Palestinians has gotten significantly worse over the past year. Each side blames the other for the conflict and its protracted nature. For many Palestinians, the expansion of settlement is seen as the root cause of the conflict, and the reason for violence in the West Bank.

As one political analyst noted,” The Palestinians will continue to resist with whatever they have in order to protect their lives and their property.”

While privileged people living in peace cannot judge Palestinians for their resistance methods, scholars in the field of civil resistance put the Palestinian chances for justice higher with nonviolent methods, especially if the US citizens could demand that US aid to Israel be tightly conditioned to Israeli observance of human rights for all.