Fiji government imposes “belt-tightening” austerity budget

John Braddock

Fiji’s parliament signed off on the Pacific country’s 2023-24 budget on July 13 after four days of debate. The bill to appropriate $FJ4.3 billion ($US1.94 billion), the largest ever, against projected revenues of $FJ3.7billion, was supported by all 29 government MPs while 24 opposition MPs voted against it.

Sitiveni Rambuka [Photo: Facebook]

It was the first budget of the coalition led by the People’s Alliance Party (PAP) of prime minister and former coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka. The PAP, National Federation Party (NFP) and Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA) took office after last December’s election. They narrowly defeated the FijiFirst Party of former Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama who had wielded power since his 2006 military coup.

NFP leader and Finance Minister Biman Prasad boasted the budget had “fundamentally put the country back on track.” Prasad claimed that it would look after the Fijian people and ensure spending on health, education, infrastructure and social welfare was “adequate.”

The opposite is the case. In a televised state of the nation address at the end of June, Rabuka warned the already impoverished population faced a “belt-tightening” budget. After three years of economic contraction, Rabuka said, “To rebuild; it will not be business as usual... some sacrifices and collective commitment will be needed to address the troubled economy.” The prime minister admitted: “We expect that it will not be a popular budget.”

Fiji is experiencing an unprecedented economic crisis with the World Bank reporting debt levels reached nearly 90 percent of GDP last year. Inflation hit 4.3 percent in 2022, with negative economic growth due to the COVID pandemic and multiple severe tropical cyclones. As elsewhere around the globe, the economy has been further impacted by the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine.

Like capitalist governments around the world, the seven-month-old government is moving to impose the dictates of international finance capital for greater austerity measures against the working class. Over the past three years, Fiji’s workers have suffered skyrocketing cost of living, thousands of lost jobs, and fractured supply chains for food, energy and basic goods. The poverty rate was nearly 30 percent in 2020, but half the population is struggling to put food on the table.

Finance Ministry secretary Shiri Gounder said Fiji has suffered “massive losses” in national income and jobs. He told a post-budget forum in Suva that half the country’s revenue had “evaporated.” Speaking in Samoa in June, Rabuka remarked that remittances from Fijians living abroad were the largest foreign exchange earner keeping the economy afloat.

The government’s pre-budget fiscal preview was dire. It described a “triple threat:” a “very limited” capacity to borrow for essential public services, limited capacity to deal with a future economic shock and the need to “urgently find billions of dollars” for critical infrastructure “that cannot wait.” The deficit is forecast to hit 4.8 percent of GDP in the coming year, while nearly 25 percent of the budget will go to servicing debt.

A sweeping attack on the living standards of the population of 936,000 is under way. The budget imposes a raft of tax increases aimed at working people: the Value Added Tax will rise from 9 to 15 percent on food (except for 21 items that are zero rated) to raise $446 million.

There is a 5 percent increase to excise tax on alcohol and tobacco. An import excise of 15 percent will apply to carbonated drinks, ice cream, sweet biscuits, snacks, and confectionery. Motor vehicle import excise duty will increase on all new and used passenger vehicles by 5 percent.

Departure tax will increase from the current $100 to $125 effective from August and will increase again to $140 effective from January 2024.

Business responded positively to the drastic measures. Executive director of Dialogue Fiji, Nilesh Lal, said years of rhetoric about private sector-led economic growth “may never be fully realised” and government needed to take the lead role. He noted that the budget is the largest ever for collecting revenue, only warning that “any measures that take money out of the pockets of people and put that into the pockets of government can be risky.”

Corporate tax meanwhile increases from the current low level of 20 percent to 25 percent. New companies eligible for reduced corporate tax for listing on the South Pacific Stock Exchange have their tax rate increased from the current 10 percent to 15 percent. These increases will add only about $73.5 million in revenue.

Education gets the highest spend at $845 million while health is allocated $453.8 million, an increase of $58.7 million. Tertiary Scholarship and Loans Service debt—$650 million owed by more than 50,000 students—is written off, but it comes with the caveat that these students will have to save money for a bond. To defuse tensions involving other Pacific governments, a lapsed grant for the regional University of the South Pacific is restored and outstanding debts cleared.

Only $200 million of the “billions” required has been allocated for maintenance of hospitals, health centres, schools, public buildings, government quarters, roads and bridges and water infrastructure. Some 90,000 people on social welfare will receive increased monthly allowances of 15 and 25 percent, but these are from an extremely low base.

None of the expenditure in education, health and welfare will do anything to address the chronic and deepening social crisis. According to the government’s own admissions, the country’s “human capital investment needs” are staggering.

Fiji’s ranking on the United Nations Human Development Index has fallen from 78 to 99 in 20 years. Fiji significantly under-invests in health, even as it confronts major poverty-related diseases such as diabetes. The loss of skilled workers overseas has accelerated since COVID, contributing to an eroding skills base.

The government admits that this combination of threats “will continue for the foreseeable future.” Anticipating the emergence of social unrest, the police force has been allocated $183.7 million, including to recruit 100 more constables and strengthen patrols in urban and rural areas. The military gets $103.1 million compared to $94.1 million in the 2022–23 budget. Fiji’s defence budget has grown substantially over recent years despite the economic downturn, increasing from $80 million in 2018.

Amid the unrelenting attacks on ordinary people, there are growing signs of social tensions.

Most significantly, sections of the working class are seeking to fight back after a long period of quiescence imposed by the unions during the height of the COVID pandemic. Last week, 355 workers at Energy Fiji Ltd (EFL) voted in a secret ballot to take strike action. The Energy and Timber Workers Union (CETWU) confirmed the total votes cast reached 99 percent and passed the 50 percent threshold.

EFL has more than 800 workers, most of whom are covered by two unions, the Fiji Electricity Workers Association and CETWU. The workers say their demands for higher pay, retirement benefits, long service leave and other working conditions are not being met. They are also demanding long-term work contracts. All are on a three-year individual contract, and many have not had a pay raise for some years. The union is yet to announce a strike date.

Rabuka has already taken steps to boost the role of the trade unions in policing the working class. In April the government held a two-day national economic summit to create a “collective national vision.” In discussion, General Secretary of the Union of Factory and Commercial Workers Latileta Gaga highlighted ILO Convention 144 requiring corporatist “spaces at the decision-making table for trade unions, for employers and as well as for government” to work together on anything dealing with economic interests concerning workers.

Australian government’s universities report demands restructuring for big business and war

Mike Head

Last week’s interim report by the Labor government’s Universities Accord review was politically packaged, and presented by the media, as a call for greater student participation and equity. But its central thrust is a fundamental restructuring of universities to satisfy the requirements of the corporate elite and preparations for war.

Jason Clare, Australian Labor government's minister for education at National Press Club on July 19, 2023. [Photo: @PressClubAust]

“Courses must be designed with the skills needs of industry in mind,” the report insists. This would include employers being involved in setting curricula and making university degrees almost obsolete, to be replaced by “microcredentials” courses tailored exclusively for businesses.

Launching the report at the National Press Club, Education Minister Jason Clare underlined this shift. He said the review panel, which features Australia’s highest-paid CEO, Macquarie banking group’s Shemara Wikramanayake, was considering ways to “knit’’ university education with vocational training.

The report specifically nominates the “AUKUS nuclear submarine program” as a field with an “urgent need to train enough highly-skilled researchers” and for an expansion of specialist programs and qualifications.

The AUKUS military pact, which entails spending up to $368 billion to acquire US and UK attack submarines designed for use against China, is a spearhead of the Albanese government’s plans for a war economy, and this includes the universities.

In fact, the reports tells universities that they must serve the geo-strategic interests of Australian capitalism, which are concentrated on supporting US preparations for war against China, which Washington has identified as the main danger to US global hegemony. 

That includes a closer alignment with India and greater efforts to reinforce Australian domination over Pacific island states to block Chinese influence. The report states that universities must ensure that “international education supports broader Australian foreign policy objectives, for example, strengthening relationships with India and the Pacific.”

If one were to judge by the media coverage, however, the report’s principal focus was five “priority” recommendations, each accepted by the government. They included a guarantee of a government-funded place at university for all indigenous students—provided they qualify for a course. 

The other recommendations were online “study hubs” in outer suburbs and regions; scrapping the rule that stripped government funding from students if they failed half their subjects; making universities “good employers”; and an extension of the current inadequate funding arrangements into 2024 and 2025.

These proposals camouflage the core of the report, which is to demand that both teaching and research be reshaped to meet the needs of employers and the military and foreign policy push of Australian capitalism. These plans are to be fleshed out in a final report, due in December.

Anticipating opposition from staff and students, the report’s language is uncompromising and threatening: “The Review believes that bold, long-term change is required to fulfil the mission of higher education in Australia. Change in the sector must be significant. Complacency cannot be tolerated.”

Among the changes proposed are:

• cadetships, internships and short microcredential courses to be “stacked” on top of bachelor qualifications to meet constantly shifting industry skill demands 

• higher education and VET [vocational education and training] to be integrated, starting in “areas of national priority like clean energy, the care economy, and defence”

• students to undertake “work integrated learning” (WIL), that is, work placements

• “a greater number of academic staff should be chartered and/or active in the profession they are teaching.”

This last proposal means replacing academics, especially those involved in broader and critical education in disciplines such as history, arts and humanities, with vocational teachers embedded in industry.

According to the report, there is no choice about this shift. It is a “must.” In breakout quotes, the report cites the submissions made by business organisations, including the Australian Industry Group (AIG), which states: “Industry and universities must be intertwined to ensure graduates exit with the technical knowledge and generic skills needed.”

Under AIG’s concept of “degree apprenticeships,” universities would work with business owners to design and deliver teaching content, jointly assess students and award credentials.

These corporate-driven processes are underway globally. “Nationally and internationally recognised microcredentials are already being developed for this purpose,” the report states. As examples, it says New Zealand and the UK are moving down this path.

In research too, the report says far closer ties to business are required. It accuses Australian universities of lagging behind their global competitors in commercialising their activities, failing to translate research into “new processes, products and services.”

The report proposes tying PhD research students directly to the needs of companies. It hails the development of a formal “industry PhD” scheme in Australia in which PhD students “work on problems nominated by industry.” But this is not enough.

“Other countries have taken this further and have firms assign employees to PhD programs where the PhD candidate typically works under joint university/industry supervision on problems nominated by the firm.”

The report canvasses redefining universities so that institutions that provide only vocational teaching would be accredited and funded. It proposes exploring ways to “remove the requirement that all universities will carry out research.”

Even the report’s calls for greater access to universities for students from poorer backgrounds are motivated by seeking to provide the capitalist class with bigger supplies of suitably skilled labour. The report notes a glaring disparity. While 32 percent of the country’s population aged over 15 have a bachelor degree, that figure is only 17.3 percent in low socioeconomic areas, 15.2 percent in regional and remote areas and 7.4 percent among indigenous people.

Far from concern for social equality, however, or for young people to have the basic social right to education at all levels, including higher education, and exposure to critical ideas, the report’s intent is to slot youth into jobs if and when required. It states: “These additional potential enrolments would make a significant difference to meeting Australia’s skills needs.”

The report makes a passing reference to the cost-of-living crisis confronting students from working-class backgrounds. “Most students work to support themselves while they study, with around four in five domestic students now in paid employment,” it states. “The Review has heard many students struggle to balance their paid work and study commitments, as cost of living pressures, including rising rents, require them to take up additional hours.”

There is no suggestion of abolishing student fees, let alone wiping the billions of dollars in student fee debt. Instead, the report says employers could consider paying the fees of students they seek to recruit. That would be a way of bonding graduates to companies.

To impose this program—as the Rudd-Gillard Labor government did with its market-driven “education revolution” a decade ago—the Albanese government is working hand-in-glove with the trade union bureaucrats and other “stakeholders,” such as big business and the already highly-corporatised university managements.

The leaders of the two main campus unions, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), are urging university workers and students to support Labor’s review. That is because they entirely share Labor’s pro-business agenda.

The NTEU’s submission to the Accord panel dovetailed with the interim report. It called for a higher education sector that “provides the graduates with the necessary skill sets for future productivity.”

The union bureaucrats have long suppressed educators’ hostility to the increasing corporatisation of universities, blocking any unified mobilisation against it while pushing through enterprise agreements that facilitate restructuring.

Spain in election limbo after right-wing Popular Party and far-right Vox fail to secure majority to govern

Alejandro López

The right-wing Popular Party (PP) and neo-fascist Vox have failed to win an absolute majority in yesterday’s national election. As Monday approached, the PP and Vox had secured 169 seats, seven short of an overall majority, to the Socialist Party (PSOE) and Sumar’s 153.

PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo has said he would try to form a government, but his potential bloc of support would only win 170 seats to the PSOE-led bloc’s 172. This suggests weeks of haggling before a possible renewal of a minority Socialist Party (PSOE) - Sumar government, backed by nationalist and regionalist parties.

Alberto Feijoo, center, leader of the right-wing Popular Party, gestures to supporters outside the party headquarters following Spain's general election, in Madrid, Monday, July 24, 2023. The PP has a narrow lead in the election but without the majority needed to topple the coalition government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. [AP Photo/Manu Fernandez]

The PP went from 5 million votes and 89 seats in 2019 to 8 million (33 percent of the vote) and 136 seats. It went up 47 seats largely by consolidating the right-wing vote at the expense of the now collapsed Citizens but also Vox, whose vote declined from 3.6 million in 2019 and 52 seats to 2.8 million (12 percent of the vote) and 33 seats. In all essentials, however, Vox’ neo-fascist programme is shared by the PP from which it emerged, and which shies away from Vox’s more extreme rhetoric only to lend a veneer of respectability to its class war and militarist agenda.

The main electoral shift was an increased vote among workers and young people set on blocking Vox from entering government, the first time an avowedly Francoite party would have done so since the fall of the dictatorship and the “transition to democracy” in 1978. Turnout increased 4 percent, from 66 percent in 2019 to 70 percent yesterday—the highest participation in 15 years.

Despite its savage austerity and pro-war measures in the past four years, the PSOE, led by acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was the main beneficiary, rising from 6.8 million votes and 120 seats in 2019 to 7.7 million (31 percent of the vote) and 122 seats.

Significantly, the largest transfer of votes to the PSOE came from Catalonia and the Basque Country, at the expense of the separatist parties, as well as from voters.

Sumar, an electoral platform of 15 parties, includes the massively discredited pseudo-left Podemos, led by acting Deputy Prime Minister and Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz, won 31 seats from 2.9 million votes (12 percent of the vote). This is a loss of half a million votes compared with the 38 seats and 3.4 million votes won by these parties when standing as Unidas-Podemos in 2019—confirming the party’s downward spiral after four years of pro-war, pro-austerity measures in office.

Such is the unpopularity of Sumar that its leader Díaz had to suspend its rally in Cádiz after metalworkers broke in and jeered her down.

With a collective 153 seats, the PSOE and Sumar will require the support of nationalists and regionalist parties to secure an overall majority of 176. This includes the seven seats of Together for Catalonia, led by exiled former Catalan regional premier and Member of the European Parliament Carles Puigdemont who has become an electoral kingmaker.

Puigdemont and other members of the Catalan government were charged on October 30, 2017, with rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds for calling a referendum and then declaring independence. Puigdemont fled to Belgium. Earlier this month, he was stripped of his immunity as a member of the European parliament by the European Union’s General Court of Justice. He is now waiting for Spain’s Supreme Court to issue a new European Arrest Warrant on reduced charges.

The media is filled with speculation over what the separatist parties will demand of the PSOE for renewing their previous support, including a legally sanctioned referendum—though this is unlikely given their declining support. The right-wing press has initiated a ferocious campaign about Sanchez only being able to rule by “breaking Spain’s unity”, while Vox leader Santiago Abascal rails against a government “invested with the support of communism” and “the coup-seeking separatism and terrorism”.

There could now be a prolonged period of political paralysis and rising crisis. In 2019, it took three elections before the PSOE and Podemos agreed to form Spain’s first coalition government.

The elections have resolved none of the fundamental political issues facing workers and youth. A PSOE-Sumar government will not stop the growing danger represented by the political heirs of the fascist general Francisco Franco. Rather, the result will be used to blackmail workers into uniting behind Sánchez to try and stifle a movement to the left that has seen an eruption of struggles against his outgoing government’s pro-war and austerity policies.

Preventing the working class from intervening independently and in its own interests was the main aim of the election strategy of the PSOE and Sumar. None of the major issues confronting the working class—Spain’s participation in NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine, deteriorating social conditions in a cost-of-living crisis provoked by low wages, soaring prices and high costs of rents and mortgages, or the escalating attacks on democratic rights—were discussed. Instead, the campaign was dominated by appeals to abandon all past criticism and not allow the PP and Vox into government.

Celebrating from the PSOE’s headquarters yesterday, Sánchez cynically declared that the defeat of the “regressive block” had prevented “a total repeal of all the progress we have made in the last four years.”

“Unity against fascism” will continue to be used as a weapon against the working class, as a PSOE-Sumar government continues with policies that for the past four years have centred on supporting Spain’s participation in the NATO war against Russia, slashing pensions and wages while massively hiking the military budget and bailouts for major banks and corporations and pursuing a profits-over-lives policy in the COVID-19 pandemic.

When metalworkers went on strike in Galicia this month demanding wages above inflation, the acting government sent hundreds of anti-riot police to crush their strike using batons, rubber bullets and teargas. Against striking aircrew, it imposed draconian anti-strike minimum services.

The PSOE-Podemos has also escalated its war efforts over the past months. Sánchez travelled to Kiev and promised the EU’s support for Ukraine “regardless of the price that has to be paid”. He joined NATO’s Vilnius Summit, promising Spain would deploy 700 troops in Slovakia for the first time and reinforce its presence in Romania by 250 troops to strengthen NATO’s encirclement of Russia. There was not one interview where Díaz, or her number two, Agustín Santos, failed to proclaim their own support for Ukraine’s “right to defend itself” against “Putin’s illegal war”.

Their government also allowed 37 refugees to drown off the coast of the Canary Islands in line with the European Union’s “let them drown” policy.

Even in the 56 days since calling the snap elections after the electoral debacle in May’s local and regional elections, the interim government sent a letter to the European Union committing to €24 billion in cuts and tax increases next year.

Any PSOE-Sumar government would assume power amid the largest strike wave across Europe since the 1970s, as Spain and the NATO alliance continue to wage war against Russia in Ukraine and mount constant provocations against China. An explosive growth of inflation is bringing class tensions to boiling point. The PSOE and Sumar, articulating the interests of the affluent middle class, will move further to the right and respond with police state measures.

Protests resume against US-backed Boluarte regime in Peru

Andrea Lobo

At least 20,000 people from across Peru participated in a long-planned “third takeover” of the capital Lima on Wednesday July 19, joined by at least 95 smaller demonstrations and roadblocks across much of the country. Thousands have continued demonstrating in the following days and protests have been convoked for the Independence Day holiday on July 28 and 29.

Formation of American troops during a ceremony with Peruvian forces in Lima, Peru, July 14, 2023 [Photo: U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Bob Jennings]

Demonstrators demand the resignation of the fascistic regime under Dina Boluarte, her prosecution, the shutdown of Congress, new elections, and the freeing of Pedro Castillo, who was jailed for trumped up charges of rebellion after being overthrown in a US-backed parliamentary coup last December. Since then, the police and military have brutally cracked down on demonstrators, including with live ammunition, killing at least 70 and wounding hundreds more.

On Wednesday, the protests were attacked by anti-riot police in Lima and the town of Huancavelica, where the prefecture was lit on fire and students occupied a university. At least seven protesters and journalists were injured.

After months of localized and sporadic roadblocks and local strikes, the July 19 protests were the largest nationwide since March. The date was chosen in reference to the July 19, 1977, general strike that paralyzed Lima and several cities and led to the resignation of the US-backed military dictatorship under Gen. Francisco Morales Bermúdez.

As demonstrated by the dominant but limited contingents of indigenous peasant groups and students, the organizers in the United National Coordinator of Struggle (CNUL) and the official political opposition refuse to call for strikes and mobilize the working class in the city of 10 million. 

Amid sharp increases of the already widespread poverty and inequality, and as polls show that more than 80 percent of Peruvians reject Boluarte and Congress and want new elections, the far-right is able to remain in power thanks to the treacherous role being played by the leadership of the demonstrations and the pseudo-left. 

The CNUL is controlled by the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP) bureaucracy, led by the Stalinist Peruvian Communist Party, its protest front the National People’s Assembly, and the National Central of Peasant Rondas, which consists of autonomous indigenous patrols in charge of local security. 

For months, these organizations have worked through countless local assemblies and meetings to rein in the initially leaderless and spontaneous protests against the coup, which were dominated by agricultural and rural workers and peasants. However, the CNUL is still following the same tactics of isolated marches and roadblocks that have been swiftly and brutally dispersed by the police and military, now being trained and accompanied on the ground by US troops with the principal aim of minimizing the effects on mining and commercial interests. 

The Stalinist and indigenous leaderships have a long record of channeling opposition against various governments and the far-right behind support for one or another faction of the capitalist ruling elite that proceeds, as in the case of the Pedro Castillo administration, to attack and repress workers.

The leaders of the “takeover of Lima” ultimately represent layers of the provincial and indigenous bourgeoisie and urban upper-middle class that are offering to help contain and divert the unrest into a dead end in exchange for economic and political concessions. This is reflected in their call for a Constituent Assembly, which today would channel social opposition behind an attempt to breathe new life into Peru’s fatally discredited bourgeois political institutions, while further integrating the indigenous and middle class elites into the capitalist state bureaucracy. 

An editorial by José Carlos Requena in the right-wing daily El Comercio stressed the limited character of the “takeover of Lima” and praised the “left,” but warned that “the relief from... social convulsion could be fleeting.” Requena pointed to conditions of economic stagnation, popular opposition to Boluarte and the regime’s overconfidence, with Prime Minister Alberto Otárola boasting that people could go about their normal day during the “takeover” and even attend football games with no need for concern. 

The regime has continued to describe demonstrators as terrorists and classified all protests as threats, while also making appeals to the union leadership and pseudo-left, which have not gone unanswered. 

On May 1, Isabel “Chabelita” Cortez a former trade unionist and current legislator for the pseudo-left coalition Juntos por el Perú agreed to receive an award from Boluarte, which was widely seen as a gesture of support for the regime. A few days later, the coalition of trade unions of the state-owned company Petroperú published a statement expressing “our full-fledged support for the management and position of minister Oscar Vera Gargurevich,” referring to Boluarte’s minister of energy and mines.

Shortly after the coup, the CGTP leadership met with Boluarte and recognized her legitimacy, before taking a step back and calling for her resignation to better control the unrest. 

The counter-revolutionary efforts by these “social organizations” have emboldened the ruling class and imperialism, which seek to establish a fascistic and authoritarian regime following a prolonged crisis of bourgeois rule that has seen six presidents in under five years. 

Boluarte has dropped her promises of early elections and vows to stay in power until 2026, while Congress has concentrated in its hands powers to impeach electoral and judicial authorities. Signaling the character of the economic policies being planned, 71 percent of businesspeople approve of Boluarte, according to a recent IPSOS poll. 

Even the most basic democratic rights are being discarded. In a case related to roadblocks to the third largest copper mine in the country, Las Bambas, the Supreme Court ruled in May that all roadblocks and social protests are violent and a crime. 

Earlier this month, there were widespread expression of outrage after the Ministry of Culture held a meeting with the neo-Nazi group La Resistencia, including its leader Juan Muñico Gonzales (Jota Maelo).

After Minister Leslie Urteaga acknowledged that she approved the invitation (first claiming that it was part of an effort to have “dialogue with everyone” to further a “Peru without Racism” campaign), the government stressed that she would not be fired. The leader of the far-right Fuerza Popular party led by Keiko Fujimori and other right wing legislators defended the meeting. Diana Álvarez, a top official in the ministry resigned in protest, indicating that the meeting had nothing to do with an anti-racism campaign.

La Resistancia employs the Nazi salute and antisemitic rhetoric and operates as shock troops for the Fujimorista wing of the political establishment, carrying out threats and violent attacks against political opponents, journalists, judges and other officials. This included harassing Avelino Guillén for leading the prosecution against dictator Alberto Fujimori, Keiko’s father, over massacres carried out by his death squads. 

The Biden administration played a key role in the coup that installed Boluarte and is providing the regime with its full political and material support. US ambassador Lisa Kenna, a CIA veteran, used social media and behind-the-scenes “signals” to the military command to disobey Castillo’s orders as he sought to dissolve Congress and prevent his impeachment on the day of the coup.

Last month, clearly in anticipation of the renewed protests, the Peruvian Congress approved the deployment of more than 1,200 US troops in Peru with military equipment until the end of the year. US forces were quickly deployed across the country and have led several joint military exercises, including a 16-day “Bilateral Jungle Operations Exchange” with US Marines and the Resolute Sentinel exercises with US Air Force personnel. 

In February, Boluarte approved a $64.6 million disbursement to buy weapons for repressive operations. According to contracts reported by La República, the military bought hundreds of lethal and “non-lethal” weapons along with ammunition earlier this month from US and Israeli firms. The largest contract was for $7.9 million in anti-riot gear from a shell company called Sourcing Group Corp. based in Miami and owned by the Peruvian Sergio Pérez Pomar. This no-bid contract states that the armament is aimed at “enforcing domestic order in relation to diverse social conflicts.”

While claiming to defend “liberty and democracy” worldwide, US imperialism hopes to use the fascistic Boluarte regime to pull Peru away from its main economic partner, China, and crush any opposition from below to profit interests.

New York Times publishes graphic details of US hi-tech war with China

Nick Beams

A major article by journalist Alex W. Palmer, published in the New York Times last weekend, has revealed the extent of the high-tech war being conducted by the US against China. It has also exposed the lies of the Biden administration surrounding it.

President Joe Biden attends an event to support legislation that would encourage domestic manufacturing and strengthen supply chains for computer chips in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, March 9, 2022, in Washington. [AP Photo/Patrick Semansky]

Last October, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), which operates within the Department of Commerce, issued a document setting out a series of controls on the export of computer chips. The article began by noting that underneath its 139 pages of bureaucratic jargon and technical detail it “amounted to a declaration of economic war on China.”

The war is now about to be intensified as it is expected that the US will shortly announce investment screening mechanisms designed to cut the amount of US money invested in Chinese high-tech areas as well as updating export controls to close loopholes that have emerged since the October announcement.

The official justification for the export controls is that they are aimed at curbing Chinese military development. On her recent visit to China, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen claimed they were narrowly targeted and not aimed at the broader economy.

This fiction is exposed at the beginning of the article in a key paragraph that reads:

“With the Oct.7 export controls, the United States government announced its intention to cripple China’s ability to produce, or even purchase, the highest-end chips. The logic of the measure was straightforward: Advanced chips, and the supercomputers and AI they power, enable the production of new weapons and surveillance apparatuses. In their reach and meaning, however, the measures could hardly have been more sweeping, taking aim at a target far broader than the Chinese security state. ‘The key here is to understand that the US wanted to impact China’s AI industry,’ says Gregory C. Allen, director of the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. ‘The semiconductor stuff is the means to that end.’”

Palmer wrote that the October controls “essentially seek to eradicate, root and branch, China’s entire ecosystem of advanced technology.”

According to Allen the controls were not only aimed at preventing further advance, “we are going to actively reverse their current state of the art.”

Another indication of the extent of the US measures was expressed in remarks by C. J. Muse, a senior semiconductor analyst at Evercore ISO. “If you told me about these rules five years ago, I would’ve told you that’s an act of war—we’d have to be at war.”

Information provided in the article reveals that the semiconductor chip development is characterised by two powerful and interconnected developments: the enormous speed of technological advance and the globally integrated character of chip design and manufacture.

Semiconductor chips are tiny pieces of silicon on which are carved massive arrays of electrical circuits that are switched on and off by transistors. Invented in the 1950s, transistors made their initial public appearance in so-called transistor radios which did not require the old valve technology.

The initial chips only held a “handful of transistors. Today the primary semiconductor in a new smartphone has between 10 and 20 billion transistors, each about the size of a virus, carved like a layer cake into the structure of the silicon.”

Palmer detailed some of the unprecedented technological advances by citing the case of the Dutch firm ASML which, as a result of research and development begun in 1997, produced the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine which is used to print the layers on a chip.

“The newest version of the machine can craft structures as small as 10 nanometers; a human red blood cell, by comparison, is about 7,000 nanometers across. It used a laser to create a plasma 40 times hotter than the surface of the sun, which emits extreme ultraviolet light—invisible to the human eye—that is refracted onto a silicon chip by a series of mirrors.”

Chip production, carried out in what is known as fabs, is “the most complex manufacturing ever accomplished” and has only been made possible by the development by a highly developed international division of labour.

“The wider chip industry,” the article explained, “…is a web of mutual interdependence, spread all over the planet in highly specialised regions and companies, its feats made possible by supply chains of exceptional length and complexity—a poster child, in other words of globalisation.”

As Chris Miller, the author of a book entitled Chip War, told Palmer: “It’s hard to imagine how the capabilities they’ve reached would be possible without access to the smartest minds in the world all working together.”

However, this very development, making possible human advancement on a previously unimaginable scale, threatens the dominance of US imperialism over the global economy—a situation it is determined to try to reverse by all means necessary, including through military war as the outcome of the high-tech war it is already waging.

The global character of high-tech production means it cannot enforce its dominance by measures enacted by the US alone.

In the wake of the October decisions, it was soon recognised that, while the US controlled vital choke points of the process, other countries, including the Netherlands and Japan, as well as Taiwan, controlled other areas and had they continued to sell to China US bans would have been rendered “nearly useless.”

Hence the move by the Biden administration in January to ensure that Japan and the Netherlands imposed similar controls to those enacted by the US. The logic of this move is clear. It signifies that to enforce its dictates against China, the US must become the international policeman of high-tech development.

Within the global process Taiwan and its Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company play a pivotal role as the largest chip manufacturer, particularly the most advanced. This underscores why Taiwan has become so central to the increasing US-China tensions, as the US increasingly moves in the direction of recognising Taiwan as a separate country and not part of China.

As the article noted: “If the island’s fabs were to be captured by China, or knocked offline during an invasion, the costs to the global economy would be catastrophic.” Some US war-gamers have suggested that if China did invade “the US should destroy TSMC’s fabs to stop then from falling under China’s control.”

The tech war started under the Trump administration when it imposed chip bans against the Chinese technology giant Huawei in 2019. They had a devastating impact. In 2020 Huawei was the largest smartphone seller in the world, as well as supplying crucial components for telecommunications systems. In smartphones it had 18 percent of the market share, beating both Apple and Samsung. Its revenues plunged by nearly a third in 2021 and by 2022 its market share had dropped to just 2 percent.

The experience with Huawei opened the prospect for the advancement of the war in 2020 when the Trump administration made Huawei subject to an export-control law, the foreign direct product rule, which the article described as a “sweeping assertion of extraterritorial power.”

This meant that if a product contained American technology or software, even if it were made outside the US and never entered the country and contained no US-made components in its final form, it could still be considered an American good.

According to Kevin Wolf, a former official at the BIS: “That rule subjected all semiconductors on the planet to American law, because every foundry on the planet uses US tools at least in part. If you have one US tool and 100 non-American tools in your fab, that taints any wafer moving across the line.”

What began with Huawei has been extended under the Biden administration. In the words of Gregory Allen at the CSIS think tank: “The Trump administration went after companies. The Biden administration is going after industries.”

In fact, it could be said it is going after the whole Chinese economy. Its dependence on chips is highlighted by the fact that in April China spent more on computer chip imports than it did on oil.

Remarks by Emily Kilcrease, a former US trade official, now at the Center for a New American Security, cited in the NYT article, make clear that the whole Chinese economy is the target.

“We said that there are key tech areas that China should not advance in. And those happen to be the areas that will power future economic growth and development,” she said.

Given the integrated global character of chip production and that it is impossible for the US to bring all its operations within its borders, its tech war will run into major difficulties.

That does not mean, however, there will be any let-up. On the contrary, as the actions of the Biden administration against Japan and the Netherlands reveal, it will double down, extending its bans and restrictions to the entire globe, against friend and foe alike.

The escalation of the tech-war—the Commerce Department is preparing new controls to restrict companies such as Nvidia to sell AI-related semiconductors to China—has brought warnings of retaliation by China.

Earlier this week, China’s ambassador to the US, Xie Feng, warned that China would have to retaliate against the US measures.

“The Chinese government cannot sit idly by,” he said. “We will not make provocations, but we will not flinch from provocations. So, China definitely will make our response.”

That will not lead to any backdown by the US but rather to an acceleration of the transformation of the tech war into a military conflict.

This real and present danger—a war between two nuclear-armed powers—raises decisive political issues before the international working class.

The enormous development of computer chip technology—the result of the collaboration of scientists, engineers, and workers all over the world—is a vast expansion of the productive forces, making possible the ending for all time of hunger, misery and poverty and an unprecedented advance in the living conditions of the world’s people.

Within the framework of capitalism, it gives rise to madness. This madness is not rooted in the psyche of capitalist politicians but in the social relations of the profit system and the contradiction between global economy and the division of the world into rival and conflicting nation-states.

10,000 airport ground workers strike across Italy

Marianne Arens

Some 10,000 ground workers at Italian airports went on an eight-hour warning strike on 15 July, lasting from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. As a result, almost 1,000 flights had to be cancelled, and an estimated quarter of a million passengers were affected.

Passengers look at flight timetables at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci International Airport. [AP Photo/Andrew Medichini]

The Italian news service ANSA reported that a “surreal silence” prevailed in the terminals of Linate and Malpensa, Milan’s two airports. Roma-Fiumicino, Bologna-Marconi, Venezia Marco Polo and Caselle Torinese airports were also badly affected. In Naples, Bari, Palermo, Genoa and Venice, many planes were grounded. The strike covered the whole country from Milan to Catania.

The strike was almost 100 percent solid. At Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci International Airport, 99 percent of the ground workers balloted had voted in favour of strike action, and throughout Italy the calls for a national strike were unmistakable. As a result, the unions were forced to call Saturday’s eight-hour strike covering ramp workers, ground handling and check-in services.

That the unions acted under pressure is shown by the statement of their spokesperson Sara Di Marco (FILT-CGIL) on the economic impact of the strike. She said her organisation had no intention whatsoever “to harm other colleagues” but that the workers had forced the union to go on strike after the government refused to sit down with the unions.

The transport unions involved in the strike were FILT-CGIL, FIT CISL, Uiltrasporti and UGL Trasporto Aereo. Their main demand concerned the collective agreement covering wages for airport ground service workers, which expired years ago. The contract for workers in so-called ramp handling, who load and unload the planes and handle all the luggage, dates back to December 2015 and expired six-and-a-half years ago. In that time, inflation has really eaten into wages.

Apron workers toil in appalling conditions on the blazing hot airport tarmac. Italy is currently experiencing an unprecedented heat wave, with record temperatures reaching 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit). Even with headgear, neck protection and free drinking water, there is a risk of heatstroke or circulatory collapse for these workers, who have no way to avoid the heat. In autumn and winter, they are again exposed to wind and inclement weather.

Despite their great exertions, these workers earn a pittance. According to the website Worldsalaries, the gross monthly income of those working for Italian airport service providers ranges between €1,300 and €4,150 per month, including counter staff, security guards and control and administrative workers.

Apron workers are at the lowest end of the scale. The wage of unskilled handling workers can be so low that they take home only €800 euros. On average, the wage for aircraft handlers is around €1,400 net. For a single bedroom in Rome, the typical rent is around €600 euros. In Milan, monthly living costs alone are at least €1,200.

The strike was the second to disrupt Italian air traffic this summer, following a 24-hour airport strike on 20 June. It is part of the growing wave of workers’ revolts across Europe, which the Italian government obviously understands.

Two days earlier, Italian railway workers at the state-owned railway company Trenitalia, as well as of the private Italo group, went on a 24-hour strike, fighting against persistent overtime, poor pay and staff shortages. The strike was supposed to last until Friday evening.

But Italy’s Vice Chancellor Matteo Salvini (Lega), who is also transport minister, flatly forbade the strike from continuing for a second day. In violation of the constitutionally guaranteed right to strike, Salvini also threatened the airport ground workers with a strike ban.

“I do not accept that some unions are obstructing Italy, causing inconvenience and harm to millions of Italian workers and foreign tourists,” Salvini raged. “If common sense does not prevail, I am ready to intervene, as I have already done, to prevent the total blocking of trains.”

However, he could not prevent several air crews from taking up and extending the strike on the strike day itself. Pilots and flight attendants of many airlines are also suffering job cuts and poverty-level wages, a consequence of government attacks and the merciless global competition in air transport.

Malta Air pilots, who operate Ryanair flights in Italy, went on a united strike from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on the same Saturday, and at Vueling Airline, both pilots and cabin crew went on strike from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The strike at Malta Air also affected aircraft operated by ITA Airways, the former Alitalia, which had to cancel a total of 133 flights that day.

At Ryanair, the strike meant 120 flights were also cancelled at the Brussels South Charleroi Airport in Belgium, and Ryanair said that cancellations and restrictions were to be expected on flights to and from Italy. Ryanair pilots are still struggling to get their pay back to pre-pandemic levels. The unions had accepted substantial pay cuts during the pandemic, which have not yet been recouped let alone compensated for rampant inflation.

Three dead, 10 injured in New Zealand mass shooting

Tom Peters

A horrific mass shooting on July 20 in a busy part of central Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, left three people dead and 10 injured.

Police vehicles in central Auckland, New Zealand after the construction site shootings on July 20, 2023. [Photo: @PhillNewnes/Twitter]

Around 7:22 a.m., police received reports of gunshots at the Deloitte office tower on Queen Street, which was undergoing renovations. Workers fled or hid under desks and in toilets as the shooter, 24-year-old Matu Tangi Matua Reid, made his way through the building armed with a pump action shotgun. Reid killed two men aged in their forties and injured 10 more people, including a police officer, before he was apparently killed in a shootout with the Police Armed Offenders Squad around 8:00 a.m.

Construction company LT McGuiness confirmed that the gunman was employed by a subcontractor at the site. He was one of more than 100 contractors working on what is one of New Zealand’s biggest construction projects. Those he killed were his colleagues.

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster told TVNZ that the shooting was likely “related to workplace tension,” but gave no further details. One witness told the New Zealand Herald that Reid shouted “So what you going to do to me now… what can you do,” during his rampage. Some Australian media outlets report that Reid was sacked the day before, but this is unconfirmed.

Reid had previous convictions related to family violence. In March, he was sentenced to five months’ home detention for a serious assault of a woman, but he was allowed to continue attending work while wearing an ankle bracelet.

Questions remain about how Reid was able to obtain a shotgun without a firearms license and take it to his workplace. Commissioner Coster told TVNZ that police had previously searched Reid’s house “when there was a threat made that implied he might want to use a firearm and kill his family. We did not locate at any stage firearms in his possession.” He did not say when this occurred.

The government’s immediate response to the tragedy on Thursday was to reassure the media that this was not a terrorist incident and that the FIFA Women’s World Cup starting that evening in Auckland could go ahead. The Labour Party-led government has spent $55 million on the football tournament, which is expected to be watched by two billion people around the world.

In a press conference held just over two hours after the shooting, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins emphasised that the government had “spoken to FIFA organisers this morning and the tournament will proceed as planned,” with an increased police presence.

Hipkins then praised the “heroic” actions of the police, saying “we rely on our police, our frontline police, to put themselves in harm’s way to keep us safe… [and] we will all send our love and support to the New Zealand police, who are doing an amazing job.” About three minutes before the end of the 16-minute press conference, the prime minister expressed “condolence[s] to the victims and to their family.”

The tragedy takes place in the middle of an election campaign in which Labour and the opposition National and ACT Parties are all competing with each other on right-wing “law and order” policies. Speaking to Newstalk ZB yesterday, the National Party leader demanded to know why Reid was not in prison, accusing the government of seeking to “reduce the prison population, despite violent crime increasing.”

Labour, for its part, has recently announced policies targeting “youth crime,” including the construction of two new units to house “the most serious offenders” in the country’s prison-like youth justice facilities. Amnesty International and other groups denounced the policy as a further move towards incarcerating more children.

Asked by Radio NZ whether the Auckland shooting showed that police officers should be armed, Police Minister Ginny Andersen said this was a decision that the police hierarchy could make if it wanted to. At present, officers do not routinely carry firearms, but can access them from police vehicles and stations.

The political establishment has nothing to offer the working class, which is suffering from soaring social inequality and out of control prices for food and housing, except for deeper cuts to healthcare and other essential social services, along with more spending on the military, police and prisons.

The facts indicate that Reid was the product of a society that has become increasingly brutal towards its most vulnerable layers. Stuff obtained court documents revealing that he had previously been required to undergo an anger management program, and that he had at one point been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

Reid pled guilty to violently attacking a woman in September 2021, fracturing her neck through strangulation. In a victim impact statement, the woman said she thought Reid had “generational anger” and needed help; she did not want him to end up in prison.

The judge’s sentencing notes stated: “I do not want to send a young man like you, with a limited history, to prison. I think it would be counterproductive and actually set you down the wrong path.” Reid was required to report regularly to a probation officer and to undergo drug tests, but it is far from clear whether he had access to the necessary psychological and material support.

According to Stuff, “[Reid] told a probation officer his background had been troubled: there was domestic violence and physical abuse as a child; family instability and hardship; and he’d run away from home because of this. He described a disrupted education, limited employment, and being exposed to drugs, alcohol, and gang life from an early age.”

In late 2021, Reid was living in the Albany Oak Motel under the government’s emergency housing program for homeless people. Angela Huntley, manager of the motel, said: “He tried to get help, but there was not enough. He probably needed extra help in the mental health [area]. Everyone needs help, being homeless.… He must have snapped, he’d had a hard life.”

It is still not clear what exactly triggered Reid’s shooting at his workplace. It is well-known that the construction industry is highly exploitative, with a workforce, including large numbers of migrants, who are casualised and treated as disposable.

Mass shootings, while much less common in New Zealand compared with the United States, are becoming more frequent. While the circumstances vary in each case, Thursday’s shooting—like the 2014 shooting at a government welfare office in Ashburton—is clearly connected with the impoverishment of broad layers of the population and the destruction of mental healthcare services and social welfare. The decades-long assault on the working class by successive governments has produced widespread hopelessness, high suicide rates and rising deaths from drug overdoses.

The growing militarisation of society, New Zealand’s participation in criminal imperialist wars, and the demonisation of immigrants and minorities by politicians and the media, also contributes to the reactionary climate that produces violent attacks—including the fascist terrorist attack by Brenton Tarrant, who massacred 51 people in Christchurch in 2019.