Zelensky begins mass dismissal of cabinet ministers

Jason Melanovski

On Wednesday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky began the largest shake-up of the country’s cabinet since the beginning of the war. So far, seven ministers have resigned and one presidential aide was fired. 

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is thus far the most prominent of Zelensky’s ministers to offer his resignation in a mass exodus that is expected to continue in the coming days. 

Other exiting staff include Justice Minister Denys Maliuska, Ecology Minister Ruslan Strilets, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna, and Deputy Prime Minister Reintegration Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, and Strategic Industries Minister Alexander Kamyshin, who was in charge of weapons production.

According to the head of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party in parliament, David Arakhamia, the changes could end up involving more than half of Zelensky’s staff. It is the largest government shake-up since 2020, when Zelensky dismissed much of his early government in favor of ministers closely tied to Western imperialism and the former administration of President Petro Poroshenko.

On Thursday, Ukraine’s parliament voted to accept Kuleba’s resignation. He will be replaced by Andrii Sybiha, who previously served as deputy foreign minister. Kuleba, who began his political career under Poroshenko, has served as Ukraine’s Foreign Minister since March 2020 following the dismissal of then Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk and his entire cabinet. During his brief six-month tenure as prime minister, Honcharuk was best known for attending a neo-Nazi rock concert in Kiev.

Kuleba was involved in the elaboration of a new national security strategy to “recover” Crimea in early 2021, which is widely seen as a major factor in provoking the Russian invasion a year later. Since 2022, he has continually prodded the Western imperialist powers to remove any limitations on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons inside of Russia. He developed particularly close ties with the Biden administration and played a leading role in finalizing the ten-year bilateral security agreement between the United States and Ukraine in June.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in September 2023. [AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky/Pool]

On Tuesday, just one day before his resignation, Kuleba gave an interview to CNN, calling upon Ukraine’s NATO backers to send more long-range weapons and lift restrictions on striking airfields deep inside Russia, as well as permit the use of NATO air defense systems to shoot down Russian missiles over Ukrainian territory. Dismissing any concerns over the escalation of war with a nuclear-armed Russia, Kuleba stated, “What else has to happen for everyone in the world to understand that the escalation argument is flawed? It never worked in the last two and a half years.” He added that fear of escalation “simply serves as an excuse not to do something.”

Zelensky, who is ruling the country without a legal mandate after suspending presidential elections, has yet to offer any details on the reasons for the mass resignation of his ministers. He only stated on Wednesday that Ukraine needs “new energy, and that includes in diplomacy.” His own party appears to be divided about the government shake-up. According to Russia’s Gazeta.ru, Zelensky had to overcome opposition within his own Servant of the People party to complete the sweeping changes especially in regards to Kuleba’s dismissal and was looking to trade votes for “personal, financial or other bonuses.” Because of the opposition in the ruling party, Zelensky has still not been able to dismiss as many ministers and officials as he wants to. 

The shake-up is an indication of the intense military, political and economic crisis gripping the country.

In East Ukraine, the Ukrainian army is faced with the prospect of collapse. Russia moved only a limited number of troops to counter the Kursk invasion and nearly a month later, Russian forces are now reportedly advancing at a daily rate of 500 meters to one kilometer on several axes in the Donetsk region near the strategically important city of Pokrovsk, which serves as a road and rail hub for the Ukrainian army. 

Just 26,000 residents remain in the city formerly of over 40,000 as Russian forces are now reportedly just 10 km east of the city. Its capture is regarded as imminent by military analysts and the Ukrainian government, which ordered its evacuation earlier in August. With further advances into Donetsk, Russia will likely be able to strike Ukrainian forces throughout the neighboring Zaporizhia region.

Meanwhile, after over two years of war and half a million dead, opposition to the war in the population and among the soldiers is growing. Almost every day, new videos circulate showing Ukrainians confronting military recruiters to prevent them from kidnapping men off the street even in the country’s western regions where nationalism has historically had the most support.

At the front lines, three companies of a battalion of the Ukrainian National Guard, including their commanders, refused to execute the orders of the military high command because of a “huge personnel shortage,” according to Strana.ua. Ukrainian troops are outnumbered by Russian troops by a ratio of one to three. Ukrainian soldiers are reportedly also deserting in large numbers, in what are growing indications of the unfolding disintegration of the Ukrainian armed forces.

In addition to successive military setbacks in East Ukraine, the country is facing a severe energy crisis caused by the war. One of the principal components of Russia’s military strategy has consisted of targeted attacks on energy infrastructure, which have led to rolling blackouts throughout the country and contributed to masses of Ukrainians fleeing the country or refusing to return from abroad. It is widely feared that the country will be unable to provide enough energy for heat and electricity this winter, and it was the energy minister who was first forced to leave earlier this week. 

There are also indications that the government crisis and conflicts in the ruling class are  propelled by the US presidential elections. As the Financial Times reported, “Uncertainty surrounding the upcoming US presidential election and internal pressures in the EU are also of concern to Kyiv, which fears the long-term security and financial commitments it relies on could soon wane.” In an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman on Tuesday, Donald Trump reiterated his promise of ending the war declaring, “If I win, as president-elect, I’ll have a deal made, guaranteed. That’s a war that shouldn’t have happened.” For many years, the war against Russia in Ukraine has been central to the factional infighting between the Democratic Party and the Republicans. In 2019, the Democrats made the arming of Ukraine for war against Russia a central issue in their effort to impeach Donald Trump.

Given the intense political crisis in the US, one aspect of the frenzied government reshuffle in Kiev may well be an effort by Zelensky to create as many “facts on the ground” as possible before a potential shift in power in the White House. Zelensky is expected to attend the United Nations’ General Assembly and meet with outgoing US President Joe Biden later this month. Several reports in Western media speculated that he hoped to have a new cabinet to present to his NATO backers, who have no doubt been consulted beforehand. Last week, Zelensky also announced that he planned to present Biden with a four-part “victory plan” but declined to give any details.

In an interview with NBC on Tuesday, Zelensky claimed that his adventurist invasion of the Kursk region is part of his “victory plan” and that Ukraine plans to hold onto the reported 1,000 square kilometers of occupied Russian territory indefinitely.

UK suspension of Israeli arms contracts a guilty fraud

Thomas Scripps

The British Labour government’s suspension of 30 arms export licenses to Israel is a filthy manoeuvre. Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced the move on Monday, following the conclusion of a two-month legal review—which has not been made public in full.

The decision drew immediate condemnation from all the usual quarters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu branded it “shameful”. His Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced himself “deeply disheartened”.

David Lammy at the Party of European Socialists (PES) Congress in London, November 11, 2023 [Photo by PES Communications/Flicr / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]

In the UK, Board of Deputies of British Jews President Phil Rosenberg declared, “Our allies will wonder whether the UK will stand by their sides, and our adversaries will see that when they commit atrocities, it will be our allies that are punished.” Labour Friends of Israel, never missing an opportunity to warmonger, wrote that it was “deeply concerned by the signal this sends to Iran”. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson posted a widely reported tweet asking, “Why are Lammy and [Prime Minister Keir] Starmer abandoning Israel? Do they want Hamas to win?”

Both the Telegraph and the Times ran editorials denouncing the Labour government for “emboldening Hamas”, “playing to the gallery”, “hamfisted diplomacy” and “cynical and performative” politics that risked “legitimising the murderous activities of those who wish to see Israel extirpated.” Starmer, wrote the Times, had previously said that “‘Israel must always have the right to defend her people.’ How hollow those words now sound, the arms decision following in the wake of the killing by Hamas on Saturday of six hostages”.

Such outrage is itself “cynical and performative”. Everyone knows, and the two newspapers acknowledge, that the decision is “designed to change nothing on the ground… but aimed at easing potential dissent on Labour’s backbenches and appeasing further former Labour voters in the Muslim community… a PR exercise designed to insulate Labour from any domestic fallout.” in the Times’ words.

Britain is responsible for a tiny fraction of the arms received by Israel, overwhelmingly provided by the United States. In any case, the government’s decision affects just 30 of 350 arms contracts between the UK and Israel, and critically, excludes parts for F-35 fighter jets killing Palestinian men, women and children day after day. It was one of these aircraft responsible for the al-Mawasi massacre of roughly 90 people in a “safe zone”.

Israeli Air Force (IAF) F-35I Adir stealth multi-role fighter jet [Photo by IDF Spokesperson's Unit photographer / CC BY-SA 3.0]

Making clear his opinion that this brutal war should continue, Lammy announced the suspensions with professions of the right of Israel to “defend itself” and assurances, repeated by Defence Secretary John Healey, that the government’s decision would not affect Israel’s capacity for “defence”. The carefully calibrated character of his decision is best indicated by the measured response of United States officials who—despite reportedly pushing against the move behind the scenes—acknowledged the UK’s “own legal judgments based on their system and their laws.”

Amnesty International UK’s Chief Executive Sacha Deshmukh described the arms suspensions as “limited and riddled with loopholes.” Chief Executive of Oxfam GB Halima Begum commented, “the suspension is little more than window dressing.”

Although both groups characterised the move as some form of “recognition” of Israeli breaches of international law, or evidence that the government had “accepted the very clear and disturbing evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza,” the actual grounds on which these suspensions have been imposed are strictly circumscribed.

The available summary of the government’s legal review claims that it was not possible to reach a “determinative judgment on allegations regarding Israel’s conduct of hostilities… in part due to the opaque and contested information environment in Gaza and the challenges of accessing the specific and sensitive information necessary from Israel”.

This is broadly the approach taken by the government in response to the legal action brought against it by Al-Haq and the Global Legal Action Network. In that case, as summarised by lawyer Sam Fowles, who advised Global Justice Now on the same issue: its “position appears to remain, broadly, that the sales are lawful because Israel is not breaching international law. It relies heavily, however, on assurances provided by Israel itself. It is not clear, from the case papers at least, whether the UK has made any significant effort to verify Israel’s claim.”

Instead, what allegedly motivates the government’s arms contracts decision is Israel’s failure to “reasonably do more to facilitate humanitarian access and distribution” and “credible claims of the mistreatment of detainees”—both raised in the most guarded and minimising terms.

In other words, even as it suspends some arms contracts—in a transparent attempt to appease elements of its core constituency which have wavered in their support for Labour thanks to its support for the genocide in Gaza—the government continues to deny knowledge of any evidence suggesting the killings of tens of thousands of civilians constitute war crimes. Even the Guardian’s defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh felt required to acknowledge the “obvious” and “fundamental incoherence” of the “fudged” decision.

It is doubtless for the same reason that Lammy has refused to publish the legal report he was given. Labour’s leaders know they are culpable and are watching their backs carefully.

As the New Statesman notes, “Starmer, who took an active role in the decision, is a lawyer… Lammy is a lawyer; Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, is a lawyer… Attorney General Richard Hermer, a former Doughty Street colleague of Starmer, is a leading authority on international law. 

“This, in short, is not a government that is likely to leave itself legally exposed.”

As far as this has provoked any genuine anger in the ruling class, it is out of concern that any acknowledgement of the crimes in Gaza lets a chink of light through a door supposed to be kept tightly shut by a blanket insistence on the legality of Israel’s war—at least on the part of its two major partners, the US and the UK.

Labour is essentially accused of having broken ranks for its own petty interests; of having “cut loose a friend in need” to “reduce the domestic political damage to Labour from the war in Gaza,” according to the Times, and given moral succour to the mass anti-genocide movement, viewed as an enemy within.

That movement must reject the appeals of misleaders including former Labour head Jeremy Corbyn to see this as “first step” by the Labour government in “ending all arms to Israel”—as in the statement issued jointly with his Independent Alliance of non-party MPs elected on anti-genocide platforms. Starmer has no intention of going any further.

As with previous breaks with US and former Tory government policy—like resuming UNRWA funding and dropping the UK’s opposition to the International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant—the arms contracts suspensions are the minimum action deemed necessary to continue facilitating Israel’s genocide while providing itself some political cover and preserving something of the fiction of international law made use of by the “liberal” imperialist powers against their opponents.

Canada joins US in imposing 100 percent tariff on Chinese-made EVs

Niles Niemuth

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced last week that his government was following in the footsteps of the United States and imposing a 100 percent tariff on all electric vehicles manufactured in China. This move—which would double the cost of EVs and hybrid vehicles imported from China—was coupled with the imposition of a 25 percent tariff on Chinese aluminum and steel. 

In announcing the new tariffs, Trudeau postured as a defender of “Canadian workers.” In reality, the tariffs are driven by the predatory interests and ambitions of Canadian imperialism, and are being coordinated with Washington, its principal partner, to reassert North American imperialist global hegemony through aggression and war.

At the July NATO summit, the final communique approved by all 32 members, Canada included, denounced China as a “decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine.” NATO’s increasingly bellicose threats against Beijing, and closer cooperation with regional rivals like Japan, South Korea and Australia, are aimed at preparing for war as part of the imperialist powers’ drive to redivide the world. The imperialists deem it necessary to prevent China’s emergence as an economic peer competitor in the coming decades, especially in key “clean energy” sectors like EVs. They are also determined to secure dominance over the raw materials needed for their production, as well as of advanced armaments and weapons systems.

Trudeau with Unifor President Lana Payne, who strongly supports the trade war tariffs on Chinese-made EVs [Photo: Justin Trudeau/Facebook]

Trudeau claimed doubling the cost of EVs from China was necessary to “level the playing field for Canadian workers.” He complained that, “Actors like China have chosen to give themselves an unfair advantage in the global marketplace, compromising the security of our critical industries and displacing dedicated Canadian auto and metal workers. So, we’re taking action to address that.”

The announcement by Trudeau came at a Liberal Party cabinet retreat in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which was addressed by President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, who was on his way to Beijing for talks. Sullivan told reporters that the US was hoping that Canada and its other allies would take a coordinated approach to cutting off the sale of Chinese EVs. Beijing has responded to Ottawa’s actions by announcing an investigation into possible tariffs on canola, one of Canada’s largest exports.

Canada’s anti-China trade war measures—which are strongly supported by the Conservatives and the Liberals’ governmental allies in the trade union-sponsored New Democratic Party—are an integral part of Canada’s ever-deeper involvement in US imperialism’s economic and military preparations for war with China. At the end of July, a Canadian warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait in a military provocation against China, an action which was carried out in close coordination with the Pentagon. The Trudeau government, at the urging of the military establishment and foreign policymaking circles, has pushed to expand Canada’s military presence in the Asia-Pacific as it carries out a comprehensive program of military rearmament so Ottawa can play a major role, as it did in the two imperialist world wars of the last century, in a rapidly developing global war.

For much of the past 18 months, official Canadian political life has been dominated by a furor whipped up by the intelligence agencies and amplified by the corporate-controlled media over supposed Chinese efforts to “subvert” Canadian democracy. Key aims of this furor have been to force the Trudeau government to adopt an even more hard-line stance towards Beijing, and poison popular attitudes toward China and delegitimize anti-war sentiment.

While the sales of EVs made by China-based companies have yet to take off in Canada, US-based Tesla has been importing cars made at its Shanghai gigafactory to the country since 2023. The tariff, which goes into effect on October 1, is expected to force Tesla to shift the production of imports to Canada to its plants in the US or Europe. 

The cheapest vehicle offered by Chinese-based BYD is just over C$14,600, while EVs currently available in Canada start at C$40,000. 

The Canadian government, in conjunction with the provincial governments of Ontario and Quebec, has shelled out C$53 billion in incentives and subsidies to entice the global automakers to establish EV operations—from battery manufacturing to final assembly—in the country. 

Stellantis, in partnership with LG, is currently building an EV battery plant in Windsor, Ontario with $15 billion in promised government funds, while $13 billion is to be handed over to Volkswagen to build its own battery plant in St. Thomas, Ontario. And $7 billion has been offered to Northvolt for a battery plant in Quebec. 

Through these massive public subsidies and the new tariffs, the Canadian bourgeoisie hopes to establish itself as a major player in the emerging global EV industry, even as the transnational automakers—led by the Big Three: Ford, GM and Stellantis—restructure their operations, closing plants and slashing jobs to increase profitability.

This program is supported by the Liberals, NDP, Conservatives, Bloc Quebecois and Greens. Unifor, the main auto workers’ union, and the entire Canadian Labour Congress bureaucracy, are also fully on board with it. The unions have lobbied the Trudeau government to open the spigot and offer the auto companies however much money they demand to build new plants or retool current operations. This goes hand in hand with their imposition of concessions-filled contracts on workers, so as to attract investment and protect the “global competitiveness” of Canadian capitalism.

The unions are fully integrated into the war plans of Canadian imperialism and are party to the cross-border conspiracy with the Biden-Harris administration to suppress the class struggle across North America. Top Unifor and CLC officials have held closed-door meetings with Trudeau and Biden government officials to discuss their North America-wide efforts to smother worker opposition to their joint program of austerity and war.

Statements by the likes of Unifor President Lana Payne are in keeping with the position taken by United Autoworkers president Shawn Fain, who has taken to appearing in public with t-shirts picturing B-52 bombers and invoking the “arsenal of democracy” to underscore his union’s support for Washington’s policy of world war. His reference is to the unions’ role in smothering working-class opposition during World War II so that American imperialism had peace on the home front as it fought savagely against its imperialist rivals for world domination. This illustrates perfectly the part the UAW and Unifor intend to play in the rapidly emerging third world war on behalf of the ruling class in Washington and Ottawa.

“Canada can and must protect auto and manufacturing jobs here in this country, which thousands of workers rely on for their livelihoods,” Payne declared in a statement welcoming the new tariff. “There is no justification to trade away high-paying, high-skilled jobs for cheap high-carbon intensive vehicles build [sic] under deplorable working conditions. Our union welcomes the Canadian tariff that matches the U.S. to present a united front in support of the auto sector and the communities that benefit from it. We must all remember that cheap comes at a very high cost—a cost to good Canadian jobs and communities.”

Payne and her fellow union bureaucrats are championing a “united front” with governments that are readying for war with China, back the genocide against the Palestinians to the hilt, and have instigated and are relentlessly escalating a bloody war with Russia. They seek to pit Canadian workers against their Chinese brothers and sisters in a race to the bottom, while offering up their labour to the global auto giants for exploitation. This poisonous nationalism fans the flames of the war fever being whipped up by all the major powers.

Australian economy heading into recession

Nick Beams

The Australian national accounts figures released yesterday show the economy is as close to a recession as it can be without being officially designated as having reached that point.

In fact, if output per head of population is taken as a more accurate measure of the state of the economy, it has been in a recession for some time, because this figure showed its sixth consecutive quarterly decline.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said the economy grew by just 0.2 percent in the June quarter following a 0.1 percent rise in the three months to the end of March. GDP per capita was down by 0.4 percent.

Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers in Western Australia, September 2, 2024 [Photo: Facebook/jim4rankin]

Annual economic growth fell to 1 percent in June, compared to 1.3 percent in March. Outside of the onset of the COVID pandemic, this is the lowest growth rate since the recession of the early 1990s, and well below the average of 2.7 percent over the past 20 years.

Household spending rose by just 0.5 percent in the 12 months to June, well below the average annual growth of 2.5 percent in the decade before the pandemic.

Other figures released earlier this week by the ABS show the downward trend. Annual growth in private sector wages was 5.3 percent, down from the figure of 6.6 percent in March. It was the lowest result in two years.

But this figure by no means captures the real decline in workers’ living standards, which have been hit by the escalation of mortgage payments. More than 80 percent of home buyers are on variable interest rates leading to cuts in disposable income of anywhere between $300 and $500 a week.

According to analysis of figures prepared by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Australian households have experienced the largest cut in disposable income of any of the countries in the grouping of major economies.

This is reflected in the hospitality sector—taking the family out for a meal is one of the first items to be cut when incomes go down—where consumer spending fell by 3.1 percent in the 12 months to June.

Retail sales volumes fell by 0.3 percent in the three months to June, according to ABS data.

The release of the latest data was preceded by a war of words following the declaration by Labor treasurer Jim Chalmers that interest rate hikes by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) were “smashing” the economy.

Responding to estimates by economists that growth would come in at a very low figure—chief National Australia Bank economist Alan Oster said there was a “serious chance” the number could be negative and there was “no momentum” in the economy—Chalmers tried to get on the front foot.

He declared: “With all this global uncertainty on top of the impact of rate rises, which are smashing the economy, it would be no surprise at all if the national accounts … show growth is soft and subdued.”

This set off a hail of denunciations of Chalmers for attacking the RBA, something he would not have expected because he had said similar things previously.

In June, he said rate rises were “hammering the economy” and later that month that they were “hammering consumption.” At the beginning of July, he said discretionary spending had been “absolutely hammered by higher interest rates.”

Backing his treasurer last Monday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “The treasurer’s comments were nothing new.”

The reason for the outrage on this occasion is the shift in the interest rate landscape following indications by the chairman of the US Federal Reserve Jerome Powell at the Jackson Hole, Wyoming, conclave of central banks last month that a rate cut is on the table at its meeting later this month.

The representatives and spokesmen of finance capital in Australia want the RBA to follow suit so they can get their hands on cheaper money.

But they are concerned this will not take place because RBA governor Michele Bullock has said there is no prospect of a cut this year, as demand is still too high relative to supply and this will continue to push up inflation. Bullock even indicated that at its last meeting the RBA had given “very serious consideration” to another rate rise on top of the 13 hikes since the present cycle began in 2022.

Her stance was backed by RBA deputy governor Andrew Hauser after his return from the Jackson Hole meeting.

In an interview with the Conversation, Hauser said: “Sadly, at the moment Australian inflation has been a bit stickier than it has been in the US. We’re not as confident as [Powell] is in the US, that inflation in Australia is back on a sustainable path back to target. And therefore we have to hold rates where they are for the time being.”

The central thrust of the barrage over Chalmers’ remarks was that government spending had to be cut.

The head of the financial firm Wilson Asset Management, Geoff Wilson, was one of the first into the fray denouncing the “appalling behaviour” of Chalmers in comments to the Murdoch-owned Australian newspaper.

He quickly got to the essential demand of all sections of finance capital claiming that stimulus measures in the last two federal budgets had hindered the efforts of the RBA to bring down inflation through its interest rate cuts.

“If [the government] weren’t running expansionary budgets, then [the RBA] wouldn’t have that problem,” Wilson said.

In fact, the Labor government’s budgets have made real cuts in vital social services while increasing spending on the military, but the demand is for more.

The Murdoch press then wheeled out former Prime Minister John Howard to deliver the same message in an opinion piece published yesterday.

He said it was a “well accepted fact” that if government spending was too high this exerted upward pressure on interest rates. “There is little argument that the Albanese government has lost control of expenditure.”

Back in May, the RBA said government spending was one of the factors leading to higher inflation. In deference to the problems this caused for Chalmers, Bullock pulled back slightly saying it was not the “main game.”

But she maintained that the RBA board “does remain concerned about the degree of excess demand in the economy.” With the economy essentially flatlining, that means it should be driven into recession and government spending cut before interest rates can be reduced.

The issue of government spending was raised in comments by the head of the ABS national accounts department, Katherine Keenan. The latest data showed that federal government spending hit a high of 11.8 percent of GDP in the June quarter, around the same level as at the start of the pandemic. And she indicated what the target for cuts should be.

“The rise in June was due to continued strength in social benefits programs for health services. State and local expenditure also contributed to growth with a rise in employee expenses,” Keenan said.

While not making their demands specific, in order to try to preserve a veneer of neutrality, the economic organisations of the capitalist state are making clear the class orientation of their policy demands—cuts to social services as well as the further suppression of wages.

In the controversy leading up to the release of the data, Chalmers insisted he was not attacking the RBA but was simply “telling it like it is.”

“We’ve got different responsibilities, but we’ve got the same objective,” he said.

That much is true. The objective of the RBA in its so-called fight against inflation has been to ensure that workers’ struggles against the most significant cuts to living standards in the post-war period are suppressed. It has sought to do this through the 13 interest rate increases since May 2022.

The Labor government is pursuing the same objective as it relies on the trade union apparatus to impose sub-inflationary wage agreements on workers. At the same time, it has tried to maintain a certain political equilibrium by promoting the illusion that its tax cuts, largely benefiting the wealthy, plus power subsidies are alleviating cost-of-living pressures.

But the dictates of finance capital are relentless. It is demanding that even these entirely inadequate measures be eliminated, and deep cuts be made to essential social spending.

The efforts of the Labor leadership to maintain support have failed as poll numbers indicate that its support has fallen below even the levels it received at the last election. But significantly, this has not translated into increased support for the Liberal Party and its leader Peter Dutton.

A recent opinion poll asked whether inflation would be higher, lower or the same under a Dutton-led government. Only 24 percent said it would be lower, 41 percent said it would be the same and 18 percent thought it would be higher.

Opinion polls are notoriously inaccurate measures of political consciousness and understanding. But the response does indicate the widespread hostility in the working class and among the youth to the entire political establishment, as well as the growing realisation that deeper processes are at work and the mounting social and economic problems they confront cannot be resolved within the existing political framework.

US-organized police-military “stabilization” force deploys in Haiti

Félix Gauthier

Haiti remains mired in a profound social crisis and escalating criminal gang violence, as a US-organized, United Nations’ sanctioned, police-military “stabilization” force continues to roll out its deployment in the Western hemisphere’s poorest country.

In a flimsy attempt to portray the mission as motivated by “humanitarian” concerns, not imperialist interests, the United States and Canada pushed for Kenya’s right-wing government to take the leadership of what is officially known as the UN Multilateral Security Support Mission to Haiti.

Police officers, part of a UN-backed multinational force, drive past residents in armored vehicles on the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024. [AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph]

Between late June and mid-July, 400 Kenyan National Police Special Forces personnel arrived in Haiti, substantially short of what had been a promised 1,000-strong contingent. They are to be joined by 1,500 troops recruited from Jamaica, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, and Benin, and will work with the notoriously corrupt Haitian National Police to re-establish “law and order.”

The police-military mission has been organized and is principally financed by the United States. It has provided $380 million to fund the mission and in recent weeks has delivered 80 Humvees, 35 MaxxPro vehicles, sniper rifles, and drones to Port-au-Prince.

Canadian imperialism is also playing an important role, and to a lesser extent France and Spain. Ottawa has contributed more than C$80 million, some of it in the form of armored vehicles, and has provided training in Jamaica to some of the units deploying to Haiti.

The fraudulent character of the claims that the imperialist-organized intervention force is deploying to Haiti to protect its people and salvage “democracy” were exposed by the events occurring in Kenya, as officers drawn from its Special Forces police were deploying to Haiti.

The Kenyan government of William Ruto used National Police, and particularly the Special Forces, who are notorious for their thuggery and criminality, to violently suppress mass protests against IMF-dictated austerity measures. Last month, the Ruto government indefinitely banned protests in Nairobi’s Central Business District, invoking the manifestly trumped up pretext of potential violence by “criminal groups.”

In Haiti, Kenya’s police are carrying out the same role they do in Kenya. Their purpose is to terrorize the Haitian people into submission, so as to prevent the gang crisis from triggering a mass exodus of impoverished refugees to the US and Canada or destabilizing the broader Caribbean region, which Washington has long viewed as its backyard.

Over a century of imperialist occupation, regime-changes and plunder

After plundering Haiti for over a century, leaving death and destruction in their wake, the imperialist powers are only concerned with preventing the Haitian population’s desperate attempts to survive from becoming an international “disturbance.”

The US has a long, bloody record of intervening militarily in Haiti, stretching back over a century. In the past three decades, they have repeatedly been joined by Canadian troops.

There are several reasons that the North American imperialist powers have chosen to outsource responsibility for establishing “order” in Haiti to Kenya and several other African and CARICOM nations, rather than deploying their own troops. First, US and Canadian military resources are focused on supplying Ukraine and preparing for direct war with Russia and China. There is also an acute awareness of the Haitian population’s hostility towards the imperialist powers. There have been repeated demonstrations in Port-au-Prince denouncing the role not just of Washington, but also of Canadian imperialism. Finally, there is a recognition that suppressing the gangs, who have intimate ties to and are sponsored by rival factions of the venal Haitian bourgeoisie, could cost considerable blood and treasure.

Since the beginning of the year, the situation in Haiti has been widely described as teetering on the brink of total collapse, with extreme violence and want having become the norm for a great portion of Haiti’s population.

Already burdened by over a century of imperialist occupation and oppression, Haiti suffered further devastation in a 2010 earthquake, from which it has never fully recovered. The imperialist led “humanitarian” efforts which followed the earthquake turned into systematic pillage. Repeated rounds of IMF imposed austerity, then the COVID-19 pandemic precipitated the ongoing collapse of Haitian society.

Armed gangs have taken control of much of Haiti, severing supply routes and isolating the capital from the rest of the country. The gang control has also restricted access to vital goods, including food, medicine, and fuel, making basic necessities a luxury. It is estimated that gangs control approximately 80 percent of Haiti’s capital.

According to a UN report issued late last month, some 578,000 people have been displaced and forced onto the streets, where killings, lynchings, and sexual assaults take place on a regular basis. Only a quarter of the country’s dilapidated hospitals are functioning, 1.5 million children have been shut out of school, and approximately half of Haiti’s population is in need of humanitarian assistance.

Meanwhile, with more than 8 months of the year already over, the UN’s Haiti 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan, has raised just $162.5 million from member states or just 33 percent of a budgeted $674 million.

The desperate situation in Haiti is causing a migration crisis, some of the consequences of which were tragically illustrated last month when a fire broke out on a boat carrying migrants off the coast of the island nation, resulting in at least 40 deaths and multiple injuries, according to a United Nations agency.

Social tensions are at a high point, as the population is facing increasing shortages of essential goods and services. It was reported on Wednesday that Haiti’s largest hydropower plant, Peligre, was shut down after protesters stormed the facility demanding access to electricity. The country has been grappling with energy shortages, as the authorities prioritize the capital, Port-au-Prince, over other regions. The Peligre plant, with a capacity of 54 MW, represents nearly all of Haiti’s hydropower output. Hydrocarbons are also in short supply due to Venezuela halting oil exports to Haiti in 2019 amid US sanctions and declining oil production.

The tragedy now engulfing Haiti is first and foremost a product of imperialist oppression and predation.

US Marines occupied the country from 1915 to 1934 to ensure “stability.” This was a euphemism for guaranteeing that Haiti’s debts to American banks were repaid, and that a peasant uprising was crushed. The national army, shaped and trained by the US occupation forces, became the backbone of the Duvalier dictatorship, which imposed a reign of terror and torture for three decades. During this time, Washington staunchly supported the regime, seeing it as a critical Cold War ally in the Caribbean. Even after the overthrow of “Baby Doc” Duvalier in 1986, the US maneuvered to maintain its grip on the country amidst a popular uprising.

The cycle of intervention continued with US and Canadian troops occupying Haiti in the 1990s and again in 2004 to remove democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, partnering with far-right factions linked to the old Duvalier regime. Following the catastrophic 2010 earthquake, the imperialist powers returned under the guise of humanitarian aid, pushing for the country’s neoliberal economic restructuring to further exploit Haiti’s resources and toiling masses.

American and Canadian imperialism and the sponsors of gang violence

On Aug. 20, the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on Michel Joseph Martelly, a far-right figure connected to the Duvalierist bourgeoisie who served as the President of Haiti from 2011 to 2016. According to a statement from the US government, Martelly was involved in drug trafficking, money laundering, and supported several Haitian gangs of the kind that currently control 80 percent of the nation’s capital, and plunder, and terrorize its population.

Martelly’s corruption and gang involvement were widely known, yet in his years in power he enjoyed staunch US support. As a recent Foreign Policy article noted, “Despite the long-standing allegations against Martelly, the United States maintained a warm relationship with him for years.” It goes on to explain that the sanctions against Martelly are the product of immediate political concerns—that Martelly’s plans for a political comeback could destabilize the transitional government of “national unity” the US-stitched together earlier this year to provide a fig-leaf of popular Haitian support for the foreign police-military intervention it was organizing.

As was shown by the release of emails under the Freedom of Information Act in 2016, Hillary Clinton’s US State Department intervened heavily in the 2010-2011 presidential election in Haiti and effectively ensured the victory of Martelly. Once in power, Martelly’s presidency saw corruption, suppression of local democratic processes, and the reestablishment of the Haitian army.

In 2015/16, the Obama administration and the newly elected Trudeau government manipulated Haiti’s election process to install Martell’s protégé, Moïse, as president. With the imperialists’ support, the latter imposed yet further IMF austerity, while trying to arrogate additional powers, and refusing to call new elections.

Protesters calling for the resignation of Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry run after police fired tear gas to disperse them in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, Oct. 10, 2022. [AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph]

Following Moïses assassination in 2021, in what appears to have been a settling of accounts among rival bourgeois factions and criminal gang-sponsors, Washington, backed by Canada and the other imperialist powers—the so-called Core Group—imposed Ariel Henry as the un-elected head of Haiti’s government and de facto dictator.

However, in February, the US turned on Henry, having concluded he had become a liability and removed him from office. It effectively kidnapped him as he returned from Kenya, having signed the security agreement that allowed for Kenya forces to lead the current police-military stabilization mission.

Henry has been replaced by an imperialist-sponsored “Transitional Council,” another unelected body, created with representatives from Haiti’s elite and civil society, including forces which formerly presented themselves as opponents of imperialism, like Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas. This Transitional Council is now tasked with organizing new elections by early 2026, which will no doubt once more be closely “supervised” by the imperialist powers.

According to recent Haitian media reports, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to visit Haiti in the next few days to hold meetings with Edgard Leblanc Fils, the Chairman of the Transitional Council, and Prime Minister Garry Conille.

Whatever political constellation results from the “transitional” process, it can be certain its members will be beholden to imperialism and the Haitian bourgeoisie and have corrupt links to the criminal gangs.  

Last Tuesday, Haiti’s anti-corruption agency launched a new crackdown on government corruption, accusing high-ranking officials of crimes such as illicit enrichment and abuse of office. The investigations revealed significant misuse of funds and resources, including cases where food meant for public school students was diverted and government fuel was used for personal benefit. Among the accused is the former minister of planification and external cooperation, Aviol Fleurant. There can be no doubt that this largely demonstrative crackdown only represents the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Haitian elite’s criminality.

Haiti’s crisis is an extreme and highly concentrated manifestation of the crisis of capitalism as a whole. There is an intrinsic and direct link between the weak Haitian bourgeoisie’s incapacity to rule within the bounds of democratic legality, and its complete dependence on imperialism to maintain its rule and safeguard its ill-gotten wealth.

4 dead, dozens wounded in Georgia high school shooting

Kevin Reed

A 14-year-old shooter killed two students and two teachers on Wednesday morning with an AR-15 style rifle at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, before he was taken into custody by law enforcement.

A medical helicopter is seen in front of Apalachee High School after a shooting at the school Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, in Winder, Ga. [AP Photo/Mike Stewart]

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) confirmed the shooter’s name as Colt Gray, a student at the school, and that nine others had injuries requiring hospitalization. Apalachee High School is part of Barrow County Schools, has about 1,900 students and is located approximately 45 miles east of Atlanta.

GBI Director Chris Hosey told news media that Gray opened fire around 10:20 a.m. and was rapidly confronted by a school resource officer and surrendered immediately. Hosey said the shooter will be charged with murder and tried as an adult. The victims have not been identified as of this writing.

A total of 30 individuals have been reported with injuries from the incident. Two gunshot victims were taken to Northeast Georgia Medical Center Barrow and one gunshot victim was taken to Northeast Georgia Medical Center Gainesville. The injuries sustained by these three were not considered life-threatening.

CBS News reported that some patients came to hospitals with anxiety symptoms and some were experiencing panic attacks. A spokesperson for Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta said staff had received one gunshot wound patient from the high school.

Students who spoke to the media described the chaotic and terrifying scene when the shooter opened fire in a classroom. Marques Coleman, 14, spoke to CBS affiliate WANF and said he was inside the classroom when the shooting began. He said, “I see a kid with a, he had like a big gun,” and just started shooting. “I got up, I started running, he started shooting like, like 10 times. He shot at least 10 times,” Coleman said.

The teenager said he dove behind the desk and his teacher got in front of him, “My teacher started barricading the door with desks.” Coleman told WANF he saw “one of my classmates on the ground bleeding so bad,” another girl shot in the leg and a friend shot in the stomach.

A heavy police presence on the high school campus followed the shooting. By 11:00 a.m. dozens of ambulances had responded. Police officers and a medical helicopter gathered in the parking lot and on the green outside of the building. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) dispatched agents to the scene, where they were coordinating with local law enforcement.

Some news media is reporting that there had been an online warning earlier in the day that a shooting was going to take place in the school district. Very few details about this fact have been released so far.

The FBI reported Wednesday evening that its National Threat Operations Center had received several anonymous tips in May 2023 of threats online to commit a school shooting at a “unidentified location and time,” which included pictures of guns. The threat was traced to Georgia and the Jackson County Sheriffs Office was alerted by the FBI and proceeded to interview Colt, then 13 years old, and his father. Colt denied making the threat and it was decided at the time that there was no reason to make an arrest or take other legal action.

Responding in template form to another in a long list of horrific school shootings in the US, President Biden said he and his wife Jill were “mourning the deaths” that were caused by “more senseless gun violence.” Biden said that what is needed is for Congress to pass “common-sense gun safety legislation,” including a ban on “assault weapons and high capacity magazines,” and require “safe storage of firearms, enact universal background checks, and end immunity for gun manufacturers.”

Speaking at a rally in New Hampshire, Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris called the Apalachee High School shootings “a senseless tragedy,” providing no coherent reason for the epidemic of school shootings in America, many of which are being carried out by teenage students. Adding to the hand-wringing of the entire US political establishment, Harris said, “We’ve got to stop it. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Fascist Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump weighed in with his own vicious response, referring to the shooter, only 14 years old, as “a sick and deranged monster.” Georgia Republican Party governor Brian Kemp and Democratic Party mayor of Atlanta Andre Dickens came together to promote the presence of local, state and federal law enforcement in and around schools.

In contrast, Socialist Equality Party candidate for US President Joseph Kishore issued a statement on the shooting at Apalachee High School that provided the only explanation of its root cause and the way forward out of the violence for the working class.

The response from the political establishment was entirely predictable. As after every mass shooting, there is no effort to explain what it is in American society that produces such horrors on such a regular basis. 

Little information is available about the shooter or the possible motives. No doubt more information will come out in the coming days. But the source of an explanation for the epidemic of school shootings lies not at the level of individual psychology, but rather social pathology.

Kishore referred to the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 in Littleton, Colorado, since which school shootings have become a constant feature of American life:

There has been a dramatic increase over the past three years, with 73 school shootings in 2021, 79 in 2022, 82 in 2023 and 45 so far this year. 

And it is not only school shootings. On Monday, a man in Chicago allegedly opened fire on a commuter train, murdering four individuals. On average, 117 Americans die every day from gun violence, 67 percent by suicide and 30 percent by homicide.”

He quoted from the World Socialist Web Site at the time of the Columbine massacre which called attention to the social warning signs, the indications and indices of social and political dysfunction which create the climate that produces such bloody events.

“Vital indicators of impending disaster might include: growing polarization between wealth and poverty; atomization of working people and the suppression of their class identity; the glorification of militarism and war; the absence of serious social commentary and political debate; the debased state of popular culture; the worship of the stock exchange; the unrestrained celebration of individual success and personal wealth; the denigration of the ideals of social progress and equality.”

Kishore continued by elaborating on the development of these tendencies over the past three decades, and their implications:

Over the past quarter century, these social indices, these “vital indicators of impending disaster,” have only increased. The American ruling class and its state has, over the past year, armed, financed and politically justified a genocide in Gaza that has killed as many as 200,000 Palestinians. The Biden-Harris administration is escalating a global war, including the US-NATO war against Russia, that threatens nuclear annihilation.

The normalization of mass death in the pandemic has been a defining experience for young people, with more than 1.4 million deaths in the US alone due to the willful rejection of basic public health by the American ruling class. Police in the United States kill more than 1,000 people every year.

The political system is in an advanced state of degeneration, with one of the parties of the ruling class, the Republicans, led by a fascistic demagogue who attempted to overturn the constitution, and the other, the Democrats, focused entirely on the escalation of war. The entire official political climate and culture wallows in muck and filth, centered on the glorification of wealth, amidst deepening economic and social crisis for the broad mass of the population.

Social services have been starved to pay for war and bank bailouts. The ruling class insists that there is no money for education, mental health services, basic healthcare or any semblance of a social safety net.

The growing mood of resistance in the working class, however, must and will bring with it a radical change in the political, intellectual and, indeed, moral climate of the country. The source of the social pathology of the United States lies in the capitalist system. Therefore, it must be overturned. This is the basic issue confronting workers and young people in this election and beyond.

According to EverytownResearch.org there have been 133 incidents of gunfire on school grounds in the US, resulting in 38 deaths and 81 injuries, so far in 2024. This number is on track to surpass the total of 158 shootings and, 45 deaths and 106 injuries in 2023.

The number of school shootings has risen sharply since EverytownResearch.org began collecting data in 2013, when there were 51 instances of school shootings, 28 deaths and 37 injuries. The data shows that school shootings are taking place in every state in the US, in urban centers, suburban communities and rural districts.

The organization highlights the fact that gunfire in schools “is just the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to the exposure of children to gun violence. The research shows that “every year, more than 4,000 children and teens are shot and killed and over 17,000 more are shot and wounded. An estimated 3 million children in the US are exposed to shootings per year. Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens.”