China’s Xi meets head of Taiwan’s Kuomintang

Ben McGrath

The leaders of China’s and Taiwan’s ruling parties met in Beijing on May 4. Xi Jinping and Eric Chu held an approximately one-hour discussion, during which the two expressed support for continued economic cooperation as well as for the 1992 agreement that established the “One China” policy.

Chu was in the Chinese capital as part of a three-day trip, which included a cross-strait cooperation event in Shanghai and a meeting with other high-ranking officials in the Chinese government on the weekend. Chu became head of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party, KMT) in January following disastrous results for his party in November’s local elections. Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou stepped down from the post. Chu is now viewed as a potential candidate in next year’s presidential election.

The meeting between took place in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People and was the first between Xi, acting in his capacity as head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and Chu. It was also the first meeting between CCP and KMT party leaders in six years.

Both Xi and Chu expressed their support for the “One China” policy, in which both sides recognise that the island of Taiwan is Chinese territory, but agree to disagree on which is the legitimate government of China. Chu stated: “Hopefully the two sides can promote cooperation based on the 1992 consensus and work together on issues such as regional peace, environmental protection, and economic cooperation.”

In this regard, Chu discussed with Xi several economic issues, including the possibility of Taiwan joining the Chinese-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), China’s “One Belt, One Road” trade initiative, and its Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

Taiwan has been blocked from taking part in each of these by Beijing which is seeking to ensure that Taipei’s involvement in the international agreements corresponds to its interpretation of the “One China” policy. In order to deal with China, countries must acknowledge that the mainland People’s Republic represents the sole Chinese nation. Only a handful of nations now officially recognise the Republic of China on Taiwan as a state.

The AIIB is slated to open later this year, with 57 founding members. Taiwan was excluded from becoming one of those founders after Beijing demanded that it join under an “appropriate name.” Chu’s delegation suggested on Monday that Taiwan could apply as Chinese Taipei. Xi indicated that Beijing would “welcome” Taiwan’s participation in the AIIB on these terms.

The “One Belt, One Road” trade initiative is a Chinese plan to organize economic development throughout Eurasia through the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road, while the RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the six countries with which it holds other FTAs—China, Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand.

Taiwan is interested in joining these projects but is wary of the political preconditions that Beijing may set in order to do so. In an effort to assuage these concerns, Xi stated during the meeting: “The two sides can consult with each other on an equal basis under the principle of ‘One China,’ and reach a reasonable arrangement.”

Xi promised Chu that Taiwan would be given preferential treatment: “We are willing to give priority to Taiwan in opening-up. Our efforts to open up to Taiwan compatriots will be bigger.” He continued, “We will continue to protect the legitimate interests and rights of Taiwan businesses on the mainland and create a better environment for their development.”

A day before his meeting with Xi, Chu attended the tenth Cross-Strait Economic, Trade and Culture Forum in Shanghai and held a meeting on Saturday with Yu Zhengsheng, a top political advisor and member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee.

The forum is a vehicle for CCP-KMT dialogue and began a year after the 2005 meeting between Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, and then-KMT chief Lien Chan. That meeting marked an important thawing in relations between Taipei and Beijing.

Relations between Taiwan and mainland China had been tense for years. The KMT fled to Taiwan in 1949 in the wake of the Chinese Revolution. Initially considered by the United States and its allies as the legitimate China, they began withdrawing their recognition of Taiwan in the 1970s, as Mao Zedong’s regime sought a rapprochement with the imperialist powers.

Since 2005, the KMT has drawn closer to Beijing, with Ma Ying-jeou winning the presidency in Taiwan in 2008 with promises to ease tensions and boost economic cooperation with China. Closer ties with the mainland, however, have not staved off the impact of the global economic slump. The Taiwanese economy has stagnated and youth unemployment hovers around 14 percent.

The KMT represents the wing of the ruling class on Taiwan that views even greater economic integration with China as their best option. It is opposed by the Taiwanese nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Tsai Ing-wen, the head of the DPP, chastised Chu’s meeting with Xi, accusing the KMT of accepting Beijing’s interpretation of the “One China” policy. She declared that only big business would benefit from cross-strait cooperation and called on Chu to consider Taiwan’s “national interest.”

The DPP, however, fully embraces capitalism and offers no genuine alternative to the Taiwanese masses. Its cautious advocacy of Taiwanese independence reflects the standpoint of layers of the ruling class whose interests are bound up with global exports and investment, and who feel threatened by Chinese competition.

In next year’s presidential election, the DPP hopes to exploit dissatisfaction with the economy and repeat the sweeping victory it registered in last November’s local elections.

Italian parliament adopts new election law

Marianne Arens

Italy’s parliament adopted an electoral reform in its fourth reading on Monday that will give the government more freedom to act independently of the will of the electorate. The Senate, Italy’s second chamber, had already backed the law in January.

As with the previous electoral reform, which was declared to be in breach of the constitution by the Supreme Court in 2013, the new law guarantees the largest party a parliamentary majority in the lower house, even if its result is well below 50 percent of the vote. The Senate, where the distribution of seats corresponds more directly to the election result, and which has to date formed a check on power, will be practically abolished.

The election law is among the most important projects of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (Democratic Party, DP). It is aimed at giving his government and future administrations a stable majority so as to force through strict austerity measures, deregulate the labour market and strengthen the military. It is clearly a step towards dictatorial forms of rule.

All four votes in parliament were declared to be votes of confidence in Renzi in order to keep the number of dissenters in his own ranks low. In the fourth vote, 334 voted in favour and 61 against. The opposition parties had earlier left parliament in protest.

The new election law will come into force on July 1, 2016. It contains a 3 percent hurdle for smaller parties and is a distorted form of proportional representation. If a party achieves 40 percent of the vote, it obtains a government bonus of 15 percent, thereby establishing an absolute majority of 340 seats in the 630-seat parliament. The remaining seats will be distributed in line with the votes obtained.

If no party reaches 40 percent, a second round of voting between the two strongest parties takes place. The victor then receives 340 seats, even if they did not obtain 30 percent of the vote in the first round.

The previous election law contained a similar regulation. The strongest coalition of parties, not a single party as in the new law, obtained a government bonus to secure a majority. Silvio Berlusconi introduced this to consolidate his majority. It was termed porcellum, or “pigs law”.

As Berlusconi’s power waned, the DP benefited from porcellum. Renzi, who took over from Enrico Letta in February 2014 without a vote by the electorate, can rely on a stable majority in parliament, even though his party won only 25.4 percent of the vote at the last election.

At the end of 2013, Italy’s highest court declared porcellum to be in violation of the constitution because it distorted the will of the electorate too much. The court also raised concerns over the rigidity of the order on party lists, thanks to which the parties and not the voters were able to determine who entered parliament.

On this second question, the new Italicum election law makes concessions to the constitution. The parties are only permitted to determine the top position on their lists, while the voters have the opportunity to cast two votes in order to determine the order of candidates on the list.

Alongside Italicum the Renzi government is reforming the Senate, which is being eliminated as an upper house with equal powers to act as a check of parliament. In future, it will only exist as a regional representative body with consultative powers. The number of senators will be reduced from 315 to 100. They will no longer be directly elected, but appointed by regional governments. In addition, there are senators appointed for life and those named by the president.

Since Renzi has no majority in the existing Senate, he was only able to pass the electoral reform and the Senate reform with the support of Berlusconi’s right-wing opposition. This was the point of the so-called Nazereno pact concluded last year by Renzi and Berlusconi. The latter is hoping to make a political comeback and therefore assisted Renzi to pass both reforms in the Senate.

The Nazereno pact subsequently broke down because Renzi had Sergio Matarella elected as Italian president against the wishes of Berlusconi. Since then, deputies of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia have expressed strong vocal opposition to Renzi. Forza Italia parliamentary fraction leader Renato Brunetta denounced Italicum last week as “Renziist fascism.”

Tensions are also mounting within Renzi’s party, after he threw 10 critical deputies out of the constitutional committee in parliament. Prominent party members from the former Communist Party such Guglielmo Epifani, Pier Luigi Bersani and Gianni Cuperlo, along with Renzi’s predecessor Enrico Letta, remained absent from part of the vote in protest. Renzi obtained the necessary majority through the support of several smaller parties, including Mario Monti’s Scelta Civica (Citizens’ Vote) and the Aerea Popolare group.

The SEL Party (Left, ecology, freedom), which initially backed Renzi, the Five Star Movement of Beppe Grillo and Berlusconi’s party are pressing for a referendum against the electoral reform.

SEL leader Nichi Vendola stated that the “servile subordination of the legislative power to the executive” was simply unacceptable. During Berlusconi’s time, they had been “up in arms when much less was involved.”

The theatrical posturing of the opposition on the left and right involves nothing principled. They are merely concerned with defending their privileges, which they see as threatened by the new election law. The shifting alliances and power struggles recall the intrigues and conspiracies at the time of the Borgias. They are miles away from the real daily lives of the population.

The extreme right-wing Lega Nord has been the main beneficiary from the controversy surrounding the law thus far. In two new polls by Ipsos and IX, the party has obtained between 13 and 14 percent support. This represents a trebling of their vote since the 2013 parliamentary election. Originally campaigning for the separation of the wealthier northern regions, the Lega Nord is seeking to profit from the crisis under its new leader Matteo Salvini and build a national party on the basis of racism, hostility to the EU and support for authoritarian forms of rule.

Netanyahu forms far-right coalition government in Israel

Jean Shaoul

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu formed a government Wednesday, just hours before a deadline for announcing a coalition.

Six weeks after winning the largest number of seats in the 120-member Knesset, he now has a coalition commanding just 61 votes.

Its membership and size makes it the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history and also the most unstable. Its agenda will be determined by Israel’s grasping oligarchs who, like their counterparts elsewhere, have no solution to the problems besetting the country other than more militarism and austerity.

Last December, Netanyahu precipitated elections two years ahead of schedule by sacking Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni—leaders of two of the parties in his previous dysfunctional coalition, in the belief that the disarray of the opposition parties would enable him to win a large majority and form a more pliant coalition based on Israel’s ultra-right-wing parties. This would allow him to push through an austerity budget, while pursuing an aggressive policy towards the Palestinians and preparing for a possible attack on Iran.

Instead, Netanyahu encountered opposition to his constant Iran-baiting, which ran counter to Washington’s plans to draw Tehran into a broader anti-Russia and China alliance. He made a speech to a joint session of the US Congress, organised by the Republican Party leadership behind the back of the Obama administration, where he opposed any US-Tehran deal. But this was widely opposed by the opposition parties, the media and business circles as transparent electioneering that jeopardised Washington’s support for Israel.

Opinion polls predicted that the Labour Party’s Zionist Union coalition would win the most seats. Netanyahu and other Likud leaders went so far as to insinuate that Washington was behind the rise in support for the Zionist Union.

In the end, Netanyahu was only able to secure 30 seats for the Likud Party and win the election on March 17 after making a last ditch appeal to right-wing voters, particularly in Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu (Israel is Our home) and Naftali Bennett’s Beit Yehudi (Jewish Home). He disavowed his 2009 agreement to support a “two state solution” and launched an ultra-nationalist and anti-Palestinian tirade. He called for right-wing voters to go to the polls to counter Israeli Palestinians who were turning out “in droves.”

Despite these efforts, he was unable to secure a stable and viable coalition—forcing him to ask Israel’s president for a two week extension to form a government. Then last week, his former ally and foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman and his Israel Beiteinu Party pulled out amid bitter recriminations and complaints that Netanyahu was not “nationalistic” enough. Netanyahu was forced to make significant concessions to secure a deal with Naftali Bennett and his Beit Yehudi party, which has eight seats and with whom relations had been both fractious and venomous.

Bennett supports the expansion of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, is opposed to any Palestinian statelet, however circumscribed, and advocates the annexation of Area C—the majority of the West Bank. While not substantially different from Netanyahu’s, such policies when so publicly declared run counter to the Obama administration’s calls for “talks with the Palestinians.”

The “peace process” is a sop to legitimise the ongoing US military operations, both open and covert, in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, to secure hegemony over the Middle East and whose ultimate target is Iran. These operations depend upon Arab bases and military participation.

In return for saving Netanyahu’s premiership, Bennett demanded and got the Justice Ministry for Ayelet Shaked of the Jewish Home party. Shaked is virulently hostile to both the Palestinians and African migrants, whom she has said pose a threat to Israel’s Jewish character. She has pressed for the “Jewish Nationality Bill,” which would further jeopardise the citizenship of Israel’s own Palestinians who form 20 percent of the population.

Shaked will also head the powerful Ministerial Committee for Legislation and the Judicial Appointments. She has been at the forefront of the right-wing push to curb the powers of Israel’s Supreme Court to strike down government legislation. Netanyahu himself proposes to expand the judicial appointments committee that selects Israel’s judges with a minister and an additional legislator, giving politicians a majority on the committee and thus paving the way for the government to pack the court.

Uri Ariel, also from Jewish Home, will take the agriculture portfolio, giving Jewish Home control over the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division, which funds infrastructure for West Bank settlements. He will also be responsible for Bedouin affairs, against a background of bitter disputes over plans to deprive the Bedouins of their ancestral homes.

Bennett himself will head the education ministry, whose budget is to be increased by $163 million. The pay of conscript soldiers in their third year is set to rise at a cost of $250 million, while Ariel University, Israel’s newest university located in the West Bank, will have its budget increased.

Other members of the Netanyahu’s new coalition include Kulanu (All of Us), a Likud splinter group (ten seats), the ultra-Orthodox Shas (seven seats) and United Torah Judaism (six seats).

Kulanu’s chief, Moshe Kahlan, who favours an economic shakeup of Israel’s monopolies, will get the finance ministry, while the housing and environment ministries will go to other members of Kulanu. Shas will get the economy and religious affairs ministries. Moshe Ya’alon of Likud is expected to retain the defence portfolio.

The coalition has agreed to repeal a law that expands the military draft to include the ultra-Orthodox and another law easing the conversion process to Judaism. While Likud plans to introduce a Jewish Nationality Bill and a law to circumscribe the Supreme Court’s power, the coalition parties will have a free vote on these issues.

Netanyahu’s wheeling and dealing, to secure a majority of one, leaves him in charge of a fractious cabinet and subject to blackmailing by his partners in pursuit of their own interests and social bases.

The opposition includes the Zionist Union with 24 seats, TV presenter Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid (11 seats), the middle class liberal and former “peace” party Meretz (four seats), and the Arab United List with 14 seats.

Netanyahu has conspicuously not replaced his former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, instead reserving the post for himself in addition to the premiership. This leaves the door open for a possible deal with Isaac Herzog’s Zionist Union and a key cabinet role for Herzog or one of his allies. This would, as well as securing his government, help to mend fences with Washington, which is anxious to see a more malleable figure in charge of foreign relations.

Herzog, who ran his campaign on the slogan “Anyone but Bibi [Netanyahu’s nickname],” said that the party’s natural place is in opposition to Likud. But true to form, he did not explicitly rule out joining a Netanyahu-led government.

Canada’s parliament adopts bill to greatly expand intelligence agencies’ powers

Roger Jordan

Canada’s House of Commons voted late Wednesday to adopt the Conservative government’s Bill C-51, which, in the name of combating terrorism, overturns core democratic rights and legal principles

In its third reading, the House voted by 183 to 96 in favour of the legislation. It will now be sent to the Senate for final approval, with the government pressing for Bill C-51 to be proclaimed law before the month’s end.

Bill C-51 authorizes the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to break the law and violate the Canadian constitution’s “Charter of Rights and Freedoms” in disrupting groups or individuals the state deems to pose a threat to the country’s national security.

While the government has presented CSIS’s new “disruption” powers as directed at terrorist plots, the legislation defines national security in sweeping terms so as to include purported threats to the country’s economic security, territorial integrity, diplomatic interests or constitutional order. The activities CSIS will be permitted to undertake could include everything from breaking into homes and offices to steal computers and seizing bank accounts, to pressing employers to fire national security suspects or mounting smear campaigns against them.

The legislation’s sweeping definition of national-security threats means that CSIS can and will target dissident political groups and protesting workers. Both CSIS and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have a notorious record of targeting leftwing and working-class organizations stretching back decades.

Not insignificantly, some of the language Bill C-51 uses in describing national security threats echoes that which the Harper government has employed in justifying illegalizing strikes, including by Canada Post, Air Canada and CP Rail workers.

Bill C-51 would also create a new “speech-crime” under which persons could be jailed for up to five years for the promotion of terrorism “in general.” The speech in question need not have been tied to any actual or planned terrorist attack, nor made in public. As legal experts and even sections of the corporate media have observed, this new criminal offense is so vaguely and broadly defined that it could readily be used to target those who express sympathy with groups like Hamas (officially designated a terrorist organization under Canada’s Anti-Terroism Law) or the pro-Russian insurgents in Ukraine, or who oppose Canada’s participation in imperialist wars in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Bill C-51 will also expand the police’s power to detain terrorist suspects without charge and empower the courts to remove “terrorist propaganda” from the internet. The state’s ability to impose travel bans and other restrictions on individuals who have never been charged let alone convicted of a crime is also being greatly expanded.

Bill C-51 guts Canadians’ privacy rights, giving the various national security agencies virtually unfettered access to all government information about individuals who become the subject of a national security investigation. Such investigations, as the Conservative government-appointed Privacy Commissioner noted, can be triggered by simply visiting a country like Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Iran.

Harper’s Conservative government is ramming Bill C-51through parliament at breakneck speed, while whipping up a climate of fear so as to intimidate all opposition to its draconian measures. Since last October’s killings of two Canadian Armed Forces personnel by two disturbed individuals, Harper and his government have systematically portrayed Canada as a country under siege by terrorists, so as to provide justification for the shredding of democratic rights at home and a policy of aggressive war abroad. Just last weekend, Harper seized on his visit to Canadian military personnel in Kuwait involved in the US-led bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria to promote Bill C-51.

In parliament, the government ensured that the bill was subjected to only the most perfunctory scrutiny. The time allowed for consideration of its provisions at the committee stage was extremely curtailed. Only a small number of witnesses were permitted to make brief appearances and those who questioned the bill’s provisions—the vast majority—were routinely derided by government MPs as enablers of terrorism.

The handful of amendments the Conservatives subsequently made to the bill will have virtually no impact on its scope. The attempt to reassure critics that those engaging in civil disobedience and other “unlawful” protests will be exempt from CSIS disruption campaigns is worthless given the ease with which the state can designate such protests as national security threats, if not acts of terrorism.

Despite expressing concerns with certain aspects of the bill, the Liberals voted in favour of it Wednesday evening as they did in the bill’s first and second reading. Party leader Justin Trudeau has claimed that if the Liberals form the government after the upcoming federal election, they will make amendments, but they have conspicuously joined with the government in asserting that the powers of the national-security apparatus must be massively expanded.

Responding to NDP MP Wayne Marsden’s criticism of the Liberals’ stand on Bill C-51, Liberal defence critic Joyce Murray stated, “I would ask the member whether he would want it on his conscience should there be an attack that leads to deaths of Canadians because of the loopholes that the bill is attempting to fix?”

Like the Official Opposition NDP, the Liberals’ main objection to the bill has been the lack of oversight of the intelligence agencies by vetted representatives of the ruling elite.

While the NDP did vote against Bill C-51, its opposition is of a thoroughly unprincipled character. For nearly three weeks after Harper’s late January unveiling of the legislation, the NDP remained almost completely silent, issuing no substantive critique of the bill’s numerous anti-democratic measures. Only after a significant section of Canada’s ruling elite, led by theGlobe and Mail, had sharply criticized the bill, warning that so blatant a break with democratic forms of rule could undermine the legitimacy of the government and state, did NDP leaders Thomas Mulcair belatedly announce that his party would oppose Bill C-51.

The NDP never sought to mobilize Canadians in opposition to Bill C-51 and draw the connection between it and the broader assault on democratic rights, whether in the form of the criminalizing of strikes or the Communications Security Establishment’s (CSE) systematic spying on the metadata of Canadian electronic communications

Instead, the social-democrats did everything to reassure the ruling class that they have no fundamental disagreement over maintaining in place the vast array of anti-democratic, police-state measures implemented since 2001. Mulcair even went so far as to say that if the NDP forms the government after the election, it will not seek to repeal Bill C-51, only, like the Liberals, amend it.

The complicity of the opposition parties has exposed the bankruptcy of the perspective advanced by various protest groups like Openmedia and Protest Canada that have organized “Stop Bill C-51” rallies in recent weeks. While providing an indication of the growing popular hostility to the attack on democratic rights being mounted in the name of combating terrorism, the rallies have been orientated toward pressuring the big business political establishment through a “non-partisan” protest campaign.

This is spelled out on the “StopBillC-51” website. “The silver lining,” it declares, “is that this is an election year and public opposition and support are particularly important to MPs this year. The Bill can be shut down in one of two ways: 1. By having it voted down. If the Liberal MPs can be pressured to change their stance on the bill and every other MP voted against the bill, it would only take seven Tory MPs to break ranks to vote the bill down… 2. By delaying the third vote until parliament breaks for election.”

Nothing could be more bankrupt than seeking to rely on the Liberals and the other parties of the establishment to stand up for democratic rights. It was a Liberal government that began the onslaught on basic rights in the aftermath of 9/11, enshrining a catch-all definition of terrorism in the Criminal Code and vastly expanding the powers of the police and intelligence agencies, including sanctioning CSE’s spying on Canadians’ electronic communications.

The Chretien Liberal government’s break with long-standing democratic and legal norms, together with the construction of a mass surveillance apparatus, was part of an international process which saw the ruling class around the globe turn decisively towards authoritarian forms of rule. In all of the major imperialist powers, the purported threat of terrorism has been used to develop and enforce a vast array of repressive measures that have as their ultimate target the broad masses of working people.

The backdrop to this turn toward authoritarian forms of rule in Canada, as around the world, is an unprecedented growth in social inequality and the ruling elite’s pursuit of an agenda of austerity and war that is inimical to the interests of the vast majority. These processes have intensified since the 2008 global economic meltdown, as the bourgeoisie steps up its class war assault on public services and worker rights. Growing working class opposition has been met with increasing state violence, including the illegalization of virtually all strikes in the federally-regulated sector, the suppression of the 2010 anti-G-20 protests in Toronto, and the Quebec Liberal government’s use of police violence and emergency legislation against the 2012 Quebec students strike.

The imminent adoption of Bill C-51 has illustrated once again that no section of the political establishment can be relied upon to conduct a genuine struggle against the assault on democratic rights. All of the parliamentary parties are complicit in the building up of a vast national security apparatus whose foremost and true target is the growing popular opposition to big business and it agenda of austerity and war.

To stop the authoritarian Bill C-51 and dismantle the reactionary police-state apparatus built up over the past decade and more requires the mobilization of the working class on the basis of a socialist and internationalist programme as fought for by the Socialist Equality Party.

US Court of Appeals finds NSA phone data collection is illegal

Ed Hightower

On Thursday, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that a key provision of the USA Patriot Act does not provide a legal justification of the National Security Agency’s bulk telephone metadata collection program, making that program unlawful. The court overturned a 2013 ruling in the government’s favor.

The Court of Appeals has remanded the case, American Civil Liberties Union v . Clapper, for further proceedings at the district court level. Thursday’s ruling denied the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction that would have halted the spying program until the case was decided on the merits. Thus, the practical significance of the ruling is essentially nil.

At the same time there are profound political implications for Thursday’s court opinion. It is not every day that the second highest court in the United States issues a 97-page legal memorandum calling the NSA’s flagship domestic spying program what it is: blatant illegality on a monumental scale.

Officially, the court declined to review the constitutional claims that the warrantless data collection violated the plaintiffs’ rights of free association and rights against unwarranted searches and seizures. Instead, the court only considered whether the NSA program had a legitimate statutory basis in the Patriot Act and its legal predecessors.

The court’s findings about the telephone metadata program speak volumes about the criminality that prevails at the highest levels of state.

The opinion notes that the public first learned about the NSA’s telephone metadata program on June 5, 2013, when the Guardian published a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) order leaked by former government contractor Edward Snowden, which directed telecom giant Verizon Business Network Services, Inc. to give the NSA “on an ongoing daily basis. .. all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”

The NSA has been collecting telephone metadata information in bulk under § 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, since at least May 2006, when the FISC issued its “Primary Order” requiring production of “all call‐detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by [redacted]. .. , includ[ing] comprehensive communications routing information, including but not limited to session identifying information (e.g., originating and terminating telephone number[s], communications device identifier[s], etc.), trunk identifier, and time and duration of call.”

The program, and the FISC order authorizing it, have been renewed 41 times since May 2006 (FISC orders must be reissued every 90 days). The current authorization was issued on February 26, 2015 and expires on June 1, 2015. Section 215 of the Patriot Act will also expire on June 1.

American Civil Liberties Union v. Clapper concerns a FISC order that requires Verizon “to produce call detail records, every day, on all telephone calls made through its systems or using its services where one or both ends of the call are located in the United States.”

The government’s arguments were riddled with internal inconsistencies. To cite one, government attorneys disputed any characterization of the telephone metadata program as collecting “virtually all telephony metadata” associated with calls made or received in the United States, but the same attorneys never argued that Verizon is the only telephone service provider subject to such a FISC order.

The key issue in Thursday’s opinion was the specific language in § 215 which limits the issuance of FISC orders to instances where there exist “reasonable grounds to believe that the tangible things sought are relevant to an authorized investigation … to obtain intelligence information not concerning a United States person or to protect against international terrorism …”

Government lawyers supporting the NSA telephone metadata program made the absurd and chilling argument that all of the seized information from essentially all persons in the US, all of the time, are relevant if they merely lead to improvements in databases or collection techniques that eventually aid in later, as yet unanticipated terror investigations. By the same logic, governmental placement of video cameras inside of every US household would be relevant to any number of criminal investigations.

The Court of Appeals took the government to task on this point, if only verbally:

“Thus, the government takes the position that the metadata collected—a vast amount of which does not contain directly ‘relevant’ information, as the government concedes—are nevertheless ‘relevant’ because they may allow the NSA, at some unknown time in the future, utilizing its ability to sift through the trove of irrelevant data it has collected up to that point, to identify information that is relevant.”

And later:

“The overwhelming bulk of the metadata collected by the telephone metadata program, as the government itself concedes, concerns … individuals who are not targets of an investigation or suspected of engaging in any crime whatsoever, and who are not even suspected of having any contacts with any such targets or suspects. Their records are sought solely to build a repository for the future application of the investigative techniques upon which the program relies.”

For all its sneering at the government’s farcical, if Orwellian, lines of argument in favor of omnipresent surveillance, the Court of Appeals took as a given the legitimacy of the “war on terror” and the overarching concern for “national security.” It suggested that balancing the inalienable rights enshrined in the US Constitution with the requirements of a police state is a task best undertaken by Congress and the president, who are at least nominally accountable to the population by way of the ballot box.

As the court put it:

“Congress is better positioned than the courts to understand and balance the intricacies and competing concerns involved in protecting our national security, and to pass judgment on the value of the telephone metadata program as a counterterrorism tool.”

This is nothing more than a call for a more robust pseudo-legal foundation for dictatorial forms of rule.

For its part, three weeks before the expiration of Section 215, Congress has yet to arrive at a bill that would extend or modify the warrantless telephone metadata collection program. Whatever form such legislation may take, it will pose no threat to the military-intelligence apparatus.

Bond market sell-off signals mounting financial crisis

Nick Beams

The instability of the global financial system and the potential for another crash have been underscored by a major sell-off of government bonds this week. Yesterday saw European markets display levels of volatility not seen since the euro zone debt crisis turmoil of three years ago.

In the course of the day, the yield on the German 10-year government bond, which moves inversely to its price, jumped by 21 basis points (a 0.21 percentage point rise) to 0.80 percent, before falling back to its opening level of 0.59 percent.

In the middle of last month, the yield was just 0.05 percent, with predictions that it was on its way to zero.

Other markets in Asia and the United States have also showed considerable volatility. The US bond market this week suffered its longest losing streak since 2011, with the yield on the 10-year bond treasury note rising at one point to its highest level for the year.

It has been estimated that in the last two weeks alone some $2 trillion has been wiped off global share and bond markets.

The rapid rise in European yields indicates that there has been a massive exit from the bond market after investors and speculators had shovelled billions of dollars into purchases following the initiation of the European Central Bank’s asset purchasing program, which pumps €60 billion per month into financial markets.

Money poured in because of the belief that, as a result of the ECB’s actions, bond prices would continue to rise and, despite falling yields, there were big profits to be made via capital gains. Markets operated according to the theory that while it may be foolish to buy at an elevated price there was a bigger fool who would pay even more in the near future.

The scale of the swing can be gauged from the fact that in normal times the yield on bonds only moves by a few hundredths of a percentage point in the course of a day.

But normal calculations have been thrown awry by the near-zero interest rate regime of the world’s major central banks and the associated asset-purchasing programs, so-called quantitative easing.

Consequently, market analysts were at something of a loss to find an explanation for this week’s events, as evidenced by a range of comments cited in today’s Financial Times.

“The movements of recent days have been extremely unusual and the magnitude doesn’t reflect the economic data we’re seeing,” said James Athey, investment manager at Aberdeen Asset Management.

Michael Riddell, bond fund manager at M&G investments, told the newspaper: “It is difficult to understand exactly what is driving this. But that’s in part because central bank action has blunted the relationship between the feedback from the economy and prices in markets.”

Ralf Presser, the rates strategist as Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said there was a “lot of soul searching at the moment” because it was thought that the yield on German 10-year bonds was heading for minus 20 basis points. In other words, the price of bonds was going to continue to rise.

In addition to the gyrations on the bond market, another indication of mounting financial instability is contained in a report issued today which claims that emerging markets—a target for speculators in search of higher profits—have suffered a bigger exit of capital over the last three quarters than that experienced in the financial crisis of 2008–2009. The total outflow from the 15 largest such markets in the nine months the end of March was just over $600 billion, compared to an outflow of $545 billion in the same period to March 2009.

A spokesman for the firm publishing the results said the selloff could continue into the second quarter of the year. An even bigger contraction has been recorded in the foreign currency reserves of emerging markets; these have plummeted by more than $374 billion from December last March, amid falling growth rates—down to 3.9 percent in February from 4.1 percent the previous month.

While it is not clear yet where the losses in European financial markets have been sustained—and they could run into many billions of dollars—the potential for another financial catastrophe was made clear in a report issued by the Joint Committee of European Supervisory Authorities earlier this week.

It covered conditions in financial markets from September 2014 to March this year in the lead-up to this week’s sell-off. The report began by noting that since the last report in August “financial system risks” had “intensified further.”

Persistent low interest rates had sustained the demand for riskier investments and provided investors with incentives for enhancing their returns. “This is frequently achieved by renewed build-up of leverage [that is, increased debt]” with such increases “mainly limited to financial institutions outside the banking system.”

But it also indicated that “fundamental questions” remain about the “sustainability of some banks’ business models in search for sustained and solid profitability” in an environment of low interest rates.

In a warning of the possible consequences, it concluded: “A fragile market equilibrium, could be disrupted by some large or several unexpected negative events.” This could lead to a reassessment of risk which “would have a substantial impact on the financial system via decreasing asset values.”

This week’s events certainly fit the description of an “unexpected negative event.”

The report also gave the lie to the claim, advanced by financial authorities in support of the program of quantitative easing, that in the long run it will provide a boost to the real economy.

Describing investment levels as “anaemic” and remaining below the pre-2008 trend, it said that with low growth rates, savers turn to bubbles to reach their targets and “over time, productive investments are crowded out, as real resources are misdirected.”

That is to say, far from leading to an improvement in the real economy via increased investment, the policies of the central banks, which have fuelled bubbles and enabled the accumulation of vast profits via financial speculation, make an already dire situation even worse.

The worsening state of the global economy has also been highlighted by figures on the American economy, which show that it all but stagnated in the first quarter this year, recording an expansion of just 0.2 percent. It would have been negative but for a build-up of inventories, often an indicator of recession.

But these figures could be revised down in the coming weeks amid further evidence of economic weakening.

The US trade deficit for March rose by 43 percent to $51.4 billion, the worst figure since October 2008 and the largest percentage increase since 1996. These figures indicate that US export performance in the first quarter may have been worse than initially estimated, prompting a report by BNP Paribas that the American economy could have contracted at an annual rate of 0.4 percent in the first quarter.

The turbulence in financial markets and the worsening outlook in the real economy are an indictment of capitalist governments and financial authorities around the world.

Not only have their policies provided no economic “recovery,” their handing out of virtually free money to the finance houses and speculators has created the conditions for another financial catastrophe which will result in further far-reaching attacks on the social conditions of the working class.

General election produces political earthquake in Britain

Chris Marsden & Julie Hyland

The Conservative Party has won a narrow majority after yesterday’s General Election. With a projected 331 seats in Westminster, it will not have to rely on support from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party or the Liberal Democrats, as some had predicted.

The result owes nothing to popular support. The Conservatives polled approximately 36 percent of the vote, a small rise on 2010, but due to Britain’s first past the post constituency-based system it increased its number of seats by at least 22.

This is an election that Labour lost rather than one that the Tories won.

Labour’s share of the vote fell, most spectacularly in Scotland where it was wiped out by the Scottish National Party (SNP). There is now a solitary Labour MP in the whole of Scotland—and just one Conservative and one Liberal Democrat—as the SNP swept the board, securing 56 seats compared with six in 2010.

The stark contrast between the fate of the two parties is primarily because the SNP made a pitch to anti-austerity sentiment, whereas Labour did not.

Labour leader Ed Miliband centred his election campaign on an assertion that his party would be a more “sensible” advocate of austerity, which would still allow for some growth in highly circumscribed areas. He combined a pledge for a “budget responsibility lock” with a promise to clamp down on immigration, to defend the European Union and maintain Britain’s role as a leading military power.

This enabled the SNP to exploit widespread hostility to Westminster, especially to Labour itself, and to channel this sentiment behind its nationalist agenda. In this it was aided and abetted by the pseudo-left groups such as the Scottish Socialist Party and Solidarity Scotland, who endorsed an SNP vote.

The SNP is now the third largest party in Westminster, with major ramifications for the future survival of the United Kingdom as a unitary state. In many constituencies in Scotland the swing against Labour was well over 30 percent.

High voter turn-out in Scotland masks a national figure that would otherwise have been lower than in 2010.

The election has claimed the scalps of three party leaders.

The Labour Party is decapitated. Within hours of the result, Miliband resigned as the anticipated last-minute surge to Labour failed to materialise. The party’s shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, and Douglas Alexander, shadow foreign secretary, lost their seats. Labour was unable to offset its losses in Scotland with any significant gains in Tory marginals and its vote even in major urban conurbations was poor—leaving it almost 100 seats adrift of the Tories in its worst result since 1987.

The UK Independence Party is the third most popular party on 13 percent, having picked up support from both the Conservatives and Labour. Nonetheless, with around four million votes—significantly higher than the SNP—it took just one Westminster seat.

Nigel Farage resigned as UKIP leader after he failed to win his Thanet constituency. UKIP’s main donor Arron Banks had called for a vote for the Tories in the seat because Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to hold a referendum on British membership of the European Union by 2017.

The result for UKIP mirrors the success of the SNP, not in its-right wing nostrums, but from the essential standpoint of the dangerous cultivation of nationalist sentiment.

Liberal Democrat leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg also resigned, after his party suffered what he described as a “cruel and punishing night”. Clegg only narrowly managed to retain his own seat due to tactical voting by Tories, with the majority of Conservative gains coming from former Liberal Democrat seats. All other leading Liberal Democrat figures, such as former Business Secretary Vince Cable and former Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, lost their seats—leaving a parliamentary group of just eight Liberal Democrats that could travel to Westminster in a mini-bus.

Caroline Lucas remains the Green Party’s sole MP, despite the party increasing its national share of the vote due to its nominally “left” programme.

Britain’s ruling elite got the result they had wanted. Virtually all the media and leading business figures insisted that a Tory majority was necessary for the “stability” of the financial markets—the only constituency that counts.

But it is a pyrrhic victory. It heads a government that not only might preside over a British exit from the European Union, but also the break-up of the United Kingdom. Moreover, it commands the support of just 22 percent of the electorate--under conditions in which it is pledged to further savage cuts that will devastate the lives of millions.

The overriding message from the election is that, for the vast majority of people who sought change, it will not come through parliament and certainly not from the Labour Party.

Labour is a bureaucratic organisation with no real base in the working class and no ability at all to make a popular appeal to their fundamental concerns. They are not seen as an opposition tendency, but rather as a pale copy of the Tories.

It has already responded to defeat with complaints that it drifted too far to the left and calls to recapture the glory days of Tony Blair.

There has never been an occasion where the gap between the sentiment of the broad mass of the population and the structures of official politics has been so vast. This is only the ideological reflection of the gulf which has opened up between the super-rich oligarchy, who dictate the policies of all the major parties, and the working class.

This situation will have explosive political consequences.

Parliamentary democracy is in a state of advanced decay and cannot be revived. The working class must intervene independently and in its own interests if it is to combat the ongoing destruction of jobs, wages and social conditions and the growing danger of militarism and war.

It can only do so on a socialist programme.

The Socialist Equality Party stood two candidates in the general election, Katie Rhodes in Glasgow Central and David O’Sullivan in Holborn & St. Pancras, London. Rhodes secured 58 votes and O’Sullivan 108. The purpose of the SEP’s campaign was to raise the necessity of a new socialist movement of the working class, one based on the fight for a workers’ government in Britain within the framework of a United Socialist States of Europe and a world socialist federation.

The prerequisite for the development of such a movement is the historical and political education of the most advanced and self-sacrificing elements in the working class, especially the young.

In the course of our campaign, the SEP distributed thousands of election manifestos and spoke to thousands more. Our candidates addressed almost a dozen hustings and wrote extensively on the programme and class character of all the major parties, as well as the pseudo-left groups that gravitate around them.

Most importantly, the SEP placed the international online May Day rally against imperialist war, hosted by the World Socialist Web Site, at the centre of its campaign. Two highly successful meetings were held in Glasgow and London to listen to the event.

The outcome of the election is a stark confirmation of the programme and perspective advanced by the SEP. We urge workers and young people to respond by taking the decision to join our party.

Kerry in Riyadh: A meeting of war criminals

Bill Van Auken

US Secretary of State John Kerry appeared side by side with his Saudi counterpart, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, in Saudi Arabia’s capital of Riyadh Thursday and praised the monarchical oil regime for its role in the bloody nearly two-month-old war against Yemen, the most impoverished nation in the Arab world.

The Saudi royals were to be commended, he said, for their “initiative to bring about a peaceful resolution through the announcement of their intent to establish a full, five-day, renewable ceasefire and humanitarian pause.”

Kerry used the word “intent” advisedly. Even as he spoke, Saudi warplanes continued to pound Yemeni homes, schools and hospitals into rubble, carrying out at least seven airstrikes Thursday against the port city of Hudaydah and five against the northwestern provincial capital of Sa’ada, a stronghold of Yemen’s Houthi rebel movement that the Saudi regime is determined to crush.

Earlier, Saudi warships fired rockets into the town of Hajjah, striking the Maydi Hospital, and more than 100 airstrikes in other areas of the country left scores dead, many of them women and children.

Neither Kerry nor Jubeir said when the five-day “humanitarian pause” would begin, nor did they provide any specific definition of its terms. Jubeir indicated, however, that it would be dependent on the Houthi rebels laying down their arms.

This is not the first time the Saudi regime indicated that it would call a halt to the bloodbath it has unleashed on Yemen. On April 21, after nearly a month of bombing, it proclaimed that Operation Decisive Storm, the title given to its air war against Yemen, had ended and a new phase centered on achieving a political resolution of the Yemeni conflict would begin. Instead, the air strikes only intensified.

The United Nations has put the death toll from the Saudi-led war at more than 1,400, with thousands more wounded, the overwhelming majority of the casualties civilians. Some 300,000 people have been forced to flee their homes. Bombs have demolished at least 30 schools and the violence has left nearly 2 million school children unable to attend classes.

An estimated 20 million people, or 80 percent of the population, are going hungry as a Saudi-led blockade of Yemen’s harbors together with repeated air strikes that have destroyed runways at the country’s airports have cut off its food supplies.

Speaking in Djibouti, a stop on his way to Saudi Arabia, Kerry postured as if the imperialist power he represents were just one more humanitarian enterprise. He declared that Washington was “deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation that is unfolding in Yemen” and urged “all sides, anybody involved, to comply with humanitarian law and to take every precaution to keep civilians out of the line of fire.”

Who does the US secretary of state think he’s kidding? Washington is not some benevolent bystander in this bloodbath.

The White House and the Pentagon have backed Saudi Arabia to the hilt since the war began, rushing it fresh arms, including deadly cluster bombs, banned by the vast majority of the world’s nations because of their murderous effect upon civilians. It has set up a US command center in Riyadh to supply the Saudi Air Force with targeting intelligence, and it has dispatched US Air Force KC-135 Stratotankers to the region to carry out daily aerial refueling of Saudi warplanes, so that the airstrikes can continue around the clock.

Last year, Saudi Arabia spent $80 billion on arms, making it the fourth largest weapons purchaser in the world. The Obama administration is preparing to sell it and the other Persian Gulf oil monarchies even more powerful weapons systems.

The US president is scheduled to hold a summit at Camp David next week with the crowned royals of the Gulf Cooperation Council. He is prepared to offer them an advanced ballistic missile defense system as well as bunker buster bombs.

CNN quoted a senior US official as saying that “the president’s goal is building a defense infrastructure and architecture for the Gulf region that also includes maritime security, border security, and counter-terrorism.”

In other words, the Obama administration is further solidifying US reliance on the Saudi monarchy as a key pillar of its drive for domination of the strategically vital and oil-rich Middle East. Even as the US and the other major powers negotiate an agreement over Iran’s nuclear program, Washington is building up Saudi Arabia and the other reactionary Gulf states for a possible war against Iran.

The nature of the Saudi regime was made abundantly clear on the eve of Kerry’s visit with the mass beheading of five immigrants—two from Yemen and one each from Sudan, Eritrea and Chad. A Saudi national was decapitated on the day the US secretary of state landed in the desert kingdom. After these grisly public executions, the headless corpses of the victims were hung from helicopters to ensure the maximum display of the state atrocity.

The US-Saudi axis gives the lie to all the pretexts used by US imperialism to justify the decades of wars that have taken the lives of over a million in the Middle East, from the claim that it intervened to fight for “democracy” to the lie that it was waging a “war on terrorism.”

Even as it continued bombing Yemeni cities, the Saudi air force, with Washington’s blessings, dropped arms and supplies this week to Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) forces in Yemen, a movement that the Obama administration had previously portrayed as the paramount terrorist threat. As the most rabidly sectarian enemies of the Houthis—inspired by the Saudi monarchy’s state religion of Wahhabi Islamism that animates similar movements, from ISIS to Boko Haram—AQAP has now been recast as Yemeni patriots.

As in Iraq, Libya and Syria before it, Washington’s role in the Yemeni war is based not on humanitarian concern, support for democracy or hostility to terrorism. It is pursuing the predatory interests of US imperialism, attempting to offset American capitalism’s economic decline by military means. It is prepared in this process to spill unlimited amounts of blood and to drag the peoples of Middle East, the United States and the entire planet into a third world war.

Farmers’ Struggles At Battleground Peripheries

T Venkateshwarlu

The farmer suicide in the Aam Admi Party (AAP) rally at Delhi once again facilitated national level discussions on farmers’ suicide in the country. The rally was organized by the AAP against ‘Land acquisition Bill, 2014’. The farmer suicide is a big tragedy and very painful thing. Ruling party BJP and opposition party Congress blamed AAP to the farmer suicide. Delhi Chief Minister and AAP party leader Aravind Kejriwal accepted his mistake that to continue the meeting after the farmer suicide. Rahul Gandhi promised to the farmers that he will fight against land acquisition in the country. These statements and tragedies are all became the part of history. In the country farmers’ suicides have been happening for three decades without any interruption. From 1995 almost every 30 minutes one farmer is committing suicide. In these three decades nearly three lakh farmers were committed suicides. This is the according government data. In reality this number may be three times higher. In 2014 the rate of farmers’ suicide increased 26% comparing with previous year. No party did not take serious about farmers’ suicides and not wage struggles against the farmers’ major problems which are causing to the farmers’ suicides.

Many parties, organizations, forums and Non- government Organizations are waging struggles in various forms against ‘Land Acquisition Bill, 2014’. Modi government designed the ‘Land Acquisition Bill’ 2014’ by making changes to earlier Land Acquisition Bill, 2013. After curtailing the workers’ rights in the name ‘Sramevajayati’ Modi started his attack on farmers’ rights. Once again these actions proved that people took disastrous decision by electing Modi government. The tragedy is that many political parties did not respond and wage struggles against ‘Sramevajayati’ which is against workers and serve the industrialists interests. It shows that the parties’ interest in farmers’ vote bank in Indian politics.

In the new Bill Modi removed the consent and social impact assessment clauses in the Land Acquisition Bill, 2013. He wants to provide a lot of opportunities to the corporate companies to grab the farmers’ land and make huge profits. So, he removed the consent and social impact assessment clauses in the previous Bill. After the prolonged struggles for decades farmers succeed in getting ‘Land Acquisition Bill, 2013 which included progressive clauses such as 70% to 80 % consent of land owners which provides bargaining powers to the farmers to get better compensation to them at the time of land acquisition. The social impact assessment prevents corporate companies to make real estate business with the farmers’ land which were taken in the name of establishing industries and projects. There is no doubt that the Modi Land Bill is against farmers’ interests. He wants to serve the interests of the corporate companies. So, he thought that consent clause and social impact assessment may give troubles to corporate companies at the times of land acquisition. He never feels and hesitates to work for the corporate companies. Actually he proved himself that he is the best servant of the corporate owners. The corporate media is projecting him as a ‘savior’ of the country. He changed the Bill to fulfill the corporate companies’ aspirations. So, struggles against ‘Land Acquisition Bill, 2014’ are genuine and required. Any farmers’ family should not fell into vulnerable situation because of the land acquisition. Before taking farmers’ land for private companies, development projects and infrastructure projects, government should provide sufficient compensation and sustainable livelihoods to the land owners. Most of the parties which are waging struggles against ‘Land Bill, 2014’ largely confined to compensation. But compensation will not suffice to the farmers. We should demand that along with sufficient compensation land owners should be include as shareholders in the industries and development projects. No government has right to grab land from the farmers and distributes it to the corporate companies in the name of development. Farmers have the right on their lands. No government has to take their right on their lands. Only at the time of building cooperatives by themselves farmers may give their rights on the lands for collective benefit. The agriculture labourers and other people those who depend on lands and other natural resources for their livelihoods have to consider as the victims development projects at the time of land acquisition. Sufficient compensation has to pay them for losing their livelihoods opportunities. Even within the land acquisition arena those who are fighting against land acquisition are not demanding shareholder status of the land owners in industries and developmental projects.

Most of the ongoing farmers’ struggles are almost confined to the problem of ‘Land Acquisition Bill, 2014’. But we have to remember that this is one of the problems of the farmers’. Focusing more on ‘Land Acquisition Bill’ these parties put aside the other major burning problems of the famers’. Because of these problems small, marginal and middle class famers are facing serious crisis in agriculture. Famers have been gradually drowning in to the debt trap. Throughout the year farmers and their family members’ hard work did not get any reasonable income to survive. Instead of providing income to their hard work it gives huge debts and pushes them into more vulnerable conditions. These conditions are facilitating tragedy of farmers’ suicides across the country. Farmers are facing many serious problems such as lack of sufficient and timely financial assistance from the government banks, increasing prices of seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, lack of irrigated water facility, decreasing the soil productivity, lack of agricultural department services, lack of drying platforms and storages, lack of agriculture produce processing centers, marketing facilities to the produce and Minimum Support Price (MSP) to the agriculture produce.

Farmers are exploiting by the market at every stage from inputs stage to marketing stage. Lack of financial support from the government banks farmers are forced to depend on money lenders for agriculture loans. These money lenders collect high interest on the loans. Most of the times the traders or seeds, fertilizers and pesticides shop owners give loan and collect money with high interest after crop harvest or they give loan with the condition that the farmers have to sell their produce to those shop owners. Less quality of the seeds, fertilizers and pesticides are damaging the crops. Lack of storage facilities famers have to sell their produce after harvest. If they have facility to storage for their produce they can wait to get good price for their produce in the market. This situation forced famers to sell their produce as early as possible after harvesting.

Market places are far away from the villages. Farmers are unable to access the latest prices of their produce. So, they have to depend on traders to sell their produce. Traders are taking this as good advantage and purchasing produce from farmers at less prices. The traders become syndicate to purchase agriculture produce at less prices from the farmers. Traders are exploiting the farmers in a big way. Cost of production increased nearly four to five times but the income did not increase according to the production cost. At the same time the consumers are getting the agricultural produce at high prices. The profit is consuming by the traders. MSP became maximum price for the produce. Governments did not bother about the MSP to the agriculture produce.

Along with these problems erratic rains are also damaging the crops. Farmers are not getting sufficient insurance for their crops damage. Scarcity of the irrigating water became one of the big problems to the farmers. Farmers are spending lakhs of rupees on bore-wells and many times they are not getting water but they are drowning into debts because of bore-wells. Electricity problem became is one of the problems of farmers. They have to wait day and night for the electricity. The power cuts are adding their contribution in damaging the agriculture produce.

Farmers are doing cultivation with so many problems. These problems are pushing farmers into debt traps and finally causing to farmers’ suicides. The various parties and organizations have to wage relentless struggles on the farmers’ problems. Leaving these major problems and wage struggles and these struggles should be in center place of battle ground. But the political parties and organizations confined to the peripheries of the battle ground by confining the land acquisition.

The BJP and Congress party completely failed to address the farmers’ problems. These parties’ leaders are competing to propagate how they are working for the farmers. But in reality they never take farmers issue as a serious issue. Congress party could not find time to discuss the agricultural crisis in Parliament. Modi always find time for corporate companies’ owners but he did not want to give five minutes time to the farmers’ representatives to discuss agriculture crisis. But he propagates that ‘Nothing is valuable than farmers in the country’. People know who are most valuable to Modi. He works for the interests of the corporate companies by crushing the rights of farmers and workers. He removed the consent and social impact assessment clauses to protect the interests of the corporate companies. At the same time he can say that the farmers are most valuable in the country.

Communist parties and revolutionary groups are not yet come-out from their dogmatic world of semi- feudal theory. Particularly Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders are almost confined to propagate the land reforms in West Bengal and failed build different types struggles on farmers’ major problems. These parties’ leaders forgot their party program to establish Socialism in the country. They did not bother about path of revolution which determines the strategy and tactics. These parties confined to Parliamentary politics and forgot Socialist revolution in the country. They did not understand ongoing changes taking place in economical and social fields particularly in the agricultural sector in the last three decades because of predominately prevalence of Capitalist relations in the agriculture. Because of the dogmatism and Parliamentary politics these parties’ leaders are reluctant to understand present agricultural relations, crisis and wage struggles against major problems of the farmers.

The revolutionary groups are waging struggles on ‘Land to The Tiller’. These groups’ leaders are reluctant to study changes in agriculture and new problems of the farmers. In their program ‘Landless’ is the major problem of the people in rural areas. They did not understand the changes occurred in the agriculture. So, they are not focusing the problems of farmers. The farmers those who are committing suicides are landholders. Even in the backward regions also farmers are committing suicides because market exploitation. Their problems are not lack of land. Their problems related to the market exploitation. It is the result of capital intervening in agriculture sector across the country. There may be variations in capitalist development across the country. In some corners or remote areas somebody may find the characteristics of the ‘Semi- feudal’. Because of the misunderstanding of about capitalist development in the country and they are reluctant to understand the changes in agriculture focus on farmers problems facing by the market. Because this limitation they are not waging struggles against exploitation in the market.

Waging prolonged struggles against these major problems is not as easy as waging struggles against ‘Land Acquisition’. Along with struggles the parties and organizations have to build farmers’ cooperatives with small, marginal and middle class farmers. Above 70% of the farmers belong to the small and marginal farmers’ category. These cooperatives manage by the leadership of the small and marginal farmers. These cooperatives purchase inputs at less price and sell the produce at reasonable price. These cooperatives will provide financial support to the farmers and do other initiatives like agriculture produce processing. Along with these initiatives these cooperatives work advocacy to get insurance and infrastructural facilities to the agriculture produce and pro farmers policies. The farmers are not corporate owners, so Modi did not care them and always try to cut the farmers rights to protect the interests of the corporate owners. The cooperatives also help to consumers by providing quality produce at reasonable price. These cooperatives will be good answer to the government which is praising and showing the corporate agriculture is the solution of the agriculture crisis.

The parties and organizations have to revisit their approach and understand the severity of the problems of the farmers. These problems are the result of capital intervening in the agriculture sector. Apart from struggles against ‘Land Acquisition Bill, 2014’ they have to wage struggles on major problems of the farmers. This initiative is require a lot to end the lakhs of farmers’ suicides across the country for the last three decades.