No Peace Yet in Colombia Despite War’s End

W.T. Whitney Jr

War between the Marxist –oriented Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government ended on December 1. Colombia’s Congress that day finished endorsing the peace agreement that President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC top leader “Timochenko” signed on November 23. Voting in both chambers was unanimous, but only because Congressional opponents led by Senator Alvaro Uribe, Santos’ predecessor as president, walked out.

War lasting 52 years killed vast numbers of Colombians, 80 percent of them civilians, including rural community leaders and human rights activists. The negotiations, preliminary talks included, consumed five years. Uribe, representing Colombia’s landowning class, headed the campaign opposing the process. A final accord, signed and celebrated on August 29, went to a popular vote, a plebiscite, on October 2. Voters responding to Uribe’s well-funded campaign narrowly rejected it.

Opponents claimed the agreement didn’t help victims but did favor communists, LGBTI people, and impunity for guerrillas.  A Colombian economy in distress, they said, can ill afford money for implementing the peace deal.

The Santos government scrambled to recover.  Negotiators reconvened to consider dozens of proposals from the No side and did fashion a revised pact signed by the heads of both negotiating teams on November 12.

The revisions represent fine – tuning rather than fundamental change. The significant ones are:

+ The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), set up to identify and sanction combatants who committed crimes, does remain, but won’t be part of the Constitution and will go out of existence in ten years. Participating foreign judges serve only as advisers now.  Colombia’s Constitutional Court will review JEP rulings. Opposition forces called for existing state institutions rather than the JEP to decide the fate of former insurgents. Now the JEP is a “state institution,” but on “an ad hoc” basis.

+ Ex – guerrillas will submit “all information” related to narco-trafficking. FARC resources will be collected for use in paying for reparations. Some guerrillas whose involvement with narco-trafficking came about through “rebellion or political crimes” may be amnestied.

+ The revised agreement still allows former guerrilla leaders to participate in electoral politics, although state monetary support is diminished.

+ Protection for the “so-called ideology of gender” disappeared, although rights are supposedly guaranteed for all population groups including LGBTI people.

+ Land reform provisions are weaker now; the new agreement affirms the right to private property and sets up a committee of experts to review land-reform projects.

+ Provisions for punishing ex-FARC leaders ineligible for amnesty were vague; under the new agreement they will be confined to small “agricultural colonies.”

Three sets of peace negotiations over 30 years failed. Now with an agreement in force, war will end – but not completely: the government’s talks with the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army are stalemated, and a dissenting contingent of the FARC’s Northern Front, having rejected peace talks, is still fighting.

Tellingly, violence has engulfed the country once more. The “Patriotic March,” a coalition of 600 social and political organizations, issued a report November 22 saying that “72 defenders of human rights” have been murdered so far in 2016, 32 between August and November; 279 were threatened and 30 evaded attackers. Since September 11, 2011, 124 Patriotic March activists have been assassinated, 18 of them in 2016.

The report emphasizes that, “[P]aramilitary action … looms as the principal threat to the peace process.”  Basically, “genocide [is] being implemented through systematic actions directed at the extermination of our movement for political reasons.”

Aida Avella, president of the recently reconstituted Patriotic Union (UP) Party, agrees: “Intellectual authors [and] financiers” have mounted a plan against the Patriotic March. She indicates that genocide is not new; “paramilitary structures were never dismantled.”

Avella knows about genocide. Earlier peace talks failed in1984, but demobilized FARC guerrillas were allowed to enter regular politics. They were instrumental in forming the UP electoral coalition. Subsequently assassins killed 5000 UP members.  Avella herself left for exile in 1996 after a bazooka struck the taxi she was riding in.

The paramilitaries operate mainly in the countryside. Colombian Senator Ivan Cepeda claims their task is to block restoration of land to the displaced and to protect big economic interests. Ex-President Uribe, accused of links to paramilitaries, alleged that the rejected peace agreement would serve to “collectivize the countryside and destroy productive agriculture.”

Deaths squads attacked nine Patriotic March members between November 17 and November 20; five were killed and three escaped. All but one belonged to Patriotic March’s affiliate Fensuagro, Colombia’s largest agricultural workers union.

Reporting the attacks, the Tucson – based Alliance for Global Justice recalls that U.S. military advisors to Colombia’s government in 1962 advanced the idea of using paramilitaries to control the countryside. U. S. military aid under Plan Colombia (2002-2016) benefited paramilitary formations, directly and indirectly.

FARC members are now deploying to “zones of concentration” where they will be handing over arms to United Nations officers. But conservatives tied to Uribe are preparing to retake the presidency in 2018. Some army officers broke rules in order to advance Uribe’s crusade against the FARC, and maybe they’ll do so again.   Big agricultural interests, ranchers, narco-traffickers, and promoters of dams and mining projects seek to hold onto useful land.  And 9000 political prisoners are still languishing in Colombian jails. For a while at least, peace will be a stranger in Colombia.

Jorge Eliecer Gaitan’s words bear repeating. Two months before he was assassinated on April 9, 1948, the Liberal Party leader spoke before a vast crowd. He was responding to murderous attacks on land – hungry small farmers.

He implored President Mariano Ospina Perez:  “Sir, stop the violence. We want the defense of human life, that’s what a people can ask for. Instead of unleashing blind force, we should take advantage of the people’s capacity to work for the benefit of the progress of Colombia … [T]his silent crowd and this mute cry from our hearts just demands this of you: that you treat us, our mothers, our wives, our children and our property as you wish yourself, your mother, your wife, your children and your property to be treated!”

The Alliance for Global Justice on December 1 issued an “Open Letter to Fensuagro, the Marcha Patriótica and All the Colombian People.” The letter expresses condolences from 39 groups and 192 individuals and lists the names of victims.  To add your name or that of your group, send an Email to:  afgj@afgj.org

Is America Ready for a War on White Privilege?

Peter Lee

In my opinion, all political campaigns are identity based.  Shaking the money tree to the tune of $1 billion + it now takes to run a national campaign demands access to big money, deference to capital, and a willingness to promote political loyalties on the basis of identity, not class.  George Soros is not going to underwrite an anti-plutocrat jacquerie marching on Washington.

Post-election there has been a lot of defensive bleating by mainstream Dems that they did not run an identity politics campaign i.e. one that trafficked primarily in ethnic/gender allegiances to attract voters.

There is considerable spittle devoting to rebutting the idea that Clintonism was Vote Your Vag + African American tactical voting.   “Issues, ability, and values brought the voters to Clinton” is the refrain.

The campaign spin was that Clinton, a tired pol with more baggage than an Indian passenger train– and who had interrupted her self-declared mission as champion of the oppressed for a resume-polishing stint as warmonger at the State Department–was Jesus in a pantsuit and the primary task of her campaign would be restraining the American public from skipping the election and making her president by acclamation.

Judging by the immortal exchange at Harvard between Kellyanne Conway and Jennifer Palmieri (“’I would rather lose than win the way you guys did,’ Palmieri said, her voice shaking” per NPR.  Well, Wish. Granted.) it looks like the Clinton campaign had partaken intemperately of its own Kool-Aid.

Trouble is, Clinton was an establishment pol promoting a rather murky elitist and globalist agenda that pushed zero nationalist and populist buttons.  She was the candidate of the 1% and she needed help of some of the 99% to push her across the electoral finish line.  She and her handlers chose identity, not soak-the-rich faux populism as her path to the White House.

Clinton’s strategists eventually chose identity-lite for the general election campaign, targeting voters whose idea of heaven is attending continuous performances of Hamilton for the rest of eternity, instead of unambiguously throwing out red meat to the blocs she was targeting to elect her.

Coulda worked.  Shoulda worked.  Except Clinton was a clumsy campaigner with a less than galvanizing message.  Trump, a talented carny barker, ran his much narrower identity politics campaign as an outsider, igniting the bonfire of white anxiety and stoking it to white heat.  And, pending the outcome of the recounts, he did good enough to win.

Unsurprisingly, the Democratic Hamiltonians hang their hats on the coulda/should/mighta/might still.

This comes up a lot, complete with torrents of spicy rhetorical lava, when Sandernistas play the class card and claim their guy wudda won with a class-based appeal that would have lured a decisive number of white males into the Democratic camp.

Prudence might dictate looking at Sanders’ socialism-lite as a way to advantageously slice and dice the white electoral gristle.

Inside the Democratic Party at this moment, however, vitriol carries the day as champions of the “woke” coalition—energized by African-Americans who, with the endorsement of John Lewis, placed all their eggs in the Clinton basket—point the finger of blame at everybody and anyone but themselves for failing to deliver the “Expect Us” rainbow triumph, and furiously resist Sandernista white “class” outreach.

Problematically, repudiation of the Sandernista claim involves tarring both Sanders and the voters he was targeting as irredeemable, despicable racists who would have been deaf to any principled class-based appeal.

This kind of flamethrowing works OK if you won the election; but if you’ve lost, and find it necessary to dismiss almost half of the electorate as either Nazis or deluded fellow travelers—and sustain eye-bulging outrage for the duration of Trump’s administration– it creates a certain awkwardness.

It’s also identity politics.  You can call it “identity politics by default: they started it!” but it’s basically “Admirables” vs. “Deplorables”.  Unity is derided as appeasement and the political dynamics are being driven toward increased polarization by a combination of money, self-interest, hurt pride, conviction, and calculation.  Judging by my Twitter timeline, not an infallible indicator I’ll admit, defining and running against the Trump Republican Party as bigoted scum is seen by some activists as a winning strategy as well as a moral imperative.

Sooner or later, the Democratic Party is going to have to decide whether an overt anti-white-male-racist posture is going to deliver the winning combination of advantageous demographics, fired-up base, and big-money support.  2018 (mid-terms) or 2020 (presidential)?  Or maybe sometime later?

In other words…

When will the War on White Privilege be fought?

Well, it was already roadtested during the primaries.  Hillary Clinton’s surrogates used it to eviscerate Bernie Sanders in the southern states, and POC activists still use it to deny Sandernistas a spot at the DNC strategy table/feeding trough.

White privilege issues took a dirt nap during the general, when avoiding the alienation of white voters nationwide took precedence over nailing down black Democratic support during the crucial southern primaries.

But I saw inklings of it back in June, when John Lewis organized a sit-in of Democrats on the floor of the House of Representatives to protest Republican inaction on gun control following the Pulse nightclub massacre.

Lewis was attempting to amplify the call President Barack Obama made for gun control legislation in his eulogy for Reverend Clement Pinckney, one of eight people, all African-Americans, massacred in a church in Charleston.  Obama framed the Charleston killings as a tragedy but also a catharsis, one that would bridge racial divides and unite Americans in a shared abhorrence of gun violence.

None of us can or should expect a transformation in race relations overnight.  Every time something like this happens, somebody says we have to have a conversation about race.  We talk a lot about race.  There’s no shortcut.  And we don’t need more talk.  (Applause.)  None of us should believe that a handful of gun safety measures will prevent every tragedy.  It will not.

But it would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allowed ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again.

The political conditions were deemed to be ripe, since demographic and electoral shifts had forced the NRA in a deep, virtually monogamous relationship with the Republican Party and allowed the Democrats to seize the moral and political high ground as both national unifiers and gun control advocates.

The opportunity to amplify African American social and political aspirations through the broader issue of gun control was, I expect, seen as attractive both by African American and Democratic political strategists.

At Slate, Jamelle Bouie laid out the thinking:

[N]either [Pelosi] nor her caucus has to cater to vulnerable Democrats in the rural South or West. The kinds of voters Democrats once tried to attract by shying away from gun politics are Republicans now. And Democrats don’t believe they need to reach out to them. The politics, they argue, have turned… this past week is the clearest possible evidence that we’re watching a new kind of Democratic Party, one in which a young black representative from Brooklyn named Hakeem Jeffries, speaking shortly before midnight, invokes Martin Luther King and Bull Connor in a call-and-response with his colleagues. One that’s changing.

The GOP,at least in the eyes of liberal critics, had in contrast committed itself irrevocably to serving as the party of the white as the Democrats scooped up the rest of the rainbow.

This understanding—that the Democrats were already on the winning side in the identity politics contest—perhaps provided the pretext for officially dismissing the overt influence of identity politics considerations and focus on ladling out Clinton pap in the general election instead.

Beyond the predictable exploitation of the Republicans’ slavish devotion to the agenda of the NRA, there was an interesting kulturkampf subtext: that the dead hand of white conservative America was holding back the real America by its domination of institutions like the US Congress, which is pretty much lily-white.

In fact, a rather compelling case was made that, thanks to the vital alliance between the NRA and conservative Republicans, collateral damage of the effort to maintain GOP dominance was the unnecessary deaths of thousands of Americans due to gun violence.

Or as Bill Moyers put it:

Once again the Republican leaders of Congress have been revealed for what they are: useful stooges of the gun merchants who would sell to anyone — from the mentally ill to a terrorist-in-waiting to a lurking mass murderer. And the Republican Party once again has shown itself an enabler of death, the enemy of life, a threat to the republic itself.

Human decency as well as American progress, therefore, would dictate that these old white guys and their reactionary and self-serving agenda get booted from office and letting a new team dedicated to pushing America forward instead of holding it back take over.

It was a seductive narrative of what I like to call “White Twilight/Black Dawn!”  It exploited the rhetoric of intersectionality—shared experience of oppression as a defining political identity—to permit the African American community, as the prime wronged American ethnic bloc, to claim a position of moral and political leadership.

Of course, white privilege is sustained not only by racist domination of powerful institutions, but also by white votes, and direct confrontations with white political power, particularly on behalf of African Americans who compose only 14% of the US electorate, tend not to go well, particularly in national elections.

African American activists’ ambitions to punch above their weight are increasingly hampered by their limited demographic clout and also by perceptions that their political strength has plateaued and the growing Hispanic demographic component will displace African Americans in the party league tables and hearts of political planners.  Hence the obsession with the “intersectional” force-multiplier narrative.

Add to that disturbing expressions of black militancy surrounding the shootings of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, and I think a conscious decision was made by Clinton strategists in the summer of 2016 to soft-pedal racially-inflected attacks on white privilege (like Occupy stunts in Congress led by black male politicians!) and go with the positive but apparently fatally mushy “rainbow coalition” alignment (hugging black moms + Hamilton!).

The electoral results were not pretty.  Now the question is, rethink or double-down on race-inflected Democratic identity politics?

Is there a political future in an open, polarizing political campaign against conservative whites founded on the idea that they must surrender control of the public institutions they currently dominate?

Let it be said I am a believer in the fact of white privilege, as well as its beneficiary.

There is a special circle in Unzworld Comment Section Hell devoted to flambéing folks who don’t understand that, far from reveling in unearned privilege, Caucasians are not enjoying anywhere near the advantages merited by their genetic and cultural endowments.  Well, fire up the barbie.

But…just for the sake of argument…let’s assume that the idea that pruning the white deadwood becomes a top priority for political activists.  How would that work?

Pretty well, I think.

The big story over the next thirty five years is the inexorable decline of the white vote from majority to plurality.  That kind of demographic trend is bloody chum in the political shark tank.

Some day some opportunistic and charismatic pol is going to stand up and sell the message that it’s time for the old whites to step aside and give the young people of color their shot.

Political happenstance will dictate, I think, how much racial justice and social progress we get, and how much co-option and corruption.  And I have a feeling that Hispanic as well as white factors will continue to marginalize black political clout.

But it’s not too early to think about what the war on white privilege might entail, and what choices might be made.

Team Trump: a Government of Generals and Billionaires

Eric Sommer

The incoming Trump administration is placing unprecedented political power in the U.S. state in the hands of military generals. The U.S. constitution enacted in 1789 – the basic law of the country – was in important respects intended to ensure civilian oversight and control of the U.S. military.  It provides that only the civilian law-making congress can declare war, and that the President – a civilian- is the top   commander of all military forces.

In recent years these precepts have been seriously undermined as one president after another has dispatched military forces to participate in armed conflicts or to create them without declaring war.  But this trend has greatly accelerated with Trumps selection of a large number of former Generals for positions at the heights of the U.S. state.

He has, for example, selected the  man known as ‘General “Mad Dog” Mattis (his actual nickname) for secretary of defense, the ministerial position which supervises the military, a post traditionally occupied by a civilian for oversight of the military.  Mattis is known for his fanatic hatred of the Iranian government and played a key role in the invasion of Iraq by the U.S. and in a particularly bloody assault on a city which cost many civilian lives.  He once said that he found it “fun” to shoot people.

Under U.S. law a recently-retired military figure like Mattis is barred from civilian positions with oversight powers via the military.  Trumps team is evidently so eager to have him in control of the military that they will need a special act of the US. Congress to allow him to serve as Secretary of Defence.

In the U.S. the Secretary of State is in charge of U.S. foreign affairs, including relations with China and Russia.   Here too generals are being considered for the position, including generals who are on record as advocating a far more militaristic stance towards Russia and/or China.

The U.S. national security advisor is a position also traditionally held by a civilian, and is the top White House position co-ordinating military and foreign affairs.  Trump choice for this position is General Flynn was previously dismissed from the Pentagon as too wild in his notions even for their liking.

Other military figures appointed or under consideration for appointment to high level government offices include

*For possible Secretary of State: Retired General David Petraeus, who served as US commander in both Iraq and Afghanistan and is also a former CIA director, is a leading contender for secretary of state.

*For head of U.S. Homeland Security: Retired General John F. Kelly is being considered.

* For Director of national intelligence, coordinating all 19 parts of the gigantic U.S. intelligence system,  Admiral Michael Rogers, the current head of the National Security Agency is under consideration.

These, and other military appointees to previously civilian positions, are an outgrowth of 25 years of progressive militarization of American society and government, including 25 years of wars of aggression against countries like Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya, as well as the arming of American city police forces with military equipment such as armored personnel carriers, battlefield machine guns, and more.

Alongside these military figures, one billionaire after another is being selected for other ministerial cabinet positions, a number with connections to the odious Wall Street firms which brought the world the current economic crisis in 2008.

It is especially alarming that virtually all of the major U.S. mass media, including the New York Times and Washington Post, and leading figures in both the U.S. major political parties, have applauded the selection of Mattis, and remained mute in the face of a coming political administration of generals and billionaires.

The new presidential administration is shaping up as the complete alliance of Washington insiders, parasitic finance capital (aka Wall street, etc) and the massive military-security complex.  These ministerial level cabinet selections are a warning that far greater attacks on the social and economic rights of American workers, and greater militarism and military aggression abroad are being prepared.

Rolling Back the Empire: Washington’s Proxy-Army Faces Decisive Defeat in Aleppo

Mike Whitney

Syrian Army helicopters dropped leaflets on parts of eastern Aleppo on Sunday warning anti-government fighters to surrender while they still had the chance. Hundreds of jihadists have already laid down their weapons and surrendered while a hardline corps of deadenders continue to fend off the  rapidly advancing army.

The situation is looking increasingly hopeless for the ragtag group of insurgents that have lost  more than half the territory they held in just the last week. Every attempt they’ve made to break through Syrian Army lines has been repelled leaving them to defend a few shrinking districts where they will either surrender or die.

On Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov delivered an ultimatum to the remaining militants that clarified the position of the Syrian government and its allies. he said:

“Those groups which refuse to leave eastern Aleppo will be treated as terrorists.  By refusing to walk out from eastern Aleppo they will in fact go ahead with armed struggle. We will treat them accordingly, as terrorists and extremists, and support the Syrian army in its operation against such armed gangs.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry has made every effort to stop the fighting to protect US-backed jihadists that are trying to topple Syrian President Bashar al Assad. Unfortunately, a proposal that was accepted by both Kerry and Lavrov concerning the withdrawal of fighters in Aleppo, was rejected by higher-ups in the Obama Administration ending the prospects for a negotiated settlement. Lavrov expressed his frustration in comments to the media where he said:

“They have withdrawn their document and have a new one. Our initial impression is that this new document backtracks, and is an attempt to buy time for the militants, allow them to catch their breath and resupply. The same thing happened with our agreement of September 9. It’s difficult to understand who makes decisions there, but apparently there are plenty of those who want to undermine the authority and practical steps by John Kerry.”

According to Reuters, “the Syrian Foreign Ministry said it would now accept no truce in Aleppo, should any outside parties try to negotiate one.” Meanwhile,  “Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution on Monday calling for a week-long ceasefire.” Simply put, this is the end of the line for the US-backed terrorists that have laid to waste much of the battered country and killed more than 400,000 people. And while Aleppo may not be the decisive turning point in the ongoing conflict, it does put all of the main population centers and industrial hubs back under regime control.

More important, the recapturing of Aleppo is a major setback for Washington and its jihadist-breeding allies. (US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar) US plans for redrawing the map of the Middle East to meet its economic and geopolitical objectives has been defeated by a courageous and determined coalition (Syria, Iran, Russia and Hezbollah) that has methodically routed or exterminated the foreign-backed opposition and reestablished both state security and the sovereign authority of the elected government to control its own affairs.

On Tuesday morning, AMN News reported that the Syrian Army had captured 85 percent of East Aleppo. Dozens of insurgents have been killed in sporadic fighting while hundreds more have surrendered.  It appears that the battle of Aleppo is about to end and the Syrian Army is on the “verge of total victory.”

UK parliament passes Labour motion calling for government to publish “Brexit plan”

Robert Stevens

Westminster MPs voted 461 to 89 in favour of an amended opposition Labour Party motion Wednesday, calling on the Conservative government to publish its plans for leaving the European Union (EU) before beginning formal negotiations over the UK’s exit.

Voting against the motion were 23 Labour MPs, 5 Liberal Democrats, 51 from the Scottish National Party, Green Party leader Caroline Lucas and one Tory, Ken Clarke. Tory whips said that 56 Labour MPs abstained. Their opposition represents the most hard-line stand against leaving the EU.

The motion was signed by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer, deputy leader Tom Watson and Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry. It demanded the prime minister “commit to publishing the Government’s plan for leaving the EU before Article 50 is invoked,” while stating there “should be no disclosure of material that could be reasonably judged to damage the UK in any negotiations to depart from the European Union after Article 50 has been triggered.”

Prime Minister Theresa May originally opposed the motion but was forced to accept it as between 20 and 40 pro-EU Tory rebels were pledged to back Labour—threatened a deepening crisis and possible fall of her government.

May and senior cabinet ministers added their own amendment to Labour’s motion as a condition for supporting it. This stated that Labour and other opposition parties accept that Article 50 should be invoked by the end of March, that the result of the referendum should be accepted, and that the publication of the plan should not undermine the government’s stance in the negotiations.

The crisis in ruling circles over Europe being debated in Parliament was amplified by the fact that the Supreme Court, located directly opposite the House of Commons, was meeting for the third of a four-day hearing on whether May can trigger Article 50 without allowing a vote in Parliament. This followed a High Court ruling last month, appealed by the government to the Supreme Court, which ruled that only Parliament could trigger Article 50.

In his speech, Starmer called for an end to the “uncertainty… on issues such as the single market, paying for access to the single market, the customs union and transitional arrangements…”

This was in reference to recent comments by Tory Brexit Secretary David Davis and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who both stated that the government may consider paying the EU to maintain access to the Single Market. Johnson later backtracked, stating it was “pure speculation”, before contradicting himself yet again saying that any payments had to be “sensible... I see no reason why those payments should be large.”

Starmer stated that the government’s published plan had to “have enough detail to allow the relevant parliamentary bodies and Committees, including the Exiting the European Union Committee… to scrutinise the plan effectively...”

The parliamentary debate had an element of unreality, a sparring match prior to the main event. The majority of pro-EU MPs are keen, at this juncture, not to be seen to be openly challenging the June 23 vote to leave the EU. But the conflict in ruling circles is set to erupt in more open forms, as it did after the High Court verdict, when the Supreme Court hands down its verdict in January.

Virtually every MP who supported Britain remaining in the EU stated that they did not want to block Article 50 outright, only wanting Parliament to have its say. However, Starmer clarified that the debate would not be the last word as MPs backing the Labour motion “are not voting to trigger article 50 or to give authority to the Prime Minister to do so. It is most certainly not a vote for article 50. Unless the Supreme Court overrules the High Court, only legislation can do that. Nor does today’s motion preclude Labour or any other party tabling amendments to the article 50 legislation and having them voted on.”

The pro-Brexit wing support leaving the EU based on British corporations being able to better exploit vast global markets, including India, China and the Middle East. They insist on ramping up the exploitation of the working class in order to “compete internationally.” The pro-EU wing are concerned that this will be economically disastrous. The price to be paid is losing access to the EU’s single market for UK banks and corporations.

Many Labour MPs accepted the Tory amendment only after stating that the referendum vote did not give a “mandate for a hard Brexit”—one including loss of access to the Single Market and Customs Union membership.

Labour MPs who joined those refusing to support the Labour motion stated that it empowered the Tories—if the Supreme Court backs their legal challenge—to trigger Article 50 by the end of March. Heidi Alexander spoke against the government amendment and motion for including “an arbitrary timetable set by the Government to placate their own Back Benchers.” She insisted, “Tariff-free trade with the EU has to be the priority” and declared her support “for a second referendum on the terms of leaving the EU.”

SNP Europe spokesman Steven Gethins said that Labour “risk backing a Tory amendment that will see the UK put through a hard right Tory plan to take us out of the EU that will damage jobs, livelihoods, businesses and the economy.”

Lib Dems leader Tim Farron said his party would not support the motion as it fails “to include any meaningful commitment from the Conservative Brexit government… on such fundamental questions as to whether it wants Britain to remain in the Single Market.”

The government’s crisis was summed up prior to the debate by May, who was forced to comment on discussion on a “black Brexit” in which the government left article 50 talks without a future deal with the EU, a “white Brexit” within the UK seeking to remain in the single market and a “grey Brexit” involving leaving the single market with access to parts of the single market.

May offered an inane response, stating, “I’m interested in all these terms that have been identified—hard Brexit, soft Brexit, black Brexit, white Brexit, grey Brexit and actually what we should be looking for is a red, white and blue Brexit.”

The pro and anti-EU wings of the ruling elite are equally reactionary. Both put forward a nationalist, anti-working class agenda and are equally supportive of cuts in immigration and restrictions on the freedom of movement.

In his speech, former Labour leader Ed Miliband said he opposed comments made by May’s spokesman on Monday that those calling for the government’s plans to be scrutinised were not “backing the UK team.” Miliband replied, “We are not seeking proper scrutiny of the plans for Brexit because of our lack of patriotism; we are doing it out of patriotism, because we believe in the unity of the country.”

Labour MP Andy Burnham declared that “many lifelong Labour voters” voted [in the referendum] “for change on immigration.” He added, “I am clear about that, and it has to be our starting point in this debate. The status quo—full free movement—was defeated at the ballot box, so it is not an option. What is to be debated is the precise nature of the changes that replace it, so that we get the balance right between responding properly to the public’s legitimate concerns and minimising the impact on our economy.”

Italian Prime Minister Renzi officially resigns

Marianne Arens

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi officially resigned his position Wednesday evening, but will remain in office until a new government is formed.

Renzi handed in his resignation on Monday after suffering a decisive loss in Sunday’s referendum on constitutional reform. President Sergio Mattarella “froze” the resignation until the second chamber of parliament, the Senate, approved the 2017 budget. This took place on Wednesday evening.

Beginning today at 6 p.m., Mattarella will lead talks with the heads of both parliamentary chambers and the leaders of the most important parties at his official residence until Saturday. The goal will be the swift formation of a transitional government. A potential candidate for prime minister is current Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan, who has close ties to the European Union (EU). Senate president Pietro Grasso was mentioned as an additional candidate.

Renzi proposed the formation of a “government of national responsibility” with the agreement of the major parties and failing this to hold new elections. He is staying on as chairman of the Democratic Party (PD) and could stand as their lead candidate in new elections.

The ultra-right Lega Nord, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement (M5S) have all spoken out against the technocratic government proposed by Renzi. They are calling for new elections to be held immediately. Lega Nord leader Matteo Salvini demonstrated in front of the Senate on Wednesday with signs reading “Voto Subito” (New elections now).

According to media reports, President Mattarella considers new elections to be “inconceivable” if the election law is not altered in advance, since two completely different electoral systems exist for the two parliamentary chambers. For the House of Representatives, the controversial “Italicum” policy applies, which was adopted in the summer and guarantees that the largest party will receive a majority of the seats. The Constitutional Court is set to rule on the constitutionality of this provision on 24 January. By contrast, a proportional representation system applies in the Senate, which benefits smaller parties. The failed constitutional reform proposed to largely do away with this chamber.

But it is not merely constitutional considerations which are encouraging the President to seek the formation of a government of technocrats rather than calling for new elections. Despite reassuring official reports, the Italian financial system is in a deep crisis. The banks are burdened with €360 billion in bad loans and must significantly increase their capital. Italy’s banking index has fallen by 47 percent since the beginning of the year. Shortly after the announcement of the referendum result, interest rates on Italian government debt shot up temporarily.

Important international financial institutions promised assistance ahead of the referendum if the constitutional reform was successful. The planned strengthening of the executive branch would have made it easier to restructure the banks at the expense of the working class. After the failure of the referendum, the international financial institutions withdrew their promises of capital.

The world’s oldest bank, Italy’s Monte dei Paschi de Siena, confronts imminent danger. It achieved the worst possible score in a review of its balance sheet by the EU in July and urgently requires a capital injection of €5 billion, which has now been called into question with the rejection of the constitutional reform.

A new government is therefore being demanded to prevent an uncontrolled banking crisis. International financial interests are applying immense pressure behind the scenes and expect that the future government—regardless of its composition—will participate in the rescue of the banks to the tune of billions of euros. But this could bring it into conflict with EU regulations.

Without delay, the Senate therefore agreed to the budget by 173 votes to 108 on Wednesday. The budget contains the same policies which the majority of Italians voted against on Sunday. It amounts to an intensification of Renzi’s policy of social cuts.

The budget provides just €1.6 billion for victims of earthquakes. This will fall well short of what is required to overcome the worst damage caused by three earthquakes over recent months.

In addition, €1.2 billion is set aside for “peace missions,” meaning military operations abroad. The budget also contains numerous tax exemptions for big business and proposes a sales tax increase of 0.9 percent from 2019. A number of increases in charges, which were met with stiff criticism, were delayed for two years.

The budget bears the hallmark of a neoliberal approach to social questions. In line with proposals raised in the United States, recipients will obtain welfare benefits in the form of “vouchers.” This will affect assistance with childcare costs, kindergarten fees and music lessons in school. Renzi’s education policy has already pushed the privatization of public schools.

A further ominous change concerns pensions: 63-year-olds are to be allowed to retire on a bank loan covered by their future pension wealth. This will make a further increase in old-age poverty inevitable.

The social crisis is assuming ever more terrible forms. According to the latest figures released on 5 December by statistics agency Istat, 17.5 million people are at or near the poverty line, amounting to one in four residents. Half of all families with three or more children are no longer in a position to meet the basic requirements of life, such as regular mealtimes, a roof over their head and medical care, at their current income levels.

Growing numbers of young people are leaving Italy to seek work elsewhere: 147,000 people emigrated last year; an increase of 8 percent compared to 2014.

German chancellor demands stricter asylum laws and ban on burqa

Ulrich Rippert

Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times called German Chancellor Angela Merkel “the last defender of Western freedom.” Following the election of Donald Trump, hopes for the defence of democratic principles relied more than ever on Merkel, the Times wrote in early November.

Merkel made clear on Tuesday what this amounts to. At the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party congress in Essen, she delivered an extraordinarily right-wing speech full of xenophobic attacks and demands for the strengthening of the police and military.

Previously, Merkel’s refusal to impose a firm upper limit for the acceptance of refugees, as the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), had urged, was portrayed as a “welcoming culture” toward refugees. This was always a misinterpretation.

In the interests of German big business, which has profited from the freedom of movement within Europe, Merkel has to date opposed the reinforcement of national borders and worked for a so-called “European solution” to the refugee crisis. The substance of this “solution” was the closure of Europe’s external borders. This was connected to a brutal policy of deterring refugees through the establishment of border protection units and mass deportations. Despite this, right-wing critics accused Merkel of endangering security and national sovereignty by refusing to impose national border controls.

Merkel began her speech Tuesday with a clear concession to her right-wing critics. She noted that Germany would never again accept several hundred thousand refugees in a matter of months, saying, “A situation like that in the late summer of 2015 cannot, should not and will not be repeated. That was, and is, my declared political goal.”

This was followed by a list of the measures to repulse refugees adopted by the German government over recent months. “We have produced a list of safe countries of origin,” she stated. It had been correct to categorise the Western Balkan states as safe countries of origin so as to make clear that the vast majority of the thousands of refugees from this region “have no prospect of staying with us.”

We live in a state under the rule of law, Merkel continued. Every refugee had the right to due process. But this process required that those who had no right to remain had to leave the country.

She then praised Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU), who had introduced refugee ID cards, restricted family reunifications in Germany and strengthened the deportation process.

Amid jubilation from the close to 1,000 delegates, Merkel hailed the grand coalition government’s integration law, designed to prevent the emergence of so-called “parallel societies.” She declared, “Here with us, that means show your face. The full veil is therefore not appropriate. It should be banned wherever this is legally possible.”

The CDU intends to ban the burqa wherever the identification of an individual is necessary—in the courts, at police checkpoints and on public transport.

Already in the summer, the interior ministers from the CDU/CSU spoke out in the “Berlin declaration” in favour of a partial ban on the burqa and niqab. At the time, Interior Minister de Maizière stated, “We reject the burqa. It does not fit in with our cosmopolitan society.” Wearing the full veil was “an affront to an open society and, in addition, anti-woman.” He wanted “everybody in our country to show his face.”

Merkel and de Maizière know very well that a ban on the burqa is incompatible with the right to freedom of religion guaranteed in Germany’s Basic Law. “The state is prohibited from evaluating such religious beliefs of its citizens, let alone describing them as right or wrong,” ruled the Constitutional Court in 2015 in its headscarf ruling.

Merkel’s demand for a burqa ban is part of a shift to the right, including an intensification of anti-refugee policies. The congress included in its main resolution large portions of an anti-refugee motion proposed by Baden-Württemberg’s interior minister, Thomas Strobl.

The resolution called, among other things, for an “expansion” of “the reasons for detention prior to deportation… if a danger is posed by the person obliged to leave.” It proposed an extension of the period rejected asylum seekers can be held in custody prior to their deportation from the current limit of four days to four weeks. This goes beyond a proposal from de Maizière to increase the limit on detention to two weeks.

The main resolution also declared its support for so-called “transit zones” as an “appropriate method of management while processing refugees’ applications.” When the far-right Hungarian government of Victor Orban legally sanctioned such camps and set them up on the country’s borders in September 2015, Merkel opposed the action.

The congress also agreed that asylum seekers who had no prospect of staying should have their tolerated status removed if they provided “false information” or refused “to cooperate in the determination of their identification.” Welfare benefits would immediately be cut, the asylum process halted, and a “document on the obligation to leave,” i.e., to be deported, provided. Asylum seekers who spent their holidays in the country they fled in the face of “war and persecution” would lose their asylum status. Their travel documents would immediately be confiscated.

The right-wing offensive agreed upon at the CDU congress comes in response to the rapidly worsening economic and political crisis in Europe. The Brexit vote in June, the election of Donald Trump as US president and the rejection of the referendum in Italy have shaken official politics in Europe to its foundations.

In response to Trump’s nationalist “America-first” policy, the German chancellor and her party are responding with their own nationalist and racist offensive. On all fundamentals, the CDU is adopting the right-wing, xenophobic agitation of the Alternative for Germany (AfD).

The strengthening of the military and the state is to be intensified. While cuts are being carried out on social spending in all areas, virtually unlimited financial resources are being made available for the strengthening of the military, the militarisation of the police and the expansion of the intelligence agencies. Defence spending is to increase by €130 billion in the coming years.

To finance this vast build-up, the CDU congress agreed on strict budgetary discipline and an adherence to the debt break.

These policies have produced ever-widening social devastation. In Europe, there are already 23 million people unemployed. Millions more work in low-wage jobs or irregular employment. Poverty is growing dramatically in Germany. Over 12 million people officially live in poverty. Children are affected particularly badly. Eight million people work in precarious conditions. By contrast, a tiny minority lives in the lap of luxury. Conditions have been created by the government for this minority to enrich itself at the expense of the vast majority.

The political establishment is adopting ever more openly racist and dictatorial methods so as to suppress the mounting opposition to its anti-social and militarist policies.

While Merkel warned repeatedly about the danger posed by the growth of the AfD, her xenophobic policies and the reactionary content of the resolution will result in a strengthening of the right-wing radicals. Not for nothing did AfD Deputy Chairman Alexander Gauland remark that the CDU resolution contained many of his party’s positions. Prior to his AfD membership, Gauland was a CDU official for 40 years.

Australia: Thunderstorm-related deaths expose impact of health cuts

Kurt Brown

People throughout Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city, faced the threat of thunderstorm-related asthma deaths again last weekend, less than two weeks after eight people died and more than 8,500 were hospitalised on November 21.

On that day, the chronically-underfunded public health system in the state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital, essentially broke down, with dangerously-ill people unable to call ambulances in time. In most cases, people received no official warning of the danger.

Fortunately, a similar storm last weekend was less severe than initially forecast. Ambulance Victoria said paramedics responded to “several dozen” calls relating to asthma on Sunday afternoon.

In response to the public outrage over the way in which the system crumpled on November 21, officials said 15 extra road crews were rostered on. But in a sign of alarm, pharmacies reported selling out of asthma-related products, particularly spacers—devices that make it easier for people to take asthma medication.

On November 21, Melbourne, a city of more than three million people, ran out of ambulances despite the authorities reportedly calling in 60 extra ambulance crews. Police and fire crews had to supplement the ambulance service, along with non-emergency patient vehicles and field doctors trained for disasters. Hospital emergency departments were overwhelmed, with patients sleeping on the floors of some hospitals. At least two major hospitals, including Royal Melbourne, ran out of Ventolin, a basic asthma medication.

With a more than six-fold increase in calls to the ambulance emergency lines—one call every four and a half seconds—not all incoming calls were answered. In some cases callers were not informed they would be waiting for long periods for an ambulance to attend, resulting in deaths in at least two cases. Families spent desperate minutes trying in vain to resuscitate their loved ones.

At Sunshine Hospital, in the western suburbs, 18 ambulances were banked up in the early hours of November 22. Paramedics attended to patients because the lack of beds prevented their patients from being admitted to the hospital. This, in turn, meant they could not respond to the mounting emergency in the surrounding suburbs.

Victorian state Health Minister Jill Hennessy denied any responsibility for the breakdown, insisting the event was entirely unpredictable. Interviewed on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation television program “7:30,” she described the events as “like having 150 bombs go off at once in 150 different places.”

Drawing parallels to war conditions is spurious, designed to promote the perception of a system under siege by outside and hostile forces about which nothing could be done. In fact, the state Labor government and health officials received prior warnings of the storm, its severity and its probable consequences.

Biomedical Science Associate Professor Cenk Suphioglu from Melbourne’s Deakin University, who helps maintain Deakin Airwatch, a pollen count and forecasting facility, anticipated a high risk of thunderstorm-related asthma on November 21 based on prevailing weather conditions.

His study established a link between rye grass pollen as the chief allergen in thunderstorm-related asthma, with an initial publication appearing in the international medical journal the Lancet in 1992. There are abundant fields of rye grass in and around Melbourne, making the city particularly susceptible to thunderstorm-related asthma outbreaks.

Respiratory specialists in Victoria appealed for an advance-warning system for thunderstorm asthma five years ago, further exposing the government’s claims that the deadly weather event was unprecedented.

Researchers called for more warnings when thunderstorms followed days of high pollen counts in a letter published in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2011. Those conditions matched the weather on November 21 when the pollen count was “extreme,” temperatures topped 35˚C (95˚F) and northerly winds reached 56 kph (35 mph).

In their letter, specialists working at Austin Health in Melbourne drew conclusions from thunderstorm-related asthma events in Melbourne in 2010, 1989 and 1987. They proposed “that additional warnings of elevated risk of asthma exacerbations in pollen-allergic individuals should be made when springtime and summertime thunderstorms follow several days of high or extreme pollen counts.” No such warning systems were established.

Extreme outbreaks occur when pollen grains, of which there are high concentrations in Melbourne in spring and summer, are carried into the humid cloud base by hot drafts just before a storm. The pollen grains then absorb moisture, causing them to rupture and release large numbers of significantly smaller pollen particles.

These minute particles are able to pass into the lower respiratory system, triggering an asthma attack in asthmatics and with the potential to trigger an asthma attack for the first time in those with hay fever. The commencement of the storm brought these particles to ground level and, judging by the severe health impacts, distributed the pollen over a radius of about 50 kilometres.

To dissipate the growing anger over the debacle, the state government announced an inquiry, to be headed by a former police chief. Its only purpose will be to divert the blame away from its root causes in the underfunding of the health system by successive governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike.

To cover his government’s tracks, Premier Daniel Andrews pledged $500 million to be spent over the next five years to improve Ambulance Victoria, in a deal brokered with the assistance of the ambulance trade union. Even if honoured, this promise is for a paltry amount that will not overcome the cuts that have already taken place.

There is a long history of budget cuts in both state and federal spheres, resulting in public hospital closures, ward shutdowns and nursing and ancillary staff shortages. A new stage was marked when the Rudd and Gillard federal Labor governments, between 2007 and 2013, removed block funding from the national public hospital system. In its place, hospitals are now paid a “national efficient price” for each procedure actually performed, constantly pushing them to lower costs and undercut each other.

The current federal Liberal-National coalition government has continued this attack, slashing health funding nationally by an estimated $1.8 billion over four years, and $57 billion over a decade. During the campaign for the July 2 federal election, the Labor Party junked previous vows to reverse this cut.

German government plans mass deportation of refugees

Martin Kreickenbaum

The German government is expanding deportations of refugees and intends to erect what will in effect be a deportation apparatus. To this end, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has commissioned a feasibility study from the consultancy firm McKinsey that calls for an increase in deportations.

Following a meeting of the federal and state interior ministers last week, federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (Christian Democrats, CDU) outlined the goals of the deportation policy for 2017. He stated that of the 1 million refugees who arrived in Germany in 2015 and 2016, around half had not and would not receive recognition as refugees.

The minister demanded “that we get better in the area of repatriations, including voluntary repatriation as well as deportation.” As a result, the federal and state governments were preparing an agreement for a “national pooling of resources to improve repatriations.” A nationwide coordination office for repatriations would deal with practical questions, such as how refugees from various states could be brought together and transported in the same aircraft.

Already this year, the government has implemented 100,000 so-called repatriations of refugees. Together with 27,000 forced deportations, more than 60,000 refugees avoided deportation by agreeing to “voluntarily” leave the country. These numbers are to increase drastically in the years ahead. “Since we are getting more rejections, we have to improve still further,” de Maizière stated.

In addition, the government plans to strengthen fortress Europe. According to Spiegel Online, the federal Interior Ministry is preparing an agreement with Tunisia to establish an internment camp for refugees there.

Refugees who seek to reach Europe via the central Mediterranean route will in this way find it impossible to set foot on European soil. Instead, immediately after their rescue they will be brought back to Africa. A departmental head of the federal police in the Interior Ministry is currently pushing for support for this plan from Italy and the European Union (EU) Commission.

In this way, the German government intends to intensify pressure on refugees. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has been working for some time on the ways in which mass deportations could be enforced. They hired the consultancy firm McKinsey to complete a feasibility study, the conclusions of which have been made available to Die Welt .

It proposes 14 measures for a “stricter repatriation for foreigners obliged to leave.” The McKinsey report appeals for “return management 2017” to be coordinated between the federal and state governments so as to achieve “measurable successes.” Assuming the existence of 485,000 refugees required to leave, the report offers a cynical cost benefit analysis to justify mass deportations in financial terms. According to this, monthly expenditure on a refugee amount to €670, which amounts in total to €3 billion annually. By contrast, the cost of a forced deportation is only €1,500 and in the case of a voluntary repatriation just €700.

In addition, the study complains about the length of time taken up by deportation proceedings. From the confirmation of the obligation to leave to the final departure “there is an average of 12 months for completed deportations, and in some cases even 4.5 years.” To accelerate deportations, the report’s main proposal is a vast expansion of deportation and detention centres. “Deportation detention and custody prior to departure should be organised so as to make them effectively usable in practice,” the consultancy firm writes.

The consultants also propose stricter legal controls for those tolerated as refugees. They should be given food and clothing as benefits in kind rather than money, if they cannot be deported due to illness or missing papers. The “financial flexibility” of refugees can in this way, in the opinion of the study, be “reduced.”

The feasibility study was announced by Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) during her summer press conference to “identify problems with deportations and make suggestions for improvements.” According to Spiegel Online, the company claimed payment for 687 consultant days, amounting to a total cost to the government of €1.86 million.

The line of argument advanced by government representatives, the federal office for refugees and the consultancy firm, that refugees are exploiting social welfare, avoiding deportations and costing billions plays directly into the hands of right-wing extremist forces. With the planned mass deportations, vast expansion of detention centres and cutting of social welfare, the federal government is adopting the programme of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Within the government, some demands even go far beyond this. Thomas Strobl, the deputy chair of the CDU and interior minister in the Baden-Württemberg Green-CDU coalition government, called for the establishment of a “repatriation agreement” with Egypt, even though the al-Sisi regime tramples human rights underfoot and regularly abuses, tortures and persecutes refugees.

Strobl even believes that those accepted as refugees should have social welfare benefits reduced massively, because “Whoever is searching for protection from war and persecution, the main issue for them is not welfare benefits. That we provide protection to refugees who fear for life and limb does not mean that we must make it possible for refugees to enjoy our standard of living.”

Ahead of the CDU party congress, which began yesterday, the party integrated Strobl’s proposals into its main resolution. In it, it is stated, “The reasons for detention ahead of deportation must be expanded if there is a risk posed by those obliged to depart.” In addition, deportation detention should be extended from four days to four weeks. Whoever provides false information or refuses to identify themselves would lose the status of an approved refugee, and their authorisation to work and welfare benefits would be slashed.

The right to asylum has been undermined repeatedly since the autumn of 2015. This has included the expansion of “safe countries of origin,” the rapid conducting of asylum procedures in reception centres or emergency facilities, the cutting of assistance benefits, deportations without warning, relaxation of the restriction on deporting those who are sick, the limitation of family reunification, a “residency restriction” for those accepted as refugees and much more. The German government’s new plans will eclipse all of this.