Hidden Radiation Secrets of the World Health Organization

Robert Hunziker

Imagine the following hypothetical: The World Health Organization (“WHO”) is deeply involved in a high level cover up of the human impact and dangers of ionizing radiation, intentionally hiding the facts from the public, a chilling storyline!

After all, the world community depends upon WHO as an independent org t0 forewarn the general public of health dangers and to help in times of crises, not hide pivotal health facts from public eye.

As it happens, that nightmarish hypothetical comes to life in an interview with Alison Katz, who claims: “We are absolutely convinced that if the consequences of nuclear radiation were known to the public, the debate about nuclear power would end tomorrow. In fact, if the public knew, it would probably be excluded immediately as an energy option.”

Alison Katz heads a NGO known as Independent WHO, and she spends a lot of time arranging sandwich boards with messages like: “Complicity in Scientific Crime” or “Crime of Chernobyl – WHO Accomplice” in front of WHO headquarters/Geneva. For 10 years now on a daily vigil from 8:00-to-6:00 she and/or other protestors expose alleged misbehavior committed by WHO, right outside of the headquarters building. Imagine this: Ten years on the same street corner every working day. It’s commitment and determination sans pareil.

“The aim of the silent vigil is to remind the World Health Organisation of its duties. It was Hippocrates who formulated the ethical rules for health practitioners. The World Health Organisation ignores these rules, when it comes to protecting the health of the victims of the consequences of the nuclear industry”.

Which brings forth: Ten years of hard work combating a difficult and challenging issue warrants public adulation beyond carrying posters back and forth, come rain or shine, trudging away in the heat of the sun or the freezing cold and snow in front of WHO Hdqs. Hopefully, this article serves that purpose for Alison Katz.

The mission of Independent WHO is to expose WHO’s failings whilst calling for WHO independence away from influence by the worldwide nuclear syndicate: According to WHO Independence’s Web Site: “The World Health Organization (WHO) is failing in its duty to protect those populations who are victims of radioactive contamination.”

Ms Katz worked inside the WHO for 18 years. She insists that WHO, in cahoots with IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), dangerously misrepresents the inherent dangers of ionizing radiation, an insinuation that smacks in the face with egregiousness galore.

Ms Katz’s April 2017 interview, which this article is based upon, can be heard in its entirety.

This article condenses and summarizes her one-hour interview. As such, according to Ms Katz: “The health consequences of nuclear activity, whether they are civil or military, are not known to the public… There has been a very high level cover up… including the WHO.”

For over 50 years WHO provided “a clean bill of health for nuclear power.” However, according to Ms Katz, that clean bill of health is not based upon independent science. It’s based upon “pseudo science” manipulated and largely controlled by the nuclear lobby and International Atomic Energy Agency, the Queen Bee of the pro-nuke Hive.

Furthermore, within the “United Nations family hierarchy,” WHO is entirely subservient to IAEA. In turn, IAEA reports to the Security Council of the UN or the very top echelon of the power hierarchy of the world, including France, China, UK, U.S., and the Russian Federation. Far and away, these are the world’s biggest nuke heads.

Connecting the dots leaves one breathless within a telling trail of pro-nuke advocacy of the highest order… hm-m-m, thus raising the question: How is it humanly possible for WHO to objectively, impartially, squarely and soberly analyze and recommend ionizing radiation issues on behalf of the general public?

Is it at all possible, even a little bit?

As it goes, the IAEA has two mandates, which sound innocent enough: (1) to prevent proliferation of nuclear power and (2) promotion of the use of the atom on a peaceful basis, ah-ah-ah… oh well, never mind. In reality, IAEA is a commercial lobbying org promoting use of the atom, yet at the same time, it dictates WHO procedures, standards, and published articles on the matter of nuclear radiation, prompting a very pregnant question: Is this a conflict of interest for WHO? Answer: Yes, it is! WHO is a creature of the dictates of IAEA, which is the world’s largest promoter of the atom. Whereas, WHO is supposed to “independently serve the public interest,” not kowtow to a nuclear advocacy powerhouse that reports to nuclear powerhouse countries that have a deepening love affair with nuclear power, warts and all.

For example, sixty (60) reactors are currently under construction in fifteen countries. In all, one hundred sixty (160) power reactors are in the planning stage and three hundred (300) more have been proposed. That’s a love affaire.

Meanwhile, as for WHO’s mandate: It serves as the leading authority of standards for public health, coordinating research, advising member states, and formulating ionizing radioactivity health policies. However, IAEA has been usurping WHO’s mandate for the past 50 years. In fact, a 1959 Agreement (WHA 12-40) between the two says WHO needs prior approval of IAEA before taking any action or publishing material dealing with nuclear, period!

As a result of this 50-year conflict of interest, which is deeply embedded by now, Ms Katz claims WHO must, absolutely must, become independent, thus breaking the stranglehold of numero uno promoter of nuclear power over WHO, which is mandated to serve the public, not IAEA.

Not only is there a serious conflict of interest, Katz claims WHO fails, time and again, to meet its mandate to the public, as for example:

1) WHO remained absent from Chernobyl for five years even though the WHO mandate requires it to be present the “day after a catastrophe” to evaluate and provide assistance. But, WHO was MIA for 5 years.

2) WHO does not issue independent reports on radiation issues. All nuclear-related reports are written by IAEA but published “in the name of the WHO.”

3) Following Chernobyl, there were two international conferences held to analyze the implications of the catastrophe; one held in Geneva in 1995 and the second in Kiev in 2001. The “Proceedings of the Conferences” were never published by WHO; thus, never made public even though WHO claims the proceedings are publicly available. Confusing? Yes! To this day, the relevant question remains: What did “the analyses” show?

As a result of WHO’s egregious conflicts, the world community has no independent arms-length source on nuclear radiation. That is a situation fraught with conflict and extremely difficult to accept, sans grimacing with a lot of teeth grinding.

Once again, with emphasis: There is no independent international authority reporting to the public on nuclear radiation…. none whatsoever. All information about nuclear radiation ultimately comes from the primary users/promoters of nuclear power even though they have a very big heavy axe to grind.

Of course, there are independent scientists, but they face enormous obstacles in coming forward with the truth, thereby risking monetary grants and risking personal positions, as well as family livelihood.

Not only that, but over the years all departments within WHO that dealt with nuclear radiation have been highly compromised. Even worse, according to Ms Katz, no senior radiation scientists work for WHO, none… nada.

What constitutes the “nuclear establishment” is a fair question; it consists of the major governments of the world like France and the U.S but led by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), the top dog, establishing standards for the world. Strangely enough, there are no health experts at ICRP, prompting a logical question: Why not?

There is more to be concerned about, e.g., another shocking fact regarding ICRP, as if there are not already enough shockers with the thread that runs throughout nuclear power’s closely-knit network: Even though “ionizing radiation is mutagenic and always causes mutations, causing damage at the cellular level, there are no molecular biologists working in the ICRP” (Katz). Thus, the world’s largest institution for determination of radiation standards for the public has no molecular biologists on staff. That fact is beyond belief, an eye-opener beyond all other eye-openers.

It’s almost as if the regulators don’t give a damn about the effects of radiation on the general public. Do they?

Fukushima

Just after Fukushima in 2011, Ms Katz met with the Director General and five of the highest-ranking officials of WHO. The mayor of Geneva also attended the meeting; curiously, the City of Geneva, where WHO is headquartered, has an anti-nuclear provision in its city code.

The outcome of that meeting clearly demonstrated to Katz, and to the mayor of Geneva, that WHO abdicated its responsibilities for Fukushima.

However, a small victory ensued during the meetings as some solace was found when the Director General did admit, “there is no safe threshold of radiation.” And, she admitted to differences between internal and external radiation, which was a change of heart.

Remarkably, the Director General also confessed a shocking level of incredulity that only 50 people died from Chernobyl, widely claimed by the Director General’s own organization, WHO. That is the final number (50) of deaths that WHO attributes to Chernobyl. Howbeit, it’s a fabricated number w/o any meaning whatsoever and not supported by observational data.

Consequences of Chernobyl

WHO held a Chernobyl Forum in 2004 designed to “end the debate about the impact of Chernobyl radiation” whilst WHO maintains that 50 people died.

Here’s the final conclusion of that Chernobyl Forum ‘04: The mental health of those who live in the area is the most serious aftereffect, leading to strong negative attitudes and exaggerated sense of dangers to health and of exposure to radiation. Mental health was thus identified as the biggest negative aftereffect.

Because that conclusion is so brazenly bizarre, the Chernobyl Forum ‘04 must’ve been part of an alternative universe, way out there beyond the wild blue yonder, maybe the Twilight Zone or maybe like entering a scene in Jan Švankmajer’s Alice, a dark fantasy film loose adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

Here’s reality: Chernobyl Liquidators fought the Chernobyl disaster. Eight hundred thousand (800,000) Liquidators from the former USSR, largely recruits from the army, with average age of 33, fought the Chernobyl disaster.

According to an interview (2016) with a Liquidator, “We were tasked with the deactivation of the third and fourth reactors, but we also helped build the containment sarcophagus. We worked in three shifts, but only for five to seven minutes at a time because of the danger. After finishing, we’d throw our clothes in the garbage” (Source: Return to Chernobyl With Ukraine’s Liquidators, Aljazeera, April 25, 2016).

“Estimates of the number of liquidators who died or became ill as a result of their work vary substantially, but the men of the 633rd say that out of the 259 from their group, 71 have died. Melnik says that 68 have been designated as invalids by a state committee, which investigates their health and determines whether or not their diseases are attributable to Chernobyl… Dr Dimitry Bazyka, the current director-general of the National Research Centre for Radiation Medicine in Kiev, says that approximately 20,000 liquidators die each year,” Ibid.

As for total deaths, the Chief Medical Officer of the Russian Federation reported that 10% of its Chernobyl Liquidators were dead by 2001. The disaster occurred in 1986 with 80,000 dead within 16 years. Authorities out of Ukraine and Belarus confirmed Russian death numbers. Yet, WHO claims 50 died.

Eighty-thousand (80,000) Liquidators, as of 16 years ago, dead from Chernobyl, and that body count, according to Ms Katz, leaves out the people most contaminated by Chernobyl, meaning evacuees and also 57% of the fallout for Chernobyl came down outside of the USSR, Belarus, and Ukraine, and in 13 European countries 50% of the countryside was dangerously contaminated.

As for studies of the radiation impact of Chernobyl: “Thousands of independent studies in Ukraine, Belarus, and the Russian Federation and in many other countries, that were contaminated to varying degrees by radionuclides, have established that there has been significant increase in all types of cancer, in diseases of the respiratory, gastrointestinal, urogenital, endocrine immune, lymph node nervous systems, prenatal, perinatal, infant child mortality, spontaneous abortions, deformities and genetic anomalies….” (Katz)

Hence, WHO’s handling and analysis and work on Chernobyl leaves the curious-minded speechless, open-mouthed, agape, and confounded.

WHO’s Flawed Fukushima Report

WHO issued two reports on Fukushima:
1) Evaluation of exposure
2) Likely health effects

Alex Rosen of Int’l Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War critiqued the two WHO Fukushima reports, found to be extremely problematic, and once again, similar to Chernobyl, shoddy work that sweeps way too much dirt under the carpet.

Here’s the problem: WHO’s estimates of Fukushima radioactive exposure are at least 50% less than any other estimates, including estimates provided by TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant operator) itself. But, WHO is supposed to be the guardian of public health concerns, not TEPCO.

Also, two critical population studies are ignored in the WHO reports, i.e., all of the residents within the 20 km exclusion zone are eliminated, even though their radiation exposure would be very high, actually highest. The second group ignored is workers on site… ahem!

Additionally, WHO cavalierly approved the Japanese government’s drastic change in annual maximum radiation exposure allowed for the general population up to 20 mSv per year.

Effects of Radiation

The genetic effects of radiation likely exceed anything understood by the general public, as WHO and other health orgs do not properly educate the public about radiation’s risks: “The genetic effects, far from diminishing with time, increase” (Katz), which is extra bad.

Years of research around Chernobyl show that the genetic impact of radiation to the human body becomes much, much worse as time passes. Thus, “radiation is both a continuing and a worsening catastrophe as time passes” (Katz). Radiation’s impact gets worse over time; it does not heal, does not dissipate, does not go away; it grows progressively worse, like the film sequels to Godzilla, which was conceived as a metaphor for nuclear weapons in the early 1950s.

Indisputably, all organ systems of the human body are affected by radioactive contamination. Cancer is not the only nasty result of radiation exposure. Radioactive contamination affects the entire human immune system from head to toe, thus impacting every organ system in the body, e.g. musculoskeletal, etc. This damage to organs is in addition to the various cancer risks.

After all, consider this, 30 years after the fact, horribly deformed Chernobyl Children are found in over 300 asylums in the Belarus backwoods deep in the countryside.

Equally as bad but maybe more odious, as of today, Chernobyl radiation, since 1986, is already affecting 2nd generation kids.

According to a USA Today article, Chernobyl’s Legacy: Kids With Bodies Ravaged by Disaster, April 17, 2016: “There are 2,397,863 people registered with Ukraine’s health ministry to receive ongoing Chernobyl-related health care. Of these, 453,391 are children — none born at the time of the accident. Their parents were children in 1986. These children have a range of illnesses: respiratory, digestive, musculoskeletal, eye diseases, blood diseases, cancer, congenital malformations, genetic abnormalities, trauma.”

It’s taken 30 years for the world, via an article in USA Today, to begin to understand how devastating, over decades, not over a few years, radiation exposure is to the human body. It is a silent killer that cumulates in the body over time and passes from generation to generation to generation, endless destruction that cannot be stopped.

Where is WHO is kinda like Where is Waldo, but sadly the effects of ionizing radiation are not part of a game. It is deadly serious, forevermore. In the meanwhile, Fukushima irradiates and irradiates, limitlessly and so far, unstoppable. Where does its radiation go?

Australian budget to slash welfare and education

Mike Head 

Despite intense public opposition to social spending cuts, Australia’s Turnbull government is foreshadowing deep cuts—especially on welfare and education—in next week’s federal budget.

The May 9 budget is being framed under the shadow of escalating dangers of war, driven by US aggression in Korea, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and of the sweeping corporate and high-income tax cuts being pursued by the Trump administration and other governments internationally.

While targeting society’s poorest layers, such as the unemployed, other welfare dependents and students, the Liberal-National Coalition is planning to spend billions of dollars more on the military. It is also proposing huge handouts to big business via company tax cuts and profit-related infrastructure projects. All these measures have the backing of the corporate media.

The expansion in military spending will be paid for through the slashing of essential social programs. Already, the government is committed to doubling the annual defence budget to around $60 billion by 2025-26, enabling the acquisition of new submarines, warships, planes and other weaponry, worth some $195 billion during that period.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull boasted in March that his government was undertaking “massive” military spending and that US President Donald Trump was “very, very impressed.” Any war provoked by Washington in Korea would involve Australia in the resulting conflagration. Last week, Turnbull also declared a readiness to expand the Australian contingent of US-led forces in Syria and Iraq, describing it as a “long-term” commitment.

In the lead-up to the budget, Turnbull’s ministers have been vilifying welfare recipients. With nearly 800,000 jobless workers receiving poverty-line benefits—a product of the accelerating destruction of full-time jobs over the past decade—the government is accusing job seekers of “gaming the system” by attending compulsory welfare office appointments to avoid being cut off benefits, which amount to the contemptible sum of around $290 per week for a single adult.

Turnbull’s government is already conducting an offensive against alleged “welfare cheats,” falsely accusing thousands of people of receiving over-paid benefits and threatening them with debt collectors and imprisonment.

The latest accusations are no less spurious. They are based on data leaked to Rupert Murdoch’s Australian to the effect that last year 7,006 job seekers—out of 759,000 people receiving the Newstart allowance—missed appointments at the government’s Centrelink welfare agency, but still retained their payments by attending interviews before being cut off.

This allegation is being used to spearhead plans to target supposedly “capable” people who refuse to work. Employment Minister Michaelia Cash, who led the drive to cut after-hours wage rates for low-paid workers, declared the welfare system was being abused by those “who have no desire to work.”

Welfare was simply funding “a lifestyle choice,” she told the Australian, displaying the official contempt for those unable to find work. With nearly 20 jobless workers for every employment vacancy, the government and employers want to force the unemployed into ever-lower paying jobs on insecure, super-exploitative conditions.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce told young people last month to “get off your backsides” to find work, while Coalition members of parliament blackguarded “job snobs” who allegedly refused “employment opportunities.” Last weekend, Treasurer Scott Morrison declared that workers who rejected a job offer for any reason “shouldn’t be getting the dole.”

Despite this escalating demonisation of welfare recipients, even the Australian’s own Newspoll recently reported that Australians were overwhelmingly opposed to further welfare gutting, with 61 percent of those surveyed opposing cuts to the welfare sector in the budget.

Morrison and Education Minister Simon Birmingham have also foreshadowed tertiary student fee hikes of 7.5 percent, taking the cost of a four-year course up to $50,000. Moreover, students will have to start repaying their HECS fee debts once they earn just above the minimum wage—$42,000 a year, down from $51,957—and will be charged an extra loan fee at the start of their studies.

Public universities are expected to face annual 2.5 percent “efficiency dividends.” The purpose of these is to claw back the 20 percent funding cut sought by the government’s first budget in 2014, which was blocked in the Senate because of senators’ fears of popular opposition to the measures. According to Birmingham, the cuts will total $2.8 billion over four years. This is on top of the $4 billion slashed from universities by successive Labor and Coalition governments since 2011.

In a bid to address the government’s debt crisis, Morrison declared last week the budget would label social spending as responsible for “bad” government debt, while multi-billion dollar outlays for corporate-related infrastructure, such as freight rail lines, would be reclassified as “good debt.”

In other words, spending on basic social programs, such as welfare, health and education, on which millions of working class people rely, will be branded as “bad,” while satisfying the demands and boosting the profits of the corporations and financial institutions will be deemed “good.”

The diversion of funds into infrastructure projects is a bid to offset the collapse of corporate investment since the mining boom began to implode in 2012. The investment strike, reflecting intensifying global competition for investment since the 2008 financial breakdown and the waning fortunes of Australian capitalism, portends further cuts to jobs and wage levels.

Corporate leaders are, however, warning the government not to employ the “good debt/bad debt” dichotomy as a means of evading the mounting deficit and debt crisis, instead of imposing even deeper cuts to social spending.

The Australian Financial Review cautioned on Saturday that the rising net federal government debt level could imperil the country’s AAA credit rating. It cited reservations by the Moody’s and S&P ratings agencies over the debt, which is already projected to grow to $363 billion by 2019-20, up from $153 billion in 2013 when the government took office.

These pressures have been intensified by the Trump administration’s declaration last week of its intent to transfer trillions of dollars into the hands of the super-rich by abolishing the estate tax, cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent; and reducing the top income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 35 percent.

Turnbull and Morrison responded by indicating they would reintroduce legislation, recently blocked in the Senate, to reduce Australia’s company tax rate from 30 percent to 25 percent for all businesses, not just those with turnovers of up to $50 million a year, as already accepted by the Senate.

Morrison said Australia’s high corporate tax rate was a risk to investment and jobs. He highlighted the reduction of the British rate to 17 percent—the same level as that of Singapore—and French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s vow to lower France’s rate to 25 percent.

Corporate leaders are demanding that the Turnbull government go even further. Outgoing Wesfarmers managing director Richard Goyder, the chairman-elect of Woodside Petroleum, said he viewed Trump’s plan “very, very favourably” and that the government’s proposed 25 percent rate would “really only put us in the game.”

Largest general strike since 1989 hits 185 cities in Brazil

Miguel Andrade

Friday, April 28, saw Brazilian workers walk off their jobs in every major city against proposed historic attacks on the country’s pension system and labor laws. The changes being discussed in Congress will allow for widespread casualization, opening up every economic sector to “gig economy” conditions, while raising the retirement age to 65 and imposing private pension plans on workers.

The general strike call, made by major union federations covering activities employing some 40 million workers, saw a militant response from workers in industry, banking, transport, schools and universities, and public service. The retail sector did not participate, however, leaving other dozens of millions of workers out of the demonstrations.

The unions reported that an estimated 35 million workers went on strike, with walkouts spreading to the major industrial centers outside the largest state capitals. These included northeastern Salvador, home to a Ford auto plant, and Recife, a shipbuilding center and major port, as well the Amazonian capital of Manaus, where a special economic zone containing electronics factories lies deep in the jungle side by side with major military facilities.

In Curitiba—home to Renault and Bosch—and Porto Alegre in the far south, workers also struck, as did those in the industrial corridor connecting the country’s two main cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where industrial towns dot the banks of the Paraíba river with auto plants, steelworks, oil refining and chemical, pharmaceutical, arms and aerospace industries, including Volkswagen, General Motors, Chery, Johnson & Johnson, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Basf, Ericsson and the national aviation giant Embraer.

Oil refining and extraction was halted nationwide, even at the deep-sea extraction platforms, some of them located hundreds of kilometers from the continent. The port of Santos, the country’s largest, serving São Paulo’s industrial belt, was blocked in the early hours before being reopened by riot police.

Workers also tried to block the Guarulhos and Santos Dumont airports serving São Paulo and Rio before being chased away by riot police. Roads serving industrial regions were also blocked by burning barricades in the early morning, with small roadblocks also going up in working class neighborhoods and shantytowns in many cities. Even roads cutting through two indigenous reservations near São Paulo were blocked in continuing protests over the government’s rolling back of indigenous social rights.

At the end of the day, an estimated 2 million people took part in demonstrations nationwide, with more than 100,000 in both São Paulo and Rio alone. Brutal repression followed both demonstrations, with Rio’s pacific rally in downtown ending in a police riot. Videos show riot police deploying stun grenades and tear gas against people listening to a speech by state MP Flávio Serafini (Socialism and Liberty Party, PSOL) before tear gas canisters are thrown into the crowd and over the podium.

In São Paulo, the demonstration was addressed by Workers Party (PT) senators and supporters. It was held some 3 kilometers from the personal home of President Michel Temer, who was born in the city and served as state representative in Congress for five terms. Riot police then chased demonstrators for some 2 kilometers after demonstration leaders confirmed plans to march into the upscale neighborhood where Temer’s home is located. The area had previously been placed under a lockdown, under the pretext of property destruction by so-called black bloc anarchists and provocateurs.

The general strike was held against the backdrop of record unemployment, with official figures released on Thursday placing the official number out of work at 14 million. Joblessness was the main threat used, unsuccessfully, by bosses to try to dissuade workers from striking. Revenue losses due to the strike have been estimated at US$600 million in São Paulo alone, even without the direct stoppage of the retail sector.

Despite the widespread show of militancy, Brazilian workers face grave dangers as they enter into major struggles. Nationwide action was possible due to an agreement between the PT-aligned CUT trade union federation and the arch-reactionary Força Sindical federation, controlled by São Paulo congressman Paulinho da Força, who has been cited in an plea-bargain agreement in the context of the Lava-jato corruption scandal centered on massive bribes and kickbacks at the state-run oil giant, Petrobras. The union leader was accused of taking more than US$300,000 to break strikes in the northern region in 2012 alone. Lower CUT officials were also cited, specifically for taking bribes to stop workers’ riots in flagship Workers Party infrastructure projects in the Amazon.

Also, the demonstrations were open to PT officials, even though new Lava-jato plea-bargain revelations indicate the personal responsibility of ousted President Dilma Rousseff and former PT President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in corruption schemes connected to favoring national monopolies for infrastructure projects. Both politicians are now being investigated, together with eight current ministers, 39 representatives and a third of the Senate, after a Supreme Court justice accepted the plea-bargain agreements of 78 indicted executives at the Odebrecht construction conglomerate.

Moreover, the demonstrations were also promoted by organized sections of the Catholic Church, with the National Bishops Confederation (CNBB) stepping into the debate on April 19, saying in a press release that the proposed reforms were “rushed,” and supporting demonstrations against them. Later, on April 25, Olinda and Recife Archbishop Dom Fernando Saburido went to the extent of calling on the public to join the strike. He was later joined by several lower-ranking church officials.

This is exactly the alliance of anti-working class forces that was responsible for the promotion and later maintenance in power of the PT since it was first founded in 1980 as a “new,” original Brazilian parliamentary path to socialism. It went on to become the main party of Brazilian capitalist “national development.”

The party appears to be preparing a return to power on this same capitalist program with a 2018 presidential bid by Lula da Silva. Datafolha Institute released a poll on Sunday showing the former PT president as the least unpopular of Brazil’s politicians, with 30 percent saying they would vote for him in the first round—as compared to 2 percent for the current president, Temer. At the same time, the poll found that 71 percent reject the proposed reforms.

Nonetheless, the PT itself faces a deepening crisis and is sharply divided. The opening of formal investigations against both Rousseff and Lula had a major impact on the PT’s internal elections on April 9, with participation dropping to a record low of only 14 percent of the party’s more than 1.5 million members, and internal elections being cancelled in at least five cities due to fraud.

It is worth noting that the general strike was also supported by a collection of capitalist economists who released a nationalist economic manifesto the day before the walkouts. The group’s leader, former 1980s finance minister Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira, declared in a public event side by side with former PT Foreign Minister Celso Amorim that “the strike will help build a new country.”

The coming together of the union bureaucracy, the Catholic Church and nationalist intellectuals tied to industry bosses and the upper middle class is designed to prepare new political means to contain the movement of the working class and keep it subordinated to capitalist interests under conditions of the deepening crisis of Brazilian and international capitalism.

The betrayals by what passes for the official “left” will only pave the way in Brazil, as elsewhere, to the rise of far-right movements. Significantly, polling second, just behind Lula, in the recent opinion poll was the fascistic Rio de Janeiro congressman and reserve army captain Jair Bolsonaro, who has demagogically opposed privatizations in Rio state.

The massive outpouring of the Brazilian working class on April 28 points to the urgent necessity of building a new revolutionary leadership in an intransigent struggle against the PT and all of the pseudo-left organizations that helped to found and promote it.

Democrats agree to increase military and border spending while cutting food stamps

Barry Grey

Republican and Democratic congressional leaders announced an agreement late Sunday on a $1 trillion omnibus spending bill to fund the federal government for the remainder of the 2017 fiscal year, which ends September 30. The measure is expected to be passed later this week by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump, averting the threat of a government shutdown at midnight Friday.

Despite Republican control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, Trump and the Republicans are dependent on the Democrats to supply the margin needed to pass the measure, particularly in the narrowly divided Senate, where it would take eight Democratic votes to end debate and bring the measure to the floor for a final ballot.

This underscores the reactionary role of the Democrats in backing a bill that grants Trump’s demands for a significant increase in military spending as well as funds to further militarize the US-Mexico border, while slashing the food stamp program and the Department of Education.

Last week the Democrats made a show of opposition to Trump by refusing to include in the bill $1 billion to go toward the construction of his border wall, while making it clear they supported additional funds to strengthen existing border barriers and increase surveillance, including by means of drones. The administration withdrew its demand for funds earmarked for the border wall in return for an agreement from the Democrats to support $1.52 billion in additional border funding as well as $15 billion more in military spending.

A bipartisan stop-gap measure was passed on Friday to extend funding of the government for one week so as to provide sufficient time to work out the details of the final 2017 budget agreement. Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate appropriations committees negotiated throughout the weekend and announced a deal late Sunday.

To secure passage, Trump dropped his demand for money earmarked for the border wall as well as $18 billion in non-defense domestic cuts. These include a wish list of reactionary measures such as cuts to so-called “sanctuary cities” (cities that refuse to allow their police to function as de facto immigration police), massive cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and defunding of Planned Parenthood. Trump also dropped his demand for funds to establish a new deportation force.

He agreed to include $295 million to prevent the Medicaid program in Puerto Rico from going bankrupt. Republican as well as Democratic leaders agreed to allocate $4.6 billion to permanently extend health benefits to 22,000 retired Appalachian coal miners and their families, who faced the immediate termination of their benefits. The deal also includes an additional $2 billion in disaster money for states.

However, the Democrats accepted a 1 percent cut to the EPA, reducing the agency’s budget by $80 million. They also agreed to cut the Education Department by $1.2 billion.

Most cruel of all is a cut of $2.4 billion to the food stamp program, which was already heavily cut during the Obama administration. The justification given for slashing the program, relied upon by more than 45 million Americans, one in seven, was “declining enrollment.”

Other reactionary provisions include an extension through 2019 of a private school voucher program in Washington, D.C.’s school system and a continued ban on federal funding for abortions as part of the federal Employee Health Benefits Program.

Republicans hailed the agreement as a down payment on Trump’s demands, incorporated into his proposal for fiscal year 2018, which begins October 1, for a massive $54 billion increase in the Pentagon budget to be paid for with brutal cuts in domestic social programs.

Vice President Mike Pence praised the deal in an interview Monday on “CBS This Morning,” saying, “It will avert a government shutdown, but more important than that, it’s going to be a significant increase in military spending.”

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said the bill “acts on President Trump’s commitment to rebuild our military for the 21st century and bolster our nation’s border security to protect our homeland.”

Democratic leaders presented the deal as a victory over the Trump administration. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi congratulated the Democrats for eliminating “more than 160 Republican poison pill riders” and temporarily blocking funding for Trump’s “immoral and unwise border wall.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer issued a statement Sunday night declaring the budget deal to be “a good agreement for the American people” and touting the fact that it excludes funding for an “ineffective” border wall.

“Early on in this debate,” he added, “Democrats clearly laid out our principles. At the end of the day, this is an agreement that reflects those principles.”

And so it does. These principles support a $137 million increase for Customs and Border Enforcement, bringing funding for the Gestapo-like border police to $11.4 billion. It includes money for 100 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and 5,000 more detention beds. It also pays for 10 more federal immigration judges to speed up the deportation of undocumented workers.

The Democrats’ principles also sanction eight-figure funding increases for the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

For the US war machine, the Democrats have sanctioned an immediate increase of $12.5 billion, to be followed by an additional $2.5 billion once the administration presents to Congress its plan to fight ISIS.

Included in the bill’s allocations for military hardware are:

* $21.2 billion to procure 13 Navy ships

* $8.2 billion for 74 F-35 aircraft

* $1.1 billion for 14 F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft

* $1.2 billion doe 62 UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters

* $702 million for 145 Patriot MSE missiles

* $1.8 billion for 11 P-8A Poseidon aircraft

* $2.6 billion for 15 KC-46 air tankers

* $1.3 billion for 17 C/HC/KC/MC-130J aircraft

German army officer arrested for planning terror attack

Peter Schwarz 

The arrest of a 28-year-old German army officer suspected of planning a right-wing terrorist attack raises troubling questions. What initially looked like a bizarre isolated case has quickly demonstrated that the Bundeswehr, the German army, provides fertile ground for extreme right-wing elements.

Franco A. was arrested last Wednesday after trying to retrieve a weapon hidden in Vienna Airport. Up until then he had not come to the notice of Germany’s security agencies.

It soon became clear that Franco A. lived a double life. For eight years he has been a full-time soldier in the Bundeswehr, where he rose to the rank of first lieutenant. He was stationed in the French town of Illkirch.

Simultaneously, he registered as a Syrian refugee under the name of David Benjamin at the end of 2015. Although he came from Offenbach near Frankfurt, spoke no Arabic and communicated with the authorities in French, he was recognised as a refugee and assigned to a refugee camp. In addition to his earnings as a soldier he also received benefits as a refugee.

Since his arrest, the suspicion has been substantiated that Franco A., under his false refugee identity, was planning a terror attack against leftist politicians or activists, which was then to be blamed on refugees.

While the security authorities and Defence Ministry are stonewalling and only confirming in part what is already known, research by journalists has revealed that Franco A. espoused extreme right-wing positions, which were known to his military superiors. In house searches, lists with leftist and anti-fascist targets were found.

On Friday, Spiegel Online reported that Franco A. attracted attention with his extreme right-wing views as far back as 2014, when he studied at the French military university in Saint-Cyr. His master’s thesis was rejected because he recapitulated “staunch racial and right-wing extremist opinions and did not distance himself from the relevant thinkers or philosophers.” Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen has confirmed this.

At that time, a professor at the university drew the conclusion that the master’s thesis “was not compatible with liberal democratic principles,” Spiegel Online reports. A scholar from the Centre for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr, who read the thesis, concluded that the text clearly contained “racial thinking.”

However, the suspicions raised against Franco A. were dropped after he had assured his German superior at the university that the right-wing passages in his work were the product of time pressure. The superior arrived at the conclusion that Franco A. did not hold extreme right-wing positions and gave him a “second chance.” Franco A. then wrote a new thesis that was accepted.

Allegedly, the incident was neither recorded in Franco A.’s personnel files nor forwarded to the responsible military security service (MAD). According to Spiegel Online, it only came to light because a soldier who could remember the incident reported it to his superiors.

On Sunday, Spiegel Online then reported that a “list of possible targets for attacks or assaults against leftist and anti-fascist organisations and individuals” was found in house searches. Security circles have confirmed the existence of the list, but have refused to comment on its likely purpose.

At least two people—the Berlin Left Party deputy Anne Helm, who campaigns against far-right tendencies, and the head of the organisation “Centre for Political Beauty,” which has organised artistic activities against right-wing extremism and arms exports—have been informed by the police they were on the list.

The case of Franco A. confirms that far-right elements are drawn to the Bundeswehr where their neo-fascist opinions are either tolerated or encouraged. In the course of the past few months there have been a series of scandals involving the abuse and sexual assault of cadets during training, including incidents at barracks in Pfullendorf and Sonderhausen.

This trend has assumed a new dimension with the latest report that a far-right terrorist attack was apparently being planned from within the ranks of the Bundeswehr. It is difficult to imagine that Franco A. had no confidantes or accomplices.

Even advocates of the Bundeswehr, such as the defence spokesman of the SPD parliamentary faction, Rainer Arnold, had to admit: “Filtering out extreme right-wing radicals has not always worked well in the Bundeswehr. Evidently not enough has been done.”

According to Hans-Peter Bartels (Social Democratic Party, SPD), the parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, the Bundeswehr is “structurally more susceptible” than other sectors of society. “Hierarchies, weapons, uniforms—that appeals to some applicants whom the Bundeswehr should not want,” he told Welt am Sonntag.

Von der Leyen had to concede that the military leadership of the Bundeswehr had a “problem of demeanour” and a “misconceived esprit de corps,” which repeatedly leads to a situation where misconduct is not properly pursued. “Instead they look away, until a scandal erupts. And that’s not okay,” she told the ZDF television channel. “The Bundeswehr has problem of demeanour and evidently has leadership weaknesses at different levels.”

In fact, what is at issue here is neither a “problem of demeanour” nor a “weakness.” The appeal of the Bundeswehr for right-wing and far-right forces is the inevitable result of the return of German militarism. Its transformation into a professional army, which wages war and kills all over the world, inevitably attracts elements who espouse right-wing and militaristic conceptions with regard to other political and social issues.

The demand by von der Leyen and other members of the government, that Germany once again “take responsibility” and play a political and military role appropriate to its economic clout, also serves to attract such elements.

In the Weimar Republic, the General Staff of the Reichswehr, the Freikorps and the paramilitary groups, which emerged from the army after Germany’s defeat in the First World War, formed a state within the state. They provided a breeding ground for far-right organizations and acts of violence. Many socialists, including Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, were murdered by them, and they formed the basis for Hitler’s notorious storm troopers.

For a long time all this seemed to be relegated to history. But now it is clear that all the talk about “citizens in uniform” and “inner leadership” has changed nothing about the character of militarism. The case of Franco A. is a warning. With the growth of militarism, the danger from the extreme right-wing is also growing.

South Korean election candidates back US war preparations

Ben McGrath

As South Korea’s May 9 presidential election approaches, Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) candidate Moon Jae-in appears on the verge of victory. His support has largely come about as a result of the anger and frustration felt towards the conservatives, following former president Park Geun-hye’s removal from office for corruption.

According to the most recent polls, Moon leads his closest challenger, Ahn Cheol-soo of the People’s Party, with 42.6 percent support compared to 20.9 percent. Hong Jun-pyo of the Liberty Korea Party is in third with 16.7 percent, followed by Sim Sang-jeong of the Justice Party and Yu Seung-min of the Bareun Party with 7.6 percent and 5.2 percent respectively.

Much of the campaign has been dominated by North Korea, as the Trump administration ramps up tensions on the Korean Peninsula on a daily basis. The current US deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile battery to South Korea has only exacerbated the fears and hostility to war.

All of the five major candidates have backed Washington’s agenda, though Moon has postured as an opponent of the highly unpopular THAAD system. Without coming out against it, he has called for the decision on its deployment to be postponed until the next government takes power. At the same time, he has defended Washington’s war plans in the region against China, stating that THAAD is for “defensive purposes” and that if North Korea continued its bellicose acts, the THAAD placement would be “unavoidable.”

Last Wednesday, at night and with no announcement, the US began installing the THAAD system in Seongju, a city in North Gyeongsang Province. Trailers arrived carrying the missile launchers and the X-band radar, which China believes will be used to spy on its territory. THAAD is designed to knock out an incoming ballistic missile and has a range of 200 kilometres. Despite claims that its purpose is to defend South Koreans from a North Korean attack, Seoul, a city of 10 million people, sits just outside of THAAD’s range at its current location. Instead, the battery would be used to protect US bases in any confrontation with North Korea or China.

Despite the attempt to avoid protestors, hundreds gathered, carrying signs that read, “No THAAD, No War,” and denouncing the US military. Clashes broke out with authorities. “Police let THAAD equipment pass through [protesters] by repressing them,” said Gang Hyeon-uk, a religious figure involved in organizing the demonstrations. “The THAAD deployment is illegal and should be nullified.”

Other demonstrations have taken place against THAAD, including in Seoul, but have been led by groups and labor unions, including the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), with ties to the DPK and the other political parties. They appeal to the presidential candidates, either explicitly or tacitly giving support to the Democrats, while whipping-up Korean nationalism, including by criticizing recent demands from Trump that South Korea foot the $1 billion bill for THAAD.

At a protest on Saturday in Gwanghwamun, Seoul, approximately 50,000 people gathered to denounce THAAD and demand better social conditions. The first speaker was KCTU acting-chairman Choi Jong-jin who, referencing the candles protestors carried in rallies against Park Geun-hye, stated: “Our lives must be changed to have a real candlelight revolution and there must be a presidential election that changes our lives.” In other words, the removal of Park for another capitalist politician, a Democrat who represents “change,” amounts to a revolution for the KCTU.

Demonstrators expressed lukewarm support for Moon, however. “It is only workers who suffer,” said Lee Do-gyeong, a student studying to be a nurse. “The candidates in this election must create a country that genuinely protects workers’ basic rights. I did not want to support Moon Jae-in, but I think I must. I am nervous about the other candidates.”

More broadly, the election campaign has alienated voters. “I couldn’t learn how the candidates wanted to lead the nation if they were elected. All I learned was that all of them were substandard,” Cho Jin-hee, a housewife, said in the Korea Times after watching one of the televised debates. Park Seong-su, an office worker, similarly commented: “In future debates, I hope they will discuss policies and details, and how they might carry them out.”

The refusal of the candidates to discuss their policies is because they intend to keep their genuine agenda secret: the preparation for war and austerity. Following Pyongyang’s failed ballistic missile test on Saturday, all five denounced North Korea, including Sim Sang-jeong of the pseudo-left Justice Party, who stated: “North Korea should abandon its shallow scheme of promoting regime stability through a show of force and hurry to come forward to the dialogue table.” The implication is that the North Korean regime, not Washington, has been sabotaging talks, thereby justifying the Trump administration’s actions.

At the same time, there is no opposition to current US military exercises, aimed at intimidating North Korea and China, involving the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and its strike group, with the South Korean navy. The two forces, along with the Japanese navy, have held missile warning informational link exercises (LINKEX) for the third time this year. The drills allow the three militaries to communicate and share intelligence on incoming ballistic missiles.

The election is by no means decided. There is still talk of an anti-Moon coalition between Ahn, Hong, and Yu, whose Bareun Party released a statement Friday calling for such an alliance. “We should not make the error of passing the future of South Korea to the liberal hegemony blinded by self-righteousness,” it stated.

The following day, in the hope of winning conservative support, Ahn announced he would form a coalition government if elected. He has also brought Kim Jong-in, former interim chief of the DPK, onto this election team. Kim, a conservative who clashed with Moon’s faction, denounced the “hegemonic forces” in the DPK, language similar to that used by the Bareun Party.

Whatever backroom deals are made, and whatever the outcome of the election, workers, farmers, and young people must not place faith in any of the candidates. The war with North Korea and China that is being prepared behind the backs of the population can only be opposed by uniting with workers across Asia and internationally on a socialist perspective.

International May Day 2017: Mass marches and police repression

Patrick Martin 

May Day, the day of the international working class, saw mass marches and protests on every continent, as well as scattered strikes, as workers sought to demonstrate their opposition to the policies of right-wing governments and their solidarity with their class brothers and sisters around the world.

In country after country, workers raised the same issues—low wages, the growth of “contingent” labor, the slashing of benefits and pensions—underscoring the common struggles confronting the working class internationally. Governments around the world are imposing ever more vicious austerity measures in response to the global crisis of the capitalist system, while diverting greater and greater resources into military spending and war preparations.

The day’s events demonstrated that the objective conditions produced by the development of global production have created the basis for the unification of the working class as an international class. But workers are held in enforced disunity by the nationally-based trade unions and “labor” parties that serve as the direct instruments of big business in every country.

In several countries, protests on the traditional holiday of the world working class were met with violent provocations on the part of the authorities. In Turkey, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at demonstrators in Istanbul, the country’s largest city, and arrested at least 200 people. Most were arrested during the protests, but some were detained in raids later that night. Political tensions have been rising in the wake of the April 16 referendum, narrowly won by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which gives Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan virtually dictatorial powers.

A portion of the protest in Washington, D.C.

In Germany, some 10,000 people assembled for a May Day street festival in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin. They were met by what even bourgeois press reports described as an “astonishing 5,400 police officers,” deployed on the pretext of preventing violence.

In France, police used tear gas and truncheons, pushing demonstrators against a wall and clubbing them. Socialist Party Interior Minister Matthias Fekl denounced “intolerable violence,” condemning the victims of the police brutality, not the cops who inflicted it.

There were large demonstrations in a number of European cities: 10,000 in Athens, half that number in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, as well as a 24-hour strike called by several unions. Other marches took place in Britain, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Poland and elsewhere across the continent.

In South Africa, President Jacob Zuma was forced to cancel his May Day speech after workers began jeering him and calling for his resignation.

Thousands of garment workers in Bangladesh gathered to demand wage increases as well as better housing and health benefits and provision for the education of their children. Workers in that country are paid wages far lower than in China or Southeast Asia, and many of the leading European and American clothing retailers now source their production through Bangladesh, whose garment workforce has swelled to four million.

In Cambodia, a thousand garment workers defied a government order and delivered a petition demanding a higher minimum wage and broader democratic rights. In Indonesia, some 10,000 workers marched on the presidential palace in Jakarta to demand a rise in the minimum wage, limits on outsourcing and improved health care and working conditions.

Thousands of Taiwanese workers marched in the capital, Taipei, against low wages, poor working conditions and the elimination of basic pension provisions. Korean workers marched in Seoul, focusing their demands on a reduction in the use of temporary workers and “independent contractors” to evade paying legally required wages and benefits.

In the Western Hemisphere, there were rival pro- and anti-government demonstrations in Venezuela, where right-wing US-backed parties are seeking to take control of popular opposition to the bourgeois government of President Nicholas Maduro, who succeeded the late Hugo Chavez.

Puerto Rico was virtually shut down by a May Day strike against austerity measures imposed by the government of Governor Ricardo Rosselló. Demonstrators blocked roads to enforce a general strike while denouncing the US financial control board overseeing the Rosselló administration. Police fired tear gas and smoke bombs and used pepper spray.

In the United States, May Day is not observed as a workers’ holiday. Instead, the first Monday in September was designated as “Labor Day” more than a century ago in order to separate American workers from socialistic movements overseas.

But there were widespread protests nonetheless, with thousands turning out in every major city in demonstrations to defend immigrant workers and oppose the Trump administration’s attacks on Hispanics, Muslims and other immigrants.

By far the largest demonstration took place in Los Angeles, where tens of thousands assembled outside of City Hall. In keeping with the completely conservative character of the official labor movement, the platform at the rally was handed over to capitalist politicians, headed by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Democrat who denounced the anti-immigrant policies of the Trump administration while saying nothing about the reactionary policies of the Obama administration, which deported more undocumented workers than any previous US government.

May Day demonstration in Los Angeles

A handful of right-wing pro-Trump demonstrators faced off across a street corner, chanting “USA! USA!” while Los Angeles police established a line between them and the much larger crowd of pro-immigrant marchers.

Thousands took part in protests in other California cities, including San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland, where the docks were shut down by a longshoremen’s walkout in solidarity with the pro-immigrant demonstrations. There was a very large demonstration in Houston, and marches involving thousands in Chicago, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, New York City, Washington DC and Atlanta. Other cities reporting significant protests included Portland, Seattle, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Miami, Boston and Providence, Rhode Island.

One thousand Philadelphia public school teachers did not report for work, many of them taking personal time to join the immigrant rights march and protest going without a raise or a new contract for nearly five years. Temple University students and professors walked out of many classes at 10 a.m. to demand that the college declare itself a sanctuary campus, barring collaboration with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Most of the US rallies were addressed by Democratic Party politicians and union officials who sought to focus popular anger exclusively on President Donald Trump, while concealing the anti-immigrant record of Obama. One rally in Chicago was typical, with Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the US Senate, hailing as a victory the bipartisan agreement on a bill to fund the federal government through September 30 that does not authorize spending sought by Trump to build a wall along the US-Mexico border.

“Today we are passing a budget bill which says there will be no wall, not one penny for a wall,” Durbin declared. “No expansion for an enforcement force for ICE and others, and no penalties for sanctuary cities. We were able to achieve that in the minority.”

The truth is that the budget bill authorizes $1.52 billion in beefed-up measures against immigrants, including more Border Patrol officers and the use of drone surveillance against refugees seeking to cross the border.

Trump’s North Korea Policy: Regional Implications

Sandip Kumar Mishra

US President Donald Trump has displayed an inconsistent and dangerous approach towards North Korean provocations, prompting even Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to advise restraint. This is because the consequences of a major conflict on the Korean peninsula, which would definitely have nuclear dimensions, are going to be disastrous for the whole region.

The present episode of crisis was caused by the Trump administration’s attempt to move the redline over the North Korean nuclear and missile programmes. Earlier, after North Korean nuclear and missile tests, the US used to bring more stringent economic and diplomatic sanctions on Pyongyang through UNSC resolutions. However, the new US administration is threatening to use ‘preemptive strikes’ on North Korean installations if any tests are conducted. Also, the US has been considering provisions of ‘secondary sanctions' on countries, bodies and individuals that deal with North Korea. If North Korea acknowledges and accepts this new redline, they will be unable to have more nuclear and missile tests. In all probability therefore the Kim Jong-un regime will not accept this proposition, at least not before some diplomatic gains are achieved through dialogue and negotiation. However, the US is not ready to accept any form of dialogue with North Korea, until the latter “refrains from these provocative tests.”

In dealing with the ‘unpredictable’ North Korea, Donald Trump has been trying to convey that he is also equally unpredictable. He also wants to show that his threats are not empty by firing missiles on Syria and detonating the ‘mother of all bombs’ in Afghanistan. The US has also brought back the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to the Korean Peninsula, along with the nuclear-powered submarine USS Michigan. Bilateral and multilateral military exercises between the US, South Korea, Japan, France and Britain are underway around the Korean peninsula. The US has also hastened to install the Terminal High Altitude Arial Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea. All these measures are meant to pressurise North Korea into accepting the new US redline.

Although the US has threatened to ‘go alone’ on the North Korean issue, Washington knows that the role of Beijing is going to be very critical. For the same reason, Donald Trump likely tried to reach some understanding with Chinese President Xi Jinping in dealing with North Korea during their recent summit meet in Florida, and over the phone conversations that followed. The US has been attempting to appease Beijing by promising trade concessions and taking Chinese security interests in the region into consideration.

However, the game that the Trump administration appears to be playing is devoid of any understanding of the complex regional context. Donald Trump needs to understand that ‘blinking first’ is not an option for North Korea’s belligerent regime. The North Korean strategy so far has been to defy any pressure and sanctions, and assert its independent security posture. Any moderation in this strategy in response to pressure would lead to the regime’s total strangulation and is thus not an acceptable proposition. Trump must also understand that North Korea is not Syria, for at least three reasons. First, North Korea possesses nuclear weapons along with their delivery systems. Second, North Korea’s survival is ensured by China. While China is not in favour of North Korean nuclear development or its provocative behaviour, it is definitely committed to the country’s survival. Third, any preemptive strike on North Korea would invite North Korean assured retaliation on Seoul, where one-fourth of the South Korean population resides, in addition to fifteen thousand US soldiers.

The US has also been unable to understand that China is not going to change its approach towards North Korea because of Donald Trump’s cheap inducements. Instead, it seeks bilateral trust based on a long-term common vision for the region. China has consistently been imposing economic sanctions on North Korea aimed at its nuclear and missile programmes, in tandem with the international community’s efforts. However, it also continues to have significant trade linkages with North Korea that help the regime survive. China’s recent ban on North Korean coal imports has more to do with its compliance with UNSC resolution 2321 and less with a bilateral understanding with the US. China’s approach was made clear by Foreign Minister Wang Yi in his speech at the UNSC on 28 April, when he called for dialogue and diplomacy on the North Korean crisis rather than military threats and arms build-ups. Trump’s redlines thus carry with them huge consequences.

The US administration’s approach has also irked South Korea, one of its allies in the region. South Korea feels that although Trump has unilaterally determined his North Korea policy, it will have far-reaching regional consequences. In addition, Trump has asked South Korea for US$1 billion for the deployment of THAAD, and has hastened the process of deployment when there is no elected leader in the country. The South Korean media has in fact emphasised that through his behaviour, Trump has threatened not only North but also South Korea. When the new South Korean leadership takes over in less than two weeks, it is likely that the very alliance with the US will be reviewed.

In this scenario, Trump’s unfolding game in the Korean Peninsula is, at best, not going to work, and at worst, may have devastating consequences for the region. Many in the region are of the opinion that the real danger is not from Kim Jong-un doing something catastrophic but Trump making a foolish move. It is only hoped that good sense prevails and a modus vivendi is evolved to deal with the crisis.

Rumour of Triumph

Bibhu Prasad Routray

It took 25 corpses of security force personnel for the government to accept, albeit reluctantly, that its counter-Maoist strategy needs a review. It took this attack - the worst in seven years - for the government to fill up the top position in the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), over 90 battalions of which are deployed against the left-wing extremists, after three months. Only after the dead were declared as martyrs have top officials accepted the pitiable conditions in which the CRPF and other forces have been operating in the extremist affected areas, which impact their performance and morale. 

In view of all these, it is imperative to wonder if the strategy to get rid of 'the biggest internal security challenge', notwithstanding the premature official declarations of victory, has been anything but sincere.  

On 24 April, the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) carried out its third big strike of 2017 in Sukma district, ambushing a team of the CRPF that was providing protection to a road construction project. Several accounts of how a Maoist group in waiting attacked the CRPF team have emerged. Pending a proposed investigation by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), it appears that there was no violation of the standard operating procedure (SOP) by the forces who walked in two separate lines, were off the road and maintained the required distance from one another. And yet, taking advantage of the terrain and using a team of women cadres who had arrived at the scene in the guise of villagers, the extremists managed to inflict serious losses on the forces and loot a large number of weapons from the dead personnel.

Instrumentalities of war are never in short supply in Bastar. According to official data, over 65 battalions of security force personnel comprising 45,000 central armed police forces and 20,000 state police personnel are posted in Bastar region alone. This is a huge amassment of forces in terms of area and adversaries, albeit still inadequate in terms of counter-insurgency (COIN) necessities. As many as 58 mine-protected vehicles and 42 bullet-proof vehicles are available in Chhattisgarh to the paramilitary forces. 

Where then is the force-centric policy going wrong? Why is such a huge amassment of trained forces with weapons being unable to overcome the insurgency? Is it lack of intelligence? Or is it the lack of popular support? In COIN parlance, both amount to the same. Alternatively, is it a fatigued and disinterested force with which the country is attempting to win the war? These are valid questions. While there could be other reasons, in this commentary, let us briefly examine how two of the important factors - lack of popular support, and commitment of forces - could have affected the goal of making Chhattisgarh in particular free of left-wing extremism.

 

Mission 2016 and its follow up Mission 2017 are unique contraptions of the Chhattisgarh police for making the state Maoist free. Apart from the customary emphasis on development projects such as road construction, the objective relies on a Winning Hearts and Minds (WHAM) strategy of extending state support among the tribal population. While the raising of a Bastariya battalion enlisting tribal youth into the CRPF is one of the easier ways of the state's inroads into the tribal areas, gaining trust of the people has turned out to be a much more difficult exercise. The CPI-Maoist in a statement said that the attack was a revenge for the CRPF's sexual harassment of tribal women. Many would dismiss such claim of the extremist outfit. However, the deep distrust between the police forces and the tribal population, which has been exacerbated by poorly led and often irresponsible personnel indulging in excesses on the tribal population remains a fact of life that translates into poor intelligence gathering. 

 

Post-attack, a former CRPF chief narrated the perils of exposing his personnel by deploying them in routine infrastructure project duties. He expressed his frustrations about how a file containing the CRPF's recommendations regarding laying roads faster is awaiting the Chhattisgarh government's decision for years. A series of allegations regarding lack of cooperation from the police and lack of poor camp conditions have been made by CRPF personnel and officers who also have talked about their frustration regarding implementing unproductive policies made by security advisors in Delhi. It appears that in spite of over a decade-and-a-half of operations against the extremists, strategy, synergy, and commitment continue to be the missing elements among the forces.  

There is, however, little prospect that the reliance on a force-centric policy would be given up. Using the military arm of the state, even with all the persisting weaknesses, is a far easier option for the government to exercise than to evolve a more nuanced approach of reenergising the bureaucracy and involving the tribals in the decision making processes. Unsurprisingly, the new CRPF chief has spoken of a new strategy to dominate the area. The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs apparently has provided the forces with a hit list of senior Maoist leaders. The Chhattisgarh police have offered a reward for punishing the perpetrators of the attack. It is not easy to surmise that such objectives would be achieved without repercussions on the civilian population. Would not that then add to the potency of the CPI-Maoist is a relevant question.

The “New World” is Ancient

Paul C. Bermanzohn

“Western civilization’ is neither.”

– Cedric Robinson

Recent evidence suggests that people have lived on North America for over 130,000 years. This should give us perspective on some of the problems we face and on the absurd claims that things can’t change, even as they have. We need to reconsider what we mean by human nature.

Any effort to change the world, confronts the same argument: Things can’t change because human nature won’t allow it. People, we are told, are innately acquisitive and hierarchical, unable to go beyond these limits. Hope for a decent society is doomed by these limitations. This line of unreason has its roots on these shores.

When Columbus landed in what is now the Caribbean, probably on Haiti, this unimagined place was called the “New World.” Perhaps it’s not surprising. Knowing nothing about the area, Europeans assumed there was nothing to know.

It’s called the “New World,” even today. This latest research shows how wrongheaded a conception this is.

It was not and is not a “new” world. It has ancient roots, which we should learn from and respect.

People here developed ways of living together and of living on Mother Earth that Europeans and their descendants have never achieved. If anything, “Western civilization” has gotten worse since Columbus’s fateful landing.

The Original People of Turtle Island (Turtle Island is the earliest name for what is now called North America) might help save the planet’s “civilizations” from annihilation, if the rest of humanity can learn them in time.

Ancient societies here developed ways of living that European newcomers have only strived for – with little success, so far.

Indigenous people lived in basically classless societies. Property was communally owned. Women had real power. And people were able to make up their own minds. They lived this way for thousands of years – until Columbus.

If people lived this way for thousands of years, the argument that human nature won’t permit it is fatally undermined. The “New World’s” ancient roots attest to the vast possibilities we humans have.