Australian government’s $70 million court settlement covers up crimes against refugees

Max Newman

The Australian government has settled a class action lawsuit, agreeing to pay $70 million to 1,905 current and former detainees in the Australian-run refugee prison camp on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, as well as legal costs estimated at $20 million.

The June 14 settlement sought to continue covering up the crimes committed against refugees by successive Australian governments. It prevented the case from going to trial, which would have involved a detailed exposure, in a televised open court, of the abuses at the detention centre.

Corporate media outlets described the outcome as possibly the largest human rights settlement in Australian history. Yet the payments will average only around $36,000 for each claimant, a pitiful sum considering what they have suffered.

Moreover, many of them remain detained, and the entire system of illegally repelling asylum seekers or confining them indefinitely in remote hell holes in violation of international refugee law survives intact.

The settlement proceeds will be split according to how long each person spent at the centre, the injuries they received and whether they were present during particular events, such as a February 2014 attack by soldiers and security guards on prisoners protesting inside the camp in which one detainee Reza Barati, was killed and 77 others injured.

The case was taken to the Supreme Court of Victoria by the law firm Slater and Gordon, on behalf of all persons who were imprisoned on Manus Island between 21 November 2012 and 12 May 2016.

Slater and Gordon class action group leader Rory Walsh acknowledged some detainees would be displeased by the settlement, but said they could petition the court if they wished to continue with a separate case.

Sudanese asylum seeker Abdul Aziz Muhamat told Australian Associated Press that detainees were considering rejecting the settlement. “People are saying ‘we’ve actually been in this place for four years and we have got physical damage and mental damage and this small amount of money won’t do anything to help us’.”

These abuses are a deliberate bipartisan policy, designed to deter or prevent refugees from seeking protection in Australia.

The Manus Island facility was first opened, together with the equally brutal camp on the Pacific island of Nauru, more than 15 years ago by the Howard Liberal-National government as part of its “Pacific Solution” to stop asylum seekers, fleeing wars and persecution, reaching Australia. In 2012, the camps were reopened by the Greens-backed Labor government of Julia Gillard, and the current Liberal-National government has maintained them since 2013.

The lawsuit was directed at the Commonwealth of Australia, as well as G4S and Transfield (now Broadspectrum), which hold government contracts to operate the detention centre. The main plaintiff was Majid Karami Kamasaee, a refugee from Iran who suffered severe pain and irritation to his skin from pre-existing burns while forcibly imprisoned for 11 months on Manus Island, after his boat was seized by the Australian Navy in August 2013.

According to Richard Ackland, writing in the Guardian, Slater and Gordon lawyers appeared in court more than 50 times before the settlement was agreed, opposing government moves to shut the case down or exclude evidence. At every stage, the government sought to maintain secrecy over the maltreatment and denial of basic rights to the detainees.

There were repeated challenges claiming Public Interest Immunity, seeking to block testimony or evidence that would supposedly endanger national security or the “public interest.”

The plaintiffs’ lawyers also confronted the Border Force Act 2015, passed with bipartisan support. The Act made it illegal, punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment, for anyone, including health care professionals who worked at the centre, to publicly reveal the conditions suffered by the asylum seekers.

Transfield/Broadspectrum followed lockstep with the government’s secrecy, requiring all employees to sign confidentiality agreements. In the preliminary rounds of the pre-trial proceedings, orders had to be obtained to permit witnesses to testify without being prosecuted.

In April, the trial judge ruled that the case could be live-streamed internationally. The government vehemently opposed the ruling and demanded that any broadcast be confined to a secure channel and only made available to a student law class.

Slater and Gordon reportedly conducted over 200 witness interviews and gathered more than 200,000 documents. Some 70 witnesses were willing to testify, despite confidentiality concerns.

The final 166-page Statement of Claim was full of damning allegations about neglect, inadequate shelter and accommodation, poor quality food, kitchens with rats running around, filthy toilets, squalid and overcrowded conditions, oppressive heat and humidity, inadequate medical and healthcare, and physical and psychological injuries.

Detainees were not issued with basic personal supplies, including shoes, soap or even toilet paper. They could not obtain any medication or contact the ill-equipped medical centre without written permission, which would normally take two to three days, regardless of the severity of the situation.

Guards used humiliation tactics, involving physical and verbal violence. This included sexual harassment and threats of solitary confinement.

The statement also asserted false imprisonment since the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court last year ruled that the detention was unconstitutional.

The statement established that Australia controlled the centre’s operations and was therefore liable for the brutality inflicted on the asylum seekers. All construction and maintenance of the centre, management of detainees and restrictions on movement in and around the centre were funded by Australia and “implemented by Commonwealth officers, or subject to the direction or approval of Commonwealth officers.”

This further exposes the myth pedalled by the government that PNG, not Australia, is responsible for the operations of the centre.

Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton defiantly insisted the settlement was “not an admission of liability in any regard.” Dutton instead claimed it was a “prudent” decision to minimise the government’s costs.

The Labor Party’s immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann declined to comment, effectively backing the decision, in line with Labor’s ongoing support for indefinite offshore imprisonment of refugees.

The Greens sought to use the settlement to hide their political responsibility for the reopening of the Manus and Nauru camps in 2012 by the minority Labor government, which depended on the Greens’ parliamentary votes to stay in office.

Greens’ immigration spokesman Senator Nick McKim declared that “by accepting this settlement,” Dutton and the Liberal Party “take responsibility” for the atrocities at the centre. In reality, both by propping up the previous Labor government and by supporting the underlying framework of refugee and immigration restrictions, the Greens are equally culpable.

The court settlement underscores the lengths to which Australian governments will go to hide their crimes against asylum seekers. While Australia is on the frontline of US-instigated predatory wars in the Middle East, which have created the greatest refugee crisis since World War II, it is overseeing the systematic torture and illegal imprisonment of those fleeing for their lives.

Floods devastate Bangladesh and parts of India, killing more than 185

Rohantha De Silva

More than 185 people are reported dead in Bangladesh and northeast India from storms, floods and landslides caused by heavy rains that hit parts of India and Bangladesh in mid-June. Four soldiers who joined the rescue operations also died and one is still missing.

The Bangladesh landslides were the worst in the country’s history, including in 2007, when 127 people were killed in southern Chittagong. According to Bangladeshi officials, Chittagong district received 343 mm of rain between June 13–14 and power was cut to the district, making the situation worse.

Some of those killed were buried in their homes during the night. According to media reports, villagers desperately attempted to dig the bodies out using shovels. Bangladesh disaster ministry secretary Shah Kamal told Reuters on June 14 that parts of the Chittagong district were still cut off.

Bangladesh’s Awami League-led government took no action to prevent or minimise the flood and landslide damage. Those most affected are the rural poor, low-wage workers and rickshaw pullers living in flood- and landslide-prone areas were living costs are lower.

According to initial estimates by Bangladesh’s disaster management department, the landslides mainly impacted on three hilly districts in southeast Bangladesh and resulted in the death of 110 people in Rangamati, 32 in Chittagong and six in Bandarban, with many still listed as missing. With search and rescue operations ongoing, these figures are expected to increase.

The Bangladesh government has mobilised military and security forces to deal with the disaster but a week later many soldiers were still unable to reach some remote districts. Department of disaster management chief Reaz Ahmed told the media: “Rescue operations are being hampered by bad weather while authorities are still struggling to reach some remote areas.”

Rangamati district fire services chief Didarul Alam said authorities were being contacted by survivors from several areas, saying people had been buried by landslides.

Alam said: “We did not have enough rescuers to send.” He added: “We have been unable to reach some of the more remote places due to the rain. And even in the places we have reached, we have been unable to recover all the bodies.” A group of about 60 rescue workers were trapped en route to Rangamati on Tuesday after landslides swamped the road.

One survivor Khatiza Begum, whose home was buried in a landslide, explained she was sheltering in a neighbour’s house when it was hit by a second landslide. “A few other families also took shelter there, but just after dawn a section of hill fell on the house,” she said. “Six people are still missing.”

While heavy rains and thunder storms are an annual event in the region, the government makes no serious attempt to minimise the impact of landslides and flooding.

Just a few weeks earlier, Cyclone Mora hit Bangladesh, killing at least seven people and destroying hundreds of houses. Flimsy shelters at refugee camps, near the Burmese border and home to an estimated 350,000 Rohingya people, were also destroyed. The Rohingya have fled Burma to escape violent communal attacks by Buddhist supremacists and the security forces.

Bangladeshi authorities are trying to blame the victims. Syeda Sarwar Jahan, a spokesperson for the Chittagong local government, claimed local residents had ignored warnings. “We were able to issue warnings to most areas, but many people did not listen,” she said. She even blamed survivors for the shortcomings of the official rescue work, alleging: “We could not reach some areas because they were out of telephone range, while others did not respond to our calls.”

Apparel workers, rickshaw pullers and day labours live on the vulnerable hill slopes because they have no alternative. Even if they leave the area during the monsoon seasons, they are forced to return to the same areas because the rents are low, between Taka 1,500 ($US18.61) to 6,000 per month.

Last week Bacchu Mia, 60, told the Dhaka Tribune: “I continue to be haunted by the deaths of my wife, three daughters and son, and I live in constant fear for my own life because another landslide can take place at any moment. But where else can I go? I used to be a rickshaw puller, but now I cannot do any work because of my asthma. The rent here is nominal, so I have no other option.” Seventeen people, including five of Mia’s family members, died in July 2011, when a portion of the hill protection wall collapsed.

Rokeya Begum, who has been living with his family in the area for three decades, said: “After every landslide, the government officials come in with a bunch of promises but soon forget all about us… The government could easily undertake a rehabilitation project for poor people like us who live in fear of landslides during every monsoon.”

According to a New Age editorial on June 15, more than 230 people have been killed in past ten years by landslides in Chittagong. It noted: “While the authorities carry out drives sporadically, and more around and at the time of the monsoon, to evict people living precariously at the crest, slope and foot of the hills in some areas, especially urban, such drives fail to bring about anything positive as the evicted are not properly rehabilitated.”

A major cause of these landslides is deforestation and land sales, for which the entire Bangladesh political establishment, including the ruling Awami League and the opposition Bangladesh National Party, are responsible.

As New Age acknowledged: “The situation has been further exacerbated by another group of influential people who keep extracting soil from the hills, and thus keep felling trees on the hills, for land and real estate development elsewhere and for the production of bricks at kilns. Shorn of trees and the original land structure, the hills lose the compaction of the soil when it rains and they cannot hold themselves together, causing the landslides.”

Though not as severely affected as Bangladesh, floods in the bordering Indian states of Mizoram and Assam have resulted in up to 26 deaths, with many more still missing, and tens of thousands displaced.

Last month, Sri Lanka was devastated by heavy floods and landslides. Over 200 people were killed and more than 700,000 people displaced when the heavy monsoon rain occurred in late May. The whole crisis further underscores the fact that the ruling elites in the Indian sub-continent have no interest in providing for the basic needs of the masses.

Hundreds of thousands in UK face same fire risk as Grenfell Tower victims

Robert Stevens

Residents of tower blocks throughout the UK are living in potential death traps just like the Grenfell Tower block in west London where scores if not hundreds perished on June 14. Initial testing of external cladding on 60 apartment blocks located in 25 local authorities resulted in them all being found to be combustible and failing fire safety tests.

The 60 tested so far were among 600 of the UK’s 4,000 tower blocks with cladding found to be “similar” to that installed on the Grenfell Tower. The cladding was a central factor in the spread of a small fire in one apartment into a conflagration that engulfed the entire 24-storey structure in minutes.

While at least 79 people are confirmed dead in the blaze, Labour MP Dianne Abbott, who represents a constituency in nearby Hackney, said she believed “hundreds of people” were killed in the fire.

Both the cladding and the insulation it enclosed at Grenfell have been tested by experts and “failed all safety tests.” According to latest reports, the insulation material could prove to be even more flammable than the cladding—which was already known to be highly combustible.

Given that at least 600 people lived in the Grenfell block, this number extrapolated nationally means that hundreds of thousands of peoples’ lives are endangered by the homes in which they live.

Everything is being done to conceal the criminality of the policies and actions of successive governments and local councils, Conservative and Labour, and their big business partners, that resulted in the horrifying loss of life.

Last Friday a local resident, Sarah Colbourne, who lives near Grenfell, told the media she does not accept the official fatality figure. She said, “We know over 20 people who aren’t answering their phones, who aren’t responding to my emails. They’re not missing, they’re dead.

“Children haven’t turned up to school, or to activity groups my husband runs. They’re not ‘missing’, they’re dead. They’re telling us it’s 79. We’re not stupid… it’s in the hundreds. But they don’t want to release that number and we all know why and we’re sick and tired of what they’ve done. It’s 2017 in one of the richest boroughs in London and this happens.”

On a national scale, the dangers in which working class residents have been placed is also being covered up.

Although 25 local authorities have been confirmed as having dangerously-clad tower blocks under their control, just 14 have been named. Seven of these are in London—Camden, Hounslow, Barnet, Brent, Islington, Lambeth and Wandsworth.

Authorities outside London named are Doncaster, Manchester, Portsmouth, Norwich, Stockton on Tees, Sunderland and Plymouth. It is not known how many have been tested of the 600 blocks cited.

Despite the danger facing residents, no co-ordinated central government response is being organised, with local authorities allowed to proceed as they wish. In Brent, no failed-test cladding is to be removed. Although the safety test results of cladding on nine tower blocks in the city of Salford have not yet been disclosed, the council said it will remove the aluminium composite material (ACM) in the cladding because it is similar to Grenfell’s. In Plymouth, the council said it will not evacuate residents despite the danger.

The use of such cladding is widespread beyond social housing. Many National Health Service buildings are also clad and all 200 NHS trusts are carrying out an urgent review.

T here has been no insistence on systematic testing in the private sector. Premier Inn, which operates 750 hotels na tionally, including high rise blocks, announced Friday it is “ extremely concerned ” about cladding used on its hotels in Maidenhead, Brentford and Tottenham. Premier League football team Brighton and Hove Albion FC have said their stadium and training ground could be clad in the same material as Grenfell Tower, putting tens of thousands of lives at risk. S tud ent accommodation at N ewcastle University is under emergency review.

Nearly two weeks after the Grenfell fire, survivors are still being treated callously. Last Friday, 30 families staying in 20 rooms at the Holiday Inn Kensington Forum were evicted at short notice, only receiving a letter telling them to contact the council’s accommodation team via a phone number.

In the borough of Camden, 4,000 residents were evacuated from four tower blocks on the Chalcots Estate on Friday evening, with barely any notice. The decision was taken by the Labour-run council after blocks were found, not only to have cladding similar to Grenfell, but also with insulation surrounding gas piping and missing fire doors and fire doors made from the wrong material.

The council dumped many from the Chalcot Estate—including disabled people, the elderly and women with newborns—at a local leisure centre and library complex where they were forced to sleep on air beds. Others were sent to stay temporarily in hotels.

The following morning angry residents confronted Labour council leader Georgia Gould about their treatment and demanded to know why they had been allowed to live in dangerous conditions in the first place. The work to remove the cladding is expected to take up to six weeks.

Evacuated residents registering as homeless at the Camden Leisure Centre and Library

The Metropolitan Police investigation into the Grenfell fire announced Friday that the blaze started in a fridge-freezer and confirmed that the building’s cladding and insulation failed safety tests.

The fact that the fridge model that caught fire and started the blaze has been subject to extensive complaints of unreliability made headlines in newspapers, including the Daily Mail, which last week tried to scapegoat the man whose apartment was the source of the fire. While design faults warrant investigation, this is being used to divert from the fact that a fire in a single apartment should never have been able to engulf a high-rise building so rapidly and so completely.

Those who decided to install flammable materials and enabled those materials to be installed, above all the Conservative government that ripped up safety regulations and its Labour predecessor that turned its own blind eye to previous related disasters, are the guilty parties. Still, no one has been arrested.

The police said the criminal investigation they have begun could lead to charges of manslaughter. Yet not only has no one been charged, but the Guardian also revealed that not a single person has even been questioned by an investigation manned by 250 people!

This is under conditions in which it has been revealed that among those who escaped the Grenfell fire, three of 12 patients at King's College Hospital were treated with Cyanokit, the hydrogen cyanide antidote. This was because the cladding contained material that emitted the highly toxic substance when ablaze—a fact confirmed by its manufacturer Celotex.

According to one estimate, the amount of cladding meant that there was enough smoke containing cyanide to have filled all 120 flats in the building and to have killed every person. Professor Richard Hull, Professor of Chemistry and Fire Science at the University of Central Lancashire, said the material used to refurbish Grenfell Tower between 2014-2016 “made a major contribution to the rapid spread of the fire and the toxicity of its smoke.”

“The combination of the cladding, air gap and the polyisocyanurate (PIR) foam acts like a chimney,” Hull said, “spreading the fire across the outside of the building by igniting the cladding and foam.”

There are no regulations on the toxicity of building materials, which are subjected to fire in the UK and much of Europe, even though it is “widely known that the inhalation of toxic gas within smoke accounts for most deaths and injuries within fire,” he said. “Many people in the tower will have had their windows open due to the hot weather last Tuesday night, so it is likely that a significant number of victims will have collapsed soon after exposure to the smoke.”

Middle East on brink of a wider war

Peter Symonds

The 10-day ultimatum delivered last week by Saudi Arabia and its allies—Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—to Qatar has dramatically escalated their confrontation with the tiny Persian Gulf state, raising the prospect of military conflict.

The Saudi monarchy has issued demands that are designed to be rejected, so as to create the pretext for further punitive steps beyond the diplomatic, travel and trade blockade imposed earlier this month. Not only is Qatar required to crack down on alleged terrorist and criminal groups, and shut down its Al Jazeera news network, but also to severely downgrade relations with Iran, expel Turkish military forces, toe the diplomatic, military and economic line dictated by Riyadh, and pay unspecified reparations for the supposed damage caused by its policies. All of this is to be monitored by means of intrusive audits for the next 10 years.

Not surprisingly, Qatari officials have rejected the ultimatum, which would transform their country into a vassal state of Saudi Arabia. Turkey, which, along with Iran, has provided aid to Qatar since the imposition of the Saudi embargo, has also flatly dismissed the demands. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced the call for the removal of Turkish troops as “disrespectful toward Turkey.”

While Saudi Arabia has not issued specific military threats, any retreat from its belligerent stand could trigger a political crisis in Riyadh. The Saudi monarchy has hypocritically denounced Qatar as a sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East, but its ultimatum to the Gulf state is bound up with a far broader strategy, aimed at crushing Iranian influence in the region.

The newly-installed Saudi heir, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, vowed last month to ensure that a war with Iran would be fought on Iranian, not Saudi, soil. The crown prince is publicly acknowledged to be the architect of the brutal Saudi-led war against Houthi rebels in Yemen, which has killed some 12,000 people, left over 7 million on the brink of starvation and unleashed a cholera epidemic that threatens many more deaths.

The Saudi demands on Qatar are akin to the ultimatum delivered by the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Serbia in July 1914, following the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The Austrian demands, backed by a blank cheque for military action from Germany, were designed to be rejected in order to provide the casus belli for an invasion of Serbia. Amid the acute geo-political tensions throughout Europe, the Austrian attack on Serbia plunged Europe and the world into war within less than a fortnight.

While it is impossible to predict whether this or that flashpoint will provide the trigger for world war, the worsening global economic crisis is greatly exacerbating tensions between major and regional powers, as each seeks to offload the burden onto its rivals in a scramble for markets, cheap labour and geo-strategic advantage.

As Leon Trotsky warned in 1938, on the eve of World War II, in the founding document of the Fourth International: “Under the increasing tension of capitalist disintegration, imperialist antagonisms reach an impasse, at the height of which separate clashes and bloody local disturbances… must inevitably coalesce into a conflagration of world dimensions. The bourgeoisie, of course, is aware of the mortal danger to its domination represented by a new war. But that class is now immeasurably less capable of averting war than on the eve of 1914.”

Changing what needs to be changed, Trotsky’s warning applies to the current explosive situation, not just in the Middle East, but also in Eastern Europe and North East Asia. The chief destabilising factor in world politics today is the role of US imperialism, which, in the Persian Gulf, is egging on Saudi Arabia in a manner analogous to Germany’s support for Austria in July 1914.

While US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has urged talks and suggested that some of the Saudi demands might be “very difficult” for Qatar to meet, President Donald Trump has signalled his full support for Riyadh’s aggressive action, declaring its blockade to be “hard but necessary.” Trump has boasted that his visit to Saudi Arabia last month, in which arms deals worth nearly half a trillion dollars were reached, was responsible for Riyadh’s tough stance against “terrorism” and Qatar.

Tillerson’s more equivocal remarks reflect concerns in Washington, particularly the Pentagon, about the impact of the standoff on the huge US military base in Qatar, home to 11,000 US troops, and the forward base for the US Central Command and US intelligence gathering in the region.

Trump, however, has made no secret of his determination to undermine Iran, in the first instance by ramping up the US-led conflict in Syria. Under the pretext of defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which has its roots in Sunni extremists backed by Saudi Arabia and its allies, the US is now seeking to carve out no-go areas or “deconfliction zones” to use as bases for waging its war to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Iran and Russia.

The explosive situation in the Middle East is a product of, not just the recklessness of the Trump administration, but a quarter century of criminal wars of intervention by US imperialism, which have destroyed whole societies, killed millions of people, and turned many millions more into homeless refugees. In the process of seeking to secure its dominance over the strategic oil-rich region, the United States has effectively destroyed the state-system imposed by British and French imperialism in the aftermath of World War I, setting off a new great power struggle to redivide the Middle East, a key strategic crossroad between Europe, Asia and Africa.

US imperialism has aligned itself with the most reactionary regimes in the Middle East—the Egyptian military dictatorship as well as the autocratic monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Israel has signalled its support for the blockade of Qatar as well as the US war in Syria to oust Assad. Turkey and Iran are actively supporting Qatar, while in Syria, a clash between US and Russian forces threatens to bring the two nuclear-armed powers into direct conflict.

The European powers are by no means indifferent to the unfolding crisis, which threatens their economic and strategic interests in the Middle East, including their developing relations with Iran and Qatar. In a recent interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel criticised the “dramatic” harshness of relations between Qatar and Saudi Arabia and its allies. He warned that “this dispute could lead to war.” For its part, France has recently been engaged in joint military exercises with Qatar in the Persian Gulf.

What has been revealed are the emerging fault lines of a war that can quickly drag in regional and major powers and plunge humanity into a catastrophe. Such a conflict is inevitable—whatever the particular trigger in Europe, Asia or the Middle East—unless the working class intervenes, on the basis of its own socialist and internationalist program, to put an end to the outmoded profit and nation-state systems, the root causes of war.

Health care and the fight for socialism

Barry Grey & Kate Randall

The Senate Republicans’ bill to “repeal and replace” Obamacare, unveiled on Thursday and set for a vote next week, comes on the heels of last month’s passage of a similar measure in the House of Representatives. These two bills are a milestone in the decades-long drive by the American ruling class to eviscerate the bedrock social reforms of the 1930s and 1960s.

The central feature of both versions is the imposition of more than $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor and disabled, effectively ending its status as a guaranteed benefit program. The ultimate enactment of this class war legislation, whatever its precise form, will be the prelude to the privatization and dismantling of Medicare, the government insurance program for the elderly, and Social Security, the government pension system enacted at the height of the Depression in the 1930s.

Both the House and Senate bills cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy by more than $700 billion, eliminate requirements on businesses to provide health insurance for their employees, and allow states to exempt insurance firms from having to provide essential benefits such as doctors’ services, inpatient and outpatient hospital care, ambulance service, prescription drug coverage, pregnancy and childbirth care and mental health and substance abuse services.

What is involved here is a social counterrevolution. It has been underway for more than four decades, under Democratic as well as Republican administrations. It was accelerated under the Obama administration following the Wall Street crash of 2008. With the coming to power of Donald Trump, the billionaire personification of the American financial oligarchy, it is being raised to new heights of savagery.

What will be the impact of this legislation on the daily lives of working people in America? People suffering from diseases such as diabetes, asthma, even cancer will suddenly find that they can no longer afford to pay for the drugs upon which they depend to survive. Low income people—an estimated 23 million—will be stripped of all health coverage.

Millions of people will suffer needlessly, and many thousands will die an early death. For the authors of these bills and their corporate backers, this is not an unfortunate byproduct, but the deliberate aim of their health care “reform.” For the richest 10 percent who tower above the lower orders and control the political system and its two major parties, the diversion of money from profits and private bank accounts to keep working people alive and reasonably healthy—especially those too old to serve as a source of surplus value and profit—is an intolerable affront. Life expectancy in America is already declining and mortality rates are rising for the working class, in tandem with the colossal growth of social inequality. The ruling class wants to accelerate this process.

Is it an accident that the Republican plans single out for the biggest attacks low income older adults younger than 65, the age for Medicare eligibility? Insurers will be allowed to charge them five times more than they charge younger people. A 60-year-old woman earning $35,000 will have to spend nearly $6,000 of her own money to buy an insurance policy. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that many thousands, unable to afford health insurance, will be killed off before they can begin to collect Medicare benefits, or, if they do manage to survive to age 65, will collect far fewer benefits because they will die an earlier death, their health having been undermined.

No one should mistake the verbal protests and parliamentary stunts of the Democrats for a serious struggle in defense of health care. The assault on the basic entitlement programs dating from the 1930s and 1960s was begun in earnest by Bill Clinton, who ended “welfare as we know it” during his term in the White House.

Barack Obama had the gall to denounce the Senate health bill as a “massive transfer of wealth from the middle class and poor families to the richest people in America.” True enough! But Trump is taking off where Obama left off. By means of trillions in Wall Street bailouts and subsidies to the banks and hedge funds that lifted stock prices and corporate profits to record heights, Obama presided over the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in US history. Along the way he slashed auto workers’ wages and city workers’ pensions and health benefits and imposed brutal cuts in food stamps.

The explosion of the opioid and heroin epidemic that, along with surging suicide rates, is cutting the longevity of large sections of workers occurred on Obama’s watch. His Affordable Care Act set the stage for Trump’s intensified offensive on health care, slashing health care costs for corporations and the government while increasing out-of-pocket costs and reducing benefits for tens of millions of workers. It implemented the principle of partially subsidizing the purchase of insurance from private companies with government vouchers—the framework long advocated by Republicans seeking to privatize Medicare.

The current policy of the Democrats is to plead with the Republicans to negotiate a bipartisan “compromise” that will “fix” Obamacare, i.e., make further concessions to the profit-mad insurance giants by more drastically slashing benefits and raising premiums and deductibles.

The choice offered by the ruling class—between “Trumpcare” and “Obamacare”—is no choice at all. Both lead to untold suffering, misery and death. The working class will not accept the destruction of social gains for which it fought and bled, wrenching them from an unwilling corporate elite in the course of mass social struggles.

America, along with Europe and large swathes of the world, is heading into a new period of class struggle. What the experience of decades of austerity, war and political reaction shows is that the defense of the most basic social needs, such as health care, is today a revolutionary question. Capitalism in its advanced stage of crisis and putrefaction is incompatible with basic democratic and social rights—including the right to a decent-paying and secure job, health care, housing, education, access to culture and a secure retirement.

The working class must advance its own independent program against both Trump and the Democrats, based on the fight for socialism. Profit must be taken out of health care. The health care industry must be removed from private hands and placed under public ownership and the democratic control of the working class. This requires an implacable struggle against entrenched wealth and privilege, and the political system that enforces them.

Sri Lankan police attack protesting students

Kapila Fernando

Sri Lankan police violently assaulted university students occupying the health ministry on Wednesday and have now broadened the crackdown, arresting the protest leaders.

The government has also threatened to take action against the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) and doctors who launched an “indefinite strike” to protest against the police attack and demand the government take over the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM), a private medical college.

Thousands of students involved in Wednesday’s demonstration entered the health ministry building in Central Colombo, breaking police barriers and demanding a discussion with Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne. The Inter-University Student Federation (IUSF) leaders said they went into the building because they had been given no appointment to meet with Senaratne.

The demonstration was part of ongoing protests by students and GMOA members to demand that the government take control of SAITM, allocate 6 percent of gross domestic product for education, end school fees and resolve various problems in the health sector.

After students entered the health ministry, Law and Order Minister Sagala Ratnayake ordered the Special Task Force (STF) to clear the premises. The STF is a specially trained wing of the police and notorious for its brutal assaults on protestors.

Television channels broadcast footage showing hundreds of STF personnel wearing helmets severely beating students and stampeding them down the stairs. STF officers also baton-charged students staging a sit-down protest and used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the demonstration.

An IUSF activist told the media on Wednesday that over 90 students were being treated at the national hospital, about 20 of them female students, and some were in a critical condition. Police said six officers were admitted to the hospital but later transferred to its own hospital, claiming that national hospital doctors were not treating them properly.

Justifying the police attack, Deputy Inspector General Priyantha Jayakody claimed the students violated a court order obtained by the police to prevent the protest. He accused students of damaging state property and said they would be taken into custody and brought before the courts.

Health Minister Senaratne said the students would be identified using CCTV records and any student alleged to have caused more than 25,000-rupees worth of damage would be denied bail. The students denied responsibility for any damage and accused the police of destroying property in order to frame-up students.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe demanded a report on why the police were unable to stop the students entering the health ministry.

On Thursday the police took into custody Inter-University Bikkhu [Monks] Federation leader Tampitiye Sugathananda as he received hospital treatment. Yesterday, the Colombo Crimes Division arrested IUSF convenor Lahiru Weerasekera and another activist as they left a press conference. They were accused of damaging state property, brought before a magistrate and placed on remand.

GMOA members walked out on Thursday in protest against the police assault on the students and declared they would remain on strike until the government solved the SAITM issue. Health Minister Senaratne told a press briefing on Thursday the government was to ready go beyond previous measures and “take tough action” against the striking doctors.

Students and doctors are deeply opposed to the privatisation of education and the health services. They have been involved in protests over the past year. GMOA and IUSF members are concerned that proper standards required for teaching medicine are being compromised by SAITM.

However, the perspective of both organisations is politically bankrupt and aimed at promoting illusions that mass pressure will force the government to withdraw its cost-cutting policies.

On Thursday the IUSF held a press conference with various pseudo-left groups, including the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), which politically controls the IUSF. Others present were the Voice of the Left, a dissident faction in the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), the United Socialist Party (USP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). These organisations all advance nationalist and pro-capitalist policies.

IUSF convenor Weerasekera told the media that the groups in attendance represented the people. “All of us are saying that education and health are social rights and urge ‘don’t sell them.’ All of us told the president that the only solution is the abolition of SAITM or its takeover by the state but no solution was given.”

Contrary to Weerasekera’s claims, the pseudo-left formations have come forward to assist the IUSF and GMOA to politically derail students and doctors. They are seeking to prevent the development of a unified movement of workers, students and youth fighting against the government and for a socialist and internationalist program. All of them, in one way or another, backed the election of Maithripala Sirisena as president, claiming he would defend democratic rights and improve the living standards of working people.

Addressing a public meeting in Polonnaruwa last week, Sirisena reiterated the government’s big business program. The students were not to blame for “conspiracies” against the government, he said, but had been influenced by “an uncivilised political climate in the universities.” Private universities were necessary, he declared, to cater for the thousands of students passing entrance exams.

Sirisena’s claims, which are virtually the same as those by former President Mahinda Rajapakse, underscore the diversionary nature of the appeals to the government by the IUSF and GMOA. Both are seeking solutions within the capitalist system. Though GMOA is demanding a government takeover of SAITM, it supports the government’s overall privatisation program.

The Sirisena-Wickremesinge government’s assault on education, health and other vital social facilities is driven by the deepening crisis of the capitalist system and is part of a broader assault on the rights of workers and the poor in every country.

The Socialist Equality Party and the International Students for Social Equality insist that the only way to defeat the assault on public education and health is for students and doctors to turn to all sections of the working class, Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim alike, and fight for their mobilisation for a workers’ and peasants’ government to implement a socialist program.

This week’s brutal police attack on students and the escalating threats against striking doctors underline the necessity of this perspective.

Chinese authorities launch probe into financial system fearing “Lehman moment”

Nick Beams 

China’s bank regulator has ordered a probe into some of the country’s largest overseas investors, citing the possibility of “systemic risk” to the entire financial network because of the practices investors have employed in acquiring assets.

The probe to be conducted by the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) is described as a “fact finding” mission. It will target the connections of Chinese banks to four companies: the property-entertainment giant Dalian Wanda, the consumer group Fosun International, the conglomerate HNA, all of which are listed firms, and the unlisted insurer Anbang.

According to one estimate, the four companies have been responsible for $56 billion in overseas deals during the past five years.

Their acquisitions include the purchase of New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, the US cinema firm AMC Entertainment, the theatre production group Cirque du Soleil and a 10 percent share in Deutsche Bank.

The listed companies experienced a sell-off of their stocks and bonds on Friday, even as they sought to counter the effects of the investigation by issuing assurances that it was business as usual. Large state banks also declared they had no intention of cutting off funds to the companies involved.

A report in the Financial Times cited “people briefed on the investigation” who said the CBRC would examine “how and whether these companies used high-interest financial products and overseas loans for their buying spree, which took place largely outside the purview of Chinese regulators.”

The CBRC move comes after the detention earlier this month of Wu Xiaohui, the head of Anbang, over concerns about his purchases of overseas assets as regulators sought to control the outflow of capital from the country.

Speaking to journalists on Thursday, Liu Zhiqing, deputy head of the CBRC’s risk department, said the commission was concerned about “the systematic risk of some large enterprises” and that this risk could be transmitted to the financial system and other institutions, including smaller Chinese banks.

Liu declined to give specific details of the companies that were the focus of the investigation, saying only that the risks applied “broadly.”

Central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan highlighted concerns over the stability of the financial system earlier this week. “The experience of the global financial crisis tells us that the first priority is to keep financial institutions healthy so that financial crises could be prevented,” he said. “We cannot tolerate phenomena such as heavy leverage, low capital and non-performing loans.”

The seriousness of the CBRC investigation was underscored by comments to the London-based Financial Times by Frederic Cho, the founder of a specialist China investment consultancy. “This is a thorough investigation into large groups with overseas investment exposure in order to prevent a ‘Lehman Brothers moment’ happening to the Chinese financial system,” he said.

Chinese financial authorities are fearful that a crisis or even bankruptcy of one or more of the country’s major overseas investors would cause enormous damage to the country’s financial reputation and severely affect the government’s drive to more closely integrate it into the global financial system.

CBRC chairman Guo Shuqing has vowed to clean up the Chinese banking and financial system. He was quoted earlier this year as saying he would resign “if the banking industry becomes a complete mess.”

There are major problems, however, associated with any financial cleanup. Banking and financial interests are closely intertwined with different and sometimes competing factions within the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime that exercise considerable political and therefore economic influence.

There is also widespread concern about the rise of the considerable and largely unregulated shadow financial sector. Authorities would like to bring it under control, recognising the dangers it poses. However, at the same time, the regime relies on it to provide the finance for local government authorities and sustain economic growth.

The entire CCP regime lives in fear of a major economic crisis leading to a slowdown in growth or a recession because its sole source of political legitimacy rests upon its ability to sustain Chinese economic expansion.

The Beijing government hopes to be able to do that by having China recognised as part of the global financial system. But this goal depends on its ability to ensure that China is not regarded as a “wild financial East.”

While most Chinese overseas asset purchases are financed with loans from state reserves or with funds provided by Chinese and foreign banks, and are therefore subject to the purview of regulators, some companies use offshore financing and the issuing of financial products to get around state regulations.

HNA, one of the companies targeted in the investigation, is a case in point. It has purchased some $40 billion in overseas assets in the past two years, often by using the targeted company as collateral for overseas loans. This puts its deals outside the reach of the controls on capital flows and domestic bank loans.

International focus on the Chinese financial system also increased this week with the decision by MSCI, the most influential indexer of emerging market equities, to include Chinese A-shares in its main global indices.

By August 2018, Chinese stocks will make up 0.7 percent of the MSCI Emerging Market Index. While this is only small portion of the index, the changes are expected to lead to an inflow of $17 billion of foreign capital into Chinese equity markets. Much more could follow because the Chinese A-shares market is now the world’s second largest by capitalisation, only behind the US.

Goldman Sachs calculates that some $430 billion could flow into Chinese markets if China is fully included. For that to happen, however, MSCI will want to see sweeping changes in the Chinese financial system, including to address concerns about the suspensions of share trading and corporate governance, particularly of state-owned enterprises.

There are also worries about the often-murky connections between major Chinese companies and financial institutions and the shadow financial system, which has tripled in size over the past five years to be worth $9.4 trillion, or 87 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Another issue is the level of debt. China’s corporate sector is the most indebted in the world, owing an amount equivalent to 170 percent of GDP. Some of the 222 companies to be included in the MSCI index are among the most indebted. There are concerns that some would struggle to pay off their loans if the economy were to slow.

Chinese authorities welcomed the MSCI decision, seeing it as another lever to improve the regulatory regime of the financial system. But given the dependence of the economy on debt and the shadow financial system, the road of “reform” is fraught with contradictions and conflicts.

German parliament votes to redeploy troops to Jordan

Johannes Stern 

On Wednesday, the German parliament voted by a large majority to redeploy Bundeswehr (Armed Forced) units from the Turkish air base at Incirlik to the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. Four hundred sixty one (461) out of 569 deputies supported the motion presented by the grand coalition of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), with 85 votes against and 23 abstentions.

Since the end of 2015, the Bundeswehr has been involved in the war effort against the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq, which is also directed against the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. With the dispatch of troops to Jordan, the Bundeswehr is continuing its military intervention in the Middle East and is preparing for its expansion.

In the debate, the defence spokesman of the CDU/CSU Bundestag (parliamentary) caucus, Henning Otte, promised, “We will send the tanker aircraft and the Tornadoes in August. By October at the latest, the soldiers will be fully operational again. That this can happen so quickly is due to the innovative power and the energy of our soldiers.”

SPD foreign affairs spokesman Niels Annen welcomed the fact that German troops were now moving even closer to the war zones in Syria and Iraq. “It is perhaps a coincidence, but not a bad one, that we are in a difficult situation—you all know that the battles are increasing in intensity on the Jordanian border—a country that has absorbed hundreds of thousands of refugees and has proved to be a stable and reliable partner in recent years, that we can now provide this symbolic support”. The stationing of troops was “the right message.”

The attempt by the government to present the deployment of the Bundeswehr as an “anti-terrorist operation” or even as an initiative for human rights or refugee relief is a deliberate deception. What really concerns German imperialism is the struggle for spheres of influence and raw materials in the Middle East. “The eastern part of Syria has become the site of an advanced end game, in which not only the future order in the country, but also regional power relationships could be decided for decades,” the Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote on Tuesday.

With this, the increasingly aggressive intervention of the imperialist powers threatens to unleash a conflagration. Following the shooting down of a Syrian fighter aircraft by the US on June 18, the Russian government announced it would regard all aircraft of the US-led anti-IS coalition flying west of the Euphrates as hostile targets. Thus, the possibility of an armed confrontation between the two largest nuclear powers in the world has become as great as during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

The escalation of the war for regime change in Syria is also exacerbating tensions between the imperialist powers and within NATO itself. “The fact that Germany has to withdraw the Bundeswehr from a NATO member state during an ongoing mission because its government refuses to grant our parliamentary deputies permission to visit our soldiers, and that this mission must instead be transferred to a non-NATO country, is a unique event,” Annen declared. With the withdrawal from Incirlik, “relations with Turkey have reached a new low.”

The official reason for the German withdrawal is a ban on visits by Berlin’s parliamentary deputies to the Incirlik air base imposed by the Turkish government, which was not lifted even following a visit by German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) to Ankara earlier this month. The Turkish government has justified its attitude by citing Germany’s granting of asylum to Turkish officers who were involved in the failed coup in July 2016. In total, more than 400 Turkish soldiers, diplomats, judges and government employees suspected by the Turkish government of supporting the coup against President Erdogan have applied for asylum in Germany.

Geopolitical conflicts also lie behind the ferocious tensions between Ankara and Berlin. The Left Party and Greens have been arguing for some time that too close cooperation with Turkey limits the offensive of German imperialism in the Middle East. They are demanding a more open collaboration with Kurdish militias such as the PYD, linked to the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which is banned in Germany, but which is playing an increasingly important role as a proxy force in the reconquest of former IS strongholds in the northeast of Syria.

In his speech in the Bundestag, Gregor Gysi, chairman of the European Left, criticized the redeployment because it weakened the Kurdish militias, and thus also the fight against IS—and moreover, was too subordinate to US war policy.

“If Germany supplies data to the [NATO] headquarters and Turkey has access to it, the impression might arise [...] that we stand on the side of Turkey, acting against the Kurds and thus indirectly helping Islamic State,” Gysi declared. Turkey had “bombed the Kurds in Syria. They [the Kurds], however, are conducting the ground war against Islamic state, and will be thereby weakened.” The demand of the Greens and Left Party to “bring the soldiers and their weapons back home and not deploy them to Jordan so that they continue their ambiguous role there” was therefore “justified.”

The joint initiative of the Left Party and the Greens has nothing to do with the rejection of war. Under conditions of growing transatlantic tensions with the US, these parties play a key role in transforming the widespread opposition to the right-wing politics of President Donald Trump into support for a more independent German great power policy, using “humanitarian” phrases.

“It is time that the whole Bundestag understands—by the way, also because of Trumpthat we have to play a different role,” Gysi told the deputies. “I really beg you: Stop following Trump so poodle-like! Learn to say no to him!” Germany must “become a mediator, a mediator between Israel and Palestine, in the Syrian war, in the war of Saudi Arabia against Yemen, in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and in other crises. I believe that this must be our role after the Second World War, after 1945.”

After two criminal world wars, the government parties are also seeking to use the fairy tale of a rehabilitated Germany as a “mediator” and “peace-maker” to revive German militarism once again. In fact, the German ruling class has long been preparing new and even more comprehensive wars behind the backs of the population. Also on Wednesday, the cabinet agreed armaments projects worth several billion euros. These include the construction of five new K130 warships and new submarines.

US auto layoffs take toll on workers and their communities

Shannon Jones

Since late 2016 there has been a steady roll call of layoffs by the US-based automakers as the seven-year-long sales boom in the auto industry winds down. The job cuts are taking a toll on workers and their communities across the American Midwest as thousands, many temporary workers or workers with low seniority and not eligible for supplemental unemployment benefits, (SUB), are tossed into the streets.

The layoffs are having a ripple effect as job cuts spread to auto supplier plants. For example, the recent elimination of a shift at the GM Lordstown assembly plant near Youngstown, Ohio has impacted parts suppliers in the area. Three parts suppliers: Jamestown Industries, Magna Lordstown Seating Systems and Comprehensive Logistics, are all planning cuts. At Comprehensive Logistics alone, 160 workers face layoff. Magna is cutting an additional 115.

The recent announcement of 1,000 layoffs and the elimination of a shift at the GM Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City, Kansas is expected to have a broader effect in the community where General Motors workers make up 4 percent of the workforce.

Vincent, a veteran worker at the GM Fairfax Assembly Plant, said, “Many are in shock and disbelief that they are losing their jobs. Every person who is affected is feeling down; their smiles have been wiped away. They have worked hard side by side with their (higher) seniority partners and many feel betrayed that the United Auto Workers wouldn’t let them acquire seniority.

“Many temps have worked two, three years without gaining any seniority and they were not invited to share in profit-sharing bonuses. They also acquired none to very little vacation time. If they did receive any vacation time it was lost to the mandatory two-week shut down in July. It is very sad that many of the lower seniority workers are younger and trying to support their families.”

A June 21 Reuters report pointed to the impact of a downturn in auto production on the wider economy. According to the US Federal Reserve, overall manufacturing production fell by 0.4 percent in May led by a 2 percent decline in motor vehicle and auto parts production.

According to Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, the auto sector accounted for between 60 and 80 percent of all manufacturing jobs created between 2015 and 2016. “There’s no argument with the idea that auto has been pulling the manufacturing sled up the mountain for the last three or four years,” he told Reuters.

Some analysts are predicting a sharper downturn as more former lease vehicles hit the market and financial institutions tighten lending standards.

Auto sales hit 17.55 million in 2016. Since the beginning of the year, however, passenger car sales have fallen 11 percent, with a smaller 4.7 percent increase in light truck sales. Overall car sales are down 2 percent in 2017. As a result, GM has laid off more than 5,000 workers since late 2016. Ford has also resorted to temporary layoffs at several of its factories. Meanwhile, Fiat Chrysler has ended all passenger car production in the US and temporarily shut down several plants while they convert to SUV or light truck production.

Mary, a worker recently retired from the GM Lordstown plant told the World Socialist Web Site, “GM has been laying people off like crazy since the beginning of the year. At Lordstown, they laid off a bunch of workers. It is affecting new workers the most, and they don’t know when they will be called back.”

She noted the irrationality of GM continuing to schedule overtime at plants building larger vehicles while workers at other plants are laid off. “At Wentzville (Missouri) they are working six to seven days a week. Why don’t they convert some of the plants over and shift production so they don’t have to lay people off? They would rather work people overtime than hire people.”

Vincent added, “I believe no overtime should be scheduled until every worker is recalled.”

Mary noted that the previous GM contract significantly increased the limit on the number of part-time and temporary workers that GM can employ. This has made it easier for the company to lay off workers since temporary workers are not eligible for SUB pay.

“They don’t have to pay temporary workers full benefits. There are a lot of people upset by that. The UAW is moving further away from the workers. It is a company union, not a workers’ union.”

Vincent noted, “A temporary worker will stay a temp until the UAW and GM agree to hire them full time. Once they receive permanent status they still have to work another 90 days before they start accumulating seniority.”

“It is crazy, some are working two to two-and-a-half years to get permanent status to be able to receive the benefits of full-time workers.”

Workers noted that while cutting jobs, management was sweating as much labor as possible out of workers.

A worker at the General Motors Lansing Delta Township plant in Michigan said, “They eliminated the third shift at our plant temporarily. They went to two 10-hour shifts,” he said, noting that they were being paid at straight-time after eight hours instead of the normal time-and-a-half.

Vincent added, “People are working themselves to death. They are moving for 58 minutes out of every hour. They are beating their bodies up to make a living.”

The Delta worker continued, “A lot of people are unsure about the state of the economy, from housing to interest rates. People are putting off major purchases. With all the cuts Trump is making, people are on edge. Everyone agrees that he is unstable.”

He said some of the laid off Delta workers had been sent to the truck assembly plant in nearby Flint. “GM is holding back on hiring full time. The truck plant in Flint has about 450 what they call ‘temporary flex employees.’ They are being used to cover full-time employees who take vacations and some of them work weekends. Some are working 40-48 hours, but their schedule is flexible,” he said, noting that some are called to work as needed on non-consecutive days.

Remarking on the role of the UAW, the Delta Township worker said, “the UAW owns stock in GM through the VEBA (Voluntary Employees Beneficiary Association),” referring to the retiree health care fund managed by the UAW. “If we strike, their stock goes down, so they don’t want to do that.

“A lot of people are afraid of losing their retirement health care because of the VEBA.”

Since GM announced its first round of layoffs last year, the UAW has not even offered a pretense of opposition, defending the job cuts by citing “market conditions.”

The UAW has embraced the Trump administration’s right-wing “America First” economic nationalism while relaunching its divisive “Buy American” campaign, which pits American workers against their brothers and sisters in Mexico, China, Europe and South America.

Remarking on the UAW’s attempt to drive US workers into a fratricidal struggle against their class brothers overseas Vincent said, “It’s a race to the bottom as fast as they can.”

He continued, “It is UAW, Incorporated. How many enemies do you know who own stock in each other?” he said referring to the retiree health care trust fund. “It used to be a cardinal sin for management to eliminate jobs. Now the UAW and GM decide which jobs are to be cut.”

European Union summit agrees to “historic” military build-up

Johannes Stern

Following the beginning of the Brexit talks at the start of this past week, the European Union’s (EU) member states are moving rapidly to transform the bloc into a military and defence union. At the center of the EU summit on Thursday and Friday in Brussels were far-reaching measures aimed at militarisation at home and abroad.

Among other things, it was agreed “to establish comprehensive and ambitious Permanent Security Cooperation (PESCO) for the strengthening of European security and defence.” Within three months, the governments will “finalise a joint list with criteria and obligations, together with concrete capability projects,” according to the European Council’s official website. This would also include “missions with the highest requirements,” meaning military interventions with European “combat units.”

Already at the beginning of the month, the EU agreed to establish a joint command centre for civilian and military operations and provide the European Commission with a multi-billion euro defence fund. A summit paper entitled “Conclusions of the European Council on security and defence” welcomed this step “and expects its swift utilisation.” The goal is to build a “competitive, innovative […] European defence industry.”

The aim of the measures is to develop the EU into an aggressive great power capable, when required, to intervene militarily and wage war independently of NATO and the United States.

A “Reflection Paper on the future of European Defence,” published by the European Commission on 7 June, states, “Europeans themselves are above all responsible for the improvement of European security. The resources are actually available: taken together, the military spending of the European powers is the second highest in the world […] although cooperation with our partners will remain the norm and the preferred solution for the EU, we should also be able to act alone when necessary.”

Europe’s military build up is therefore being measured against the fighting capabilities of the United States. EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said at a joint press conference with EU Council President Donald Tusk, “The defence fund is necessary. We have in Europe 130 types of weapon systems whereas the US has 30. We have in Europe 17 types of tanks whereas the US has 1. We are spending half of the military budget of the US, but our efficiency is 15 percent… So there is room for improvement, and that is what we have decided today.”

The rapid militarisation of Europe is being pushed above all by the German and French governments. “That is real added value we have agreed upon,” enthused German Chancellor Angela Merkel in response to the defence plan reached in Brussels. “Because it puts us in a position to be able to carry out missions for example in Africa, where we will not only consider the military aspect, but also incorporate the possibilities for political solutions and development cooperation.”

Newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron described the decisions as “historic.” “For years and years there has not been any progress on defence, there has been one today,” he told reporters. At the same time, he noted the importance of the Paris-Berlin axis for the reorganisation of the EU. “We will work hand in hand with Germany,” he said.

At the end of the summit, Merkel and Macron put on a united front for the media by arranging a joint press conference. Merkel described the summit as a “council of assurance and energy.” Macron declared, “Europe is our best defence given the global challenges.” The French president obviously did not mean by this Russia, against which the EU extended its sanctions by six months, but the United States. With an eye on Donald Trump’s announcement of a US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change, Macron stated that there was strong support for the deal.

The EU representatives could also not resist a swipe at British Prime Minister Theresa May, who barely played a part in the summit. “My first impression is that the first offer from the United Kingdom falls short of our expectations,” said Tusk on the proposal from May on the rights of EU citizens after Brexit.

Concessions to London are unacceptable to Berlin and Brussels because they would only accelerate the break up of the EU under conditions of deepening political and economic conflicts on the continent. “Not everyone is satisfied with the German-French leadership duo,” wrote the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The Eastern European Vyšehrad states once again refused to accept any refugees, and there is allegedly “dissent” on trade policy. While the Netherlands, Ireland and others are advocates of free trade, Macron is calling for protectionist measures and “a Europe which protects.”

As the reactionary character of the EU becomes ever clearer, the propaganda from the ruling class to mobilise support for it becomes more absurd. In an interview published prior to the summit in a number of leading European newspapers, Macron claimed that Europe had a “special role” in the defence of “freedom” and “democracy.” “Democracy emerged on our continent,” Macron said. “The US, like us, loves freedom—but it does not share our sense of justice.”

Macron knows very well that the capitalist Europe does not create “justice and peace,” but, like the capitalist United States, is a breeding ground for nationalism, social counterrevolution, police state measures and war. The austerity measures dictated by the EU have laid waste to entire countries like Greece and plunged millions into poverty. The brutal attack on refugees by the policy of “Fortress Europe,” which was strengthened in Brussels, has transformed the Mediterranean into a mass grave. In France, Macron’s cabinet extended the state of emergency on Thursday and is preparing major attacks on the working class.

The propaganda about a “peaceful European power” is exposed above all by the fact that it is precisely German militarism, which twice left the continent in ruins during the 20th century, that is once again on the rise and seeking to organise Europe. Berlin views Brexit, the mounting Transatlantic tensions and cooperation with the new French government as a unique opportunity to expand its economic and political predominance in Europe, and increasingly dominate militarily.

“None of us want to take our own special national road, not Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic or Italy,” said Hans-Peter Bartels, the parliamentary ombudsman for the armed forces, prior to the summit. The policy of small military states had to be abandoned and the European part of NATO organised, he continued. “In the end, there will be a European army,” proclaimed Bartels. To this end, “every step in the right direction [is] important.”

Germany’s defence ministry is working on concrete plans to establish the German army as a “anchor army” for NATO’s European members, whose armies are to be heavily armed and integrated into the command and control structures of Germany. Germany, Romania and the Czech Republic signed cooperation agreements for closer collaboration between their armed forces in February. The Dutch army has already integrated almost two thirds of its units into German army command structures. On Wednesday, the German cabinet sealed an agreement with Norway for the building of new submarines.