Indonesian government bans Hizbut Tahrir

John Roberts

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has banned the Islamist organisation Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), using his presidential power to issue a regulation in lieu of law, known as Perppu.

The presidential edict issue on July 19 allows the arbitrary side-stepping of the 2013 law on associations, which provides for the banning of organisations but sets out procedures and leaves the final decision to a court. The change gives state officials the power to summarily remove the legal status of organisations. The regulation will be presented to the national parliament in six months but takes immediate effect.

The coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, Wiranto, a former Suharto-era army general and close political ally of Widodo, announced the regulation on July 12. He said it allowed the government to remove the permit of any organisation allegedly opposed to state ideology of Pancasila and the country’s 1945 constitution.

Foreshadowing a wide crackdown on political dissent, Wiranto said there were numbers of organisations existing that were a threat to Indonesia. The Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) is one immediately in the government’s crosshairs. Wiranto added disingenuously that the new procedure “is merely aimed at maintaining national unity and safeguarding the nation’s existence. It is not an arbitrary act of government.”

Hizbut Tahrir is an Islamist movement founded in 1953 in Jerusalem. It has operated in Indonesia since at least the 1980s.

It played a role in the Islamist campaign directed against the Widodo government during the recent Jakarta gubernatorial election. Widodo’s supporter and protégé Basuki Tjahaja Purnama was ousted from his post as governor and jailed in May on frame-up “blasphemy” charges concocted originally by a number of right-wing Islamist groups.

HTI is based on a reactionary Pan-Islamist ideology that advocates a universal Muslim caliphate, an Islamic government and the imposition of Sharia law.

The organisation has not, however, been formally accused of or prosecuted for any criminal act. HTI is an easy target as it is banned in a number of European countries and by most Middle Eastern regimes. It is also opposed by Indonesia’s established Muslim parties and its banning has been endorsed by the country’s largest, Nahdlatul Ulama.

Any organisation deemed to be based on “Marxist-Leninism” is already prohibited, reflecting the fears of the entire ruling class of the emergence of a movement of the working class and rural poor. Working people were the real targets of the 1965 US-backed coup that toppled President Sukarno, installed the Suharto dictatorship regime and left at least 500,000 dead.

Last month Widodo ordered his ministers to pressure the parliament’s lower house, the DPR, to restore a role for the country’s armed forces (TNI) in internal security and counter-terrorist measures. The DPR is revising the Eradication of Terrorism law.

Following the fall of the Suharto dictatorship, the National Police were removed from army control and given exclusive responsibility for domestic security. The TNI, notorious for murderous repression throughout the Suharto regime, were forced to step back, at least formally, from internal security operations.

The anti-democratic measures now being implemented by the Widodo administration reflect deep rifts and infighting in the country’s ruling elite in the lead up to the presidential and parliamentary elections due in 2019.

These divisions were exposed during the bitter conflict involved in the Jakarta election. Government opponents were able to mobilise hundreds of thousands to two anti-Basuki rallies in Jakarta in November and December. Arrests followed and twice this year Widodo has told the media he would “clobber” those who threatened national political stability, a term used by Suharto.

The Islamist groups allied with Widodo’s political enemies cynically exploited resentment over glaring social inequality and the association of both Basuki and Widodo with economic development that for decades has only benefited the rich.

The latest World Bank figures updated in April show 40 percent of the population is vulnerable to falling into poverty, while over 10 percent live below the Indonesian government’s official poverty line of $US27 per month or 82 cents per day. One percent of the 250 million Indonesians own half of all national financial assets.

Widodo’s opponents include sections of the country’s political and financial elite, particularly associated with the Suharto regime and its corrupt system of patronage and economic protectionism. These layers deeply resent Widodo’s pro-market “reforms” that threaten their interests.

Widodo’s coalition represents sections of the ruling class, which were also spawned in the Suharto period, but are more oriented to foreign investors, seek to further open up the Indonesian economy and are critical of protectionist measures.

Suharto-era general Prabowo Subianto, Widodo’s opponent at the 2014 presidential election, has positioned himself as the leader of the government’s opponents. His candidate, Anies Baswedan, won the Jakarta governorship.

Prabowo and Anies embraced the reactionary chauvinist campaign of the Islamic groups which included the FPI and the GNPF-MUI along with the HTI. They attacked Basuki, who is a Christian with a Chinese heritage, as unfit to rule over Muslims in a majority Muslim country.

The motives of the Islamist groups in exploiting the religious sentiments of the most oppressed layers have a class content. GNPF-MUI leader Bachtiar Nasir gave Reuters an interview in May in which he made clear the next target of his organisation would be ethnic Chinese and stopping the inflow of Chinese capital to Indonesia. He called for an affirmative action program for non-Chinese Indonesians.

The Islamist groups represent a layer of the ruling elite that was excluded from the largesse of the Suharto regime and now want to enhance their position at the expense of Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese minority. This meets up with the interests of those supporting Prabowo who resent ethnic Chinese, who while making up only five percent of the population, are strongly represented among business and financial interests.

The fear in ruling circles is that this infighting will open the way for a broader movement of workers and the rural poor that will threaten the interest of the capitalist class as a whole. That is what is driving the shedding of the democratic veneer of the post-Suharto period and the adoption of anti-democratic measures.

Britain’s National Health Service being gutted through privatisation

Jean Shaoul 

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 gave free rein for the hiving off of National Health Service (NHS) assets to the big corporations and the construction of a health care “market” paid for with taxpayers’ money.

The impact of the 2012 Act on the creeping, piecemeal privatisation of the NHS is vast. The Act removed the Secretary of State for Health’s core duty to provide or secure comprehensive and universal healthcare, making it unclear who is ultimately responsible for health care. Instead, it set up some 200 new clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to make contracts for service provision in their area under a newly established NHS Commissioning Board (NHS England), at a cost of at least £1.5 billion.

The Health and Social Care Act compelled the CCGs to put their contracts, whose value would be based upon what they could afford from their shrinking budgets, out to competitive bids from “Any Qualified Provider.” These bidders include private-sector independent sector treatment centres, Circle, Serco and Virgin Care as well as the NHS. This opened up the NHS’ £110 billion annual budget to the corporations. In addition, the cost of commissioning adds an extra £4.5 billion each year in legal, financial and administrative costs, pushing up the cost of administering the “internal market” to a staggering 14 percent of the NHS’ budget.

According to David Lock QC, the effect of the regulations has been to close down the option of in-house provision and create a health care market, bringing health care under the remit of European Union (EU) competition law. This gives private providers legal rights that make it almost impossible to stop their penetration of the NHS. Any trade deal with the United States following Britain’s exit from the EU would also encompass health care.

Hospitals, incorporated as Foundation Trusts—i.e., de facto commercial enterprises—are allowed to enter into joint ventures with and distribute surpluses to for-profit companies, raise commercial loans without restriction and raise up to 49 percent of their revenue from commercial sources—up from just two percent previously.

The Act shifted the responsibility and budget for some services to local authorities and created new powers for charging—signalling a move from a largely tax-based service to one in which patients may have to pay for services.

It has transferred all NHS land and property to NHS Property Services, a government-owned company that is empowered to sell off NHS buildings and land. Last year, the company, some of whose board members have declared interests in real estate, property management and facilities management companies, raised its rental charges, adding another £60 million to the NHS’ annual costs. It can be expected that the government will soon transfer the ownership and control of the NHS’ assets to private owners.

The government has already confirmed that it will sell off £2 billion of NHS land—equivalent to 5 million square metres—out of the estimated £9-11 billion land and property controlled by NHS Trusts. Property identified for sale includes ambulance stations, clinics, staff accommodation and trust headquarters.

Privatisation takes the form of the internal cannibalisation of NHS hospitals.

A number of NHS Foundation Trusts are now raising a small but significant percentage of their income from private sources, including private UK and overseas patients, car parking, rentals, accommodation and other services. This is increasing year-on-year, with some London hospitals reporting 30 percent increases. About one quarter of the Foundation Trusts are planning to open private patient units.

This process is particularly evident in the specialist hospitals such as the Royal Marsden Hospital (specialising in cancer), which derived 20 percent of its income from non-NHS sources in 2015, and the Great Ormond Street Hospital (specialising in paediatrics), which derived 12 percent of its income from non-NHS sources in 2015. Other hospitals exemplifying this process include Moorfields Eye Hospital (13 percent), the Liverpool Heart and Chest NHS Trust (18 percent) and the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital (31 percent). Much of this revenue is from overseas patients.

Top-class NHS facilities are being used to treat private patients while waiting lists grow, and surgeons and consultants earn fat fees on the back of NHS training and experience. Whistle-blowers have revealed that some doctors are even carrying out private work while being paid to work for the NHS.

According to the NHS Support Federation, more than one third (£5.5 billion) of £16 billion in contracts awarded by the CCGs have gone to the private sector. The largest contract is believed to be worth more than £1 billion for community services in Cambridgeshire. The Financial Times reported that private-sector companies were engaged in an “arms race” to win NHS contracts.

These companies choose the less complex treatments such as hip replacements and cataracts, which are more lucrative, leaving the more complex, chronic and costly treatments to the NHS. Since they have few resources to put things right when treatments go wrong, NHS hospitals have to admit some 6,000 patients treated by private companies every year.

In addition, the exorbitant cost of new hospitals procured under the Private Finance Initiative, the three percent population increase since 2010, the 20 percent cut in social care and the four percent annual rise in NHS costs despite a pay freeze for medical staff have had a devastating impact on the financial resources available for front-line services.

The government has demanded that the NHS deliver a further £22 billion in “efficiency savings” between 2016 and 2020, leading to a lower level of health care spending per capita in England than in similar advanced countries.

To achieve this gutting of health care expenditure, NHS England announced yet another reorganisation, superseding the CCGs, which divides the country into 44 areas in which NHS bodies and local authorities together provide all NHS and social care services.

Each area had to provide a plan by July 2016 for implementing the cuts and restructuring its NHS services, “advised” by expensive financial consultants such as McKinsey, Deloitte or PwC, who also advise the insurance and health care industry. Key elements in these plans include the disposal of “surplus” property and assets and the involvement of the private sector with its “new models of care.”

The area plans lay the basis for moving towards a “mixed-funding insurance model,” with the budgets passed to insurers. A new system of personal health care budgets is being piloted and is to be rolled out to 5 million patients by next year. It paves the way for an insurance-based system, with additional charges for anything not covered under the personal health care budget—much to the delight of the insurance and health care industry.

At the same time, NHS staff will be transferred to private-sector companies, breaking up nationally negotiated wages and conditions, dividing NHS staff and pitting them against one another in a race to the bottom in terms of jobs, wages and conditions.

The authors of two articles in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine said that “2015 saw the greatest rise in mortality for almost 50 years in England and Wales” and accused the government’s “relentless cuts” to the health service of being behind 30,000 excess deaths in 2015. They concluded that “the evidence points to a major failure of the health system, possibly exacerbated by failings in social care” and warned that without “urgent intervention” from the government, mortality rates could continue to increase.

The scale of the cuts already imposed is vast:

* 66 Accident and Emergency/Maternity wards have already closed

* 19 more hospitals are to close

* 14,966 NHS beds have been closed

* 51 more NHS walk-in centres are set to close

The deliberate dismantling and running down of the NHS has already caused untold suffering, lengthening waiting lists, early deaths and a fall in life expectancy in Britain.

No prison in England and Wales safe for young people

Peter Reydt 

“By February 2017, we concluded that there was not a single establishment that we inspected in England and Wales in which it was safe to hold children and young people.”

This is the shocking conclusion made by Peter Clarke, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales in his Annual Report 2016–17.

The report shows a drastic decline in conditions within the prison system. Describing conditions comparable to those in the United States, it details how working class criminals are incarcerated in “filthy and dilapidated”, vermin infested, overcrowded and violent “facilities” for sometimes the most minimal offences.

Decades of law and order policies by Labour and Conservative governments have made prisons a breeding ground for substance abuse, violence, illness, suicide and squalor.

More young people in England and Wales are imprisoned than in any other country in Western Europe. The age of criminal responsibility in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is just 10 years old, and in Scotland it is 8 years old.

The state of prisons for children and young inmates is especially bad. Vulnerable working class children endure conditions that cannot but traumatise them further. Any pretense of rehabilitation has long been discarded. The guiding principle is to control and punish young offenders, who are already victims of a society based on savage inequality.

Clarke’s report paints a harrowing picture of the state of prisons in England and Wales, showing what life is like for prisoners on a day-to-day basis.

“There have been startling increases in all types of violence” the report finds. In the 12 months to December 2016, there were 26,000 assaults, up by 27 percent in just one year. Assaults on staff were up by a staggering 38 percent, to 6,844 in the same period.

?“Self-inflicted deaths” have more than doubled since 2013—and in the 12 months to March 2017, 113 prisoners took their own lives.

“Debt, bullying, and self-segregation by prisoners looking to escape the violence generated by the drugs trade are commonplace. This has all been compounded by staffing levels in many jails that are simply too low to keep order and at the same time run a decent regime that allows prisoners to be let out of their cells to get to training and education, and have access to basic facilities.”

“Shockingly, 30% of young adults (aged 18 to 21) being held in adult establishments told us that they spent less than two hours a day out of their cells,” the Chief Inspector writes.

“During the course of the year, I have often been appalled by the conditions in which we hold many prisoners. Far too often I have seen men sharing a cell in which they are locked up for as much as 23 hours a day, in which they are required to eat all their meals, and in which there is an unscreened lavatory. On several occasions prisoners have pointed out insect and vermin infestations to me. In many prisons, I have seen shower and lavatory facilities that are filthy and dilapidated, but with no credible or affordable plans for refurbishment. I have seen many prisoners who are obviously under the influence of drugs. I am frequently shown evidence of repeated self-harm, and in every prison I find far too many prisoners suffering from varying degrees of learning disability or mental impairment. I have personally witnessed violence between prisoners, and seen both the physical and psychologically traumatic impact.”

These findings are borne out by the report’s figures showing a dramatic rise in violence, self-harm and drug use over the past year, while education and employment classes in youth prisons declined to a seven-year low.

Mental illness among prisoners is widespread, with growing numbers driven to self-harm and suicide due to the degrading and hellish conditions.

Last month’s National Audit Office report, titled “Mental Health in Prison” found, “Rates of self-inflicted deaths and self-harm have risen significantly in the last five years, suggesting that mental health and well-being in prison have declined.”

The number of self-harm incidents rose by 73 percent between 2012 and 2016, the report found. Last year there were 40,161 incidents of self-harm in prisons and 120 “self-inflicted deaths.”

“This was almost twice the number in 2012, and higher than any previous year on record. In 2016, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman found that 70% of prisoners who had taken their own life between 2012 and 2014 had been identified as having mental health needs.”

According to the authors, some health workers believe up to 90 percent of the prison population suffers from mental illness.

Health workers and reform advocates have long warned about the negative impact of Britain’s prison system on inmates. But the situation has only worsened.

The chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, Frances Crook, explained “Prisons are out of control. A prisoner dies by suicide every three days. Children are locked up with nothing to do for 23 hours a day.

“Record levels of violence mean that men are too scared to leave their cells. Women are injuring themselves more and more. Staff fear for their lives. Conditions are filthy. Enough is enough.”

She added, “Prisons for children should be closed forthwith. For decades, children have been subjected to abuse and neglect by the state. Now the official watchdog has confirmed what the Howard League has been saying for years—there is not a single prison in the country where a child is safe.”

Last night, initial reports were emerging of riot-trained prison staff being sent to Mount Prison, in Bovingdon village near Hemel Hempstead.

Last October, inmates at Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP) Lewes rioted for six hours against conditions that one refugee inmate described as “worse than Syria.”

In November, 200 inmates rioted at HMP Bedford, criticised for its “abject failure” to address overcrowding, rampant drug addiction and self-harm. The worst riot took place on December 19, when 600 inmates took over four wings at HMP Birmingham. This was the biggest prison riot since HMP Manchester in 1990 (known then as Strangeways).

G4S, the private firm which runs HMP Birmingham, sent in two initial Tornado riot control squads to quell the disturbance, with the prison service’s “gold command” sending in 11 more Tornado units. It took riot squads comprising 160 officers over 12 hours to bring the prison back under control, with one inmate hospitalised with a fractured jaw and broken eye socket.

The crisis in the prison system is a ticking time bomb that can only worsen given the current political climate. While funding for prisons is being gutted, the government is seizing on the current crisis to privatise more jails, selling them off to the highest bidders.

The UK already has the most privatised criminal justice system in Europe. As of 2015, 14 prisons (holding 17 percent of the prison population in England and Wales) were run by the private sector. This is an even higher proportion of private prisons than in the United States.

German economy minister threatens counter-measures in response to US sanctions on Russia

Peter Schwarz

Following the adoption of new sanctions against Russia by both chambers of the US congress, Germany’s economy minister has threatened that Europe could adopt counter-measures.

“We consider this to be patently in violation of international law,” said Brigitte Zypries (Social Democrats, SPD). She accused the Americans of penalising German companies “because they are economically active in another country.” The US law, according to Zypries, also proposed sanctions against German and European companies.

“We certainly don’t want a trade war,” the minister sought to proclaim. But the Americans had abandoned the course of joint sanctions, she added. “Therefore, it is right for the EU Commission to consider counter-measures.” Europe is ready to adopt such measures swiftly, she went on, “including in other areas.”

Representatives of German business associations also warned of the consequences of the new sanctions. They anticipate severe obstacles to cooperation with Russia in the energy sector.

“The law is hanging like a sword of Damocles over the companies,” said the chairman of the German Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, Michael Harms. “It would be a blatant interference into our energy provision in Europe, and would result in rising energy prices and a decline in the competitiveness of European business.”

Prior to the adoption of the sanctions, leading German and European politicians threatened counter-measures. They were not fundamentally opposed to additional sanctions against Russia, but accused the United States, in contrast to past practice, of not consulting other countries on the sanctions and thereby pursuing their own economic advantage.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) expressed himself in especially stark terms. He accused the US of exploiting the sanctions “to promote national export interests and the domestic energy sector.” EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who on foreign and economic policy matters usually consults closely with Berlin, warned that the sanctions would “impact the EU’s energy security interests.” The EU Commission was therefore ready to respond with counter-measures within days “if our fears are not sufficiently taken into account.”

EU diplomats in Washington have managed thus far to bring about some changes in the law’s text. The upper limit for participation in Russian pipeline projects allowed under the law was increased from 10 to 33 percent. In addition, an amendment was introduced so that Trump would adopt sanctions “in consultation with allies,” whatever that may mean.

While Juncker declared that the diplomatic efforts had borne fruit, and suggested that the EU would wait and see, but remain ready to respond at any moment, the concessions apparently do not go far enough for Berlin. The German government fears that the sanctions will hinder the construction of the Nord Stream II pipeline, which would ensure Germany, notwithstanding its limited energy resources, a leading role in the provision of gas to Europe.

Scheduled for completion at the end of 2019, Nord Stream II, like the Nord Stream pipeline which began operating in 2011, connects Russia directly with Germany across the Baltic Sea, bypassing transit states like Poland and Ukraine. With an annual capacity of 110 billion cubic metres of gas, both pipelines will supply two-and-a-half times more than Germany’s gas requirements and around one fifth of Europe’s.

According to EurActiv, “Germany, the main backer of Nord Stream II, [is] the driving force behind the hardline stance towards the US.”

The energy issue, however, is only one reason for the growing tensions between Berlin and Washington. The bitter struggle for markets, raw materials and strategic influence is bringing the two opponents in two world wars ever more frequently into conflict. There is an aggressive tone in the German media and among politicians towards Berlin’s closest ally in the post-war period that has not been heard for a long time.

One example of this is the latest edition of Der Spiegel, which appeared with a drawing of Chancellor Angela Merkel on the front page kicking a football with an outstretched leg at Donald Trump’s face. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Stefan Kornelius described the US as a country whose president produces a lot of filth and destroys “all standards of morals, ethics, decency and honesty.” The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung even called for Germany to develop its own nuclear weapons.

In the federal election campaign, the parties are competing to see which can most aggressively uphold “the independent interests of Germany and Europe” against the “corrupt goals of US policy,” to use of the words of the Left Party’s Oscar Lafontaine.

Yet Trump only appears on the surface to be the cause for the deepening of transatlantic tensions. This is shown by the latest sanctions against Russia, which were passed virtually unanimously by the Democrats and Republicans in the face of initial opposition from Trump. The real cause is the irresolvable contradiction between private property relations and the nation state, on which capitalism rests, and the world economy and the globalised character of production. As in the last century, the tensions among the major imperialist powers arising from this threaten once again to provoke a world war.

In this, German imperialism is no less aggressive than its American counterpart. Zypries argument that the US sanctions are “patently in violation of international law” and penalising German companies is pure hypocrisy. In reality, Germany and the EU use the same methods against non-EU companies which fall foul of sanctions imposed by them. For example, firms involved in Iran’s nuclear programme are excluded from the European market.

Germany is seeking to dominate Europe so as to strengthen its position vis-à-vis the United States. On the issue of US sanctions against Russia, Berlin calculates that it has a good chance of winning many European countries to its side, because almost all major European energy firms are involved in joint projects with Russia worth billions in investments and profits.

Along with Russia’s Gazprom, participants in Nord Stream II include Germany’s Wintershall and Uniper, Austria’s OMV, France’s Engie, and British-Dutch Shell. Italy’s ENI operates the blue Stream pipeline with Gazprom and Turkey’s BOTAŞ, which runs from Russia through the Black Sea to Turkey. Britain’s BP has also agreed a joint project with Gazprom to supply 20 billion cubic metres of gas annually.

But several European countries are strongly opposed to the Nord Stream pipeline project. This is particularly the case in the Baltic states, Poland and Ukraine, which fear that a German-Russian alliance would be at their expense. This poses a dilemma for Berlin, since Eastern Europe is significant to Germany both as a source of low-wage labor and for geostrategic reasons.

The US sanctions drive and the danger of war

Alex Lantier

Moscow’s expulsion of 750 American diplomats and contractors after the US Congress passed a bill imposing economic sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea marks a historical watershed. The neo-colonial wars launched by the United States and its imperialist allies in the last quarter century are producing a generalized breakdown of international trade and diplomatic relations, posing the danger of war between the major nuclear-armed powers.

The overwhelming passage of the Russian sanctions bill, with which the US Congress committed Trump to blocking Russian trade with Europe, staggered the Kremlin. Hoping for improved relations under Trump, Russia did not retaliate for Obama’s expulsion of Russian diplomats last year, after Washington issued unfounded declarations that Russia “hacked” the US elections. In the half year since Trump's inauguration, however, the faction of the US ruling class demanding a confrontation with Russia has emerged as dominant in the media and state apparatus.

The bill, passed over protests from Germany and France, will also escalate tensions between Washington and its supposed NATO allies in Europe. Yesterday, US officials confirmed that the Pentagon is reviving plans, abandoned in 2015, to arm the far-right Ukrainian regime that emerged from the fascist-led coup in 2014. The aid would include anti-tank missiles and other lethal weaponry.

As a result, Moscow is planning for an extended armed stand-off with Washington, placing the military situation in Europe on a hair trigger. “We waited quite a long time for something to maybe change,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address this weekend. “But all things considered, if it changes, it won’t be anytime soon.”

As it threatens Russia, Washington is simultaneously escalating its campaign against China. After Friday’s missile test by North Korea, which potentially put US cities including Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago in range of North Korean nuclear weapons, US officials confirmed that they are considering economic sanctions on China. “I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea,” Trump wrote in two Twitter posts. “We will no longer allow this to continue.”

After last week’s statement in Australia by US Admiral Scott Swift that he would follow orders from Trump to launch nuclear strikes on China, the Wall Street Journal posted a comment titled “The Regime Change Solution in North Korea,” advocating a pro-US military coup in Pyongyang.

There is a political logic to this relentless intensification of commercial, diplomatic and military tensions between the major powers. It cannot continue very long without exploding into war.

The media is attempting to downplay the danger in the face of growing popular concern. “Sanctions are often controversial,” the New York Times wrote of the Russia sanctions on July 27. “But they are a nonviolent tool—and in this case a timely and appropriate one—for making clear when another country’s behavior has crossed a line and for applying pressure that could make its leaders reconsider course.”

Who does the Times think it is kidding? In the last quarter century since the Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the Soviet Union, sanctions were directed at countries—often allied to Russia or China—like Iraq, Yugoslavia, Iran and North Korea, each of which Washington or the entire NATO alliance targeted for war or regime-change. Today, however, sanctions are being directly aimed at major, nuclear-armed powers central to the world capitalist economy.

The last time Washington sought to arm the far-right Kiev regime, in 2015, Berlin and Paris cut across the US initiative and negotiated a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev. Before the talks, then-French President François Hollande warned of the danger of “total war,” that is, of nuclear war, between NATO and Russia. As Washington prepares a new escalation, all-out war is doubtless again being actively discussed in chancelleries, foreign offices and military headquarters worldwide, behind the backs of the world’s people.

The election of Trump was not the cause, but a symptom of a broad collapse of the imperialist system that threatens the world with catastrophe. The US sanctions bill against Russia has overwhelming bipartisan support, led by the Democratic Party. Great-power rivalries, including between the United States and its European imperialist allies, are rooted in objective conflicts lodged in the structure of world capitalism that twice in the previous century erupted into world war.

As the major powers fight over strategic positions and trillions of dollars in trade, it is ever clearer that the contradictions of capitalism identified by the great Marxists of the 20th century as the causes of war and social revolution—the contradiction between global economy and the nation-state system, and between socialized production and private appropriation of profit—are still operative today.

The key political question is the formation of a mass, anti-war and socialist movement of the international working class. A situation in which workers allow themselves to be swept behind the contending capitalist factions can lead only to disaster. While US imperialism’s attempts to assert its rapidly-collapsing global hegemony most immediately raise the threat of war, its European imperialist rivals and the reactionary post-Soviet capitalist oligarchies in Russia and China are no less bankrupt.

Washington’s policy against Russia and China will doubtless accelerate ongoing moves by the European powers, led by Germany, to pour tens of billions of euros into their military forces and set up military machines “independent from,” that is, potentially hostile to, Washington. This imperialist policy, carried out in the profit interests of the European banks and corporations and financed by attacks on European workers, goes hand-in-hand with the rise of nationalistic and far-right political forces across the continent.

As for the Russian and Chinese oligarchies, they oscillate between attempts to work out a deal with the imperialist powers and to confront them militarily. This was graphically revealed by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s appearance on Sunday at a massive military parade at Zhurihe. “The world is not all at peace, and peace must be safeguarded,” Xi said, telling Chinese troops: “Always obey and follow the party. Go and fight wherever the party points.”

Should the Chinese Stalinist regime, or the Kremlin, opt for a military confrontation with Washington, this could very rapidly lead the world to a nuclear conflagration.

The most urgent task is to mobilize the sentiment against war and social inequality that is growing among the working class all over the world. As the International Committee of the Fourth International explained in its statement, “Socialism and the Fight Against War:”

* The struggle against war must be based on the working class, the great revolutionary force in society, uniting behind it all progressive elements in the population.

* The new anti-war movement must be anti-capitalist and socialist, since there can be no serious struggle against war except in the fight to end the dictatorship of finance capital and put an end to the economic system that is the fundamental cause of militarism and war.

* The new anti-war movement must therefore, of necessity, be completely and unequivocally independent of, and hostile to, all political parties and organizations of the capitalist class.

* The new anti-war movement must, above all, be international, mobilizing the vast power of the working class in a unified global struggle against imperialism.

Maldives president mobilises military and police against opposition MPs

Wasantha Rupasinghe

Maldives President Abdulla Yameen deployed Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) officers and police on July 24 to stop opposition MPs entering the parliament.

The unprecedented move was to prevent a no-confidence motion by the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) against parliamentary speaker Abdulla Maseeh Mohamed, an ally of the president. MDP chairman Hassan Latheef told Reuters: “We were dragged, pepper-sprayed, and tear-gassed by the police and brutally stopped from entering the parliament.”

Last Monday’s events are the latest chapter in the ongoing, and increasingly bitter faction fight within the country’s ruling elite. The Maldives, an archipelago of 1,192 islands with a population of just under 400,000, is strategically located astride major sea-lanes across the Indian Ocean.

The MDP-led opposition has been planning for months to oust the speaker. MDP leader and former president Mohammed Nasheed opposes Yameen’s close relations with China and has openly declared that he is ready to serve US and Indian geo-political interests in the region. Nasheed and his supporters want to remove a law that bans anyone convicted on so-called terrorism charges from running in presidential elections.

Yameen introduced this anti-democratic law in 2015 to sideline Nasheed, who was convicted of terrorism charges after ordering the arrest and detention of former chief justice Abdulla Mohamed in 2012. Nasheed was sentenced to 13 years’ jail but was later released under pressure from the US and Britain.

Last April, the MDP, together with Jamhooree Party, Adhaalath Party and supporters of former Maldives dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, attempted to remove the parliamentary speaker from the 85-member parliament. This failed after 10 MPs from Yameen’s Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) refused to support a no-confidence motion.

The pro-US Yameen-led opposition over the recent months, however, has secured support from 45 MPs, including PPM members, for another no-confidence resolution, which was scheduled for July 24.

Although Yameen failed to persuade the 10 PPM defectors to support this vote, he reportedly used other tactics. The Maldives police claim that opposition MP Faris Maumoon bribed some members of parliament to win their backing. He denied the allegation but was arrested and taken into custody on July 18. Another opposition supporter has also been accused of bribery.

Yameen has secured a Supreme Court ruling that any MP who changed their political party affiliations would be unseated. He claimed that four government MPs had lost their seats. The parliament secretary responded by declaring that the July 24 vote would not be allowed.

The MDP and its opposition allies attempted to hold protest rallies following last Monday’s police and military blockade of the parliament. On Wednesday night seven journalists from two television stations were arrested while covering a protest outside a MDP meeting in Malé, the national capital. The journalists were accused of obstructing police attempts to disperse an “unlawful gathering.” They were released later.

The Maldives is an important focal point in Washington’s “pivot” to the Indo-Pacific region to confront China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Malé in September 2014 during Yameen’s presidency. Yameen declared that the Maldives would join Xi’s Maritime Silk Route, a key element in China’s “One Belt and One Road” initiative. India, which is a key partner in the US military buildup against China, is hostile to Yameen’s relations with Beijing.

While MDP leader Nasheed was jailed on terrorism charges, the Maldives government, under pressure from the US and Britain, allowed him to leave the country under the pretext of taking medical treatments in London.

Nasheed, who has been in exile for the past two years, told the Indian Expresson July 21 that he would “terminate all the Chinese projects” if elected president in next year’s elections. “What is in Maldives’ interest very much depends on what is in India’s interest,” he said, adding, “If India feels that its security and safety is compromised in the Indian Ocean, and then we must be mindful of that.”

According to the Indian Express, Nasheed said that the Maldives “was in danger of becoming another Sri Lanka,” a reference to the Chinese infrastructure loans taken out by former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse. Nasheed accused Yameen of “selling Maldives’ national interest to the Chinese.”

US, British, German and French embassies and EU representatives covering the Maldives but located in Sri Lanka issued a joint statement last week opposing Yameen’s attempts to muzzle the opposition. It declared that it was “alarmed by the recent actions of the government of Maldives which seriously damage and undermines democracy” and the country’s “international human rights obligations.”

The statement also condemned the forcible closure of the parliament to opposition MPs and their harassment and arrest, and demanded that the parliamentarians be allowed “to conduct their rightful duties.”

The “concerns” of these imperialist powers about democratic rights in the Maldives are a fraud. All these powers, within their own countries and internationally, readily violate democratic rights and commit war crimes in pursuit of their economic and geopolitical interests. The increasingly violent political instability in the Maldives is a direct result of the US-led war drive against China.

Pakistan plunges deeper into crisis as prime minister ousted on corruption charges

Sampath Perera 

Nawaz Sharif stepped down as Pakistan’s prime minister Friday after the country’s highest court found him “not honest” in a corruption investigation and ordered his ouster.

Sharif is expected to ask the Supreme Court to review its verdict, but it is under no compulsion to do so. Meanwhile, the country’s ostensible anti-corruption watchdog, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), has been ordered by the court to file criminal charges against Sharif, several family members, and Sharif’s finance minister, Ishaq Dar.

In Friday’s ruling, the court also ordered that Dar, who had served as Sharif’s accountant, be expelled from parliament.

The political turmoil in Islamabad is taking place amid an escalating geo-political crisis. Washington, which over the past decade has made India its principal South Asia ally, is threatening to further downgrade its relations with Pakistan, even declare it a “terrorist state,” if it does not target the Haqqani network. India, seeking to exploit its new status as Major (US) Defense Partner, has, for its part, adopted an ever more belligerent stance against Pakistan. For the past 10 months, Indo-Pakistani relations have been on the boil with almost daily cross-border artillery barrages in disputed Kashmir.

Sharif’s disqualification from parliament, which made him constitutionally ineligible to be prime minister, was based on his failure to declare income from the United Arab Emirates-based Capital FZE, when he filed his nomination papers for the 2013 general election. However, the investigation into Sharif’s finances was triggered by the publication in April 2016 of the so-called Panama Papers, which exposed his family’s connections to offshore tax-havens.

Amid calls from the principal opposition parties for the next general election to be advanced from August 2018, Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain has summoned parliament into session today to elect an interim prime minister.

It goes without saying that Sharif, who began his political career in the 1980s as a protégé of the dictator General Zia-ul Haq, has exploited his political ties to expand the family fortune. Corruption is endemic in Pakistan’s ruling elite, including in the ranks of the military, which has directly ruled the country for almost half of its 70 years of existence. Yet the latter has repeatedly manipulated corruption charges to settle scores with rivals in the political elite and assert its authority.

The NAB was formed by military strongman General Pervez Musharraf to intimidate the politicians, shortly after he led a 1999 military coup that ousted Sharif in a previous term as Pakistan’s prime minister.

Sharif loyalists charge that the Supreme Court has shown a double standard in its treatment of the charges against the now defrocked prime minster and boss of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz). While the court has moved expeditiously in the Panama Paper case, it has let cases against other government officials and politicians languish for years.

There is no doubt the immediate beneficiary of Sharif’s ouster and the weakening of the PML (N) government is the military.

On assuming office in June 2013, Sharif sought to augment civilian control over the military. But the military, with tacit US support, successfully pushed back, maintaining effective control over the country’s foreign and national security policies and forcing Sharif to renounce his plans for a rapprochement with India.

Commenting on US “national security interests” in Pakistan, the New York Times said the current political crisis in Islamabad has “raised eyebrows at the State Department and the Pentagon, but little else.”

“The Pakistani military is largely viewed as the real source of power in Islamabad, and that is not going to change with a new prime minister,” said the Times.

Vikram J. Singh, a former US deputy assistant Secretary of Defence for South and Southeast Asia, told the Times, “[Sharif’s ouster] means even more power in the military’s hands because the military is truly the only institution in Pakistan that’s not in turmoil.”

Other press reports observe that the military’s hands are all over Friday’s court verdict.

The Supreme Court acted on evidence compiled by a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) it appointed last April, when it was split over whether there was enough evidence from the Panama Papers to disqualify Sharif. Extraordinarily, the court ordered that Military Intelligence and the notorious Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) agency each have a representative on the six-member JIT.

The JIT report found “significant disparity” in the Sharif family’s wealth and the declared sources of its income. The London-based Financial Times says the outcome of the JIT investigation “is believed to have relied heavily on military intelligence gathering.”

The campaign against Sharif over the Panama Papers has been led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), which some accuse of acting as a stalking horse for the military.

The PTI refused to accept the results of the 2013 election, claiming that Sharif and his PML (N) had engaged in ballot-rigging. In August 2014, PTI supporters occupied central Islamabad, provoking a political crisis that the military-intelligence apparatus, at the very least, leveraged to win greater power. Soon after Sharif greatly expanded the military’s reach. This included giving the military police powers where it had been deployed to fight “terrorism,” sanctioning secret military-run courts that can try civilians on “terrorism” charges, and lifting a moratorium on executions.

When the Panama Papers implicated Sharif family members, the PTI launched a similar campaign. But it failed to gain traction after the government declared the protests illegal. Khan than called off the agitation on the pretext that the Supreme Court would hear the case against the Sharifs.

Khan and sections of the Pakistani media are touting Friday’s court verdict as a victory for democracy. This is absurd. Democracy in Pakistan—a state founded on an expressly communal basis through the 1947 partition of the subcontinent—is a sham. While a tiny elite wallows in luxury, paying little or no taxes, the vast majority lives in poverty and squalor, with much of the state budget squandered on the military and the Pakistani elite’s reactionary strategic rivalry with India.

Sharif’s removal conforms to the rule. No elected Pakistani prime minister has ever served a full five-year term without a military coup or the judiciary intervening to oust them from office.

During Sharif’s years in office, the military has expanded its “anti-terrorism” operations to virtually the entire country. Paramilitary Rangers occupy the country’s largest city, Karachi. In Balochistan the military has been waging a counterinsurgency war against ethno-nationalist separatists for over a decade. In 2014, after Sharif repudiated his “peace” overtures to the Pakistani Taliban, the military launched a scorched-earth offensive in North Waziristan which has since been expanded into other tribal areas. In March 2016, when the military launched an “antiterrorism” offensive in Punjab, the powerbase of PML-N, overriding the opposition of the provincial government, Sharif meekly submitted, issuing a statement that claimed his government had given prior approval to the military’s actions.

According to the Justice Project Pakistan, which analysed the data of 465 prisoners sent to the gallows since December 2014, executions are being “used as a political tool” and in cases that have nothing to do with terrorism. In June, a man was given capital punishment by an anti-terrorism court under medieval blasphemy laws for a Facebook comment.

The “anti-terrorism” laws are frequently used against workers coming into struggle against the severe austerity policies that successive governments have implemented under the diktats of the International Monetary Fund. In one incident on July 22, 14 Pakistan Railway workers were arrested on government orders when train drivers launched a strike demanding a pay hike.

While the ruling elite is united in fleecing and repressing the working class and toilers, it is bitterly divided over which faction will control the state’s purse strings. A further source of conflict is the “pivot” in the country’s foreign policy. For decades the Pakistani elite was more than happy to serve as a satrap for US imperialism, but with the US now aligned with its arch-enemy India, Islamabad has tightened its military-security partnership with China. With Washington’s encouragement, some sections of the ruling elite are questioning this policy. At the same time, a bitter fight has erupted as to who will glean the profits from the $50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

The Supreme Court has ordered the NAB to file criminal charges within six weeks against Sharif, three of his six children, Dar, and others. A Supreme Court judge will oversee the entire proceeding until its completion.

Sharif is expected to elevate his brother and current Chief Minister of Punjab’s provincial government Shahbaz Sharif to head the government. However, he has to first win the by-election to be held for the National Assembly seat left vacant after Sharif’s disqualification. Until then, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, a close ally of Sharif, is expected to serve as interim prime minister.

At least for now, the PML-N is expected to be able to enforce its will in parliament using its majority. However, cracks in its ranks were exposed when Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan announced last Friday that he is quitting politics. Previously there had been suggestions Khan might step in as prime minister if Sharif was ousted.

Sharif’s favored political heir is said to be his daughter Maryam. But because of her deep embroilment in the corruption scandal, including the unexplained ownership of luxury flats in an exclusive London neighborhood, she has been effectively sidelined.

German politicians call for quicker deportations after attacks in Hamburg and Konstanz

Justus Leicht 

The blood of the victims in Hamburg and Konstanz has barely had time to dry and the background to both attacks remains unclear, but politicians from all of the major parties are already seeking to outdo each other with right-wing demagogy.

In the Hamburg district of Barmbek, Ahmad A., a 26-year-old Palestinian born in the United Arab Emirates, began stabbing the people around him without warning in a supermarket on Friday afternoon, killing one and injuring five before passers-by restrained him and he was detained by the police. He had travelled to Germany in 2015 and filed an application for asylum that was rejected. Since then, he has been legally obliged to leave the country.

Two days later, at 4:20 a.m. on Sunday morning, a 34-year-old Iraqi man armed with an automatic weapon managed to gain entry to “Grey,” a large nightclub in an industrial district of Konstanz. The Iraqi Kurd, whose asylum had been recognised, shot one of the security personnel and fired further shots at the entrance. Three guests and employees of the security firm were injured. Police commandos were rapidly on the scene and engaged him in a firefight, severely injuring him. He died in hospital.

Little is known thus far about both incidents, including what the motives were.

Ahmad A., after leaving behind the misery of the Palestinian occupied territories, reportedly endured a long odyssey: travelling through Egypt, Norway, Sweden and Spain. He was questioned last November by members of the Hamburg state intelligence agency because they had received information from the police that his behaviour had been flagged. According to police, religion allegedly suddenly began to play a major role in Ahmad A.’s life; he was citing Koran verses, no longer drinking alcohol and becoming withdrawn.

Such behaviour is now sufficient to be placed under suspicion by the police and intelligence agencies. The agents apparently concluded he was not dangerous, but rather mentally unstable and insecure. Although he stated he was religious, he was close to his father and feared returning to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

After the discussion, agents labelled him a suspected Islamist, but not a jihadi or “threat.” There have to date been no indications that he had ties to Islamic State (ISIS) or other Islamist groups. He took no legal action following the rejection of his asylum application and allegedly did not resist his departure, but complied the best he could. He wanted to return home to his father in Gaza and had repeatedly inquired if his travel documents were available.

Although the intelligence agencies recommended that Ahmad A. receive an assessment from social and psychiatric services, this never took place.

Ahmad A. lived in a container at an accommodation centre for refugees. His fellow residents told the media he “was strange in the head.” However, there is no evidence that the man, who has no criminal record, was ever given psychotherapeutic treatment.

Information available thus far suggests that the attack occurred as follows: The man bought items at the supermarket, left, returned shortly afterwards, seized a kitchen knife that was for sale, ripped it out of its packaging, and began attacking people indiscriminately, first in the supermarket, and then on the street outside. A 50-year-old man died and others were injured.

Passers-by armed themselves with chairs and anything else they could carry, and sought to detain the attacker. Someone allegedly spoke to Ahmad A. in Arabic, after he had shouted, “Allahu Akhbar,” and sought to reason with him, but without success. After continuing to stab people, he was injured by paving stones thrown at him and arrested by the police. He apparently described himself as a terrorist to the police. However, no organisation has yet claimed responsibility for his attack.

The facts known thus far at least suggest that a traumatised and fragile young person, who had experienced nothing but uncertainty and opposition from the states where he had found himself during his odyssey over recent years, and had been ignored by everybody apart from the police, intelligence agencies and officials who organised his deportation, simply snapped.

In the case of the Konstanz shooting, the attacker had lived in the area for 15 years. He reportedly always voiced criticism of ISIS on social media. His motives, as well as the events during the attack, are still under investigation. It was reported that the man moved among the violent circles of drug dealers and doormen.

Media reports said the attacker was the brother-in-law of the nightclub’s owner. Prior to the attack, he reportedly argued with workers in the club and subsequently left. Later, he returned with an M16 machine gun and shot one of the doormen.

While all indications in Konstanz point to gang crime and Ahmad A. appears to have been badly traumatised, politicians of the governing parties rushed to cynically exploit the attacks to argue for mass deportations and detention prior to deportation.

“The vicious circle of technical processes in deportations must be ended,” Christian Social Union General Secretary Andreas Scheuer told Bild am Sonntag. “If radicalisation is identified, we must take such people out of the line and detain them before they commit crimes.”

SPD politician Burkhard Lischka also raised the prospect of deportation detention for Ahmad A. “Even though the concrete circumstances remain unclear, the question of why the man was not in deportation detention is raised,” said Lischka to the Heilbronner Stimme. “Federal lawmakers expanded the possibilities for this just weeks ago.”

While this option is applicable to so-called “threats,” as elastic as this term is, the authorities did not even consider Ahmad A. to meet this definition. In addition, he apparently did not resist his deportation, but sought to leave Germany. Lischka apparently wants to put everyone legally obliged to leave the country in preventive detention.

Election of constituent assembly in Venezuela takes place amid intensified violence and US threats

Andrea Lobo 

President Nicolás Maduro and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) carried through the election of a 545-member constituent assembly yesterday by deploying 230,000 Bolivarian soldiers and militia reservists across the country amid widespread violence, the assassination of both pro- and anti-government supporters, and increased threats from the US.

Initial press reports show a low turnout, even in poorer neighborhoods less affected by protests that once were the PSUV government’s main base of support. A poll published by Datanálisis Friday showed that 75 percent of Venezuelans do not believe a new constitution is necessary, while over 80 percent oppose the Maduro administration.

The chief goal of the elections is to isolate and potentially dissolve the opposition-controlled congress. According to the pro-Maduro National Electoral Commission, the constituent assembly will have “total power to change any existing constitution and create a new legal order.” Once the results are made public, the new legislative body will assemble in the first week of August.

The prelude to Sunday’s vote involved four months of escalating efforts by the PSUV government and the US-backed, right-wing Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) to sideline each other and gain greater control over the state. The fight between the two sections of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie takes place in the face of immense social opposition among the working class and poor. Hunger, hyperinflation, and unemployment are widespread and most workers lack basic services. Both the PSUV and MUD fear a mass uprising that they will not be able to control.

The broad opposition against the government notwithstanding, the MUD has not gained any consistent support outside of upper middle class and student sectors due to its nakedly pro-imperialist and pro-corporate program. Since it gained a majority in Congress in 2015, it has appealed to sectors of the armed forces as well as Washington to undermine the Maduro government.

The MUD issued a call to boycott the elections, did not present any candidates, and called on its supporters to block streets and disrupt the vote. The Trump administration and other governments including Mexico, Colombia, and Panama have also announced that they will not recognize the assembly.

Hoping to install a government that will allow US corporations an unrestrained exploitation of Venezuela’s oil resources, which already account for 10 percent of US oil imports, Vice President Mike Pence called the far-right MUD leader Leopoldo Lopez Friday to promise “strong and swift economic actions” if Sunday’s vote went ahead. Sections of the US foreign policy establishment are demanding the Trump administration impose sanctions on Venezuelan oil exports.

European Union top diplomat Federica Mogherini called for “urgent measures” to restart dialogue with the opposition, warning that a Constituent Assembly could “polarize the conflict more and increase the danger of confrontation.”

On Sunday morning, the Venezuelan military launched a violent crackdown, mostly in the MUD-controlled areas of the country. The day started with 20 percent of electoral centers “inaccessible” due to opposition blockades, but ended with less than 5 percent, as the armed forces violently cleared roadblocks and occupied buildings.

The Maduro government gave the Bolivarian Armed Forces (FANB) operating control of the federal and municipal police starting on Thursday to oversee the electoral process and enforce a ban of “all meetings, public demonstrations, gatherings, and any act that can disrupt the elections.” Such measures and militarized deployments are aimed at intimidating all social opposition, including that of the working class, and disproves Maduro’s pledge that the constituent assembly will bring “peace and democracy.”

PSUV Vice President Diosdado Cabello, who traveled across the country to campaign, is expected to be elected as the president of the Constituent Assembly. An ex-captain of the Army, Cabello is a loyal member of the military leadership that brought Chávez into power and became part of the boliburguesía (Bolivarian bourgeoisie) that enriched itself tremendously through outright corruption and the administration of oil and infrastructure contracts. Cabello has insisted on a hardline program of “liquidating the enemy” and strengthening the power of the military.

The conflict between the two factions is reaching a breaking point. The opposition has sought to establish parallel governing structures, using the Congress to swear in a “shadow” 33-member Supreme Court in opposition to the Maduro government, which responded by arresting three of the magistrates. Moreover, the MUD mayor of the Iribarren municipality, Alfredo Ramos, was arrested Friday night by the Bolivarian Intelligence Agency SEBIN and sentenced by the Supreme Court to 15 months in jail after he allowed barricades to be set up in his jurisdiction.

On Sunday morning, PSUV leaders announced a “victory” against the attempts to undermine the elections. However, given the continued tensions and censorship by the mass Venezuelan media, Vice President Tareck El Aissami insisted that “we need to continue isolating these sectors of the opposition who have precluded any public debate.”

On Tuesday and Wednesday, a total of eight people died in clashes during a “48-hour general strike” supported by the MUD-aligned business chambers and trade unions. This was followed by “Takeover Venezuela” protests Friday and Saturday, limited to scattered roadblocks and described by the Spanish Público as there being “more photographers than those throwing rocks.”

Saturday night, PSUV constituent assembly candidate José Félix Pineda was shot and killed in his home, while the MUD claimed at least three of its supporters died during Sunday’s protests, including the youth secretary of the opposition Democratic Action (AD) party, Ricardo Campos. If confirmed, this would bring the number of dead in the wave of protests since April to over 115.

The reactionary character of the opposition was on display Monday in an interview on Venevisión where MUD leader Freddy Guevara was asked whether the current situation assimilated the 1958 Puntofijo pact in which the conflicting political parties representing the land oligarchy and the liberal bourgeoisie agreed to hold democratic elections. He replied: “There are some themes here that imply more the Chilean arrangement with what happened to Allende and Chile’s reconstruction afterwards.”

Guevara was referring to the September 11, 1973 coup organized by the CIA and military intelligence agencies in connivance with sectors of the military led by Allende’s commander of the armed forces, Augusto Pinochet. The fascist dictatorship which arose in the aftermath of the coup tortured and murdered tens of thousands of workers and carried out sweeping social attacks to impose privatizations and other free-market policies.

It is such a perspective that is in the mind of the ruling class sectors behind the MUD who are seeking to impose pro-imperialist policies under a US-backed, fascist dictatorship that quells all social opposition. On Saturday, Guevara announced: “Starting on Monday we will have new actions, tactics, and strategies to fit the new reality we will be living in.”

“We must re-affirm that we are in the last moments of this dictatorship,” he continued. However, reflecting the cynical psychology that dominates the MUD, he added, “We are going to get them out without turning into what they are.”