9 Apr 2018

Degeneracy And Fundamentalism Of Western Media Control

Andre Vltchek 

There is nothing sadder and more pathetic, than a notorious liar shouting, spitting saliva, insulting normal people left and right, while terrorizing those who are telling the truth.
Lately, the West has gone clearly berserk. The more it is scared of losing control over the brains of billions of people in all corners of the world, the more aggressively it is screaming, kicking and making a fool of itself.
It doesn’t even hide its intentions, anymore. The intentions are clear: to destroy all of its opponents, be they in Russia, China, Iran or in any other patriotic and independent-minded state. To silence all the media outlets that are speaking the truth; not the truth as it is defined in London, Washington, Paris or Berlin, but the truth as it is perceived in Moscow, Beijing, Caracas or Teheran; the truth that simply serves the people, not the fake, pseudo-truth fabricated in order to uphold the supremacy of the Western Empire.
Huge funds are now being allocated for the mortal propaganda onslaught, originating predominantly in both London and Washington. Millions of pounds and dollars have been allocated and spent, officially and openly, in order to ‘counter’ the voices of Russian, Chinese, Arab, Iranian and Latin American people; voices that are finally reaching ‘the Others’ -the desolate inhabitants of the ‘global south’, the dwellers of the colonies and neo-colonies; the modern-day slaves living in the ‘client’ states.
The mask is falling down and the gangrenous face of Western propaganda is being exposed. It is awful, frightening, but at least it is what it is, for everyone to see. No more suspense, no surprises. It is all suddenly out in the open. It is frightening but honest. This is our world. This is how low our humanity has sunk. This is the so-called world order, or more precisely, neo-colonialism.
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The West knows how to slaughter millions, and it knows how to manipulate masses. Its propaganda has always been tough (and repeated a thousand times, not unlike corporate advertisements or the WWII fascist indoctrination campaigns) when it originates in the United States, or brilliantly Machiavellian and lethally effective when coming from the United Kingdom. Let us never forget: the U.K. has been murdering and enslaving hundreds of millions of innocent and much more advanced human beings, for many long centuries and all over the world. Due to its talent in brainwashing and manipulating the masses, Great Britain has been getting away with countless genocides, robberies and even managing to convince the world that it should be respected and allowed to retain both a moral mandate and the seat at the U.N. Security Council.
The Western regime knows how to lie, shamelessly but professionally, and above all, perpetually. There are thousands of lies piling up on top of each other, delivered with perfect upper-class ‘educated’ accents: lies about Salisbury, about Communism, Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, South Africa, Libya, refugees. There are lies about the past, present and even about the future.
Nobody is laughing, seeing such imperialist thugs like the U.K. and France preaching, all over the world andwith straight face, about both freedom and human rights. Not laughing, yet. But many are slowly getting outraged.
People in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America are beginning to realize that they have been fooled, cheated, lied to; that the so called ‘education’ and ‘information’ coming from the West have been nothing else other than shameless indoctrination campaigns. For years I worked on all continents, compiling stories and testimonies about the crimes of imperialism, and about the awakening of the world, ‘summarized’ in my 840-page book: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire.
Millions can now see, for the first time, that media outlets such as BBC, DW, CNN, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, have been encoding them mercilessly and thoroughly, for years and decades. Reuters, AP, AFP and several other Western press agencies, have managed to create a uniformed narrative for the entire planet, with local newspapers everywhere in the world now publishing identical fabrications that originate from Washington, London, Paris and other Western capitals. Totally false pictures about such important subjects as the Soviet Union, Communism, China, but also freedom and democracy, have been engraved into billions of human brains.
The main reason for the opening of the eyes of people of the world which is still oppressed by Western imperialism, is, the relentless work of media outlets such as the Russian-based New Eastern Outlook (NEO), RT and Sputnik, as China-based CGTN, China Radio International and China Daily, Venezuela-based TeleSur, Lebanese Al-Mayadeen, and Iranian Press TV. Of course, there are many other proud and determined anti-imperialist media outlets in various parts of the world, but the above-mentioned ones are the most important vehicles of the counter-propaganda coming from the countries that fought for their freedom and simply refused to be conquered, colonized, prostituted and brainwashed by the West.
One mighty anti-imperialist coalition of truly independent states has been forming and solidifying. It is now inspiring billions of oppressed human beings everywhere on Earth, giving them hope, promising a better, optimistic and just future. Standing at the vanguard of many positive changes and expectations is the ‘new media’.
And the West is watching, horrified, desperate and increasingly vitriolic. It is willing to destroy, to kill and to crush, just in order to stop this wave of ‘dangerous optimism’ and strive for true independence and freedom.
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There are now constant attacks against the new media of the free world. In the West, RT is being threatened with expulsion, brilliant and increasingly popular New Eastern Outlook (NEO) came just recently under vicious cyber-attack from, most likely, professional Western hackers. TeleSur is periodically crippled by sanctions shamefully unleashed against Venezuela, and the same banditry is targeting Iranian Press TV.
You see, the West may be responsible for billions of ruined lives everywhere in the world, but it is still faces no sanctions, no punitive actions. While countries like Russia, Iran, China, Cuba, DPRK or Venezuela have to ‘face consequences’ mainly in the form of embargos, sanctions, propaganda, direct intimidation, even military bullying, simply for refusing to accept the insane Western global dictatorship, and for choosing their own form of the government and political as well as economic system.
The West simply doesn’t seem to be able to tolerate dissent. It requires full and unconditional obedience, an absolute submission. It acts as both religious fundamentalist and a global thug. And to make things worse, its citizens appear to be so programmed or so indifferent or both, that they are not capable of comprehending what their countries and their ‘culture’ are doing to the rest of the world.
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When being interviewed, I am often asked: “is the world facing real danger of WWIII?”
I always reply “yes”. It is because it appears that both North America and Europe are unable to stop forcing the world into obedience and to virtual slavery. They appear to be unwilling to accept any rational and democratic arrangement on our Planet. Would they sacrifice one, tens or hundreds of millions of human beings, just in order to retain control over the universe? Definitely they would! They already have, on several occasions, without thinking twice, with no regret and no mercy.
The gamble of the Western fundamentalists is that the rest of the world is so much more decent and much less brutal, that it could not stomach yet another war, another carnage, another bloodbath; that it rather surrenders, rather gives up all its dreams for a much better future, instead offightingand defending itself against what increasingly appears to be an inevitable Western military attack.
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Such calculations and ‘hopes’ of the Western fanatics are false. Countries that are now being confronted and intimidated are well aware what to expect if they give up and surrender to Western insanity and imperialist designs.
People know, they remember what it is like to be enslaved.
Russia under Yeltsin, collapsed, being plundered by Western corporations, being spat at, in the face, by the European and North American governments; its life expectancy dropped to sub-Saharan African levels.
China survived unimaginable agony of “humiliation period’, being ransacked, plundered and divided by French, British and the U.S. invaders.
Iran robbed of its legitimate and socialist government, having to live under a sadistic maniac, the Western puppet, the Shah.
The entire ‘Latin’ America, with its open veins, with ruined culture, with Western religion forced down its throat; with literally all democratically-elected socialist and Communist governments and leaders either overthrown, or directly murdered, or at least manipulated out of power by Washington and its lackeys.
North Korea, survivorof a beastly genocide against its civilians, committed by the U.S. and its allies in the so-called Korean War.
Vietnam and Laos, raped and humiliated by the French, and then bombed to the stone ages by the U.S. and its allies.
South Africa… East Timor… Cambodia…
There are living carcasses, decomposing horrid wrecks, left after the Western deadly ‘liberating’ embraces: Libya and Iraq, Afghanistan and Honduras, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to name just a few. These are serving as warnings to those who still have some illusions left about the Western ‘good will’ and spirit of justice!
Syria… Oh Syria! Just look what the West has done to a proud and beautiful country which refused to fall on its knees and lick Washington’s and London’s feet. But also, look how strong, how determined those who truly love their countrycan be. Against all odds, Syria stood up, it fought foreign-backed terrorists, and it won, surrounded and supported by the great internationalist coalition! The West thought it was triggering yet another Libyan scenario, but instead, it encountered an iron fist, nerves of steel, another Stalingrad. Fascism was identified, confronted and stopped. At an enormous cost, but stopped!
The entire Middle East is watching.
The entire world is watching.
People now see and they remember. They are beginning to remember clearly what happened to them. They are starting to understand. They are emboldened. They clearly comprehend that slavery is not the only way to live their lives.
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The Anti-Western or more precisely, anti-imperialist coalition is now solid likesteel. Because it is one great coalition of victims, of people who know what rapeis and what plunder is, and what thorough destructionis. They know precisely what is administered by the self-proclaimed champions of freedom and democracy – by the Western cultural and economic fundamentalism.
This coalition of independent and proud nations is here to protect itself, to protect each other, as well as the rest of the world.
It will never surrender, never back up. Because the people have spoken and they are sending clear messages to their leaders: “Never again! Do not capitulate. Do not yield to the Western intimidations. We will fight if attacked. And we will stand, proudly, on our own feet, no matter what, no matter what brutal force we have to face. Never on our knees, comrades! We will never again fall to our knees in front of those who are spreading terror!”
And the media in these wonderful countries that are resisting Western imperialism and terror is spreading countless optimistic and brave messages.
And the Western establishing is watching and shaking and soiling its pants.
It knows the end of its brutal rule over the world is approaching. It knows those days of impunity are ending. It knows the world will soon judge the West, for the centuries of crimes it has been committing against humanity.
It knows that the media war will be won by ‘us’, not by ‘them’.
The battlefield is being defined. With some bright exceptions, the Westerners and their media outlets are closing ranks, sticking to their masters. Like several other writers, I had been unceremoniously kicked out from Counterpunch, one ofthe increasingly anti-Communist, anti-Russian, anti-Syrian and anti-Chinese U.S.-based publications. From their point of view, I was writing for several ‘wrong’ publications. I am actually proud that they stopped publishing me. I am fine where I am: facing them, as I am facing other mass-circulation media outlets of the West.
The extent of Western ideological control of the world is degenerate, truly perverse. Its media and ‘educational’ outlets are fully at the service of the regime.
But the world is waking up and confronting this deadly cultural and political fundamentalism.
A great ideological battle is on. These are exciting, bright times. Nothing could be worse than slavery. Chains are being broken. From now on, there will be no impunity for those who have been torturing the world for centuries.
Their lies, as well as their armor, will be confronted and stopped!

ICC Warns Israeli Leaders Over Gaza Killings

Ali Abunimah

The International Criminal Court has issued an unprecedented warning that Israeli leaders may face trial for the killings of unarmed Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip.
“Since 30 March 2018, at least 27 Palestinians have been reportedly killed by the Israeli Defence Forces, with over a thousand more injured, many, as a result of shootings using live ammunition and rubber bullets,” Fatou Bensouda, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, stated on Sunday.
“Violence against civilians – in a situation such as the one prevailing in Gaza – could constitute crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, as could the use of civilian presence for the purpose of shielding military activities,” Bensouda said.
“Any person who incites or engages in acts of violence including by ordering, requesting, encouraging or contributing in any other manner to the commission of crimes within ICC’s jurisdiction is liable to prosecution before the court,” Bensouda added.
Bensouda’s reference to using civilians for “shielding military activities” appears to be a nod to Israel’s claims that the Great March of Return mass rallies organized by Palestinians over the last two Fridays along Gaza’s boundary with Israel are a Hamas ploy to shield “terrorist” activities.
However, as an investigation by Human Rights Watch determined, and observations by journalists have confirmed, there have been no such “military activities” by Palestinians taking part in the demonstrations.
The festival-like rallies have brought out tens of thousands demanding an end to Israel’s blockade of Gaza and the right of return for refugees.
No Israelis have been reported injured as a result of the Palestinian protests in Gaza.
But what is not in doubt is that Israeli leaders have ordered the targeting of unarmed civilian protesters in what Human Rights Watch termed “calculated” killings of people who posed no threat whatsoever.
Three of those slain have been children.
In advance of this Friday’s demonstrations, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem had warned soldiers that they would be committing crimes if they obeyed “patently illegal” orders to shoot unarmed civilians.
Israeli snipers stationed along the boundary with Gaza killed nine Palestinians on Friday.
Breaking ranks with the European Union, which is still refusing to condemn Israel’s actions, France on Saturday condemned Israel’s “indiscriminate fire” against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
But despite such warnings, Israeli leaders have refused to change their live-fire orders, and have repeatedly commended their soldiers for the bloodshed.
On Sunday, defense minister Avigdor Lieberman declared in effect that all two million of Gaza’s residents are legitimate targets, telling Israeli media that “in the march of terror there were no innocent civilians, they were all Hamas members.”
According to The Times of Israel, Lieberman “later clarified that his use of the Hebrew word tamim was intended to mean not ‘innocent,’ but ‘naive.’”
His walking back the comment is not surprising since such statements can be used as evidence of intent in any international criminal trial.
Lieberman had been slamming calls to investigate the killing of journalist Yaser Murtaja who was fatally shot while wearning a vest clearly marked with the word “Press” on Friday.
“We have seen dozens of cases of Hamas activists [who] were disguised as medics and journalists,” Lieberman claimed.
“We also saw a journalist approach the border and operate a drone, we do not take chances in those cases,” he added, an assertion which the Israel military has found no evidence to support.
At the rallies the week before Murtaja’s slaying, Israeli forces injured 10 journalists, including several with live ammunition, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Despite Lieberman’s objections, the Israeli army on Sunday named one of its own generals to investigate its actions that have led to the killings of Palestinians in Gaza, including of Murtaja.
But such military self-investigations have historically been nothing more than whitewashes that have served to bolster Israeli impunity and deter investigation by the ICC.
This is why the ICC prosecutor’s statement carries particular significance, since the international court is only mandated to step in when national judicial authorities are unwilling or unable to carry out genuine proceedings.
In her statement Sunday, Bensouda noted “the situation in Palestine is under preliminary examination by my office.” That is the procedure by which the prosecutor decides whether to open a formal investigation that could lead to indictments.
But the open-ended preliminary examination has been going on for years with Bensouda appearing to drag her feet.
In a case related to Israel’s 2010 attack on a flotilla to Gaza, Bensouda has acknowledged that Israeli forces likely committed war crimes in international waters, but she has nonetheless declined to open a formal investigation.
The lawyers for the families of those killed when Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara have accused Bensouda’s office of going “out of its way to sidestep having to launch any real investigation at the international level, knowing full well that the national [Israeli] authorities are not investigating these crimes.”
Since its founding, the ICC has lost much credibility because of its exclusive focus on prosecuting Africans, despite the fact that the 1998 Rome Statute mandates the court to “put an end to impunity” for the gravest crimes no matter where they are committed.
Palestinians are planning more mass rallies in Gaza in the weeks leading up to Nakba Day – the 15 May annual commemoration of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
It remains to be seen if Bensouda’s warning will deter Israeli leaders from further slaughter and if the court will finally move to end the impunity Israel has enjoyed for decades.

Swiss Mining Corporations in Flagrant Violation of Human Rights – Swiss Government Complicit

Peter Koenig

Peru, Espinar (Cusco Province), 4 April 2018 – Violent attacks have been carried out by the copper mining giant Glencore’s security forces and Glencore-contracted national police on defenseless women and even children, on the poorest of the poor segment of Peru’s population. Glencore, is a Swiss registered Anglo-Swiss mining corporation, exploiting mineral resources in developing countries around the globe, where they pay almost no taxes, as their profit center is in Switzerland, in Baar, Canton Zug, one of the Cantons, that has the lowest tax rates in Switzerland.
In addition, none of the socioenvironmental standards, to protect the environment and the local communities, are generally applied in developing countries. In the specific case of Peru, local laws are totally ignored. In fact, never mind Peruvian laws, they are like non-existent for the corporate world; they are simply bought. Never mind Glencore’s own “Due Diligence” rules, they are not respected in a country so corrupt, where laws, judges, lawyers, police, politicians – and even medical facilities are bought.
Above Espinar, on about 4,000 to 4,200 m elevation, Glencore operates open pit copper mining complexes, Tintaya and Antapaccay (“Antapaccay” was a Peruvian mining company bought by Glencore in 2013). The mine is also yielding gold (copper and gold usually go together), at the tune of some 221,000 tons of copper and 115,000 Troy ounces of gold per year (Troy ounce = 31.1 grams). Both figures are for 2016. To do so, Glencore moves some 80,000 to 100,000 tons of earth and rock per day.
An adjacent new mining area, Coroccohuayco, is being explored for continuous exploitation as the current mine is approaching its end. The capacity of this mining complex is estimated at 20 to 30 years, about two and a half generations of rural dwellers will be exposed to this horrendous Glencore atrocities and injustice, if nobody takes actions in their defense. Plus, after the mine is fully exploited, the miners usually packs up and leave – leaving an environmental disaster of poisoned soil and water – what’s left of it – behind. Restauration of such huge areas of mining ruins can take hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Glencore, with a total production of 1.23 million tons (2016) is the world’s third largest copper producer, employing some 55,000 people in 30 countries. According to MarketWatch, Glencore’s profit for 2017 registered a massive increase to $5.78 billion, from $1.38 billion in 2016 (compared to the Swiss food Giant, Nestlé, with CHF 8.3 billion, or US$ 8.6 billion, equivalent – 2017).
Glencore would have no shortfall of money to respect socioenvironmental laws, which includes compensating local communities for confiscated land and water, for avoiding deadly contamination of water and soil, spreading into human and animal bodies, causing countless deaths. They have plenty of means to take such protective measures. Butit’s obviously cheaper and less cumbersome to corrupt Peruvian authorities, so that nobody dares opening their mouth and speaking up in front of such abuse. Local authorities are all afraid or bought, or both.

Anti-mining riots in 2012, when the new pits “Antapaccay” opened, caused 3 deaths and more than 100 injured. The mayor, who supported the protesting campesinos was temporarily jailed. Peruvian central government authorities have taken full position in favor of the mining corporations; and this throughout the country, where similar disasters are repeated – no respect for local communities, force-expropriating them, poisoning their waters and soil with toxic heavy metals – mercury, cyanite, cadmium, arsenic and others, causing slowly countless deaths and destroying the landscape, water and soil.

Arriving in Espinar in the early morning hours of 4 April, we were hit by the news of violent physical aggressions having been perpetuated by Glencore’s security forces and hired national police, on destitute defenseless, unarmed women around noon the day before, 3 April. This happened when the men were out working either at the mine or in the fields, eking out a modest living for their families.
The mine is surrounded by some 6 mountain communities of an average of 1,200 people. None of them have running water or electricity. They are extremely poor and would fall way below the World Bank standard of extreme poverty (less than US$ 1 / day). The community that was attacked has a well and a close-by small river which the mine wants for refining purposes and for diversion to other mining communities where water had already been stolen. There was not even an attempt of negotiating compensations. A local leader, advised about the violence, reached the community towards the end of the assault and took video testimonies of the beaten women.
In an exercise of intimidation, the assault was executed by some 30 to 50 Glencore security forces and hired police. The police were equipped with government provided riot gear. They were beating down on the totally vulnerable women with their typical police batons. In one case, four men grabbing a 65-year-old woman, beating her almost to death. A bulldozer was ready to destroy their modest stone shacks. While one house was already destroyed about two weeks ago, thanks to the protesting women and the village men that eventually came to their rescue, it didn’t happen this time.
We met with activists, including the former mayor of Espinar. They all confirmed the Glencore assault. Then we went to the mining area, surrounded by small impoverished farmer communities. We met with the women who told us in tears what happened, showing their bruises all over their bodies – crying. The elderly 65-year-old woman was so badly beaten, she almost died. She was laying in herrickety stone hut that was earlier demolished and shakily rebuilt, moaning from pain, possibly with several broken ribs, no medication and no medical attention. Her situation is highly precarious. In addition to her state of health, her stone hut could collapse at any moment from the tremors of the daily mining explosions.
This bullying campaign is by no means new. It’s a common practice, as was confirmed by former mine workers and farm laborers of the area. Glencore wants to expropriate the peasants without compensation, because they want their water. Mining needs a huge amount of water to the detriment of the population – and Glencore doesn’t pay a penny for the water they consume and pollute with toxic heavy metals. Glencore doesn’t even offer the peasants alternative housing and living areas. – The women attempted to file complaints with the local police – but the police refused to even hear them. Of course, they are paid and fully under Glencore’s control.
Other leaders and activists told us about their health situation. How people die like flies from cancer around them and living in the vicinity of the mine – even if they are not directly working for the mine – water, earth and vapor contamination of the air they breathe, is so toxic, affecting every living being in the surrounding area, eventually dying a slow death.
Corruption is almost unimaginable. Glencore buys literally not only all police, lawyers, judges, politicians, but also medical doctors, clinics, laboratories in the vicinity. Two community inhabitantstold us how already three months ago they were giving blood and urine samples to be tested for heavy metals. The analysis results have not been returned yet – and will probably never be handed out to the victims, as they would reveal the heavy intoxication. One of them said under tears that he had lost one of his sons (31) to mine-induced cancer.
According to them, a similar fate afflicts a number of other inhabitants living in the zone. Some 1,200 victims suffer from various heavy-metal related diseases, mostly in their lungs and joints, extreme tiredness, memory loss and lack of concentration. Heavy metals accumulate in the body and are known to affect the nervous system. Several of the people interviewed said they and many of their neighbors and friends were resigned to simply die without any help.
Not only does Glencore not provide for medical assistance, but mine workers are hired from other regions of Peru.When they get sick, protest or die they are immediately ‘repatriated’ to their home region, so as not to cause havoc in the Espinar vicinity. Hence, it follows Glencore’s unethical logic: They pay doctors, clinics and labs not to reveal the level of toxins they discover in the victims’ bodies.

According to testimonies from several inhabitants of the region, including the ex-mayor of Espinar, mental retardation of children and other birth defects are increasing exponentially since Glencore first started operating in 2006 under Xstrata which later merged with Glencore.

The Swiss Government is fully aware of and consequently complicit with these corporate crimes. They know what is going on outside the Swiss borders – inside of which the same corporations would have to adhere to strict rules and follow the rule of law. About four years ago, a Swiss parliamentary delegation visited the Glencore site in Espinar. The visit was announced much in advance, so that Glencore had plenty of time to “clean up”, getting rid of potentially protesting voices. The delegation met with the then mayor, who worked in defense of the people and who gave the Swiss parliamentarians a dose of reality. Nevertheless, the delegation was wined and dined during two days by Glencore. The report back to Parliament was accordingly benign.
When recently approached on another case of flagrant mining abuse, including child work, prostitution and drug trafficking – in this case goldmining related to Metalor in Rinconada, near Puno, Peru – representatives of the Swiss Foreign Ministry’s Ethics Office simply said they had nothing to do with this case. Each one of these companies observed their “Due Diligence” and the government trusts them to adhere to their own standards. In case they wouldn’t, it was up to the host government where they work, i.e. Peru, to hold them responsible. Period.
That’s the noble stand of the Swiss authorities, who know very well that in Peru, like in many other countries where these Swiss-registered corporations operate, corruption is so rampant, that they buy themselves out of every crime, including homicide caused by intoxication of heavy metals from their mining operations. After all, Switzerland like other countries, have diplomatic representations in almost all countries, reporting back home on the state of their host country.
It is not widespread knowledge among the Swiss people, that the highest echelons of the Swiss Government meet regularly with CEOs of key corporations to discuss Switzerland’s future finance and economic policies. This may be common practice also in Germany, France and other EU countries – typical for neoliberal economies, that big business decide on the economic fate of the people.
Switzerland is the only OECD country where parliamentarians are allowed to sit in as many Boards of Directors of the business and finance sectors as they please. It is a virtually built-in lobby. This accepted inherent conflict of interest is diagonally opposed to the democratic principles of which Switzerland boasts itself as being a model.
Switzerland has long seized being the Switzerland where I was born. I feel deep pain for the peasant women living in the area of the Glencore exploited mine, the victims of Glencore’s abject and shameless human rights abuses, and for other sufferers of unethical corporate misconduct.

Bangladesh garment workers jailed on bogus attempted murder charges

Wimal Perera

Seven garment union officials and a number of workers are being framed up on “attempted murder” charges initiated by the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA). They have also been accused of vandalising office equipment.
At the request of police, a Dhaka court initially remanded the officials and workers on April 1. They are members of the Garment Workers Trade Union Centre (GWTUC), which is controlled by the Stalinist Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB).
On April 5, amid growing opposition by garment workers, the court granted the accused men three months’ bail, pending a hearing into the charges. According to media reports on Saturday, however, they remain in Dhaka Central prison.
Those jailed include GWTUC general secretary Joly Talukder, CPB central committee member Sadekur Rahman Shamim, K.M. Mintu, Manzur Moin, Jalal Hawlader, Lutfar Rahman Akash and Mohammad Shahjahan.
This persecution follows a series of provocations against workers at the Ashiana Garments plant, south of the capital Dhaka. The garment workers established a union branch at the plant last May and applied for official recognition. Bangladesh’s trade union registrar rejected the application.
On January 29, Ashiana workers protested over the dismissal of a fellow employee. Management then shut down the plant and summoned a group of GWTUC leaders and members to meet with police, company authorities and the Directorate of Inspection of Factories at the BGMEA’s offices.
The GWTUC told the media that union officials and workers waited inside the building but were told the meeting had been cancelled. Manzur Moin, one of the arrested officials, said Mansur Khaled, a senior BGMEA official, and others started attacking garment workers demonstrating outside the building.
“At least 25 to 30 people from BGMEA swooped on the labourers with sticks and rods and began beating them heavily,” Moin said. Several protestors were injured and BGMEA officials seized a rickshaw carrying workers’ banners and microphones.
The BGMEA made various false complaints to the police of violence and property damage by garment workers. Charges were laid against union officials and 150 members. Some of those named in the allegations were not even in Dhaka at the time.
On February 4, a Dhaka court granted eight weeks’ bail for those charged. When this expired on April 1, police remanded six union officials in order to interrogate them.
This is a joint conspiracy by the BGMEA and the police, backed by the Bangladesh government. Its aim is to intimidate the GWTUC and Ashiana workers, and the more than 4.5 million garment sector employees fighting against poverty-level wages and oppressive working conditions.
The attempted murder charges are similar to those involved in the prosecution and jailing of 13 workers from the Maruti Suzuki car assembly plant in Manesar, Haryana in India, including the entire leadership of the newly-established Maruti Suzuki Workers Union. They were sentenced to life in prison on frame-up murder charges in March 2017. Their only “crime” was to fight against the brutal exploitation at the plant.
In the context of the growing militancy of the international working class, the BGMEA, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed’s government and international retailers are acutely nervous about the eruption of major struggles.
Bangladesh garment workers have been fighting to have the poverty-level monthly wage ($US64) increased three-fold to 16,000 taka ($US192) to compensate for escalating price rises.
In December 2016, thousands of garment workers from about 20 factories in Ashulia industrial area, outside Dhaka, struck for a pay rise. The BGMEA closed about 60 factories in the area for several days and locked out thousands of workers. Thirty-four workers and union leaders were arrested on fabricated criminal charges in February 2017.
In an attempt to prevent further eruptions, the Bangladesh government, at the BGMEA’s request, established a panel to set a minimum monthly wage. The government will not declare a new wage structure until after the panel issues a report in the next six months. That means workers will not receive any wage increase for more than two years.
A. K. Azad, a panel member and former president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, bewailed the falling growth in the garment sector, from 14 percent in 2015 to 6 percent in 2016. “We will lag again if worker unrest occurs,” he declared.
While the garment sector in Bangladesh, the world’s second largest clothing exporter, accounts for around $28 billion in annual revenue, its workers are the lowest paid. According to recent Oxfam research, top fashion industry CEOs, on average, take home in just four days the lifetime income of a Bangladesh garment worker.
Giant retailers particularly in the US and Europe, such as Wal-Mart, H&M, C&A, Esprit, GAP and Li & Fung, earn huge profits by keeping these workers toiling under dire conditions. The brutal and life-threatening conditions were epitomised by the 2013 Rana Plaza multi-storey building collapse, which killed more than 1,000 workers and maimed thousands more, and in scores of factory fires across the country.
There has been a growing wave of strikes and protests among other workers in Bangladesh.
Hundreds of Dhaka Electric Supply Company workers demonstrated in Dhaka on February 18 for trade union rights and improved conditions. Hundreds of Community Health Care Providers Association members have staged hunger strikes since January 22, calling on the government to nationalise their companies and provide permanent employment.
At the end of January, about 500,000 teachers and employees from some 35,000 non-government secondary schools and colleges were involved in protests demanding the nationalisation of their institutions and permanent jobs.
While the Bangladesh unions, including the GWTUC, and the Stalinist CPB, have called protests over wages, working conditions and frame-ups of union members, they are promoting illusions that the government and companies can be pressured into granting concessions.
As typified by the attempted murder charges, however, the Hasina government’s response to the growth of working class opposition has been increased police repression.

India: Modi government accelerates anti-worker privatization drive

Kranti Kumara

As part of a renewed push for “investor-friendly reform,” India’s big business, Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is sharply accelerating its disinvestment drive—the partial or complete privatization of central government-owned enterprises.
According to the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, these enterprises, known as CPSEs or CPSUs (Central Public-Sector Enterprises or Undertakings), numbered 331 in 2017. They span most sectors of the economy, including railways, shipping, telecommunications, arms manufacturing, mining, banking, petrochemicals, airlines, and electricity generation and transmission.
In India, where working conditions as a rule are brutal and wages extremely low, CPSE jobs have traditionally been coveted as a source of relatively secure employment and better than average wages and working conditions. In a jobs competition that ended last month, more than 25 million people applied for 90,000 jobs, ranging from engine driver and carpenter to track inspector, on India’s state-run railways.
India’s ruling elite has been pursuing disinvestment for over a quarter-century, as part of its push to make India a cheap-labor haven for international capital. But the Narendra Modi-led BJP government has gone much further than its predecessors, including by targeting for privatization highly-profitable companies in what have previously been considered strategic sectors of the economy.
In this it has two long-term goals. One is to entirely eliminate CPSEs, so as to enable rapacious private investors and companies to gorge on enterprises that, although never run by or in the interests of the working class, are the product of the collective labour of generations of workers. The second is to progressively dismantle whatever social protections the CPSE provide against low-wages, mass-sackings and deleterious working conditions so as to further undermine the social position of the working class as a whole and thereby make India even more attractive to investors.
There is also a pressing short-term need for the government to raise revenue, in order to appease the international bond rating agencies, which have been pressing for India to lower its deficit to GDP ratio even while investing large sums in troubled state-owned banks.
The working conditions in CPSEs have been under concerted assault over the past two decades. Coal India Ltd. (CIL), from which the government has already sold off 20 percent ownership, is a case in point. It has announced that it plans to slash its workforce by 30 percent by 2020. This despite the fact that at least half of the 500,000 miners in CIL’s employ are contract workers whose wages, at a mere Rs. 8,500 (US $130) per month, are half those paid regular workers.
All sections of the political elite—including the Congress Party, which for the first four decades after independence championed state-led capitalist development—agree on the goal of wholesale CPSE privatization, claiming this will make India’s economy more “efficient.” By this they mean that it will unshackle management to squeeze greater profits from their workforces though an all-out assault on jobs, wages, benefits and working conditions.
When last in office (2004-14), the Congress Party implemented sweeping neo-liberal reforms, including privatization, but made a show of opposing the selling off of state-owned arm-manufacturers and the so-called “navratnas,” a handful of profitable CPSEs in strategic sectors like oil production and refining that it argued had the potential to be world-leaders.
Congress now has effectively dropped this stance, just it as has accommodated itself to Modi’s induction of India into an all but publicly proclaimed US-led anti-China alliance along with Japan and Australia.
The Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the smaller Communist Party of India (CPI) oppose privatization, but only from the standpoint of nationalism and an alternative strategy for the Indian bourgeoisie. They argue that retaining state-owned banks and other enterprises will strengthen Indian capitalism vis-a-vis imperialist finance capital and give the India ruling elite greater room to maneuver on the world stage.
In his February 1 “2018-19 Budget Speech”, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley proudly highlighted the fact that in the 2017-18 financial year, which ended March 31, government disinvestment receipts would exceed Rs.1 trillion (US $15.6 billion).
This was a considerable increase from the goal of Rs. 720 billion ($11.3 billion) he had set during last year’s budget speech.
Cumulatively, disinvestment receipts under the BJP government, which came to power in May 2014, amount to more than Rs. 2,3 trillion or more than $36 billion. And for the current financial year, Jaitley has set a disinvestment goal of Rs. 800 billion ($12.3 billion.)
The scale of the government’s privatization drive emerges when the cumulative disinvestment receipts of more than $36 billion are contrasted, as in the pie chart, below with the government’s 2017 valuation of its stake in all 331 CPS at Rs. 12,5 trillion or $195 billion.
In addition to reducing the budget deficit, the Modi government has used the disinvestment windfall to sharply increase military spending to almost $55 billion per year.
One of the major enterprises now in the Modi government’s crosshairs for privatization is Air India, the national carrier. Over the past fifteen years, successive governments, including those headed by the Congress Party, have essentially driven Air India into bankruptcy by starving it of funds while forcing it to order in 2005, 111 new planes at the cost of Rs. 700 billion or close to $16 billion at the then prevailing exchange rate.
For years Air India has been forced to borrow funds even for its day-to-day operations, resulting in a debt-load exceeding Rs. 500 billion (about $8 billion). According to an article on the corporate media website FirstPost, the airline sustains daily loss of Rs. 100 million ($1.5 million), while its daily interest obligation on its loans amounts to Rs. 165 million ($2.5 million).
Prior to auctioning off Air India later this year, the Modi government plans to transfer the company’s full debt burden onto the books of the Indian treasury thus effectively gifting private investors a vast fleet of aircraft debt-free. There is no doubt that the jobs, wages and working conditions of Air India’s 27,000 employees are under major threat.
The unions have responded with a half-hearted protest campaign. Other than verbal denunciations of the Modi government, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the trade union affiliate of the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist), has done nothing to oppose the Modi government’s plans to privatize Air India.
India’s public sector banks are also under the scanner for privatization. The government and corporate media have exploited recent scandals concerning politically-connected Indian billionaires and multi-millionaires getting additional credit even while not meeting payments on their existing debts to argue that the state-owned banks need to be put in “surer,” private hands.
In fact if India’s backs are riddled with “non-preforming assets,” i.e. loans in default, it is because BJP and Congress-led governments have pressed them to keep lending to India’s business houses to prop up a flagging economy. Now the BJP government intends to “socialize” these debts, making India’s workers and toilers pay through increased taxes and social-spending cuts for the cash infusions needed to strengthen the banks’ balance sheets and prepare them to be sold off to big business.
The rapacious big business interests animating the Modi government’s privatization drive are exemplified by its appointment of Reliance Mutual Exchange Traded Fund, an investment fund owned by the billionaire Anil Ambani, to serve as the “consultant” and “expert” overseeing the quick, partial or complete privatization of ten giant and highly profitable CPSEs, including Oil and Natural Gas Ltd. (ONGC), Gas Authority of India Ltd.(GAIL), Oil India Ltd., Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Coal India Limited, and Bharat Electronics Limited. Anil Ambani’s brother, Mukesh Ambani, is the richest person in Asia. The Ambani brothers were early enthusiasts for a government led by the Hindu “strongman” Modi, which they saw as an instrument for the Indian ruling elite to more aggressively pursue intensified exploitation of the working class and its predatory great-power ambitions on the world stage.

Isle of Wight Council continues to cut services

Paul Bond

Conservative-run Isle of Wight Council, which runs the largest and second-most populous island in England, has approved £7.5 million in cuts to services and a council tax rise of nearly 6 percent. The cuts follow reductions in government funding and will see a further erosion of social provision.
Attention has focused on cuts to the island’s health service, but every aspect of social provision on the island stands as an indictment of the capitalist system.
As an example, the council Cabinet approved, against the advice of its own Scrutiny Committee, that the most severely affected people living at home and in receipt of Attendance Allowance, Disability Living Allowance or Personal Independence Payments should pay more for their care charges in order to cover cuts of £678,700 from 2018/19. The council admitted that it had failed to make an almost identical agreed efficiency saving (£700,000) from its Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract with Island Roads for road maintenance.
This was immediately contradicted by the Council’s CEO, John Metcalfe, who said the saving had been made. It emerged that the £700,000 had been saved through individual management issues rather than as the rolling annual saving originally proposed, so further cuts will still be required.
PFI contracts place meeting the contractor’s financial servicing above any services or provisions they cover. The isle has two PFI agreements, the other being with Amey for waste management. Ahead of the budget negotiations, the chief proposal from the Independent group of councillors, the largest opposition grouping, was just to refinance the roads PFI loan to reduce interest payments. The Council’s budget, according to Leader Dave Stewart, involved “‘smoothing out’ our financial gap repayments,” increasing reserves and spending around £10 million on capital projects to encourage business rate income.
The Isle of Wight has a population of around 140,000. As a favoured retirement location its population is slightly older than the national average: 27.1 percent of the population are over 65, while only 14.7 percent of the population is under 15, compared with a national average of 17.5 percent.
The relative affluence of this inward migration disguises the levels of rural and coastal poverty. The End Child Poverty charity recently estimated that nearly a third of children (29.49 percent, more than 7,500 individuals) live in poverty after taking housing costs into account. In 2015, five Local Service Order Administration (LSOA) areas were in the 10 percent of most deprived areas in England, with another 19 in the top 20 percent. The island had no LSOAs within the 20 percent of least deprived areas.
The 2011 Census revealed a lower average standard of education across the island than nationally: higher than national average percentages of people with no or minimal qualifications, and lower than national average percentages of those with higher qualifications.
The one hospital, St Mary’s, coordinates with mainland hospitals. The island NHS Trust was placed in Special Measures in April last year, with all the signs of a service being systematically deprived of cash. Last June, St Mary’s was cancelling operations because it could not cope with patient numbers.
A year ago, the Council sought to offset its crisis in adult social care provision by appealing to the NHS Trust to continue paying into a joint fund. The Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said it was required to pass on funding allocated for social care, but where it had previously been able to supplement this it was now struggling with its own £12 million deficit.
Health and social provision is being subject to drastic cutting from both sides, with predictable results. Last December, only 38.89 percent of highest priority emergency ambulance calls arrived within the required eight minutes. The government’s target of 75 percent has been missed every month since last May. In December the British Medical Journal reported that cuts to the sexual health services were the worst in the country, with the budget having been slashed by 47.9 percent in the previous two years.
The CCG put forward five options for service “redesign”, ranging from no change—which was ruled out immediately—to cutting all local hospital services apart from Accident and Emergency (A&E) and Maternity. This scenario was clearly introduced to soften up public opinion for drastic cuts.
In February, the CCG agreed Option 4 of the Acute Services Redesign plan. This would see 89 percent of current activity retained on the island, but closer study points towards further erosion along the worst case lines. A&E would remain the same, but 20 percent of acute medicine would be transferred off the island, with 80 percent of critical care and 30 percent of emergency surgery. Elective surgery, trauma care and obstetrics would stand at 90 percent of current provision, but paediatric care would be reduced to a short stay assessment unit, effectively cutting the department by half and transferring all children requiring more than 24-hours’ care to the mainland.
The main purpose of the redesign was to save some £80.6 million over the next 30 years.
Stephen Parker, clinical lead for the redesign, said it would reduce “the number of times people are asked to travel to the mainland.” It was announced that a “seamless” transfer system would be developed.
This highlights the problem of transport off the island, which is provided by private ferry companies. Reducing the number of patient voyages will not make the situation easier for families visiting patients in hospital for any length of time.
Tory MP Bob Seely urged the government to grant Isle of Wight Council powers to force the ferry companies to provide a “public service.” He said that islanders spend some £100 million a year on what have been described as some of the most expensive ferry routes in the world.
The redesign proposal is due to go to public consultation later in the year but there is no reason to think this will make any difference. When the Scrutiny Committee voted 6-3 against increasing care charges, Cabinet member for Adult Social Care, Clare Mosdell, said she had threatened to resign over it but decided not to because of “all the hard work and good that I am doing” and the Council pressed ahead.
Cuts to the island’s fire service are also being discussed. It is proposed crew numbers be reduced from five to four, with a 15 percent reduction in firefighter numbers. The loss of eight permanent and five retained firefighters through non-replacement is based, as Spence Cave of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) put it, “on budget saving and not on risk.” In a letter to the Isle of Wight County Press Dave Hunt, brigade organiser of the FBU, warned that the cuts would limit “the actions the first crew can take to carry out rescues and tackle the fire until a second appliance arrives. This second appliance would NOT be guaranteed to arrive promptly, particularly at night when as few as four whole-time crew may be immediately available for the whole Island.”
The Council is presenting these cuts, like those to the NHS, as a service development, but it is now reneging on an initial pledge to put them to public consultation, probably fearing any adverse reactions.
An NHS protest march in February promoted Labour as the NHS’s saviours. At a rally after the march, Labour’s parliamentary spokesman Julian Critchley pointed to the fact that all of the “redesign” proposals were directed to cuts, and that this was national policy. However, the game was given away by Colleen Brannon of Ryde Labour Party. Noting the present government’s privatisation programme she also admitted the responsibility of the last Labour government in introducing such plans.
Brannon insisted that Labour was now “under new management.” The reality is that since coming to office she and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell have gone to great lengths to reassure the financial elite that they pose it no threat.