Disorderly Bangladesh: Is Anarchy Lurking Behind Extrajudicial Killings?

Taj Hashmi

Extrajudicial killings of dissidents and outlaws by states is as old as civilization. The recent world history is replete with such killings. As Hitler had his Waffen-SS and Gestapo, so had Mussolini his Blackshirts to do the job. In the recent past, the last Shah of Iran had his Savak, and the Pakistani occupation Army in Bangladesh had its al-Badr, al-Shams, and Razakars to abduct, torture, and kill their respective opponents. Various countries in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia – Indonesia and Cambodia in the recent past, and the Philippines under Marcos and the incumbent President Duterte – have had their death-squads, some state-sponsored, and some totally under non-state actors.

The main premise of this article goes beyond explaining the evil of state-sponsored extrajudicial killings in Bangladesh. This piece is about pointing out the inherent dangers lurking behind the so-called “effective” and “desirable” state-sponsored extrajudicial killing of people, including hardcore criminals. The whole thing invariably backfires, and the states that promote and nurture this barbaric method for the sake of restoring law and order become more disorderly than before; and even turn into failing states. Examples abound! Thanks to their nurturing state-sponsored terror, multiple countries have remained dysfunctional for decades. Extrajudicial killing by law-enforcers in the long-run turns members of the killing squads into the Frankenstein’s Monsters of the state, that promoted and nurtured them.

There is nothing new about state-sponsored death-squads in Bangladesh, especially since the Khaleda Zia Government formally introduced the dreaded Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in 2004, presumably to kill hardcore criminals; in violation of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Bangladesh Constitution. Since then, Bangladesh governments – elected and unelected ones – have never “looked back”! Although it is difficult to ascertain how many Bangladeshis – political activists, criminals, and innocent victims of personal vendetta – got killed in “crossfire” since the emergence of the RAB, one may estimate multiple thousands of people fell victims to extrajudicial, known and unknown killings. We must not impute the killings exclusively to RAB and police, but also to extortionists, drug dealers, and criminals having links with law-enforcers, local criminal gangs, and politicians (sometimes difficult to distinguish), international Mafia, and Islamist terrorist groups.

There is a slight difference between state-sponsored killing in Bangladesh and elsewhere. While the Filipino President Duterte, for example, publicly mentions his employing death-squads to kill drug-dealers – he even brags about his own role in killing drug-dealers by throwing them off flying helicopters – the Bangladesh Government has never confessed law-enforcers have ever done any extrajudicial killing since the inception of the RAB, and ever before. It has invented a laughable expression called “crossfire” or “gunfight”, as its fig leaf to hide its crime against humanity. It is similar to Indian government’s use of “encounter”, to narrate the unbelievable stories about law-enforcers’ armed encounters with criminals, which invariably result only in the deaths of criminals, not any law-enforcer. In short, “crossfire” has become a cruel joke in Bangladesh. So much so, that people and media use the expression in parentheses.

Then again, this does not mean that the so-called “crossfire” was always unpopular among large sections of the population when it was first introduced, with much fanfare in 2004. A large number of Bangladeshis – surprisingly many educated ones – welcomed the killing of hardcore criminals and extortionists like Kala Jahangir and Murgi Milon. So far so good! However, people’s acceptance of “crossfire” as legitimate means of eliminating hardcore criminals also indicates their lack of faith in politicians, judiciary, police, and bureaucracy. Unfortunately, the dire consequences of extrajudicial killings hardly ever dawn on the supporters of “crossfire”, until their own people fall victims to such killings.

The brouhaha following the latest killing of Akramul Haque, a local ruling party activist at Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar District, by RAB on 27thMay, is noteworthy. The widow of the victim publicized the audio tape of her telephone conversation with her late husband moments before his killing (recorded by a device on her phone) [“Murder it was”, Daily Star, June 1, 2018]. I cite another example of coldblooded murder of an alleged drug dealer by police just to underscore one thing: the ongoing “anti-drug operation” is a fabrication, nothing more than red herrings to divert people’s attention from multiple real issues, socio-economic and political. According to a media report, the police killed the wrong person, while the actual criminal had been in prison on multiple charges, including drug trafficking and murder [“Cops took my husband from home the day before”, Daily Star, June 3, 2018]. International media and human rights activists also consider the whole operation and extrajudicial killings unwarranted and politically motivated.

Interestingly, only after a ruling party activist got killed in “crossfire”, party leaders, including the Home Minister, and Awami League General Secretary, have started registering their concern at the methods of the killing process. However, they did not question the legitimacy of extrajudicial killing. The Home Minister said a magistrate would investigate the killing to take necessary action against the killers, and the General Secretary felt “one or two mistakes might take place in big operations like the anti-drug drive”. Meanwhile, in two weeks since the Government started its war against drug-lords and peddlers on 15thMay,the RAB, police, and presumably their civilian associates have killed 130 people in the most controversial and unacceptable manner.

By 2ndJune, the RAB and police have arrested more than 15,000 people in their so-called anti-drug operation. While very well-known, politically influential drug lords have remained unscathed, or have managed to flee the country, ordinary people are being “crossfired” in the most unacceptable manner. It is noteworthy that some leading media outlets and the Transparency International of Bangladesh (TIB) have demanded judicial probe into the killings, and some lawmakers have also asked for caution in drives against drug-dealers in the country [New Age, June 1 & 2, 2018]. Meanwhile, cross sections of Bangladeshis, including human rights activists, pro-Government intellectuals, and ruling party leaders have started questioning the methods of such killings. Some of them have even questioned the legitimacy of extrajudicial killing. However, too little, too late!

There are several examples of law-enforcers’ and soldiers’ turning into indiscriminate killers in Bangladesh. Two heads of state, multiple politicians, thousands of civilians, hundreds of military officers and troops have already fell victims to organized or disorganized death squads since Liberation. Fifty-seven army officers, including a major-general, got killed at the hands of their own troops (of the now defunct Bangladesh Rifles or BDR) on 25th/26thFebruary of 2009 alone.

In the backdrop of the almost uninterrupted process of extrajudicial killings in Bangladesh since 2004, I am afraid, the promoters and mentors of these killing squads are simply playing with fire. They do not know where they are pushing the country into! If the ongoing extrajudicial killing process of actual drug dealers, suspects, and totally innocent people goes on for an indefinite period, the country would definitely head toward disaster, possibly toward a long-drawn period of anarchy. Since the absence of law amounts to anarchy, the expression “extrajudicial killing” is self-explanatory indeed!

As terror begets terror, so individuals and groups in the fringe also make a foray out of ideological or purely criminal motivations. The upshot is the emergence of multiple autonomous and unrestrained non-state terror outfits or death-squads from among the disgruntled people to fight each other and extort and kill civilians. In the long-run, they even pose an existential threat to the state itself. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and Syria fall in this category of states. Bangladesh has lessons to learn from the examples of countries that became dysfunctional due to extrajudicial killings by law-enforcers, which eventually led to the mushroom growth of privately run death-squads.

It is sad but true, sections of the state-sponsored killing squads in Bangladesh have already gone out of control and working as mercenaries of various underground groups linked with international terrorist groups, drug Mafia, and criminal networks. International and social media networks, from time to time, provide documentary evidences of non-state killer gangs killing of unarmed civilians in Bangladesh with active support from RAB troops and officers. On several occasions RAB officers are directly involved in killing and extortion of civilians. The infamous Seven Murder Case at Narayanganj was one of them. In 2014, twenty-seven RAB troops, including three officers, were involved in the abduction and killing at Narayanganj [“Narayanganj seven-murder verdict due Jan 16” Dhaka Tribune, 30 November 2016].

The binary between state- and non-state actors in selective and indiscriminate killing is intricate. State-sponsored ones have the potential to become non-state death-squads or terrorist-insurgent outfits, which often vie for controlling or even capturing state machinery. The Afghan Taliban is a glaring example in this regard. Both state- and non-state death-squads or terror outfits have three-pronged agendas a) to intimidate their rivals (state machinery and people at large); b) to overpower them or neutralize them; and c) to extort and plunder from public and private sectors. Both of these killing squads could either be ideology-driven or extortion and plunder are their main motivations. While the state-actors are under the control of civil and military authorities of the state, non-state actors are autonomous and unrestrained, hence more dangerous and least predictable. Last but not least, as mentioned above, state-sponsored terror and extrajudicial killings lead to non-state death-squads, who often collaborate with local and international crime syndicates, drug Mafia, and terrorist networks.

Australia: Private health giant Healthscope axes 400 jobs

Margaret Rees 

Healthscope, which owns 45 hospitals in Australia and runs pathology operations in New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore, suddenly last month announced the closure of two hospitals in the state of Victoria at the cost of more than 400 jobs.

The 107-bed Geelong Private Hospital, with 293 staff and the 60-bed Cotham Private Hospital in the Melbourne suburb of Kew with 124 staff, are to close in a month. Healthscope is engaged in asset stripping, as part of financial moves and counter moves on the stock market.

Healthscope claimed a review found its hospital portfolio in Victoria had “underperformed relative to the rest of the group.” It recorded a $68 million impairment regarding Frankston Private Hospital, also in Melbourne.

“We conducted an exhaustive evaluation of alternatives but unfortunately it is simply not viable to continue operations into the future,” chief executive Gordon Ballantyne stated.

Healthscope said it would contact patients currently at the hospitals or with future treatment planned, to try to ensure their care is not affected.

In reality, the company’s operations show little regard for clinical care. A Cotham Hospital nurse told World Socialist Web Site: “It’s a convenient hospital for local people and the elderly—it means they don’t have to go into the city. But millions need to be spent on the place. The lifts need totally replacing. Everything has been done on the cheap. They have only just put in a call bell system, even though it had been needed for years.”

With a state election due in November, the Victorian Labor government announced it would open 117 jobs in Barwon Health, Geelong’s public hospital system, to ameliorate the job losses at Geelong Private Hospital. One of the government’s concern is the political fallout in Geelong, a city hard hit by the closure of the Ford car plant and other job losses in recent years. It is also intent on preventing any fight erupting among workers against the closures.

To head off opposition, Health Minister Jill Hennessy said jobs would be available for Geelong Private Hospital workers, including in nursing, allied health, administration and patient services, as Barwon Health services were set to grow.

Hennessy met with the Geelong staff on May 25, telling them: “We believe we are going to be able to generate about 117 jobs at Barwon Health and make sure that we’re giving preference to those that are affected by the Healthscope decision.” She praised them as “supremely qualified and valuable professionals,” and claimed that the other job losses would be absorbed in the western suburbs of Melbourne.

The next day, state Premier Daniel Andrews announced a $10 million feasibility study for a women’s’ and children’s’ hospital, utilising the Geelong Private Hospital building. This is a blatant pre-election exercise, and commits the government to nothing.

While the closure announcement came as a shock to the hospital workers, the government would have known well in advance, as did the health trade unions.

Australian Nurses and Midwifery Federation (ANMF), which represents 3,000 Healthscope nurses, midwives and carers in Victoria, had warned in April that jobs would go at Healthscope hospitals. That was after an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio report named four Healthscope hospitals in Melbourne as potential sites for redundancies.

The ANMF held separate members meetings at Cotham and Geelong hospitals on May 23, saying that about 200 nurses were affected by the announced closure. The meetings were held to “discuss members’ concerns, options and to ensure they receive all of their entitlements, including redundancy provisions.”

ANMF secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said: “The closure of these health facilities and the loss of hundreds of jobs are incredibly distressing for our members and their families.”

However the union indicated no plans to hold a joint meeting of the affected staff at the two hospitals, or for a fight against the closures. Like the government, the union wants to block and wear down any resistance.

Similarly, Diane Asmar, secretary of the Health Services Union, covering the allied staff, said: “The sad thing is they neglected to realise the staff are their asset. The people who work hard and have dedicated so many years providing services for Healthscope.”

As Asmar’s choice of language reveals, the unions also regard the staff as a corporate asset, typifying the unions’ completely pro-business outlook.

Healthscope, Australia’s second biggest private hospital operator, with 18,000 employees, is divesting itself of the two hospitals in order to help secure a more favourable takeover bid.

Two conglomerates are vying to buy the company—Canadian giant Brookfield Asset Management, which made a $3.3 billion bid, and Australian private equity firm BGH Capital, which already has a 14 percent holding in Healthscope.

The latter firm includes Australian Super, a grouping of superannuation funds jointly run by union officials.

Health Minister Hennessy’s media statement on the closure of Geelong Private Hospital said: “It is closing its doors because it can no longer remain financially sustainable in a crowded market of three private hospitals.”

This is simply a rationalisation of the increasing privatisation of hospital care at the expense of the public hospital system, enforced by Labor and the unions.

The history of the two hospitals underlines this process. Cotham Private Hospital was built in 1970 by a consortium of doctors, with flats next door for doctors and the director of nursing. It has since been sold several times to corporate interests, with parts hived off as lucrative real estate. It has been whittled down deliberately in recent months to prepare for another sell off.

Geelong Private Hospital had its origins in the closure of the Baxter House maternity hospital, part of the public Geelong Hospital complex. Baxter House was closed in the late 1990s, along with 16 other public hospitals, as the then Liberal state government destroyed 13,500 health jobs.

The unions did nothing to oppose this offensive and Labor refused to reverse when it returned to government in Victoria. Geelong Private Hospital was set up using the empty Baxter House, on publicly-owned land.

Corporations such as Healthscope rake in hundreds of millions of dollars each year, profiting from people seeking adequate medical attention outside the badly underfunded public system. This year, the company’s projected hospital earnings were $340 to $350 million, marginally down from $359 million in 2017.

Despite protestations of concern for staff and patients by management, the government and the trade unions, it is the ruthless drive for profit on the money markets that dominates all their calculations.

Jordan’s prime minister resigns amid massive protests against IMF-dictated austerity

Jean Shaoul

Jordan’s Prime Minister Hani Mulki resigned yesterday following days of anti-government protests in Amman and other major cities. The protests were against a new law lowering the income tax threshold, a hike in the sales tax, and increases in the cost of fuel, electricity and water.

King Abdullah, the country’s real ruler, cancelled his planned overseas trip and appointed education minister Omar al-Razzaz, a former World Bank economist, in Mulki’s place. The king’s move follows the failure of his announcement last Friday suspending price increases until the end of the year—at a cost of $22.5 million—to assuage popular anger.

On Saturday, he called on parliament to lead a “comprehensive and reasonable national dialogue” on the new tax law, saying, “It would not be fair that the citizen alone bears the burden of financial reforms.”

Petra, one of Jordan’s news agencies, reported that legislators were set to ask Abdullah’s permission to hold an exceptional session to withdraw the changes.

Last Wednesday, 33 unions called a general strike of health care and public-sector workers—Abdullah’s key and very narrow social base—along with small towns, villages and tribal areas where the clans and indigenous minority East Bankers live. This was to protest legislative proposals aimed at increasing the proportion of income tax payers from 4.5 percent to 10 percent. The average wage, such as a teacher’s salary, is around $350 a month, or less than $5,000 a year.

This will hit families hard, because Jordan is a low-wage economy, where the median age is 22 years and it is the norm for young people to live at home with their parents until they can afford to marry. Many work at two or three jobs, if they can find them in a country with an official unemployment rate of 18 percent, a gross underestimate.

Corporation tax will rise from 35 to 40 percent. Manufacturers of food and other basic products will see their income tax rise from 24 percent to 30 percent. The new law will also criminalise tax violations, making them subject to prison terms and heavy fines.

This comes in the wake of January’s budget extending sales tax to a further 165 items, including basic products; increasing the price of fuel, electricity and water; raising tobacco tax; and increasing the cost of public transport by 9 percent.

The price of fuel has risen five times since January, while electricity bills, already phenomenally high, have risen 55 percent since February.

The removal of flour subsidies means that the price of a kilo of white bread has doubled from $0.22 to $0.45, while the price of smaller flat bread has increased by more than 67 percent.

Amman, where one-third of Jordanians live, is one of the most expensive capitals in the Arab world. Such is the hardship that there has reportedly been a 20 percent slump in sales during Ramadan, a period of peak retail demand.

These measures were the latest in a series of economic reforms following a $723 million three-year loan from the International Monetary Fund in 2016, aimed at reducing Jordan’s $40 billion public debt from about 94 percent of GDP to 77 percent by 2021.

Tens of thousands demonstrated across the country on Thursday and Friday. On Friday evening, protesters gathered outside Mulki’s office calling for the fall of the government. On Saturday, despite Abdullah’s announcement suspending price increases for fuel, electricity and water, some 200,000 took to the streets of Jordan’s towns and cities.

Social network sites were full of slogans such as “don’t touch my salary,” “a government of thieves” and “don’t steal our rights.” Strikers chanted, “We are here until we bring the downfall of the bill ... This government is shameful” and “Our demands are legitimate. No, no to corruption.”

Three thousand demonstrators protested outside Mulki’s office on Saturday shouting, “Mulki should leave.”

Protests are ongoing, with a one-day general strike called for Wednesday.

The king is putting pressure on the US and his traditional supporters in the Gulf, whose funding has dried up over the last two years, to come up with the cash to prop up his tottering regime. Carved out of part of the Palestine governorate of Greater Syria, part of the former Ottoman Empire, by Britain in the aftermath of World War I, Transjordan was never a viable state. After World War II, and particularly after 1957, Washington replaced London as Jordan’s underwriter in return for its services in policing US interests in the region, suppressing the Palestinians over whom King Hussein (Abdullah’s father) ruled in both Jordan and, until 1967, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Latterly, Jordan has provided a key staging post for US-backed operations against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.

It has become a holding pen for the region’s refugees—Palestinian, Iraqi and Syrian—created through wars in the geostrategic interests of the imperialist powers and their regional clients. As a result, Jordan’s population has soared from 5.5 million in 2003 to 9.9 million this year.

The Trump administration’s decision to cut its funding by £300 million to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has been catastrophic. With 2 million Palestinian refugees in massive refugee camps and in cities, their needs have now to be met from Jordan’s declining resources.

Jordan also has around 650,000 UN-registered Syrian refugees, of whom some 100,000 live in camps. Most live in the towns and cities, alongside nearly a million more unregistered refugees who seek work where they can. According to Jordanian officials, the government has spent $10 billion on the refugees, with little support from either its wealthy Arab neighbours or the major powers.

Around half of the Syrian refugees are children who should be attending school. To cope, many schools are operating a two-shift system, in the morning and afternoon.

The US signed an aid package for Jordan earlier this year for $1.275 billion a year beginning in the fiscal year 2018 and ending in 2022—a $275 million annual increase over the previous three years, but this only accounts for 10 percent of Jordan’s budget.

By far the major source of income is the Gulf. But the $3.6 billion from the Gulf Cooperation Council states came to an end 18 months ago, a major cause of the current economic crisis. The increasingly close alliance being forged between the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel against Iran has left Jordan out in the cold. At the same time, President Trump’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has undercut Amman’s role in Jerusalem, where Abdullah has guardianship of the al-Aqsa mosque compound, and inflamed tensions in the country, more than half of whose population is of Palestinian origin.

His visit to Riyadh in December to discuss the US embassy decision was fraught with tensions, leading to the Saudi authorities detaining a Jordanian-Palestinian businessman, Sabih al Masri, who heads the Arab Bank, Jordan’s leading financial firm. Relations soured further after Abdullah attended an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation meeting where the Jerusalem embassy issue was discussed, prompting Saudi Arabia to withhold a further $250 million in promised aid. Abdullah compounded his crime by shaking hands with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation summit in Istanbul two weeks ago.

In January, Abdullah reorganised the army, “retiring” three close relatives, including his brothers, from senior positions, amid rumours of a Saudi plot to unseat Abdullah— like the attempt to fashion a more pliant government in Lebanon via Saad Hariri’s forced resignation.

This is prompting speculation that to secure the kingdom’s survival Jordan may normalise relations with Syria, entertain closer relations with Tehran, ally itself with Qatar against Saudi Arabia’s embargo, refuse to accept Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and secure new patrons, such as Turkey.

Death toll rises as volcanic eruption buries entire towns in Guatemala

Andrea Lobo

The National Coordinator for the Reduction of Disasters (CONRED) of Guatemala confirmed that at least 62 people have died after a volcanic eruption Sunday created pyroclastic flows that wiped out entire communities.

The preliminary numbers include 300 injured, 2 million affected, and 3,300 evacuated, with about 1,000 in shelters. There is still an unknown number of missing, and the death toll is expected to rise dramatically.

On Sunday, a survivor leaving the “furnace” told El Periodico, “there are way too many buried, a multitude of dead, countless people are dead.”

On Sunday night, at a press conference with ministers and CONRED, President Jimmy Morales declared shamelessly: “Our budget does not allow us to allocate a cent to this emergency. I’m ashamed to say this again, but the Budget Act does not allow us to count a single cent for emergencies.” The Finance Ministry announced it could scrape together about $25 million.

Located 20 miles northwest of the capital, Guatemala City, and 12 miles from Antigua, the Fuego volcano, one of the most active in Central America, had long given repeated and increasingly alarming warnings, according to residents, but no evacuation orders were made in time.

This neglect has produced yet another devastating social crime by the capitalist ruling class. It is similar to those that led to 5,000 deaths in Puerto Rico from Hurricane María, the 370 dead from last year’s earthquake in Central Mexico, the Grenfell fire in London, the poisoning of children and workers in Flint, Michigan and virtually all the devastating and unnecessary mass deaths from natural disasters and “accidents” under capitalism.

In contrast to the criminal indifference and neglect of the government and the ruling class, the immediate aftermath of Fuego’s first eruption saw the mobilization of the population across Guatemala at collection points to send food, diapers, clothes, blankets and other aid, while local inhabitants have prepared meals for rescue teams. There have been breathtaking scenes of bravery by ill-equipped rescuers, including fire fighters, paramedics, rank-and-file military and police who decided among themselves to penetrate deeply into unstable and buried areas amid scorching temperatures, with several being injured and at least one losing his life, but helping evacuate hundreds more as pyroclastic flows continued.

The US Geological Survey indicates that these flows, composed of molten rock, mud and other volcanic materials, move at speeds faster than 50 mph, compared to running-pace lava flows. Temperatures can reach 700 degrees Celsius (1,300 degrees Fahrenheit), leaving low probabilities of survival for anyone caught unawares in a region where most people have no vehicles and the roads are in poor condition.

Dr. Matthew Watson, a volcanologist at the University of Bristol, who has studied the Fuego volcano for 20 years, told the Independent: “This volcano is surrounded by real rural poverty, and evacuation is typically done on foot or in vehicles that take a long time to get anywhere.”

Older residents in Alotenango accompanying the families of victims said to journalists that they had never witnessed a disaster of such magnitude, recalling that about 40 years ago an eruption also wiped out crops and towns, but the population was able to escape in time.

The first eruption happened at 11:00 a.m., a second one occurred at 4:00 p.m. and a third one at 8:00 a.m. on Monday. Almost immediately after the state’s volcanological institute, INSIVUMEH, had announced that the second eruption had ended, the third one began, forcing rescuers, journalists and more inhabitants to evacuate in panic. Rescuers and local reporters broke into tears after finding the charred bodies of entire families burned alive.

In the Chimaltenango Department to the north, at least six communities are still entirely cut off due to avalanches and a river that has overflowed its banks.

The column of ashes ascending from Fuego on Sunday reached about 8,000 feet above the peak of the volcano, which is 12,000 feet above sea level. Ash spread across the area, coating the capital, Guatemala City, Escuintla and Quetzaltenango, and reaching most of the country’s territory. The Aurora International airport in Guatemala City was forced to suspend operations. Adding to the anxiety, at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, a 5.2 magnitude tremor hit the Pacific coast, rocking the entire region around the volcano.

Several smaller but significant eruptions occurred last year, with the government’s CONRED limiting their warnings for tourists not to camp in the plateau area and for the leaders of communities to stay in contact with emergency agencies.

The INSIVUMEH had reported “strong explosions” in August and November 2017 that sent ashes to nearby towns, while eruptions had been getting stronger. On February 1 of this year, the largest explosion in six years led to the evacuation of 2,880 inhabitants, given lava and pyroclastic flows down the Seca, Cenizas, Las Lajas and Honda ravines, the same ones carrying the deadly flows on Sunday and Monday. The Las Lajas and Honda ravines are directed toward the east and southeast, where most residents were left trapped in the towns of San Miguel Los Lotes, El Rodeo and Escuintla.

As recently as May 5, more than 300 people were evacuated due to a smaller eruption. The Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program also reports large and recent explosions with pyroclastic flows down the same known ravines on May 17, April 14-17, April 7-10, February 27-28 and February 7-13.

In 2012, about 10,000 people were evacuated due to heightened activity in the volcano. Even though, as Dr. Watson notes, the last eruption had “gone up an order of magnitude in terms of scale,” and in spite of the large tourist sector and productive agriculture in the area, there was no justification for thousands of residents in the most vulnerable areas downstream of the known pyroclastic channels to not have been resettled.

The areas vulnerable to lava and pyroclastic flows, avalanches and floods are well known from decades of documentation. With the presence of 32 active volcanoes in the country, Guatemala’s preparations for these disasters, especially close to the largest cities, should include emergency agencies constantly on alert and fully equipped. This is far from the case.

The disaster caused by the Fuego volcano eruption is an extension of the social catastrophe that characterizes Guatemalan society. It is the most unequal country, in terms of the Gini index, in the most unequal region of the world. The last figures available for 2014 from the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean show that the official poverty rate stands at 60 percent, including 71 percent of the mostly indigenous rural population, while 23.4 percent live under conditions of extreme poverty. All of these figures have increased sharply since the 2008 global capitalist financial meltdown.

Access to health care, pensions and a livable income is denied to the vast majority of the population. In 2017, 111 children under the age of five died from starvation in Guatemala, while 46.5 percent of all infants suffer from chronic malnutrition. Meanwhile, Guatemala is expected to pay $1.8 billion in interest payments to bondholders this year, while the ministry of defense is asking for a $531 million budget. According to Oxfam, more than 260 people have more than $30 million in assets, while the Central American Institute for Fiscal Studies (ICEFI) calculates that the top 1 percent in the country hoards 42 percent of the national income.

Such inequality and desperate economic conditions are the product of more than a century of super-exploitation and domination by US imperialism. While workers and peasants have held mass mobilizations against rampant corruption in recent years, including those that resulted in the resignation and jailing of president Otto Pérez Molina in 2014, these social conditions and the intensifying exploitation of the working class persist, alongside official corruption and austerity, as the entire Guatemalan ruling class continues enriching itself and its financiers on Wall Street and the City of London.

The social resources were available to prevent the deaths, destruction and suffering produced by the Fuego volcano’s eruption, and the resources exist to help the survivors get on their feet, to improve the social infrastructure across the country and to satisfy the urgent social needs of the entire population, including quality housing, food, education, and health care.

The only way for the working class and the exploited masses in Guatemala to secure their social rights is by undertaking a struggle against capitalism, in unity with workers throughout the hemisphere and internationally, to expropriate the enormous wealth amassed by the ruling elite and the transnational corporations.

Washington considers direct intervention in siege of Yemeni port city

Bill Van Auken

In what would constitute a major escalation of the US role in the near-genocidal war waged over the last three years by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) against Yemen, US officials were in discussions yesterday on the Pentagon taking a direct role in the siege of the country’s Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.

Saudi and UAE-led forces came within 10 km of Hodeidah on Monday, having pushed north up Yemen’s western coast with the aid of relentless air strikes against Houthi rebel forces, which control the city as well as the country’s northwestern provinces, including the capital of Sana’a, which is 230 miles to the north.

The Wall Street Journal Monday cited US officials reporting that “The Trump administration is weighing an appeal from the United Arab Emirates for direct US support to seize Yemen’s main port. ...”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a strong proponent of global US military intervention, has asked American officials to come up with a “quick assessment” of the prospects for a direct US military role in the siege of Hodeidah.

The Journal report cited one official raising doubts that the US-backed forces “would be able to do it cleanly and avoid a catastrophic incident.” Another senior American official, however, told the Journal: “We have folks who are frustrated and ready to say: ‘Let’s do this. We’ve been flirting with this for a long time. Something needs to change the dynamic, and if we help the Emiratis do it better, this could be good.’ ”

A battle for control of Hodeidah poses a direct threat to the city’s civilian population of 400,000, with the potential of a Saudi blitzkrieg combined with a direct US intervention recreating the kind of mass slaughter unleashed by the Pentagon in Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria.

More broadly, such a siege threatens the lives of millions of Yemenis in the Houthi-controlled highlands, for whom Hodeidah is the sole aid lifeline in a country historically reliant on imports for 90 percent of its food.

Even before taking into account the catastrophic impact of closing down this port, the chief aid official at the United Nations, Mark Lowcock, warned last week that by the end of this year, another 10 million Yemenis will join the 8.4 million who are already on the brink of starvation in what the UN has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Hundreds of foreign aid workers have reportedly evacuated the city, and it was reported on Monday that a UN aid vessel came under direct attack by Saudi warplanes. The city is already under bombardment from both the air and the sea.

“Thousands of civilians are fleeing from the outskirts of Hodeidah which is now a battle zone,” Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Reuters. “We cannot have war in Hodeidah, it would be like war in Rotterdam or Antwerp, these are comparable cities in Europe.” He added that such a war would mean “nothing coming through” in terms of food and other aid for the country’s starving population.

It was reported Monday that a UN mediator, Martin Griffiths, had arrived in Sana’a to present a proposal for a Houthi withdrawal from Hodeidah and the placing of the port under UN supervision. It was not clear, however, whether either the Houthi-led administration or the Saudi and UAE-led forces would adhere to such a settlement.

The Saudi-led “coalition” wants to secure its grip over Hodeidah in order to starve into submission the entire population in the areas under Houthi control.

Sharpening the tensions and creating the conditions for even greater slaughter, the Saudi and UAE monarchies are pursuing conflicting interests in their military interventions in Yemen, with Riyadh attempting to re-install the puppet government of Abd-Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, and the UAE supporting secessionists who are seeking to revive the former state of South Yemen.

Saudi Arabia launched the war in March 2015, carrying out relentless airstrikes ever since that have devastated civilian neighborhoods, vital infrastructure, factories and even farms. Mass civilian casualties have resulted from the bombing of funerals and weddings, with the death toll from these attacks now over 13,000, with many more dying from hunger and disease. More than 2,200 people have lost their lives to a cholera epidemic that has infected 1.1 million people, while the country has seen its first outbreak of diphtheria since 1982

From the beginning of the Saudi onslaught, the Obama administration provided indispensable US military support, selling Saudi Arabia and the UAE bombs (including outlawed cluster munitions) and warplanes used to strike Yemen, providing mid-air refueling to Saudi jets to assure continuous bombardment, and setting up a joint US-Saudi command to render logistical aid, including intelligence used in selecting targets. At the same time, US special forces units and armed drones have been deployed in Yemen for assassination missions against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The Trump administration has escalated US involvement, with not only massive new arms sales to the Saudi monarchy, but also the deployment of US special operations troops to fight directly alongside Saudi forces. Revealed a month ago, this deployment was carried out behind the backs of the American people and without informing Congress, much less gaining its authorization. While explained as a mission to protect Saudi Arabia’s borders with Yemen, the purpose of the US troop deployment appears to be far broader.

Driving the US toward increasingly direct intervention in a war that has pitted the obscenely rich oil monarchies of the Persian Gulf against the poorest nation in the Arab world is the broader strategy elaborated by the Trump administration in preparation for a military confrontation with Iran.

The US and its allies have cast the war in Yemen as a so-called proxy conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, with Washington making unsubstantiated allegations that Iran has supplied the Houthi rebels with arms. The reality is that both Washington and Riyadh see the domination of Yemen by any government that is not a US-Saudi puppet regime as an unacceptable threat.

The discussions in Washington on an escalation of direct US intervention in Yemen are unfolding in the context of the sharp ratcheting up of US sanctions and threats against Iran following President Trump’s unilateral May 8 withdrawal from the nuclear agreement reached in 2015 between Iran and the so-called P5+1—the US, UK, France, Germany, China and Russia.

A more direct US military intervention in Yemen may prove the stepping stone to a region-wide war aimed against Iran and at the securing of US imperialism’s unfettered control over the energy-rich and strategically vital Middle East.

Papua New Guinea government plans to block access to Facebook

John Braddock

The Papua New Guinea (PNG) government declared on May 29 it will ban Facebook use for a month to give authorities time to analyse the social network for “fake” profiles and “illegal” usage.

Communications Minister Sam Basil told the PNG Post-Courier: “The time will allow information to be collected to identify users that hide behind fake accounts, users that upload pornographic images, users that post false and misleading information on Facebook to be filtered and removed.”

A start date is yet to be announced. Basil later told parliament he disputed the newspaper’s report about an impending ban. He said the government’s official position would be made known after studies into “the advantages and disadvantages of Facebook.” Nevertheless, Basil declared he was “not afraid to put an indefinite ban” on the networking site.

The Post-Courier defended its report. Meanwhile, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported on May 29 that the PNG government intends to use its investigation to work out how to apply a restrictive “cyber-crime law” to social media more widely.

The move coincides with a decision to disconnect mobile phone sim cards that are not registered to users with formal identification. Basil told the ABC the disconnection would stop people using telecommunications and social media anonymously, claiming false accounts are used to “spread fake news and rumours.”

Basil previously said US Senate hearings on Facebook and a class action lawsuit against Cambridge Analytica and other companies over misuse of data raised concerns “for Papua New Guinea citizens.” Last month he commissioned a study of Facebook’s “impact” and the security of users’ personal information. He claimed “a lot of people” are receiving “threats,” “fake news” and “defamatory statements” from unknown accounts.

The purported concern for ordinary citizens is bogus. Over the past two years, the unpopular government led by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has turned to increasingly authoritarian measures to suppress discontent among the working class and rural poor over austerity measures. Military-police operations have suppressed student protests and strikes. Soldiers have been deployed to break blockades of major gas projects in the Highlands by local landowners over a range of grievances.

Speaking to the ABC, Basil flatly denied that the Facebook ban was an attempt to restrict freedom of speech. However, he insisted that while politicians are legitimately open to criticism, “whenever there is criticism we must ensure that it is factual” and opponents “must have alternatives if they are criticising a government policy.”

Basil suggested the creation of a government-sponsored alternative to Facebook. “If there need be, then we can gather our local applications developers to create a site that is more conducive for Papua New Guineans to communicate within the country and abroad as well,” he told the Post-Courier.

Just under 10 percent of PNG’s eight million people have access to the Internet, one of the lowest rates in the world. Even so, Facebook has become a popular place to discuss politics, especially among young people. Many use the site to criticise the government and expose corruption. Tens of thousands have accessed World Socialist Web Site articles and hundreds follow the Socialist Equality Party (Australia) Facebook page.

Facebook, which has more than two billion users, is facing mounting pressure from governments globally. The Cambridge Analytica scandal has been used to intensify the push to censor the Internet and silence opposition to official politics.

In Indonesia, Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara last month issued Facebook with demands for information related to Cambridge Analytica and the security of users’ data. In Sri Lanka, authorities blocked access to 5.5 million Facebook accounts following incidents of communal violence in March, which the government claimed had been incited on social media. China and North Korea have enacted partial or total blocks of Facebook.

In response to Basil’s announcement, a Facebook spokesman said: “We have reached out to the Papua New Guinea government to understand their concerns.” This is a signal that the tech giant is ready to impose official demands and use the PNG ban to further its own program of Internet censorship.

The crackdown, which comes as PNG prepares to host the 2018 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders’ summit, has been met with a chorus of criticism. One person told the Post Courier it was “a total violation of civil rights” and an attempt to “gag people” during the APEC meetings. The PNG government intends to use the summit to promote more investment from multinational mining and other companies to exploit the country’s low-paid workforce.

Alarmed about the effects on business, Institute of National Affairs Director Paul Barker declared it a “travesty” to close down Facebook during APEC. He stated: “It would be both an attack on embracing technology, undermining the information era and mechanisms for accountability, but also damaging business and welfare.”

Activists and civil society groups spoke out. Transparency International chairman Lawrence Stephens said stopping Facebook for a month sounded “pretty authoritarian and pretty worrying.”

The most forceful criticism is coming from ordinary social media users. Jerry Kuri Mori wrote on May 29 in the “PNG Development Forum” Facebook group: “This government violates the very founding principles of our democracy which allows for the freedom of speech and expression … This is an illegitimate government who claims to represent the voices of our people and yet constantly violates the very democratic ideals of our national constitution.”

Abraham Ropa wrote on May 30 in the “PNG Anti-Corruption Movement” group: “Is [the ban] of fake accounts/user names and pornography or because people are revealing and publicising every truth about the corrupt deals about PNG government?”

In the group “PNG Happenings Today,” which has more than 136,000 members, Thomas Tom Kolye wrote on May 30: “1. What damage has Facebook made to PNG? 2. Is Facebook a threat to any human? PNG need improvement in Internet services and not [the] shutting down Facebook.”

Facebook expands censorship of news organizations with restrictions on political ads

Marcus Day

Facebook’s new measures restricting use of its advertising platform have begun to impact news and media organizations, according to a report published Friday by the Verge. The moves are the latest step in the company’s campaign to censor its platform under the bogus pretext of combating “Russian interference” and “fake news.”

Starting May 24, Facebook began requiring that anyone wishing to purchase a “political ad” must undergo an onerous authorization process, submitting images of a government-issued ID and verifying their address and Social Security number, among other requirements.

In addition to ads relating to elections, referenda, political parties or candidates for office, the social media company has designated 20 “issues of national importance” which fall under its new restrictions. The issues—abortion, budget, civil rights, crime, economy, education, energy, environment, foreign policy, government reform, guns, health, immigration, infrastructure, military, poverty, social security, taxes, terrorism, values—are so broadly defined as to include virtually all news or information of any significance.

In a May 24 blog post titled “Hard Questions: Why Doesn’t Facebook Just Ban Political Ads?”, Facebook Global Politics and Government Outreach Director Katie Harbath and Director of Public Policy Steve Satterfield wrote: “In the US, there aren’t laws or federal agencies that list specific issues that are subject to regulation. But to have a policy that our reviewers can enforce, they need a list explaining what’s OK and what’s not.”

CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a post the same day, again sought to justify the anti-democratic measures with the absurd and bogus claim that they were intended to prevent “anyone to do what the Russians did during the 2016 election.” In reality, Facebook, in collaboration with the US state and intelligence agencies and other major technology companies such as Google, has utilized trumped-up accusations of “Russian meddling” and “fake news” in the 2016 elections in order to initiate a vast campaign of censorship of the internet and social media.

One of many Orwellian ads by Facebook promoting its censorship measures

Facebook’s newest measures have already begun to negatively impact their primary target, i.e., left-wing and socialist organizations and viewpoints. As David Moore, the Socialist Equality Party’s candidate for US Senate in California, wrote on the World Socialist Web Site Friday, Facebook’s requirements have effectively blocked advertisements by both his campaign and that of SEP congressional candidate Kevin Mitchell in the week running up to the June 5 midterm elections.

Facebook’s anti-democratic measures throw “a lengthy and arbitrary procedure in front of the numerous smaller candidates running across the country, to the benefit of incumbents and other well-heeled candidates,” Moore noted.

Along with the suppression of candidates’ and political parties’ ability to disseminate information and advocate their views, Facebook’s new restrictions have broad and ominous implications for the press.

Facebook already announced at the beginning of 2018 that it was “deprioritizing” news and political content on users’ News Feeds. Just last Friday, the company revealed that it would also be removing its Trending news section, which has frequently featured viral videos or posts revealing brutality or murder by police. These announcements followed several years of moves by the company to restrict the “organic” (i.e., unpaid) reach of pages and content on its platform, compelling many smaller publishers and organizations to pay to use its advertising tools. Now, that avenue is also being closed off.

Facebook has stated that it plans to use a combination of both artificial intelligence and thousands of “content reviewers,” i.e., human censors, to determine whether or not an ad is political, reviewing not just the text of the ad, but also its image, who it targets and any external websites to which the ad links.

According to the Verge, which reviewed Facebook’s new archive of ads with political content, the new restrictions have already resulted in dozens of media organizations’ ads being blocked, including those—such as a story about a graduation speech—seemingly without political content. Other blocked posts shown in the archive reveal the more sinister character of the new policies, such as one by the History Channel television station attempting to advertise an article about the covert transportation of nuclear weapons around the US during the Cold War.

However, the archive would seem to underestimate the real number of unauthorized political posts censored so far, as it fails to list at least one ad by the WSWS blocked in the last week. On Thursday May 31 the WSWS posted its Perspective column “Five thousand deaths in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria” to its Facebook page and purchased an ad to show the post to residents in Puerto Rico. Later that day, Facebook responded that it had disapproved the ad because the WSWS Facebook page was “not authorized to run ads with political content.”

Facebook’s notification that it was blocking the ad featuring the May 31 WSWS Perspective

The far-reaching character of Facebook’s restrictions to advertising platform has provoked limited criticisms among sections of the media. News Media Alliance, a trade group representing 2,000 news organizations, including the New York Times and Washington Post, published an open letter on May 18, which, while praising Facebook for its supposed commitment to “transparency,” stated that the new measures threaten “to undermine [journalism’s] ability to play its critical role in society as the fourth estate.” At least one company, Vox Media, has subsequently stated that it will refuse to undergo the authorization process.

While Bloomberg has reported unease at Facebook over the criticisms of the media industry, the company has thus far publicly indicated that it will continue its present course, with Director of Product Management Rob Leathern stating, “Enforcement is never perfect at launch, but that’s why we have processes in place for people and advertisers to help us improve.”

Meanwhile, Facebook has used News Feed communications to aggressively encourage users to report unidentified political ads, with Leathern continuing, “The community can find and report ads that don’t have the label but should, and advertisers can appeal ads that are in the archive but shouldn’t be there.”

While there may be concern among sections of the media establishment over the immediate impact of Facebook’s changes on their ability to conduct their business, publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post and others are at the forefront of the campaign to censor the internet and limit the free exchange of information outside officially sanctioned channels.

Lies and contradictions pile up on Ukraine’s faked murder of Babchenko

Clara Weiss

Six days after the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) revealed that it had staged the supposed murder of the anti-Kremlin journalist Arkady Babchenko, the Ukrainian government continues to seek to exploit the case for the anti-Russia campaign even as contradictions and lies concerning the state operation pile up.

Last Tuesday, the Ukrainian and Western press was filled with media reports about the killing of Babchenko in Kiev. The journalist, who supported the US-backed far-right coup in Kiev in early 2014 and the war of the Kiev regime in eastern Ukraine against pro-Russian separatists, had fled Russia in early 2017 after receiving death threats.

Ukrainian officials and Western media outlets, including the New York Times, immediately rushed to blame the killing of Babchenko on Russia. Yet in a stunning turn of events on Wednesday, Babchenko and the head of the Ukrainian Secret Service held a press conference to announce that the murder had been staged in a “special operation” allegedly designed to disclose a murderous plot against Babchenko by the Russian secret service, the FSB.

At the press conference, Babchenko described how he had faked his fall, put on a T-shirt that had been shot through to show bullet wounds, and was then covered in pig’s blood. His wife found him lying on the floor and called the ambulance. He was pronounced dead in the ambulance and brought to a morgue where he started to watch news coverage of his alleged murder.

The story since presented by the SBU to justify the faked murder and describe the alleged Russian plot to kill Babchenko resembles a poorly written spy novel, filled with glaring inconsistencies and blatant lies.

Only two suspects have been identified by the SBU. Boris German is allegedly the man tasked by the Russian FSB to kill Babchenko. He is the executive director of the Ukrainian-German weapon manufacturer Schmeisser. There have been reports, but no official confirmation, that he was in fact working for Ukrainian counterintelligence.

The hit man allegedly hired by German is Oleksiy Tsimbalyuk, who had previously fought in the civil war in eastern Ukraine for the fascist Right Sector on the side of the Kiev regime. No explanation has been offered for why Tsimbalyuk, by all appearance an ardent Ukrainian nationalist and opponent of Russia who has described the killing of Russian soldiers as “an act of mercy,” decided to change sides to kill Babchenko.

The Ukrainian general prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, said that that the staging of the murder led to the disclosure by the suspect of a list of 30 names of journalists whom Russia planned to kill in Ukraine. This number has since been revised upward, to 47. German was supposedly also tasked to stockpile secret weapons caches throughout Ukraine. How all of these plots were connected and how they were to be executed by a handful of people has not been explained.

The SBU also published as proof of Russian involvement the “dossier” the Russian FSB had allegedly compiled on Babchenko for his “killer.” Yet, as the journal meduza has pointed out, almost the entire biography of Babchenko in the dossier was copied from Babchenko’s Wikipedia article, while all other information had been published by Babchenko himself on various social media platforms.

The dossier included no information about Babchenko’s phone number or address in Kiev, both of which would have been important for the “killer” and easy for any secret service to obtain. The only private information in the dossier was Babchenko’s registered Moscow address and his Russian identification and passport numbers, all of which could have been (and in all likelihood were) revealed by Babchenko to the SBU, but appear to be of no immediate use to a hired killer in Ukraine.

These contradictions are in addition to more minor lies in the Ukrainian government’s account. For instance, Babchenko, in a very dramatic gesture, apologized to his wife at the press conference last Wednesday for having made her believe that he was dead. Yet on Thursday it was revealed that his wife had been in on the plot.

The Ukrainian government has not revealed whether it was aware that the killing had been faked when it declared that Russia was to blame for Babchenko’s “murder.”

Babchenko and the Ukrainian government have staunchly defended the media hoax and continue to seek to use it to whip up the campaign against Russia.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko hailed the staged murder as a “brilliant operation” and said on Ukraine television, “The whole world saw the real face of our enemy… It is not Ukraine you should condemn, but Russia.”

He promised that Babchenko and his family would receive around-the-clock protection, arguing that “Moscow would hardly calm down“ and that the Ukrainian secret services were growing stronger in “fighting Russian aggression.“

The advisor to the Interior Ministry Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Facebook: “Even Sherlock Holmes successfully used the method of faking his own death to effectively investigate difficult and complicated crimes, however painful that may have been for his relatives and for Dr. Watson.”

Babchenko, who worked for the Russian army in both Chechen wars in the 1990s, posted a series of vulgar and aggressive comments on Facebook to denounce his critics. In one post, he pledged “to die at 96 while dancing on Putin’s grave.”

Responding to criticism in the British press, he wrote: “Dear British press, will you please go fuck yourselves. If you want to do something useful, you can give me a British passport and British sanctuary. Then you will have earned the right to lecture me on how I should save myself and my family. Fucking smart arses!”

He also wrote: “I wish all these moralisers could be in the same situation—let them show their adherence to the principles of their high morals and die proudly holding their heads high without misleading the media.”

Babchenko’s boss at the Crimean Tatar television network ATR, Ayder Muzhdabayev, described the journalist’s critics to Al Jazeera as “vermin.” Muzhdabayev had been the first to report on Babchenko’s alleged death last Tuesday.

Several pro-Western Russian journalists who are close to the liberal opposition have published op-eds defending Babchenko. However, a few voices also raised concerns.

An editorial by Pavel Kanygin in the pro-liberal Novaya Gazeta argued that Babchenko had “died as a journalist by breaking professional ethics and engaging in an unprecedented collaboration with secret services.” Another op-ed in the same newspaper ridiculed the operation as a “parody” on Soviet spy novels and films.

The Russian business daily Vedomosti, which is associated with the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, wrote in an editorial that the Babchenko operation had “blurred the border between truth and fiction” and would lead to more distrust in the media.

Similarly, numerous opinion pieces in Western outlets such as the Guardianand the German Spiegel, which have been heavily involved in the anti-Russia and anti-Putin campaign, raised concerns about the Babchenko operation and its consequences for the credibility of the media. The Guardian noted that “by faking Babchenko’s murder, Ukraine has smeared itself,” and that it had “handed Russia a massive propaganda victory.”

The New York Times ran an article on Sunday as an exercise in damage control that was headlined “Faked Killing of a Putin Critic Can’t Get Much Murkier. And Yet It Does.”

Numerous Western politicians, including German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, have also criticized how the Ukrainian government handled the case.

Their criticism of Babchenko and the Ukrainian government’s media hoax has nothing to do with concern for journalistic integrity or “truth.” Quite the contrary: it is motivated by a well justified fear that the crudity of this fraudulent propaganda operation will further discredit the anti-Russia campaign of the imperialist powers, in which the bulk of Western journalists and major bourgeois newspapers and media outlets are fully complicit.

Deep divisions over US trade policies at G7 finance ministers meeting

Nick Beams

In one of the most significant conflicts in the more than forty-year history of such multilateral meetings, finance ministers from six of the seven nations in the G7 joined together at the end of last week to issue a statement condemning the US for its trade policies.

The statement drawn up by Canada, which hosted and chaired the meeting, held in Whistler, British Colombia, sets the stage for an even bigger conflict when government leaders of the G7 meet in Charlevoix, Quebec on June 8–9.

Across the Pacific in Beijing, talks held over the weekend between US and Chinese officials over a program to increase US exports to China ended without any statement being issued by the two sides, as the deadline looms for the imposition of US tariffs on at least $50 billion worth of Chinese goods.

The Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua said there had been “positive, concrete” progress in some areas, but then made clear that the tariff threat was the key sticking point. “If the US rolls out trade measures including tariffs, all the agreements reached in the negotiations won’t take effect,” it said.

The statement from the G7, agreed to by Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Japan, pointed to the “negative impact of the unilateral trade actions of the United States.” This referred to Washington’s imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminium on “national security” grounds.

“Concerns were expressed that the tariffs imposed by the United States on its friends and allies, on the grounds of national security, undermine open trade and confidence in the global economy,” the statement said.

The aim had to be to restore “collaborative partnerships to promote, free, fair, predictable and mutually beneficial trade,” which had been put at risk by US actions against other G7 members.

In his remarks on the meeting, Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau said that “unfortunately the actions of the United States … risk undermining the very values that traditionally have bound us together.” Speaking to reporters, he added that there had been a consensus among the six that the Trump administration’s actions were “destructive to our ability to get things done,” and he asked US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to convey the “regret and disappointment” of the other six nations to President Trump.

Even before the message was delivered, Trump had given his reply via Twitter, saying the US “at long last must be treated fairly on trade.” He added, “If we charge a country zero to sell their goods, and they charge us 25, 50 or event 100 percent to sell ours, it is unfair and can no longer be tolerated. That is not free or fair trade, it is stupid trade.”

Speaking after the meeting, several finance ministers pointed to the unprecedented character of the division. Calling the US tariffs on steel and aluminium “deeply deplorable,” Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said, “I’ve been to these meetings for a long time. But this is a very rare case where opposition to the United States was unanimous.”

Aso said the G7 ought to be telling China to follow global rules, but “by taking measures that violate G7 and World Trade Organization rules, the United States is actually benefiting China. That’s wrong.”

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire referred to the “G6 plus one” and expressed “total incomprehension” over the US actions. He said the European Union was ready to proceed with retaliatory actions and Washington had only a few days to de-escalate the trade conflict.

According to one participant at the meeting, cited by Reuters, Le Maire directly asked Mnuchin, “How can you get China to respect international law if you don’t?”

German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz voiced the opposition of other members of the G7 to the decision of the US to pull out of the international nuclear agreement with Tehran and the threat by the US to impose sanctions on European countries that continue to trade with Iran. “There were several issues discussed at the G7 over which there was no agreement,” he told reporters. “That’s really quite unusual in the history of the G7.”

Mnuchin rejected claims that the US was circumventing international trade rules or abandoning the system of global economic relations it had built after World War II. In an expression of the “America First” agenda of the Trump administration, he directed attention to the handouts of hundreds of billions of dollars to US corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

“I don’t think in any way the US is abandoning its leadership in the global economy. Quite the contrary,” he declared. “I think that we’ve had a massive effort on tax reform in the United States which has had an incredible impact on the US economy.”

Seeking to push back against the isolation of the US within the G7, Mnuchin said there was support for Washington’s push against China over its alleged forced technology transfers and other policies. But in doing so, he made clear why there has been little or no progress on reaching an agreement with Beijing. Mnuchin said the talks, led Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, were not simply about the export of more US goods to the Chinese market.

“I want to be clear,” he said, “this isn’t just about buying more goods, this is about structural changes. But I also fundamentally believe that if there are structural changes that allow our companies to compete fairly, by definition that will deal with the trade deficit alone.”

But the “structural changes” the US is seeking to impose, with tariffs directed against goods manufactured under Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” program, amount to nothing less than the transformation of China into an economic semi-colony of the US.

Washington is demanding that China end state subsidies to key industries, which it says give them a major advantage in global markets, and that it cease efforts to develop high-tech industries, accusing China of stealing American intellectual property. The prevailing view in the military and intelligence establishment is that China’s efforts to outstrip the US in the high-tech sector constitutes a threat to the economic and military supremacy of the United States.

The intransigence of the US on this question was laid out in the broad demands presented to Beijing at the beginning of last month, which included the demand that China not “oppose, challenge, or otherwise retaliate against the United States’ imposition of sanctions on investments from China in sensitive US technology sectors or sectors critical to US national security.”

While there was no statement from either side on the weekend’s discussions in Beijing, it was widely reported that Chinese negotiators had stipulated that tariff threats had to be removed. According to one source cited by the Financial Times: “The Chinese are asking that the Trump administration publicly announce that they will not impose tariffs, and that’s a non-starter.”

Earlier comments by Mnuchin, following discussions in Washington, that tariffs had been put “on hold” were described by anti-China hawk Peter Navarro, the White House adviser on trade, as an “unfortunate sound bite” and were followed by the decision that the list of Chinese goods to be targeted would be finalised on June 15 and implemented “shortly” thereafter, and that there would be an announcement by June 30 on restrictions to be placed on Chinese investment.

Reflecting the increasingly besieged character of the Trump administration on trade, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow let fly with a disjointed and semi-coherent rant, blaming all and sundry for breaking trade rules “all over the place” and declaring that Trump was simply responding to decades of trade abuse.

“Don’t blame Trump,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “Blame China, blame Europe, blame NAFTA, blame those who don’t want reciprocal trading, tariffs rates and protectionism.”

With Kudlow regarded as heading up a quasi-free trade faction within the Trump administration, it is clear that the divisions exposed at the G7 finance ministers meeting are set to widen at the summit to be held on the weekend.