Thousands of refugees forced onto death march into Sahara desert

Bill Van Auken

More than 13,000 refugees and migrants, including pregnant women and children, have been force-marched into the Sahara desert by Algerian security forces over the past 14 months, where many of them have died from hunger and exposure.

The shocking revelation by the Associated Press was substantiated by videos showing hundreds of migrants stumbling through a sand storm and others being driven in massive convoys of overcrowded trucks to be dumped at Algeria’s southern border with Niger and forced into the desert at gunpoint.

As the AP itself makes clear, the murderous policy of the Algerian government is being carried out at the behest of the countries of the European Union, which have increasingly sought to induce North African regimes to act as their border guards, impeding the flow of migrants by means of intimidation, violence and death.

The refugees are being forced by Algerian security forces into the Sahara without food or water and, in many cases, after being robbed of their money and cellphones. They are pointed in the direction of the nearest settlement in Niger, over nine miles away, across empty sands where the temperature rises as high as 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

The migrants told AP of “being rounded up hundreds at a time, crammed into open trucks headed southward for six to eight hours to what is known as Point Zero, then dropped in the desert and pointed in the direction of Niger. They are told to walk, sometimes at gunpoint.”

Two dozen different migrants who survived the crossing told the news agency that in their groups a number were unable to go on and died in the desert. “Women were lying dead, men ... Other people got missing in the desert because they didn’t know the way,” said Janet Kamara of Liberia, who was pregnant when she was forced across the border. “Everybody was just on their own.”

Kamara’s baby died at birth and she was forced to bury him in a shallow grave in the desert. “I lost my son, my child,” she said.

While the world’s media has focused on the dangerous crossing from northern Africa to southern Europe having turned the Mediterranean into a watery graveyard for countless thousands, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), for every refugee who drowns in the sea, two more succumb to the relentless heat and harsh conditions of the Sahara. It estimates that the death toll in the desert exceeds 30,000 just since 2014.

The migrants expelled by Algeria come from countries throughout sub-Saharan Africa, including Niger, Mali, Gambia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Liberia and others.

“They come by the thousands ... I’ve never seen anything like it,” Alhoussan Adouwal, an IOM official in Assamaka, Niger told AP. “It’s a catastrophe.”

A spokesperson for the European Union told AP that the EU is aware of what Algeria is doing with refugees and migrants, but that its view is that “sovereign countries” can carry out such expulsions so long as they comply with international law.

The revelations about the horrors inflicted upon refugees in the Sahara desert come on the eve of a summit meeting of EU member states on Thursday to discuss the issue of immigration.

On the eve of the summit, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has been urging EU member states to put more money into an Africa trust fund with an eye toward financing the construction of “migrant screening” camps in North Africa. At the top of the EU summit agenda is expected to be a proposal for holding asylum seekers at such camps in countries that include Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Niger and Tunisia.

In the run-up to the summit, Matteo Salvini, the leader of the right-wing, anti-immigrant Lega party and Italy’s new interior minister, flew to Tripoli on Monday to praise the regime for its “excellent work” in “rescuing” nearly 1,000 people on Sunday after the Libyan Coast Guard intercepted them. The purpose of the coast guard, which is financed, trained and to some degree directed by Italy and other European powers, is not to rescue refugees trying to reach Europe, but rather to drag them back to Libya. There they face imprisonment in camps where torture and executions are commonplace and even being sold into slavery.

Salvini said that Italy would work with the UN-recognized regime, which controls little outside of Tripoli, to stop a “full-on invasion” of Libyan waters by aid groups seeking to rescue refugees at sea. He also called for migrant detention centers to be placed at Libya’s southern border in the Sahara desert.

Salvini has become infamous for refusing to allow rescue ships carrying refugees to dock at Italian ports. He ordered the Aquarius carrying over 600 refugees, including pregnant women and children, turned back earlier this month, forcing it to make a dangerous voyage to Spain. Presently, there are two ships in limbo in the Mediterranean carrying hundreds of refugees, a boat operated by German aid group Mission Lifeline with 234 aboard, and the Danish-flagged Alexander Maersk cargo ship with 100. In a statement laying bare the depth of the racism and reaction of the new Italian government, Salvini referred to the refugees as “human meat.”

Meanwhile the new PSOE government in Spain, which allowed the Aquarius to dock and condemned the Italian response, dispatched its own interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, to Morocco with much the same mission as Salvini’s in Libya, securing cooperation for immigrant detention camps.

Spain’s new development minister, Jose Luis Abalos, told Cadena Ser radio that, while Spain is taking “a respectful humanitarian approach” toward the refugees’ plight, it had no intention of becoming “Europe’s maritime rescue organization.”

Human rights groups have warned that refugees will be subject to abuse and denied asylum rights if kept in camps in Libya, Egypt and other North African countries with records of massive human rights abuses. EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, who is playing a central role in plans for setting up these centers, responded to these concerns last week, declaring, “I want to be very clear on that. I’m against a Guantanamo Bay for migrants.” He was referring to the Guantanamo Bay Naval base prison camp where those rounded up in the US “war on terror” were subjected to systematic torture.

In Europe, as in the US—where President Donald Trump has expressed his own desire to throw Central American refugees back into the desert without any asylum proceedings—the number of refugees and migrants has actually fallen steadily, even as the political hysteria whipped up by right-wing governments and politicians has sharply escalated.

According to the UN refugee agency, the number of migrants arriving in Europe is on track to reach just half the number for last year, and less than a quarter the number in 2016.

The “immigration crisis,” both in Europe and America, is a noxious political invention, aimed at dividing the working class and scapegoating the most oppressed layers of the population and the victims of imperialist war and oppression for the continuously worsening conditions created by capitalism.

Iran's Economic Losses and the Nuclear Deal

Shivani Singh


On 8 May 2018, lingering tension regarding the future of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) culminated in US President Donald Trump officially withdrawing from the deal. This exposes Iran to heavy US primary and secondary sanctions that can have a debilitating affect on its economy.

To prevent the deal from falling apart, the remaining signatories of the JCPOA - China, Russia, France, UK and Germany – have signalled their commitment to the provisions of the deal despite US’ withdrawal. However, continuing the trade flow between them and Iran will be tough given the extended reach of US sanctions, most of which are extra-territorial in nature. This article analyses the feasibility of the commitment, and whether it is really possible to compensate Iran for economic losses in the absence of US sanctions relief. 

US Secondary Sanctions: Consequences for European Partners
The re-imposition of US sanctions will bring back into place restrictions on commercial activities and associated services related to“shipping, shipbuilding, port transactions andsale, supply or transfer of goods and services in Iran’s automotive sector” along with a myriad of other constraints on Iran’s financial and energy sector. Since US trade with Iran itself is nominal, it is mainly the secondary sanctions (targeting foreign entities that are owned or controlled by the US or freezing the assets of those non-US persons who have business dealings with both Iran and the US) rather than primary sanctions that will have a severe affect on Iran’s economy. 

As the EU is Iran’s fifth largest trade partner accounting for 16.1 per cent of its trade and fulfilling most of Iran’s civil aviation needs, European companies are likely to bear the brunt of these secondary sanctions. The problem lies in the fact that majority of European companies with businesses in Iran also happen to be companies in which the US has a hefty stake, thus automatically exposing them directly to secondary sanctions. 

For example, the French multinational corporation, Airbus, which designs civil and military aeronautical products, has one of its main manufacturing and production facilities in the US. North America alone generates US$ 14.6 billion in revenue, accounting for almost 20 per cent of the company’s total revenues. Additionally, Airbus recently confirmed a US$ 50 billion order of supplying 430 aircraft to the US Pvt. Equity fund, Indigo Partners, in 2017. In light of the US$ 20 billion it might lose in its pending deals with Iran as a result of sanctions, in addition to preserving its long-standing relationship with the US, a valued industrial partner, Airbus’ decision seems preordained. 

Additionally, many European companies with businesses in Iran transact in US dollars. For instance, the French oil and gas company, Total, which has binding agreements to develop oil and gas fields in Iran, has 90 per cent of its financing operations managed by US banks. 30 per cent of its investors are US shareholders. Total has already announced its plans of terminating all business in Iran in order to avoid US secondary sanctions. 

Blocking Statue: A Way Out?
There are talks of invoking the ‘Blocking Statute’ to preserve the interests of European companies in Iran by banning them from complying with US sanctions. This will be supplemented with other EU measures like “promotion of government-financed trade with Iran, direct investment through the European Investment Bank (EIB), and bypassing US dollar by making special Euro-denominated oil and gas transactions with Iran’s Central Bank.”

Although it seems like a good solution on paper, its viability is debatable. European oil and gas giants like Total and British-Dutch Shell, French carmakers like Peugeot and Renault, and the German manufacturer, Siemens, will have to take a call between saving their business with a US$ 1.6 trillion economy like Iran with a GDP per capita income of not more than US $ 19,000, or tapping into and preserving its space in a US $20 trillion economy like the US. Moreover, the blocking statue in article 5(2) provides a special exemption to European companies to enable them to comply with the sanctions in order to preserve their interests. The statute does not really shield European companies from the losses they will incur as a result of severing ties with the US, hence putting the firms in a tough position. There are many other technicalities that can be problematic while assessing the impact of this statue. 

US sanctions provide businesses operating in Iran with a 60-120 day wind-up period and the strain on the European business sentiment is already starting to show with reports of the Danish shipping company Maersk and Peugeot owner PSA backing out of their joint ventures in Iran.

Chinese and Russian Support to Preserve the Deal
At this point, it seems highly unlikely that China or Russia will be able to cushion Iran’s economic losses. Even though China is Iran’s biggest trade partner and bilateral trade saw an increase of almost 24 per cent in 2017, trade with Iran accounted for only 1 per cent of China’s total foreign trade with other countries in 2017. Moreover, China’s trade with Iran is heavily oil-dominated, with China’s main item of import from Iran being only oil. 

Russia-Iran trade is mainly restricted to the energy sector. There are talks of Russia exploiting the civil aviation space by selling the Russian Sukhoi SuperJet-100 and Irkut MC-21 models as a substitute for Airbus and Boeing aircraft. However, many parts of these Russian models are US manufactured which can put such exports under the purview of US sanctions. These are also essentially short-range jets and there is no real substitute at the moment for Western long-range jets. Therefore, as of now, it seems highly unlikely that China and Russia will be able to meet the sector-specific losses to Iran.

If European companies with big businesses in Iran do in fact chose to opt out, Iran is likely to suffer trade losses to the tune of US$ 10.8 billion - the amount it gained from imports from the EU after lifting of sanctions in 2016. Given that Iran has made its intention of enriching Uranium public accompanied by a threat of pulling out of the NPT, the remaining signatories of the JCPOA will have to come up with a viable solution to compensate for Iranian losses, and fast. 

Egyptian Dictator el-Sisi intensifies state repression

Jean Shaoul 

Egypt’s military dictator President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi has tightened his grip on power, removing potential rivals from his inner circle, as his tyrannical regime intensifies the crackdown on dissent.

It follows el-Sisi’s second-term inauguration last month after March’s sham election banned candidates critical of the regime.

The moves are in preparation for further International Monetary Fund (IMF)-backed austerity measures aimed at enriching the military elite around him at the expense of Egypt’s impoverished working class and peasants who are seething with discontent.

Adding to the explosive situation is the internecine in-fighting between rival factions of the military and intelligence circles, which have increased their already dominant position in the economy and political apparatus.

El-Sisi appointed Mustafa Madbouly as prime minister and 12 other cronies to head government departments, including defence, interior, trade, finance and agriculture. He selected his close friend, Lieutenant General Mohamed Ahmed Zaki, the head of the elite Republic Guard, as defence minister. He replaces Sedki Sobhi, a former head of the Egyptian armed forces, who was perceived as a potential rival. This brings to 33 the number of top military official sacked by el-Sisi since July 2013.

It was Zaki who personally arrested Egypt’s elected Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi and his government during the 2013 coup that put el-Sisi in power.

The interior ministry has been given to Mahmoud Tawfik, former head of the domestic National Security Service. Mohamed Maait, the deputy finance minister, has been promoted to head the finance ministry, replacing Amr El Garhy, who was instrumental in initiating IMF-dictated austerity in 2016 in return for a $12 billion bailout, when the country was all but bankrupt.

As part of that IMF deal, Egypt floated its currency, which soon lost half its value against the dollar, causing inflation to reach 33 percent in July 2017. In a country that imports much of its food, fuel and manufactured goods, prices are still rising—by 13.3 percent in March. As inflation has soared, the central bank raised interest rates to about 20 percent, making credit prohibitive under conditions where factories were working at 50 percent of their capacity.

With a budget deficit for 2017-18 of almost 10 percent of GDP, the government has introduced a value-added tax and multiple cuts to energy, petrol and basic food subsidies upon which 70 million people depend. In March, angry workers took to the streets of Minya, Desouk, the Imbaba suburb of Cairo, Giza and Alexandria to protest the latest cuts in bread subsidies.

In response Mohamed Mansour, a general in the security services, was seen on social media calling on people to “go hungry” and “sacrifice their dinners,” for the sake of the Egyptian economy.

Two weeks ago, the government announced further cuts to its electricity subsidies that will increase prices for factories by 42 percent and households by 21 percent.

Some 40 percent of Egypt’s nearly 100 million people live on less than $2 a day, while unemployment is rampant, particularly amongst youth. According to official statistics, youth unemployment in a country where more than 60 percent of the population is under 30 years of age is 26.7 percent; the real figure is no doubt far higher.

A new bankruptcy law—long demanded by investors—was adopted in January. The government also plans to sell stakes in several state-owned companies before the end of 2018.

Hikes in food prices and a nearly threefold increase in Cairo’s metro fares again led to protests last month—under conditions in which demonstrations are effectively banned—and clashes with the security forces during which 21 people were arrested.

El-Sisi has unleashed an extensive crackdown on all forms of dissent and political expression that far exceeds the worst excesses of Hosni Mubarak, who was overthrown by the mass uprising in February 2011. With more repression under way, his aim is to prevent another revolution.

The constitution is effectively a dead letter, with the country under a state of emergency supposedly to deal with “the dangers and funding of terrorism” in northern Sinai and the Delta area. All democratic norms have been jettisoned. Not only is torture in Egypt’s prisons widespread, the security forces have no hesitation in using lethal force against demonstrators in public. Prisons are being built to accommodate the more than 60,000 political prisoners, whose numbers are continually rising.

The last few weeks have witnessed a wave of detentions by the security forces, ostensibly for spreading false news, inciting against the state on social media or belonging to an “outlawed group.” The Muslim Brotherhood has disappeared from sight after el-Sisi’s massacre of 1,600 of its members and the imprisonment and forcible “disappearance” of thousands more following the 2013 coup. The detentions usually involve a dawn raid, a warrantless arrest, the confiscation of computers, books and phones, and cash.

Among those arrested were the satirical video blogger Shady Abu Zeid, leftist activists Shady Al-Ghazaly Harb, Amal Fathy, her husband and three-year-old-son, labour lawyer and member of the Revolutionary Socialists movement Haytham Mohamadeen, blogger and anti-torture activist Wael Abbas and Hazim Abdelazim, a prominent Egyptian opposition leader.

It was Abbas who, during the Mubarak era, published a video showing the police torture and sexual assault of microbus driver Imad al-Kabeer, which led to the conviction of the perpetrators in a landmark case in 2007. That inspired a wave of internet activism, which included the Facebook page “We Are all Khaled Saeed”. This commemorated Alexandrian victim Khaled Saeid, who was tortured and killed by the police in July 2010, sparking the mass protests that ousted Mubarak 18 days later.

Nothing is off limits for Egypt’s military junta. On June 5, the regime organised an attack by a gang of thugs on a Civil Democratic Movement’s iftar dinner party, breaking the daily fast during Ramadan. Dozens of politicians, writers and human rights activists were attending the dinner when the thugs entered the club and overturned the dinner tables, shouting “Traitors! Spies!”

The press functions as the mouthpiece for the government. Last year, three members of the journalists’ syndicate were sentenced to two years in prison and researchers Ismail Alexandrani and Hesham Gaafar were indefinitely detained. The Committee to Protect Journalists ranks Egypt as the third worst country internationally for imprisoning journalists.

The government also banned television stars Ibrahim Eissa, Yousri Fouda, and Bassem Youssef, frozen the assets of activists and civil society leaders Hossam Bahgat and Gamal Eid, and closed dozens of news websites. Vast sums are expended on developing and installing online-monitoring systems to track public internet usage.

A new press and media bill is going through parliament that grants even more powers to the government. It uses vague wording about “hatred”, “incitement”, the supposed “threat to democracy” and a clampdown on pornography to muzzle independent journalism and block personal accounts on social networking sites.

All this has the tacit consent of the Trump administration, which—like the Obama administration—views the murderous regime as a custodian of its regional interests and part of its coalition against Iran.

Similarly, the European powers have no qualms about the junta’s brutality and lawlessness, as they scramble to secure lucrative arms contracts and oil and gas concessions in Egyptian waters.

European corporations such as BP, Eni, Dassault, and Siemens lobbied their governments not to criticise the el-Sisi regime. Britain is the largest non-Arab investor in Egypt, with oil giant BP signing a lucrative £7.8 billion investment deal in the Nile Delta. Siemens signed one of the largest contracts in its history to build power stations and wind turbines in Egypt, while France has clinched deals worth billions of euros for warships and fighter jets.

Peru’s new president Vizcarra joins with Fujimorista opposition to impose austerity

Armando Cruz 

It has been two months since right-wing Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski was forced to resign amidst a scandal over his buying votes to avoid an impeachment that was triggered by Kuczynski’s connections to the region-wide Odebrecht scandal. Vice-president Martin Vizcarra assumed power, while Mercedes Araoz remains as second vice-president.

Vizcarra appointed as his prime minister Cesar Villanueva, a former prime minister under the previous government of Ollanta Humala and congressman of the Alianza por el Progreso caucus headed by right-wing millionaire populist Cesar Acuña. Kuczynski himself has charged that Villanueva was one of the main plotters who forced his resignation and that he had been in closed-door talks with other parties negotiating deals for a post-resignation government.

Since then, the Vizcarra-Villanueva government has proven that Kuczynski’s removal was necessary for the ruling elite in order to impose new rounds of cuts to government spending and new taxes upon the working population, which are being demanded by international finance.

Prior to becoming Kuczynski’s vice-president, Vizcarra had been regional president of the southern Moquegua region, one of the country’s smallest provinces, whose economic life—as in most Peruvian regions—is dominated by the activities of mining multinationals (in Moquegua’s case, Southern Copper owned by Grupo Mexico).

After the revelations that Odebrecht had been bribing virtually the entire Peruvian political establishment and Kuczynski’s fall from grace, the whole bourgeois media (both from the “left” and the right) has been trying to cultivate Vizcarra’s image, presenting him as more of a “common man”. This is in contrast to Kuczynski, a son of European immigrants who, having spent decades working in Wall Street investment banking, held US citizenship until he renounced it in 2015 to run for president. The media has celebrated Vizcarra’s achieving a 57 percent approval rating when he took office.

In the first few days in power, the Vizcarra-Villanueva government entered into negotiations with the fujimorista Fuerza Popular (FP), the right wing party that controls Congress with an absolute majority of 61 seats, and whose obstructionist tactics had led to the isolation and eventual fall of Kuczynski’s government.

A truce was achieved between the two parties. FP agreed to give the new government a motion of confidence and approve its demand for special powers to execute a list of measures to “reactivate the economy, make changes in the North’s reconstruction (after the devastating floods early last year), fight against corruption, modernize the state and protect vulnerable populations”.

In return, the executive power agreed to grant Congress (and therefore FP) wider legislative powers and promised not to abolish Kuczynski’s pardon for Alberto Fujimori. The former president, and father of the current FP leader, had been serving a 25-year prison sentence for human rights abuses and corruption before being freed by Kuczynski last Christmas in a filthy deal to gain votes in order to survive a previous impeachment vote.

Vizcarra and Villanueva both defended their decision to establish friendlier ties with the fujimoristas, arguing that “confrontation” with them would lead to disaster. The move was nonetheless criticized by the pseudo-left as another indication that the fujimoristas have “kidnapped” the government and are manipulating its decision-making, just as they did, according to them, under Kuczynski.

Keiko Fujimori, the leader of FP and Alberto’s daughter who lost to Kuczynski in the last elections in 2016, reportedly accepted a non-obstructive relationship with the new executive in a bid to shed her image as a revanchist and vindictive leader in order to improve her chances in the next presidential election in 2021. According to reports, Fujimori’s approval rating has plummeted in the last months to 18 percent and trails behind two political newcomers: the right-wing Julio Guzmán and the current face of the pseudo-left, Verónika Mendoza.

Fujimori’s image was also hit by the revelations that she—as most presidential candidates in Peru—received bribes from Odebrecht and by the never-ending corruption scandals implicating FP members.

The fujimorista movement, it should be recalled, is probably the only political party that retains—at least until now—a modicum of support within the working class. As most left-wing parties and movements lost support and disintegrated in the 90s, Fujimori’s government exploited this vacuum with populist measures that created a constituency. Nowadays, Keiko Fujimori exploits this legacy, which is combined with right-wing policies such as a war on crime.

Once assured that FP would not interfere with their policies for the moment, the government, in early May, announced cuts in government spending and new taxes. Vizcarra approved a decree that would cut the equivalent of US$295 million in current government spending. Each ministry and department is to come up with a new budget adjusted to these cuts for next year.

Vizcarra and his Minister of Economy David Tuesta (former officer of one of Peru’s biggest banks) then announced a tax increase on carbonated drinks, alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, cars and diesel fuel. They argued that, along with the cuts in government spending, the new taxes were necessary to close a fiscal gap of nearly US$2 billion. Liliana Rojas Suarez, an influential economist, stated in an interview with El Comercio, that “the government is aware that international finance markets are observing the fiscal situation in countries. That’s why it is correct that they need to fix the budget deficit”.

Tuesta said in an interview that since 2011, fiscal income had declined, but admitted that 50 percent of that was attributable to a fall in the price of minerals (Peru’s biggest exports), and the rest was due to a decrease in tax collection.

In Peru, as with most undeveloped countries, giant multinationals—supported by imperialism—reject even the most minimal taxes. It is public knowledge that the state allows tax exemption for mining multinationals, private universities, private insurance companies, banks, casinos and other businesses. The money these capitalist endeavors should be paying to the state could cover the fiscal deficit many times over.

After these announcements, Tuesta then declared a new income tax on all those who earn less than S/. 2.000 (US$ 600) a month. Given that the minimum wage in Peru is S/.1000, the new tax income would fall upon the shoulders of the majority of Peruvians who struggle to live under terrible economic conditions. In the upside-down world created by modern capitalism, it is those who earn less who must be taxed more.

After this announcement, Pedro Francke, a political and economic analyst associated with the pseudo-left, wrote an article titled “Vizcarra is playing with fire”, in which he bemoans Tuesta’s decision to impose the new income tax on top of other regressive tax hikes. He then describes the deteriorating state of the economy: in April, economists declared that poverty in Peru had increased for the first time in an at least a decade, with 375,000 Peruvians falling in the last years under the poverty line. Meanwhile, unemployment has risen, with 424,000 jobs lost during this and last year. Francke claims that all of this “would have been a front-page headline in any other country”.

“Vizcarra ought to watch this situation very carefully”, he warns, calling attention to Kuczynski’s fate: “[…] He was indifferent to a similar situation and the deterioration of the economy brought his popularity to the floor and we know what happened next”.

Bus drivers and teamsters initiated a strike at the end of last month, which began in the city of Cuzco and extended to other cities in the south. They struck against the increased tax on diesel fuel and the proposed income tax.

The strike and the massive opposition towards the new taxes shook the government and made it retreat. Tuesta and others in the government issued contradictory statements about their proposed plans. He wanted to continue with the new taxes but the rest of the government was already announcing the cancellation of the new income tax and the reduction of other tax hikes. Then the Ministry of Transportation and Communications unilaterally announced a reduction in the new diesel fuel tax in an accord with the transportation workers’ union. Tuesta went to speak personally with the president and told him it was a bad message for international finance, but Vizcarra rejected going ahead with the planned hikes. Tuesta resigned a few days later.

The government’s sudden retreat on its fiscal agenda in the face of a limited strike has exposed its massive weakness and fragility. Like Kuczynski’s administration, it is a government with barely any real support amongst the population, and the new taxes had swiftly driven down Vizcarra’s approval ratings, from 52 percent in April to 37 percent in June.

Under these conditions, the pseudo-left is attempting to salvage the new government by not directly confronting Vizcarra. Instead, just as they did when Kuczynski governed, they blame nearly everything on the fujimorista-dominated Congress and its influence on the executive branch.

While it is true that Vizcarra and Villanueva have caved to the demands of the fujimoristas and are bargaining for their approval of the government’s reactionary measures, the notion that the government would be different and “serve the people” should the fujimoristas lose control over Congress, is creating a politically toxic and dangerous situation.

Thousands of young people have taken part in protests in the last months demanding that Congress be shut down and new elections be held. While many of the protesters are genuinely disgusted by FP—a haven for semi-criminal elements from the political underworld—and its control of Congress, this is exactly the same thing that Alberto Fujimori himself did in 1992, when he shut down Congress and initiated a semi-dictatorship that lasted until his downfall in 2000.

Allowing the executive power once more to shut down Congress would not do anything to improve democracy in Peru. On the contrary, it would grant the state the power to do whatever it sees fit in the future and embolden the most authoritarian tendencies in the ruling elite (whether they are fujimoristas or not).

The pseudo-left’s role has consistently been that of subordinating social opposition to the dominance of bourgeois politics. This was the case when they called for a vote for Kuczynski during the last elections in order to defeat Keiko Fujimori. Then the Frente Amplio and Nuevo Peru caucus in Congress defended Kuczynski’s government every time it entered into conflict with the fujimoristas. They refuse to challenge the whole bourgeois order, instead denouncing only the most right-wing faction—the fujimoristas—and giving tacit support first to Kuczynski and now to Vizcarra.

Bangladesh government intensifies “anti-drug” crackdown

Wimal Perera

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s “anti-drug” crackdown has entered its second month, with more than 150 people killed and about 21,000 arrested since May 15.

Hasina’s government has given a free hand to the police and its notorious Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).

The Daily Star reported on June 14 that “mobile courts” established by Hasina’s Awami League-led government to carry out quick show trials have already sentenced over 3,520 suspects to jail terms of between seven days and two years.

The government claims that its campaign seeks to “save the country from the drug menace.” Its real purpose is to further strengthen the country’s repressive state machinery. The crackdown is being used to target political opponents and suppress the mounting opposition by workers, youth and the oppressed masses to Hasina’s big business policies.

Last month, Habibur Rahman, a 42-year-old activist for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the main right-wing opposition party, was taken from his local mosque in Chittagong by men thought to be plain-clothes officers and later killed in custody.

One of Rahman’s relatives told the Telegraph on June 1: “He was neither a drug seller nor a drug addict. It was because he was involved in politics against the government and protested about land affairs.”

Addressing parliament on June 20, Hasina declared that her government would introduce anti-narcotics legislation that included the death penalty. She said the “special drives” against “drug-related criminals” were based on “zero tolerance.”

According to New Age, the anti-drug campaign is so terrifying that government opponents did not “dare to hold protests against the extrajudicial killings outside the capital.”

Protesting students who organised a human chain in Dhaka’s Shahbag neighbourhood against extrajudicial killings on June 6 were baton-charged by police and a leading activist, Imran H. Sarkar, detained and held for seven hours.

The government’s state-endorsed violence and political assassinations have been widely condemned. Early this month, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein criticised the crackdown. He described official declarations that none of the victims was innocent as “dangerous … and indicative of a total disregard for the rule of law.”

The UN statement demanded the campaign be “immediately halted.” It added: “Given the large number of people arrested, there is a high likelihood that many people may have been arbitrarily detained, without due regard for their rights.”

The Bangladesh Mahila Parishad (Women’s Council of Bangladesh), a human rights organisation, denounced the killings and demanded legislation to make the law enforcement agencies “accountable for human rights violations.”

Supreme Court Bar Association president Zainul Abedin demanded the government to stop “extra-judicial killings” to follow “the due process of the law.” Human Rights Watch Asia director Brad Adams said: “Until this spate of killings is independently investigated and proper procedures are put in place to protect the public, the campaign should be suspended.”

These appeals will change nothing. Any inquiry organised by the Hasina government will be a cover-up to protect the state forces and their murderous operations.

Hasina has dismissed condemnations of the repression, claiming that those killed are all drug dealers. “You might think that this is a violation of human rights,” she said, but “could you show me one innocent person who has been caught up in the middle [of this]?”

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told CNN the campaign will continue until the problem is brought under control.

As anger mounted against the repression, the Stalinist Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) and Socialist Party of Bangladesh (SPB) announced they would join protests against the extrajudicial killings. The CPB and SPB, however, tacitly support the crackdown, advising the government to “curb the drug menace with iron hands through strict enforcement of the law.”

On June 14, US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert issued a statement voicing “concerns.” She urged the government “to conduct thorough and transparent investigations into all credible reports of extrajudicial killings” and “to fully meet its human rights obligations.”

Washington’s concern is bogus. The killing of innocent civilians, mainly youth, by police shootings, has been commonplace in the US under the both the Trump and Obama administrations, as is the arrest and jailing of so-called illegal immigrant workers and their children.

The US regards its relations with the Hasina government as crucial to its geo-political interests in South Asia and its military and economic efforts to undermine China’s influence in the region. Washington’s real concern is that mass opposition to Hasina’s measures will draw in key sections of the working class fighting for higher wages and better working conditions and destabilise her regime.

The government mobilised thousands of police in the lead-up to the June 15 holiday marking the end of Ramadan, worried that ongoing demands by garment workers over unpaid wages and religious festival allowances could erupt across the country. In Chittagong, metropolitan police commissioner Mahbubur Rahman deployed 4,000 police and plain-clothes officials across the city “to avert any untoward situation.”

There has been no national strike action, but hundreds of garment workers from the Paradise Group, Westeria Textile and Positive Fashionwear in Dhaka demonstrated earlier this month to demand unpaid wages and allowances.

Tens of thousands of non-government teachers are also in conflict with the government because it has not included them in the Monthly Pay Order (MPO). They say the government, which previously promised to pay them under this system, ignored them in the 2018–2019 budget.

Under the MPO, the government pays salaries and benefits to teachers of non-government schools, colleges and technical institutions. There are about 80,000 teachers of 5,000 non-government schools, colleges and technical institutions. The dispute remains unresolved.

Report finds majority of Australian youth favour socialism

Oscar Grenfell

A significant report, published last week by the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), a right-wing think-tank with close ties to the political establishment, found that the overwhelming majority of Australian “millennials”—defined as those born between 1980 and 1996—have a favourable view of socialism.

The CIS report detailing the results of a survey conducted by polling agency, YouGov Galaxy, is a worried warning to Australia’s ruling elite of a political radicalisation among young people and the threat that it poses to the capitalist system. It is headlined, “Millennials and socialism: Australian youth are lurching to the left.”

The report was co-authored by Tom Switzer, CIS executive director. In 2008, he served as a senior advisor to then federal Liberal-National leader Brendan Nelson. Switzer has since worked as a senior associate at the University of Sydney’s US Studies Centre, a think-tank funded by the US and Australian governments, and as an opinion editor for Rupert Murdoch’s national flagship, the Australian.

Respondents were asked for their “overall view of socialism.” Some 58 percent indicated a favourable view, compared to 18 percent with an unfavourable opinion. Around 23 percent said they did know enough to respond.

About 63 percent of university-educated millennials had a favourable view of socialism, the highest cohort in the survey breakdown. The CIS authors noted the trend, saying, “critics have suggested that universities are lurching to the left.” Their appeal for “more evidence-based research” of this “issue,” can only be read as a thinly-veiled call for ramped-up surveillance and political censorship on university campuses.

Well over 50 percent across all of the demographic breakdowns indicated a favourable view of socialism. This included among males and females, students educated at vocational TAFE colleges, working-class youth who did not study after high school, and rural and regional respondents.

The poll showed that the growing attraction to socialism is closely related to a rise of anti-capitalist sentiments.

Around 59 percent of all respondents agreed that “capitalism has failed.” Well over 50 percent among all demographics answered the statement in the affirmative.

The figure was highest among youth in regional areas, at 64 percent, or almost two-thirds. The authors of the report were compelled to acknowledge that the figure was likely related to the “loss of industries and jobs” in regional areas, which have been hard hit by the decades-long assault on the working class, overseen by successive Labor and Liberal-National governments in collusion with the trade unions.

Respondents were also asked whether “ordinary workers are worse off today than they were 40 years ago.” Overall, more than 60 percent agreed with the proposition. The figure was the highest among working-class youth with no tertiary qualifications, at 67 percent, and among respondents in New South Wales, a state with one of the highest costs of living, at 69 percent.

The authors sought to ridicule the responses. Using misleading statistics on overall economic growth and consumer spending, designed to cover-over the growth of social inequality, they declared that “all workers, and indeed all Australians, are substantially better off than 40 years ago.”

This claim only underscores the ignorance and indifference of the authors, and the affluent elites to which they are connected, to the harsh social reality confronting millions of ordinary people.

Australian society is more unequal than ever before, with the richest 1 percent controlling more wealth than the poorest 70 percent. Last year, wage growth reached is lowest level in recorded history, at just 1.9 percent, well-below the growing cost of living. Labour’s share of national gross domestic product is smaller than ever before, while the percentage going to corporate profits is the highest ever.

Young workers face a labour market in which precarious casual and part-time work, which makes up almost half the entire workforce. Weekend and overtime penalty wages are increasingly a thing of the past, as are holidays, sick days and other entitlements. For many young people, there is simply no prospect of a decent, well-paid, secure, full-time job.

The property bubble, fuelled by parasitic financial investment, has resulted in the lowest proportion of youth home ownership. Millions of workers are on the precipice of financial disaster, as a result of exorbitant mortgage and rent payments, which often consume 30 percent, or more, of household income. At the same time, all of the establishment parties are committed to deepening a decades-long onslaught on social spending.

Hanging over everything is the eruption of militarism, posing the threat of a global nuclear conflict. After 26 years of endless US-led wars, the major powers are responding to the deepest breakdown of the capitalism system since the 1930s, by reviving militarism, in a bid to offset their own crisis at the expense of their rivals. Australia is at the centre of US-led preparations for conflict in the Asia-Pacific, directed above all, at China.

The interrelated manifestations of the capitalist crisis: war, inequality, austerity and a turn to authoritarian forms of rule, are politically radicalising workers and young people everywhere.

A poll commissioned by the right-wing, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, late last year found that 51 percent of American youth would rather live in a “socialist or communist country” than a capitalist one.

A poll conducted by the Union of European Broadcasters, in May, 2017, revealed that over 53 percent of young people across Europe were prepared to participate in a “large-scale uprising” against their government. Those surveyed expressed hostility to the growth of inequality, the dominance of politics by the corporate elite, the persecution of immigrants and the drive to war.

The authors of the CIS report highlight figures showing that many of the respondents knew little about the Russian Revolution, including the identity of its co-leader, Vladimir Lenin. This is hardly surprising. Young people have been cut-off from the revolutionary traditions of the 20th century, amid a shift to the right by all of the old social-democratic and pseudo-left organisations, and a relentless campaign of historical falsification by the corporate media and in academia.

The CIS authors themselves recycle the lies by identifying socialism with Stalinism. In reality, the crimes of the Soviet bureaucracy, headed by Joseph Stalin, were the antithesis of the socialist and internationalist perspective that underlay the 1917 October Revolution in Russia—the first time the working class took political power.

The CIS report concludes on a note of fear, warning that the favourable view of socialism among young people “is no minor problem: one day such people may exercise a vote to impose such appalling doctrines, and their collateral damage, on our society.”

In fact, the socialistic sentiments increasingly animating young people are entirely justified. But a fight for socialism must be informed by the revolutionary experiences of the 20th century—above all, the lessons of the October revolution, embodied in the Trotskyist movement, the International Committee of the Fourth International. That is the only basis for a political struggle for a world free of war, inequality, and authoritarianism.

Millions of Americans face poverty in retirement

Kate Randall 

Americans are reaching retirement age in worse financial shape than the prior generation for the first time since the 1950s. According to an analysis published Saturday by the Wall Street Journal, those who should be entering their “golden years” have seen their median incomes stagnate and even decrease, reversing the pattern that had prevailed since the post-World War II Truman administration.

Those approaching retirement have dwindling resources, in many cases because they have had to pay off their children’s college loans or take from savings to care for aging parents. Social Security and retirement fund receipts have not risen in years, and 401(k) retirement funds will bring in a median income of less than $8,000 a year for a household of two.

The reality is that instead of retiring, many older Americans will be forced to remain in their jobs after age 70 or take jobs for which they are overqualified to supplement their meager retirement income and savings. These older workers will find themselves in competition with younger workers for low-wage, temporary and part-time employment.

The desperate situation facing millions of workers contemplating retirement stands in sharp contrast to the accumulating wealth of a narrow financial elite, with the world’s 18.1 million individuals with $1 million or more in investable assets shooting up by 10.6 percent last year.

A 2018 retirement savings survey by GOBankingRates compiled data from three Google Consumer Surveys by age group—millennials, Generation Xers and baby boomers—asking the same question: “By your best estimate, how much money do you have saved for retirement?”

The poll found that 42 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 in savings and that 14 percent have absolutely nothing saved for retirement. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, adults 65 and older spend about $46,000 a year on living expenses. In other words, more than four in 10 Americans do not have saved what it would cost to live for a year if they were to retire today.

Not surprisingly, the situation facing millennials—ages 18-34—is even bleaker. Fifty-seven percent have $10,000 or less saved for retirement, and 18 percent have zero saved.

Backing up this survey, the Wall Street Journal found that more than 40 percent of households headed by people aged 55 through 70 lack sufficient resources to maintain their living standards in retirement. That is around 15 million US households.

The decline in living standards of older and retired workers follows decades of progress in the financial security of America’s aging population. In the postwar era, fixed government and company pensions gave millions of people a guaranteed income on top of Social Security payments. The majority of Americans retired in better shape than their parents.

The prospect of people living a more comfortable retirement than their parents is now evaporating across all generations. The Journal points to the following indices:

• Median personal income of 55- to 69-year-olds leveled off after 2000 for the first time since data become available in 1950, according to an analysis of US Census data by the Urban Institute.

• Households with 401(k) investments and at least one worker aged 55-64 had a median $135,000 in tax advantaged retirement accounts as of 2016, according to the Boston College Center for Retirement Research. This would amount to just $600 a month in annuity income for life.

• Americans aged 60-69 had about $2 trillion in debt in 2017, an 11 percent increase per capita over 2014, according to New York Federal Reserve data adjusted for inflation. Their debt for their children’s student loans in 2017 was more than six times the level in 2004.

Healthcare costs are a major contributor to increasing poverty among American seniors. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, since 1999 average worker contributions toward individual health insurance premiums have risen by a staggering 281 percent, to $1,213 annually. A survey last year by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found that more than a quarter of workers cut back on retirement savings due to medical costs, and nearly half reduced other savings.

Only a quarter of large companies offer retiree medical insurance, down from 40 percent in 1999, according to Kaiser. Premiums for Medicare, the government health insurance program for the elderly, and costs that the program doesn’t cover accounted for 41 percent of the average $1,115 monthly Social Security benefit in 2013, leaving the average retiree with just $658 a month.

One of the biggest factors leading to less secure retirement is the shift from pensions to 401(k)-type plans. Following passage of Social Security legislation in 1935, pensions gained momentum after World War II. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, by the 1980s, 46 percent of private-sector workers were in pension plans, a situation that is alien to most workers today.

The Journal analysis points to congressional action in 1978 that “set the stage for a pension retreat.” Congress authorized companies to obtain tax-deferred treatment of executives’ bonuses and stock-options—essentially tax breaks—to supplement their pension payouts. This move ushered in the era of the 401(k), allowing employees to reduce their taxable income by placing pretax dollars in an account. Employers seized on this to dump pension benefits and move toward 401(k)s.

With the financial collapse of 2008, workers with 401(k)s saw the value of these accounts plunge. They were forced to withdraw funds to pay bills or cut back on their contributions. The vast majority of these retirement accounts have never rebounded.

Financial “experts” on television and in blogs admonish young adults and baby boomers to be responsible and frugal and save for their retirement. These generally wealthy financial advisers are miles away from the overwhelming majority of Americans of all ages, who struggle on a daily basis to pay for basic necessities such as food, housing, transportation and healthcare.

A separate GOBankingRates survey asked more than 1,000 adults with $0 saved, “Which is the main reason you do not have any retirement savings?” The most common response was, “I don’t make enough money,” with about 40 percent choosing this response. The second most common reason for not saving was, “I’m struggling to pay bills,” with about 25 percent of respondents choosing this answer.

These studies point to the growing scourge of income inequality, which is inevitably propelling working people into struggle against the financial oligarchy that dominates US economic and political life and maintains its rule through its control of both big-business parties.

Asian Militaries and Artificial Intelligence

Vijay Sakhuja


Artificial Intelligence (AI) has found significant use in military hardware, and AI-enabled weapons and sensors are being developed by the US, Russia and a number of European countries. Likewise, some Asian militaries such as China, Japan, South Korea, India and Singapore have announced plans to invest in AI-enabled military equipment. They are allocating substantial funds for in-house development as also for acquisitions through import substitution. These new technologies are poised to grow in popularity in the coming years, and many other Asian militaries can be expected to acquire these as advanced computing technologies become more readily available and affordable.

The Chinese political leadership has given primacy to disruptive technologies, and in 2018, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang stressed innovation and investment in research and development of a new generation of AI capabilities. Military Balance, an IISS publication that provides annual assessments of the military capabilities and defence economics of 171 countries worldwide, states in its 2018 report that Chinese commercial enterprises are helping the military “develop quantum technologies that will boost their ability to make use of artificial intelligence and big data, as well as to develop un-hackable communications networks.” 

Although Japan has a pacifist constitution and Article 9 explicitly prohibits belligerence and forbids war, the country has maintained a technologically superior military force due to threats from China and North Korea. It has successfully achieved technological proficiency in dual-use technologies such as robotics, unmanned systems and AI that can support military applications. In 2014, Japan decided to invest US$ 372 million in its military unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) programme, and the US government approved sales of three Northrop Grumman Global Hawk. In 2017, Japan announced its highest even defence budget of US$ 51 billion and the country's Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) unveiled plans for military drones that can attack targets autonomously. The JASDF is also exploring the possibility of acquiring ballistic-missile defense (BMD) drones that use sensors to track incoming missiles over the next 15 to 20 years. 

South Korea has also decided to closely follow AI-related developments in China and Japan. In 2016, it announced an investment of US$ 863 million for AI-related R&D, and in early 2018, plans to invest Won 2.2 trillion in AI-related R&D including setting up of six new AI-research institutes by 2022. The plan is to train 1370 AI specialists by 2022 including 350 key researchers and award 4,500 domestic AI scholarships. South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT (MSICT) which is responsible for AI coordination and development at the national level plans to introduce short-term project to address the AI talent shortage with six-month intensive training courses that will incubate 600 young specialists by 2021. Meanwhile, universities are being encouraged to set up AI courses.

India has set up a 17-member multi-stakeholder taskforce to formulate a strategy and framework for future employment of AI for national security and defence. The roadmap for producing transformative weaponry would include AI, intelligent and autonomous robotic systems, and cyber defence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also stressed the need to develop such technologies, and stated that “New and emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Robotics are perhaps the most important determinant of defensive and offensive capabilities for any defence force in the future. India, with its leadership in Information Technology domain, would strive to use this technology tilt to its advantage.” These initiatives will potentially boost the operational preparedness of the Indian military for next generation warfare. 

Among the smaller militaries, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) is perhaps the most modern in Asia and has chosen to harness the potential of AI. It is currently using AI-enabled tools in a number of security and defence sectors such as homeland and maritime security, vessel traffic monitoring, and domain awareness through unmanned surface, aerial and ground vehicles. In 2017, Singapore announced an annual seed grant of SGD 45 million to foster experimentation and innovation in its two new laboratories in the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) and DSO National Laboratories organisations. The former will focus on analytics and artificial intelligence, and the latter will develop a robotics laboratory.

It is evident that Asian countries have chosen to build AI-enabled forces that can defend very large areas by setting up sensor grids on land and deploying sea-based unmanned surface and underwater combat vehicles. Besides, some of these countries, particularly China, are developing a varied arsenal of missiles that are intelligent and equipped with high level AI and in-flight automation. 

These are indeed transformative changes and may substitute earlier warfare concepts that were focused on seeking dominance over land, sea and air, and upset the delicate balance of military power in Asia. This will add to the increasing dangers already posed by the potential of space and cyber warfare.