Can the Ethiopian/Eritrean Alliance Bring Peace To South Sudan?

Thomas C. Mountain

All roads to peace in the Horn of Africa seem to run through the Eritrean capital of Asmara these days, with the latest peace initiative allying Ethiopia and Eritrea looking like it will be bringing peace to South Sudan.

To understand the South Sudan civil war you must look no further then the Chinese oil fields, the only such owned and operated in Africa, and one of the first targets of the rebellion/coup attempt over 5 years ago. The only beneficiary from the South Sudan civil war has been the USA, for China has seen all of its ambitious plans for further development of its one and only energy field shut down.

No one, outside of the Eritrean President Issias Aferworki, has pointed the finger of blame for this conflaguration where it belongs, at “foreign powers” aka the Central Intelligence Agency without whose $10 million a month for the past 60 months there would have been no functioning rebel army. Soldiers got to get paid, at least $300 a month and with some 20,000 rebel military (all former South Sudan regular army) the monthly nut to keep a war going is big enough to
have to be a deep pocket operation, $600 million and counting so far. No one else has access to this kind of cash but The Man aka the Central Intelligence Agency.

One of the main demands of the rebels has been to shut down Chinese oil operations in the country. Gee, whose national interest is this in? Certainly not South Sudans, whose very survival depends on these oil wells.

Fast forward to the soft coup and “peaceful revolution” in Ethiopia, whose former gangster government did the CIA’s bidding in funneling the dirty money to pay for the rebellion in South Sudan. With the Tigrayan ethnic minority regime no longer in power, as in “game over”, the handwriting is on the wall, it looks like the jig is up, for who can the CIA count on now to launder its filthy, bloodstained lucre? Not the usual client regimes like Uganda or Kenya, both of whose economies were damaged by the civil war in South Sudan. The CIA is certainly not going to trust hard currency strapped President Bashir of Sudan to pass the cash, not with hundreds of millions being involved. So maybe, just maybe, this evil spawn of Babylon, the CIA’s Dirty War in South Sudan, USA vs. China, might soon come to an end.

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir was here in Asmara to finalize the peace deal, looking almost stunned that peace had finally come to pass. As Eritrean President Issias Aferwerki laid out the future peace for all to see, Dr. Abiy in Ethiopia made sure no more cash or weapons is funneled by the CIA to the rebellion. With families to feed the rebels need to collect a salary and have little choice but to accept reintegration into the South Sudanese regular army.

Once this critical step is complete a real peace can take hold, though one should not underestimate the deviousness of the CIA who may yet find a way to fund rebellion amongst disgruntled elements in the newly reunited South Sudanese Army.

Still, it seems Pax Americana has come to terms with the new reality on the ground out here in the Horn of Africa, what with China making its move into the energy industry in Ethiopia, building a multi billion$ natural gas pipeline to extract and export the estimated 4 trillion cubic meters lying beneath the Ethiopian Ogaden.

Now that a ceasefire has been reached between the Ogadeni fighters and Ethiopian P.M. Abiy’s government, again, signed here in Asmara, Ethiopia can start to use its massive energy reserves and begin to ween itself from bankrupting foreign currency drains for energy purchases.

The leaders of Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea have all gathered in where else but Asmara, and signed, sealed and started to deliver on peace and economic cooperation. Even the Godfather in Djibouti, who cried foul when the Somali President visited Asmara has had to sign the normalization of relations agreement with Eritrea.

And all of this absent anyone from any of the major imperial powers, strictly an African accomplishment though China has pledged many billion$ to keep Ethiopia afloat in its sea of debt, mainly to the western banks.

Real Pan Africanism has been a dream since the end of WW2, where African countries work together for their mutual peoples benefit and not allow the imperial bloodsuckers to continue their predations. With a wave of peace sweeping across the Horn of Africa what is left is on the ground economic development that will begin to lift some of the most war and famine blighted people on the planet out of their destitution. Will an Ethiopian/Eritrean Alliance really be able to bring the change so desperately needed?

Washington bullies Central American countries for adopting “One China” policy

Andrea Lobo

This weekend, Washington temporarily recalled its ambassadors from the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, and its charges d’affaires from Panama over “recent decisions to no longer recognize Taiwan.” This referred to the decisions to establish diplomatic relations with the Chinese government in Beijing by El Salvador in August, the Dominican Republic in May and Panama last year.

The Trump administration also canceled a meeting scheduled for this week with foreign ministers and top military officials of the Northern Triangle of Central America—El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

Having based its relations with China since 1979 on the “One China” policy, recognizing Beijing as the sole legitimate government of all of China, Washington’s measures against countries adopting the same policy constitute a remarkable level of imperialist bullying and rank political hypocrisy.

The spokesperson of the Salvadoran government, Roberto Lorenzana, declared Monday that “We have no objections to this meeting [the recalling of the ambassadors], the only thing we ask is that our decisions are respected.” Far from protesting and sharply exposing the predatory character of Washington’s response, officials of the countries affected have only made meek appeals and otherwise insisted that relations with the US remain unchanged.

The previous Monday, Republican Senators Cory Gardner and Marco Rubio, and Democrats Ed Markey and Bob Menendez, introduced a bill authorizing the State Department to suspend US aid and break diplomatic relations with any other countries that decide to establish ties with Beijing. With unbelievable cynicism, the press release announcing this proposed intimidation of impoverished and historically-oppressed countries denounces “Chinese pressure and bullying tactics.”

The White House said in a statement in late August that it would “re-evaluate” its relations with El Salvador and condemned “China’s apparent interference in the domestic policies of a Western Hemisphere country.” China’s Foreign Ministry responded: “We hope that the relevant country [the US] can respect other sovereign states’ right to choose and formulate their foreign policies and stop interfering in other countries’ domestic affairs.”

Significantly, Beijing sent its business charge d’affaires to Sunday’s conference of the FMLN, the ruling bourgeois party in El Salvador, after leaders of the far-right opposition party, ARENA, declared that if elected in 2019 it would switch the country’s diplomatic ties back to Taiwan. The opposition’s obsequious appeal to the US led to widespread condemnations citing the theft of $15 million in Taiwanese aid intended for families affected by the devastating 2001 earthquakes by the ARENA administration of the late President Francisco Flores.

The diplomatic decision by the FMLN, however, in no way reflects a defense of “national sovereignty” against US imperialism, as some leaders claimed Sunday. It is, above all, a desperate quest for new sources of loans after two years of persistent public debt defaults—particularly at a time when the US central bank is raising its interest rates—while continuing to impose Wall Street’s diktats of social austerity.

Washington had previously stopped denouncing the Dominican Republic’s switch to China after the Dominican government adopted a tougher stance against the Maduro government in Venezuela. However, the political alliance of FMLN and the Venezuelan government and now its shift to Beijing could result in efforts of the Trump administration to forcibly undermine the FMLN government. The FMLN has ruled the country since 2009, but has never gained the support of the dominant and fascistic sections of the military, which fought against the FMLN guerrillas during the 1980s, with the backing of the US, terrorizing and killing tens of thousands of peasants and workers.

Relations between Taiwan and El Salvador were cemented by outright bribes and Taipei’s extensive support for the Salvadoran military, supplying weapons and training its officers during this horrific slaughter.

These factors, as underlined by comments to CNN Tuesday by former senior adviser at the US State Department, Daniel Erikson, “made El Salvador a particularly attractive target for a White House ready to draw a line in the sand regarding the deepening ties of the Asian rival in Latin America.” He added: “El Salvador, in part, has become a battle axis in the new strategic context between the US and China in Latin America.”

At the same time, China has invested heavily in the Panama Canal and become the second top user after the US. Chinese companies have also become the main supplier for Panama’s Colon free-trade zone, the second largest in the world, and manage the main port terminals on both entrances of the Canal. This growing presence provoked warnings to Congress last year by Adm. Kurt Tidd, chief of the US Southern Command, which considers the “defense” of the Panama Canal one of its main tasks.

The Taiwanese government of Tsai Ing-wen has used the affair to further reassure Washington of its interest in having a greater role in the US confrontation with China. Taipei’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that resources previously allocated to its missions in the Dominican Republic and El Salvador will be transferred to lobbying efforts in the US Congress and expanding the Global Cooperation and Training Framework with the US. The Ministry of Defense announced last weekend that it will increase its budget to upgrade air-to-air capabilities of its US-provided F-16 fighters to “maintain parity” with Chinese fighters, according to Taipei Times. This is on top of the 5.6 percent increase in Taipei’s military budget to $11 billion between 2018 and 2019.

The historical context of the US response highlights its hypocrisy, but also the grave danger posed to workers in Taiwan, Latin America and the entire world by the rapid escalation of the confrontation between the US and China.

The United States had a close alliance with Taiwan during the Cold War under the US-Taiwan Mutual Defense Treaty, signed after the Korean War. However, the treaty was annulled in 1980 as the Carter administration renewed relations with Beijing and adopted the One-China policy in January 1979.

However, despite criticisms by Beijing, the US continued military sales and cooperation unofficially with Taiwan. This military partnership has strengthened and become increasingly open, particularly since the implementation of Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” against China.

The growing US challenge to Chinese influence in the Asia-Pacific region and globally has also severely undermined diplomatic relations between Beijing and Taipei. Now, the Trump administration threatens to openly turn Taiwan and its 24 million people into a US frontline state against China. In December 2016, Trump complained about “being bound by a One China policy” and, once he assumed office, accepted a call from the Taiwanese president as the first direct contact since 1979 between leaders of the two countries.

The 2018 US military spending bill, approved last month with overwhelming bipartisan support, takes Washington-Taipei relations to a new stage, indicating that the “Six Assurances” of military cooperation are a cornerstone of US-Taiwan relations, and calling for stronger defense and security ties, including joint exercises and training. Earlier this year, in a highly provocative step, two US warships sailed through the Taiwan Strait.

The recall of diplomatic personnel from El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Panama last week constitutes a new step in the use of Taiwan by US imperialism to counter growing Chinese economic influence across the world. This is in the context of the most recent US National Defense Strategy document describing China and Russia as Washington’s main geopolitical rivals. “Great power competition—not terrorism—is now the primary focus of US national security,” announced Defense Secretary James Mattis in January.

As Chinese economic presence in Latin America was growing exponentially at the beginning of this century, Washington agreed to a US-China sub-dialogue on Latin America in April 2006. The minutes made available on WikiLeaks report that the Chinese Latin American Affairs director, Zeng Gang, exhorted; “Taiwan’s authorities use relations with these countries as tools to further their secessionist activities and damage China’s core national interests,” but “some of the leaders of these countries have told the PRC (People’s Republic of China) that they must take US concerns into account” demanding “clarification of US views.”

At the time, the chief US diplomat for Latin America, Thomas A. Shannon—most recently Trump’s acting Secretary of State and Deputy Secretary of State—claimed that “The United States does not encourage or discourage” ties with the PRC and cannot “dictate” other countries’ position on this issue.”

As its economic position internationally deteriorates and global capitalism sits on the verge of major economic and political shocks, US imperialism is abandoning the pretense of respecting the internal politics of other countries as it seeks to defend its hegemony over Latin America.

Brazil’s Workers Party drops Lula as candidate for president

Miguel Andrade

On Tuesday, September 11, Brazil’s Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores—PT) formally withdrew the presidential candidacy of jailed former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—known universally as Lula—substituting in his place the former right-wing mayor of São Paulo, Fernando Haddad.

The move was a recognition by the PT that it would be impossible to place Lula’s name on the ballot in next month’s presidential election, given his conviction on money laundering and passive corruption charges stemming from the Lava Jato investigation into the vast bribery and kickback operation centered on the state-run energy conglomerate Petrobras. Lula is now serving a 12-year sentence.

On August 31, Brazil’s Electoral Court (TSE) ruled that the former president, who governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010, was ineligible to run under the so-called “Ficha Limpa” (clean slate) law that Lula himself signed while in power and the PT supported. The statute prohibits politicians with criminal convictions upheld by an appeals court to run in elections. The TSE had set Tuesday as the deadline for the PT selecting another candidate.

The replacement of Lula—who had been placed first in the polls when listed as a potential candidate—by Haddad, who until this week registered just 4 percent support, is the latest shakeup in a crisis-ridden run-up to the October 7 vote in the country of over 207 million people.

The replacement of the PT candidate follows on the heels of the assassination attempt against the current front-runner, the fascistic army reserve captain and federal legislator Jair Bolsonaro who was stabbed during a campaign rally in Minas Gerais last Thursday by a man who told police he had been told by God to carry out the attack. Bolsonaro, who remains in intensive care after the attack, has seen a slight sympathy bump in the polls, with one showing his support increasing from 26 to 30 percent.

While the barring of Lula’s candidacy had been viewed as a foregone conclusion in Brazilian ruling circles, a brief controversy erupted over an August 17 statement by the United Nations Human Rights Committee calling upon Brazil “to take all necessary measures to ensure that Lula can enjoy and exercise his political rights while in prison, as candidate in the 2018 presidential elections.”

Although the note clearly stated that “this request does not mean that the Committee has found a violation yet” in his trial, it generated anxiety for suggesting that the Ficha Limpa law could be in violation of international law.

Predominant factions within the ruling elite had already been incensed by the highly ambiguous case of the rosary brought to Lula in prison in early June by Vatican official Juan Grabois, which the PT praised as a gesture of political support from Pope Francis, and the support for Lula’s candidacy, as well as his claim of being a political prisoner, by various imperialist officials. Since his arrest order in April, these have included, most prominently, former French President François Hollande, former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero and, most recently, the former leader of German Social Democracy, Martin Schulz, who declared to Deutsche Welle in Curitiba, where Lula is serving his sentence, that he had come “at request of the Party leader Andreas Nahles” after having discussed the matter with Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.

The right-wing reaction to these events highlights the sharp turn to the right take by Brazil’s entire political system. Newspaper editorials and opinion pages have become increasingly reminiscent of the rants against “international interference” made by Brazil’s 1964-1985 military junta and similar regimes across Latin America over human rights reports. The country’s oldest newspaper, O Estado de S. Paulo, charged the New York Times with “inexplicably aiding” Lula’s “international campaign to defame Brazilian institutions” by publishing his open letter of August 14, while the UN human rights panel’s statement prompted Bolsonaro to deliver a Trump-like rant vowing that he would “withdraw” Brazil from the United Nations.

On September 3, in an interview with the financial daily Valor Econômico, Brazilian Foreign Minister Aloysio Nunes charged “the main media of the US and Europe” with spreading “PT propaganda.” And an O Estado de S. Pauloeditorial from September 4 furiously called the PT’s decision to renew its appeal of the TSE ruling to the UN “an assault on Brazilian sovereignty.”

Most ominous of all, however, was O Estado de S. Paulo’s interview with the chief of the Brazilian armed forces, Gen. Eduardo Villas Boas, who declared that Lula’s candidacy would be unacceptable to the military and denounced the UN Human Rights Committee statement as “an attempted invasion of Brazilian sovereignty.”

General Villas Boas told the newspaper that Lula’s succeeding in overcoming the Ficha Limpa law and winning the election could threaten the “stability and governability” of Brazil, increasing the division of Brazilian society, and “directly implying our action, as in the case of the truckers strike.”

Under these conditions, the PT’s “Free Lula” campaign has been the main vehicle for the party’s overtures to business circles the world over to recognize the usefulness of Lula in maintaining class peace in Brazil. It has appealed to the reactionary forces of “democratic imperialism,” such as the Democratic Party in the United States, the Socialist Party in France and the German Social Democracy, which are engaged in relentless militarism abroad and censorship and the normalization of the far-right at home, in order to violently confront increasing working class militancy.

Recent developments have only accelerated this drive, raising the most serious issues are for the working class. What is required is a conscious and relentless exposure of the fraudulent “Free Lula” campaign by the PT and the pseudo-left organizations surrounding it.

The Ficha Limpa law itself was the opening shot of a sharp turn to the right by the PT that alienated decisive sections of the working class in major PT power bases in the industrial regions of the country. This prompted the ruling class to desert the PT and bring down President Dilma Rousseff in the 2016 impeachment, which was met with indifference by workers after her government had conceded to the right wing on every major issue, from austerity measures to the privatization of the state-run oil giant Petrobras.

The PT reacted to the 2016 impeachment of Rousseff by blocking, through the collaboration of the CUT trade union federation, any attempt by workers to fight against the acceleration of austerity measures, as this would send the ruling class the “wrong signal” about the PT’s willingness to return to power and continue the war on workers’ living standards.

Despite its populist phraseology, the “Free Lula” campaign is saturated with contempt toward and, in the case of its most sycophantic leaders, hatred for, the working class, which they see as responsible for the rise of the far right.

A bourgeois party, the PT looks not to the masses of Brazilian workers, but rather to the imperialist powers as a base of support for its return to power. Thus, the party’s sycophantic mouthpiece, Brasil247, carried a leading article titled “German association warns multinational corporations: don’t invest in a fascist Brazil”—a reference to a possible victory by Bolsonaro.

On August 22, 2017, Brasil247 celebrated the nervousness within Brazilian ruling circles over the exclusion of Brazil from US Vice President Mike Pence’s first Latin American tour with the headline “[financial daily] Valor: With Temer Brazil has become a global pariah.” From the impeachment on, the party has seized upon pieces in Le Monde, the Financial Times and the New York Timeswarning the Brazilian ruling class that Lula is a precious political asset as a vindication of its policies.

On September 1, after the barring of Lula’s candidacy, Brasil247 interviewed Gilberto Maringoni, a former PT member and leader of the PSOL (the Socialism and Liberty Party, within which the Morenoites and Pabloites operate). He put the issues at stake for the PT in the clearest class terms, saying that the foreign policy of the current government of Michel Temer represented “a 100-year regression” from the “successful” plan envisioned by the monarchist founder of Brazilian diplomacy in the early twentieth century in which US dictates to Latin America “would have to be mediated by Brazil as the leading regional power.”

In face of these right-wing professions of faith by innumerable self-proclaimed socialists, one must ask: What would be the reaction of a new PT government to an explosion of working class struggle that challenged the interests of imperialism? Only one answer is conceivable: the most ferocious repression.

These forces, whose social base is the bourgeoisie and the upper middle classes, blame the working class for the loss of an international position “never before reached” by Brazil, in Maringoni’s words. They are abandoning their “left-opposition” pretensions adopted in relation to the Lula administration after the founding of PSOL in July 2004.

Their frustration with the working class is giving way to the most naked class hatred, as expressed in the writings of El País’s Eliane Brum on the last major eruption of working class struggle in Brazil, the May truckers’ strike. Brum had written that Lula was intolerable for the ruling class because “the social programs and affirmative action of the PT ended up threatening” class conciliation in Brazil (“Lula, the irreconcilable,” April 11).

On May 4, she wrote that right-wing demands for a military intervention seen among some of the truckers had “predictably channeled” resentments over “masculinity threatened by growing LGBT and women protagonism.” She concluded that “there was nothing more symbolic” of these supposed sentiments “than the aggressive image of trucks in a world that needs to reduce carbon emissions” and that the most underestimated effect of the strike was the decrease in pollution in the city of São Paulo.

This neo-Malthusian rhetoric is the language of class hatred of the promoters of the “free Lula” campaign, for whom the biggest threat is posed not by the far right, but by the working class.

Russian government cracks down on protesters during regional elections

Clara Weiss 

On Sunday, some 65 million Russians were called upon to vote in 80 different regional elections, including 21 direct gubernatorial elections and 16 local assembly elections.

The Russian government has not yet released an official turnout figure for the entire country, but indicated that it was similar to the turnout at the 2013 regional elections, when only three regions saw voter participation above 50 percent.

In stark contrast to the elections five years ago, United Russia candidates for governor failed to gain an absolute majority in four regional elections. In some regions, the voter turnout was reported to be well below 30 percent. In some elections, United Russia candidates saw their vote reduced by as much as 20 to 30 percent.

In four regions, Khakassia, Vladimir Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai, Primorsky Krai, the United Russia candidates failed to win an absolute majority and will have to run in a second round. In Khakassia and the Primorsky Krai, the United Russia candidates will be competing against candidates of the Stalinist KPRF. In Khakassia, the KPRF’s candidate Valentin Konovalov received 44.81 percent of the votes, as opposed to United Russia’s candidate, Viktor Zimin, who received 32.42 percent.

In the Khabarovsk Krai, and in the Vladimir Oblast, a region northeast of Moscow and one of the most socially devastated in the European part of Russia, United Russia candidates are running against candidates of the fascistic LDPR. A second round in direct gubernatorial elections, which were reintroduced in 2012, has only taken place once before.

In three regions, the Irkutsk Oblast, Khakassia and the Ulyanovsk Oblast, United Russia lost its majority in the regional legislative assemblies to the Stalinist KPRF.

In Moscow, where less than 30 percent of voters cast their ballot, incumbent mayor Sergey Sobyanin was reelected with almost 70 percent of the votes, significantly more than in the last elections. Only five other people had been put on the ballot in Moscow, and no opposition politician participated.

The head of United Russia, Andrei Turchak, announced that the party would “draw organizational and personnel conclusions” in the regions where it had fared poorly. President Vladimir Putin commented very little on the elections, and stated only that the “election campaign as a whole was worthy” and that the elections were among the most honest that had taken place in recent Russian history.

The elections were overshadowed by what is now the overriding issue in Russian politics: the government’s plans to raise the retirement age. The current government bill provides for a raising of the retirement age for women by eight years, from 55 to 63, and for men by five years, from 60 to 65—an age less than two thirds of Russian men actually reach.

Over 90 percent of the population oppose this measure, and 53 percent indicated in a recent Levada poll that they are ready to take to the streets to protest the pension reform. Its announcement in mid-July, at the beginning of the FIFA World Cup, United Russia plummeted some 13 percent in the polls, while Putin’s approval rating slumped to a four-year low of around 67 percent. Ten days before Sunday’s elections, Putin came out in support of the pension reform, proposing only to lower the hike in the retirement age for women from eight to five years.

It has been widely acknowledged by both United Russia politicians and political commentators that the enormous unpopularity of the reform was the central reason for United Russia’s poor performance and the relative success of the KPRF, which has presented itself as the main critic of the reform. However, given the overwhelming opposition to the reform, it is striking that the opposition was able to benefit relatively little from United Russia’s unpopularity.

The Kremlin’s extreme nervousness about the widespread hostility toward the pension reform found an expression in the violent crackdown on protesters demonstrating against it on Sunday, following the call of the right-wing opposition leader Alexei Navalny. A day before the elections, Google had taken down a YouTube video by Navalny on the pension reform following demands by Russian lawmakers, who argued that the dissemination of his video was counter to Russian law which prohibits campaigning during the last 48 hours before polling.

Only about 8,000 people participated in Sunday’s protests, which took place in some 25 towns and cities, reflecting the hostility and suspicion toward Navalny. However, the police cracked down on the protesters with particular ferocity, arresting over 1,000, among them many youth. At least 452 people were arrested in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city. Several people were beaten up by the police. Among those arrested nationwide were 26 out of 46 regional staff coordinators of Navalny.

The police crackdown was aimed not so much directly at the supporters of the jailed Alexei Navalny, a right-wing Russian nationalist and supporter of US imperialism, who represents sections of the Russian oligarchy that are opposed to Putin’s foreign policy and fear that the pension reform will provoke a social explosion that neither section of the ruling class will be able to control.

Above all, the police violence against the protesters was designed to intimidate the millions of Russian workers and youth who neither voted nor went out to protest under Navalny’s banners, but are seething with anger about the pension reform and the Kremlin’s policies. They will have to turn to a socialist program and align themselves with their class brothers and sisters around the world in order to fight against the social onslaught and right-wing politics of all sections of the Russian oligarchy.

UK: Journalists exposing police collusion in Loughinisland massacre arrested

Steve James

Twenty-four years after masked gunmen sprayed automatic gunfire into the Heights Bar, Loughinisland in Northern Ireland, killing six football fans, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) arrested two journalists who have spent years investigating the atrocity.

The two, Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey, were questioned for 14 hours, August 31, before being released on bail. Police also searched two houses and offices where the Detail investigative news site, media company Below The Radar and documentary producer Fine Point Films are based.

Large numbers of phones, computers and documents were seized. At the time of writing, police have been legally prevented from immediately trawling through the seized material.

Birney is a former current affairs editor of Ulster Television, and has produced a number of historical and political biographies and documentaries. He has won media awards and was named Northern Ireland’s broadcaster of the year in 2002.

McCaffrey has spent more than a decade on Loughinisland and has been writing and reporting on Irish current affairs for longer. In 2013, he was named Northern Ireland’s digital journalist of the year.

The raid and arrests came ten months after, and relate directly to, the release last year by Fine Point Films of a powerful documentary by US director Alex Gibney on the killings. No Stone Unturned was produced by Birney and based on research by both Birney and McCaffrey.

The film places the killings in the context of British forces’ countless clandestine operations during the so-called “Troubles” (approximately 1968 to 1998) and notes numerous failings in the police investigation. The film identified for the first time the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) killers long suspected of the murders.

Gorman McMullan was named as the getaway driver. McMullan, who had previously been identified by Belfast-based Sunday Life as involved in the killings, once described the notorious loyalist assassination and torture gang, the Shankhill Butchers as a “decent bunch of lads”.

Ronnie Hawthorne, a local businessman, was named as pulling the trigger on the Czech-made VZ58 assault rifle. Hawthorne, who had been arrested in 1994 but never charged, was identified from documents, including a letter from his wife Hilary, held by the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland and shown in the film.

Gibney’s film also alleged, via testimony from retired a police officer, Jimmy Binns, that during his arrest, one of Binns’ colleagues attempted to pressure Hawthorne into assassinating a suspected member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

A third member of the UVF gang, Alan Taylor, has not been seen for many years.

The film repeated an allegation that one of the attackers, which one is not stated, was a police informer who had told his handlers of the planned assault, but claimed that it had been called off due to vehicle problems. No Stone Unturned also reviewed the extraordinary failings in the police investigation leading to key items of evidence, such as the Triumph Acclaim getaway car, being destroyed without any forensic evidence being collected.

Key records relating to the case, such as those of suspect McMullan’s police interviews, were also destroyed because of alleged and convenient “asbestos contamination”.

In 2016, the current ombudsman, Michael Maguire, produced a devastating but anonymised report on the case on which No Stone Unturned is also based.

In 165 pages, Maguire sketched out British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Special Branch oversight of UVF efforts to import huge amounts of weaponry in 1987 and 1988 from South Africa. The serial number on the gun used at Loughinisland, found abandoned in a field near the murder scene, was consecutive with similar weapons found in the South African cache.

Maguire also noted that the Special Branch appeared indifferent to the murderous activities of a UVF gang in its Newcastle subdivision, near Loughinisland. Maguire commented that the UVF unit “may well have been encouraged by the absence of a concerted effort against them.”

Crucially, Maguire noted that Special Branch had a “sound intelligence case” as early as June 19, 1994, one day after the shootings, and a “compelling case for early arrests, enabling the exploitation of a range of forensic and other evidential opportunities, including securing evidence through questioning.”

Despite concluding that “...collusion was a significant feature of the Loughinisland murders”, individuals mentioned in the report were referred to by letters of the alphabet while police officers were referred to by consecutive numbers.

No Stone Unturned, however, named both attackers and one of implicated former police officers. The film quoted from and showed footage of documents held by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI) allowing Hawthorne and others to be identified.

It is these original documents that are the source of the police campaign against McCaffrey and Birney. The PSNI enlisted Durham Police to investigate an alleged theft from PONI offices which has now been used as a pretext to arrest and question Birney and McCaffrey.

The arrests were immediately condemned.

On his release, McCaffrey denounced the arrests as “an attack on the press, everybody should realise. It’s us today, tomorrow it could be you”.

Alex Gibney, who has also won awards for his documentaries, tweeted “Rather than reopen a purposefully bungled murder investigation, the PSNI moves to arrest those who revealed police corruption and incompetence”.

Relatives of the six men killed in 1994 also protested the arrests, holding a vigil outside the Heights bar. Clare Rogan, whose husband Adrian was one of the men murdered, warned, “Today’s arrests show the lengths of desperation that the British government and state forces are prepared to go to, in order to stifle the truth about what happened in Loughinisland.”

Maguire’s report has been the subject of ferocious legal battles since it was published in 2016.

Late 2017, in a case brought by two retired police officers, Northern Ireland judge Bernard McCloskey ruled that that authors of the 2016 report were “careless, thoughtless and inattentive in the language and structuring of the document” and that the conclusions reached were unsustainable in law.

The former police officers wanted the report quashed. McCloskey, however, declined immediately to do so. Before any further action was taken, however, McCloskey himself was forced to stand aside.

A case brought by the ombudsman and the Loughinisland relatives’ families early in 2018 requested McCloskey recuse himself on the basis that he had, in 2002, been counsel to one of the same police officers during efforts to overturn another PONI report, this time Nuala O’Loan’s report into the 1999 Omagh atrocity.

In March, however, the PONI was forced to alter two paragraphs in the 2016 report to remove criticisms of the role of one of the retired police, an RUC commander also called Ronald Hawthorne, in relation to the storage and destruction of the Triumph Acclaim.

The PONI is also at the centre of another case, this time brought by one of the victims’ relatives. In July, Marie Byrne, whose husband Eamon was killed, launched an action in the Belfast High Court against the PONI, claiming damages for negligence over a 2011 report by Michael Maguire’s predecessor, Al Hutchinson, which, although critical of the police, refused to accept collusion had taken place.

German government plans combat mission against Syria

Johannes Stern

Behind the backs of the German people, the grand coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats is preparing a massive combat mission against the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad. According to a report in the Bild newspaper published on Monday, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (Christian Democratic Union—CDU) is examining possible reprisals by the Luftwaffe (Air Force) against Syrian government troops should chemical weapons be used against “rebel”-held areas in Idlib province.

The Bild, which has close connections to military and intelligence circles, describes a “simulation game” being conducted: “If Assad were to attack his own people with poison gas, then, besides the US being joined again by Britain and France (and possibly other new allies), armed Luftwaffe tornadoes could fly missions against military infrastructure (barracks, air bases, command posts, ammunition depots, weapon depots, factories, research centres).”

The newspaper reports that the preparations by the Ministry of Defence are in response to a request from the US government to the federal Chancellery. The Bild writes that two weeks ago, at high-level talks, “various options were discussed in the ministry.”

In subsequent talks, options discussed included “reconnaissance flights and damage analysis following a possible attack (‘Battle Damage Assessment’), as well as possible participation in combat missions in which German tornadoes would drop bombs for the first time since the Balkan War.”

To carry out the mission, parliamentary oversight powers laid down in the Constitution are to be effectively abrogated. “Parliament would be consulted only retrospectively in the event of a rapid intervention, due to time pressure,” the newspaper reports.

In response to questions from the newspaper, the government all but confirmed the plans. The Bild cites a joint statement of the defence ministry and the Social Democratic Party-led foreign ministry declaring that “The situation in Syria gives rise to the highest concerns.”

The statement continues: “Of course, we are in close contact with our American ally and European partners during these times. We constantly exchange information at all levels about the current situational view, possible further crisis scenarios and common options for action. The aim is for the parties to the conflict to avoid an escalation of the already terrible situation for the affected people. This is particularly true in regard to the use of banned chemical weapons, which have previously been used by the Assad regime.”

At a press conference, government spokesman Steffen Seibert hinted at the possibility of German air strikes against Syria. He said: “The situation in Syria, the situation in Idlib in particular, is such that you really have to worry that horrific events in other Syrian battlefields could be repeated, under conditions where hundreds of thousands of people are in grave danger.” Seibert added that the situation was being discussed with allies and partners.

The Christian Democratic parliamentary defence spokesman, Henning Otte, was even clearer, stating: “The pictures and reports reaching us are difficult to bear. Countless people in Idlib are suffering from the terror of Assad’s bombing of his own people. It is therefore important that we examine all options for action. We must, of course, also consider military action. We are in constant contact with all our partners so as to exchange situational information. There is no question that the use of chemical weapons in Syria must be prevented at all costs.”

In the Tagesspiegel, former Defence Minister Volker Rühe (CDU) threatened: “If the Syrian dictator uses poison gas again, the Bundeswehr (armed forces) should participate in attacks on Syrian ammunition depots. This is the point of a common European security policy with France.”

The assertion of Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader Andrea Nahles that her party would “not agree to German participation in the war in Syria” is pure hypocrisy and has nothing to do with pacifism. In fact, while in government, the SPD pushed Germany’s entry into the Syrian war at the end of 2015 and, since the 2014 Munich Security Conference, has been the driving force behind the return of German militarism.

For the SPD, the issue is how to enforce Germany’s own interests—if necessary against the United States—in a possible military offensive against Syria. “It is in our own interests to strengthen the European pillar of the North Atlantic alliance…because we cannot leave things to Washington to the same extent as in the past,” wrote Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) recently in Handelsblatt .

The so-called opposition parties are participating in the war propaganda and have signalled to the ruling class on which side they stand in the event of an attack on Syria. The Green Party leader in the parliamentary defence committee, Tobias Linder, limited himself to demanding: “If the government plans such a commitment, it must first ask the Bundestag for consent and also explain how, in its view, this is compatible with international law.” He added that Germany had to make use of all avenues provided by the United Nations to prevent a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian regime.

Stefan Liebich, the Left Party parliamentary foreign policy spokesman, who has long beaten the drum for a more aggressive intervention by German imperialism in the Middle East, wrote on Twitter: “Using poison gas would be a terrible war crime. But according to the Constitution, Bundeswehr combat missions are still decided by parliament and not the government!”

In other words, the leaderships of the Left Party and the Greens are not opposed to military intervention in Syria in principle. They merely want to be included in the war planning!

The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party—SGP) is the only party that has resolutely condemned military intervention in Syria and opposed the return of German militarism, basing its opposition on an international socialist programme.

When the German Air Force entered the Syrian war in late 2015, under the guise of fighting the Islamic State, the SGP warned: “The deployment of reconnaissance aircraft is just the beginning. If the Bundeswehr is once again involved in war, demands for an increased engagement, including the use of ground troops, will soon follow. Germany is getting involved in a war that, like the Balkan conflicts before the First World War, has become the focal point of irreconcilable international conflicts.”

And this past April, when the German government backed the illegal air strikes by the United States, France and Britain against Damascus, we wrote: “The attack of the imperialist powers on Syria must be condemned in the strongest terms. The military strikes that were carried out by the US, French and British forces on Friday night with the support of the German federal government are a violation of international law that threatens to trigger a conflict with Russia, the world’s second-greatest nuclear power.”

If the imperialist powers are now planning new air strikes against Syria, it is with the aim of saving the “rebels,” led by at least 10,000 Al Qaeda fighters, whom they and their regional allies have built up and financed since the Syrian proxy war began seven years ago. Washington, Paris, London and Berlin are not concerned with human rights, but with enforcing their geo-strategic and economic interests in the Middle East, in alliance with the most reactionary forces, and rolling back the influence of Iran and Russia in Syria and throughout the region.

As for the warnings about a chemical weapons attack in Idlib, these amount to an invitation to Al Qaeda fighters to stage an incident to provide a pretext for air strikes by the imperialist powers. The Syrian government has denied responsibility for alleged poison gas attacks, such as in Douma this year and in Khan Shaykhun in April 2017. Nevertheless, both were used as justification for illegal missile and air strikes. The German government is now enlisting to participate in a new round of such attacks.

Ashden International Awards for Entrepreneurs in Developing Countries 2019

Application Timeline: 6th November, 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Developing countries

To be taken at (country): London

About the Award: World’s leading green energy awards, seeks to reward innovative enterprises and programmes that deliver, or play a key part in enabling the delivery of sustainable energy systems and through this bring social, economic and environmental benefits. In 2019, we will make ten International Awards. The winners will receive prize funds of up to £20,000 each.

What is Ashden looking for this year?

• Sustainable Cities and Buildings: Organisations working in the built environment to rapidly decarbonise urban buildings and districts, including retrofitting existing buildings, as well as the design and construction of new buildings
• Sustainable Mobility: Innovative enterprises or programmes that are improving access to sustainable transport and mobility services for those who currently have inadequate access, and having a measurable impact on greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution or congestion
• Powering Business: We are looking for enterprises or programmes providing and/or using sustainable energy or energy efficiency in the provision of goods and services to produce income or value
• Clean Cooking: We are seeking organisations accelerating the uptake of cleaner and more efficient cooking solutions which reduce indoor air pollution, improve health and protect the environment
• Sustainable Energy & Healthcare: We are looking for organisations providing and/or using sustainable forms of energy to support the provision of healthcare services, including solutions for mobile, emergency and humanitarian contexts, cold-chain and other eco-system needs
• Cooling for People: We are looking for organisations that are delivering work that alleviates heat stress for those spending time outdoors in hot climates, whether for work or while travelling
• Financial or Business Model Innovation: We are looking for organisations or programmes improving access to energy through innovations in financial mechanisms and business models

Type: Entrepreneurship, Contest

Who can apply for an Ashden International Award?

• Businesses, NGOs, social enterprises and government organisations are all eligible.
• The work must be delivered in at least one of the UN’s developing regions of Africa, Caribbean, Central America, South America, Asia (excluding Japan) and Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand) and can be in rural or urban areas. High-income countries in these regions, as defined by the World Bank, are not eligible to apply

What happens if you win an Award As an Ashden Award winner? You will:

• Be invited to London at Ashden’s expense to take part in the Awards Ceremony as well as other events during that week. Winning an Ashden Award is contingent on taking part in Awards Week activities.
• Participate in media interviews that we may be able to arrange.
• Agree with Ashden what you will spend the prize fund on and any business support you may receive.
• Provide and update monitoring data about the progress of your work after one year, two years and three years

Number of Awardees: 10

Value of Contest: 

• The winners will receive prize funds of £20,000 each
• As well as this cash fund, winning an Ashden Award brings many other benefits, such as:
  • Local, national and international publicity, through the work of our specialist media team.
  • Support to grow or replicate your work: this can include professional mentoring, training and introductions to investment and other finance providers.
  • Opportunities to present your work to large and influential audiences at the Ashden Awards Ceremony, International Conference and other Ashden events.
  • Membership of the Ashden Alumni network of Ashden Award-winners, which facilitates opportunities to create productive partnerships and learning.
  • The acclaim of winning a prestigious Ashden Award. Our application and assessment process is known for being rigorous.

How to Apply: Apply here

Visit Contest Webpage for details

Award Provider: Ashden

Government of Canada Francophonie Scholarship Program (CFSP) for Francophonie Developing Countries 2019

Application Deadline: Deadlines vary by country

Eligible Countries: Bénin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodge, Cameroun, Cap-Vert, Comores, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Kinshasa),Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Dominique, Égypte, Gabon, Guinée, Guinée équatoriale, Guinée-Bissau,  Haiti, Laos, Liban, Madagascar, Mali, Maroc, Maurice, Mauritanie, Niger
République Centrafricaine, Rwanda, Sainte-Lucie, Sao Tomé-et-Principe, Sénégal, Seychelles, Tchad, Togo, Tunisie, Vanuatu, Vietnam

To be taken at (country): Canada (Quebec, Canada)

Fields of Study: All

About the Award:Funding for this program is entirely within the Government of Canada has entrusted the management consortium Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) and the World University Service of Canada (WUSC).
The long-term goal of the program is to promote the development of recipient countries by giving priority to:

• Training of trainers, particularly in the field of technical and vocational education
• Improving the skills of college and university personnel in the field of education and research
• Increasing and strengthening the skills of specialists and managers in the public and private sectors

Type: Masters and Doctorate

Eligibility: To be eligible for the Canada Francophonie Scholarship Programme:

• Candidates identified and selected may apply for university studies leading to a master’s and doctoral degree, for technical and vocational training, or for short-term internships.
• Institutions targeted by recipient countries conduct internal recruitment campaigns to identify qualified candidates who show the greatest aptitude for helping strengthen their institution’s capacities when they return to their country.
• Clinical training in pharmacy, medicine and dentistry is excluded.

Selection Criteria: Candidates must hold a key position so that the knowledge they acquire will benefit the capacity building of their institution.

Selection Process: 

• Candidates are selected by using a quota system for each recipient country. The quota approach allows recipient countries to define their own priorities for training, as well as the level of training required for the development of their institutions.
• A local advisory committee formed by representatives of various ministries selects candidates in their country. The accredited Canadian diplomatic mission acts as observer to ensure transparency of the selection process.
• The local advisory committee takes into account the candidates’ jobs in the sector or institution to be strengthened and the level of academic excellence as defined by host institutions. An equal number of applications by gender and country is required, and fluency of candidates in spoken and written French is also mandatory.
• Final admission to college or university is the sole responsibility of the relevant institution, and the scholarship becomes effective only when the candidate is admitted to the educational institution.

Number of Awardees: 1500 scholarships

Value of Scholarship: Fully-funded

How to Apply: Apply here

For full information on Canada Francophonie Scholarship Programme eligibility criteria, evaluation procedures, application requirements, funding levels, deadlines, and exclusions, visit the CFSP website (in French).

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Government of Canada

Why the World Should Care About What Happens in Basra

Patrick Cockburn

The current protests in Iraq are the most serious seen in the country for years, and are taking place at the heart of some of the world’s largest oilfields. The Iraqi government headquarters in Basra was set ablaze, as were the offices of those parties and militias blamed by local people for their wretched living conditions. Protesters have blockaded and closed down Iraq’s main sea port at Umm Qasr, through which it imports most of its grain and other supplies. Mortar shells have been fired into the Green Zone in Baghdad for the first time in years. At least 10 people have been shot dead by security forces over the last four days in a failed effort to quell the unrest.

If these demonstrations had been happening in 2011 during the Arab Spring then they would be topping the news agenda around the world. As it is, the protests have so far received very limited coverage in international media, which is focusing on what might happen in the future in Idlib, Syria, rather than on events happening now in Iraq.

Iraq has once again fallen off the media map at the very moment when it is being engulfed by a crisis that could destabilise the whole country. The disinterest of foreign governments and news outlets has ominous parallels with their comatose posture five years ago when they ignored the advance of Isis before it captured Mosul. President Obama even dismissed, in words he came to regret, Isis as resembling a junior basketball team playing out of their league.

The causes of the protests are self-evident: Iraq is ruled by a kleptomaniac political class that operates the Iraqi state apparatus as a looting machine. Other countries are corrupt, notably those rich in oil or other natural resources, and the politically well connected become hugely wealthy. However big the rake-off, something is usually built at the end of the day.

In Iraq it does not happen that way, and among the angriest victims of 15 years of wholesale theft are the two million inhabitants of Basra. Once glorified as the Venice of the Gulf, its canals have turned into open sewers and its water supplies are so polluted as to be actually poisonous.

Protests erupted earlier this year because of the lack of electricity, water, jobs and every other government service. The injustice was all the more flagrant because the oil companies around Basra are exporting more crude than ever before. In August this totalled four million barrels a day, earning the government in Baghdad some $7.7bn over the course of the month.

Few things epitomise the failure of the Iraqi state so starkly as the fact that, despite its vast oil wealth, Basra is now threatened by a cholera outbreak, according to local health officials. Basra hospitals have already treated 17,500 people for chronic diarrhoea and stomach ailments over the past two weeks, after they became ill from drinking polluted water. Salt water is mixing with fresh water, making it brackish and reducing the effectiveness of the chlorine that would otherwise kill the bacteria. There is plenty of bacteria around because the water system has not been updated for 30 years and sewage from broken pipes is mixing with drinking water.

Iraqi governments are not much good at coping with crises like these at the best of times, and this one strikes at a particularly bad moment because the two main political blocs are failing to form a new government in the aftermath of the parliamentary election on 12 May. The new parliament met for the first time this week, failed to elect a speaker and decided to take 10 days off, but is now to meet in emergency session on Saturday to discuss the crisis in Basra.

But even if a new government is formed under the current prime minister Haider al-Abadi, or some other figure, it may not make much difference. The party that unexpectedly polled best in the election was the one following the nationalist populist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which was allied to the small Iraqi Communist Party, thereby emphasising its secular, non-sectarian and progressive policies. On the other hand, critics claim that in the past government Sadrist ministers have been just as corrupt as those of the other parties. The problem is not just individual corruption but the political mechanism as a whole: ministries are shared out between the parties which then use them as cash cows and sources of patronage jobs. Mudher Salih, a financial adviser to Abadi, explained to me in Baghdad earlier this year how this works, adding that “unless the political system is changed it is impossible to fight corruption”.

This system of jobs for the boys, regardless of personal merit or professional qualifications, has damaging consequences for ordinary Iraqis. Many of those who have climbed onto the gravy train over the past 15 years would not know how to improve matters even if they wanted to. One former governor of Basra is reported to have handed back a large part of its budget because he said he could not think of anything on which to spend the money.

Why is this happening now? The Iraqi government, backed by the US, Iran and many other allies, won its greatest victory last year when it recaptured Mosul from Isis after a nine month siege. Paradoxically, this success meant many Iraqis were no longer preoccupied by the threat posed by Isis to themselves and their families. They focused instead on the ramshackle state of their country – the lack of roads, bridges, hospitals and schools, as well as the shortage of electricity and water, in a place where summer temperatures reach 50C.

Many Iraqis say they favour radical or even revolutionary change but the status quo will be difficult to uproot, however unsatisfactory it may be. It is not only the elite who plug into the oil revenues. Some 4.5 million Iraqis get salaries from the state and they – and not just crooked billionaires – have an incentive in keeping things as they are, however toxic.

Iraq will most likely continue to be misruled by a weak dysfunctional government, thereby opening the door to various dangers. Isis is down but not entirely out: it could rally its forces, perhaps in a different guise, and escalate attacks. Divisions within the Shiah community are growing deeper and more rancorous as the Sadrists – whose offices, unlike those of the other parties, have not been burned by demonstrators – grow in influence.

A festering political crisis will not be confined to Iraq. The outside world should have learned this lesson from the aftermath of the US-led invasion of 2003. Rival Iraqi parties always seek foreign sponsors whose interests they serve as well as their own. The country is already one of the arenas of the escalating US-Iran confrontation. As with the threat of a cholera epidemic in Basra, Iraqi crises tend to spread swiftly and infect the whole region.

Monsanto-Bayer Merger Hurts Farmers and Consumers

Jim Goodman & Tiffany Finck-Haynes

The U.S. Department of Justice issued a stern warning in its lawsuit against the conditionally-approved mega-merger between Bayer and Monsanto in June.

The anti-competitive price effects of the merger would, according to the DOJ, “likely result in hundreds of millions of dollars per year in harm, raising costs to farmers and consumers.” The Justice Department warned that the combining of Bayer and Monsanto would reduce competition for vegetable seeds, likely driving up prices. Further, farmers might see prices for GMO cotton, canola, corn and soybean seeds increase, as well as price increases for herbicide and seed treatments.

After imposing some limited divestments on Monsanto, the DOJ approved this merger, enabling Monsanto to hide its controversial name brand while giving Bayer anti-competitive control over seeds, pesticides, farmers and consumers worldwide.

But the harm to consumers and farmers will still exist.

The DOJ is on the brink of essentially authorizing a monopoly. This is bad news for nearly everyone on the planet except Bayer and Monsanto executives and shareholders. Aside from a combined Bayer-Monsanto, only three other seed companies will be in the market manufacture and sell these products.

Farmers overwhelmingly object to the merger. Ninety-three percent of farmers expressed concern that the merger will harm independent farmers and farming communities. Farmers’ top three concerns were that Bayer/Monsanto “would use its dominance in one product to push sales of other products;” “control data about farm practices;” and that the merger will create “increased pressure for chemically dependent farming.”

Aside from the overwhelming number of farmers that have already voiced opposition to the merger, the DOJ has received petitions from over 1 million Americans urging the agency to block the merger. This month, thousands of farmers and Americans resubmitted comments urging the agency to reverse its harmful conditional approval. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller joined a letter with the state attorneys general from California, Massachusetts, Mississippi and Oregon submitted a letter opposing the merger.

Bayer and Monsanto’s merger comes at a moment when powerful companies push farmers into dependence on their products, locking farmers into long-term contracts.  A consolidating food system means less choice for consumers.

“This mega-merger will give the company a stranglehold on the vegetable seed, cottonseed, corn and soy seed markets, which will only increase prices and put farmers’ livelihoods at risk,” noted Ben Burkett, a Mississippi vegetable farmer and past board president of National Family Farm Coalition.

For farmers, the merger will likely push up production costs. Farmers’ concerns are backed up by history, in which mega-mergers have diminished competition and options for both farmers and consumers while promoting more chemical-based farming — in turn harming our environment and health.

As seed and GMO companies have consolidated over the past 20 years. Much of that price increase comes from companies increasing fees for seeds as they genetically modify new traits into our food. The cost of these new technologies has exploded the price of seeds; between 32 and 74 percent of the price of seed for corn, soybeans, cotton and sugar beets in the United States and the European Union was estimated to reflect technology costs or the cost of seed treatments.

Farmers’ net profits continues to shrink. Reduced earnings have forced most farmers to take on second jobs; 82 percent of U.S. farm household income is expected to come from off-farm work this year, up from 53 percent in 1960.

As the Trump administration moves to give another handout to corporate agriculture, family farmers will pay the price.

Farmers aren’t fooled by claims that Monsanto divestments will make this merger beneficial and non-monopolistic. Consumers and policymakers shouldn’t be fooled, either. On our farms, in our soil and on our supermarket shelves, the merger of Bayer and Monsanto means fewer options for a cleaner, healthier and more farmer-friendly food system.

As the Department of Justice moves to make a final decision, they should stop this merger and save farmers and consumers from this new monopoly.