Police arrest over 1,000 climate change protesters in London

Robert Stevens

More than 1,000 people have been arrested in London over the last seven days of climate change protests organised by the Extinction Rebellion (XR) group.

Protesters continued to peacefully occupy public spaces in the capital, including Parliament Square, Piccadilly Circus, Waterloo Bridge, Oxford Circus and Marble Arch, despite mounting and provocative police arrests. On Saturday, 200 extra police from neighbouring forces were demanded by the Metropolitan Police to deal with the protesters. Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick declared, “Every day we have had over 1,000 officers—and now over 1,500 officers.”

The right-wing media and politicians have applauded the manhandling of protestors by the police, demanding the full force of the law to be used against them.

Video footage shot Saturday afternoon showed police dragging protesters down the road near Regent Street adjacent to the Oxford Circus area. By Saturday evening police heavily outnumbered protesters. Forcing protesters to leave Waterloo Bridge on Saturday, police issued a warning that remaining there would be an arrestable offence.

By Sunday evening, 963 people had been arrested, and a further 100-plus were arrested by Monday afternoon—for a total at 1,065 people. Those arrested range in age from 19 to 77. Of these, 53 have been charged for various offences including breach of Section 14 Notice of the Public Order Act 1986, for obstructing a highway and obstructing police.

A Met spokesman said that, contrary to reports, its cells were not yet full in London and that they had contingency plans to handle even larger-scale arrests.

On Sunday, police moved in to clear protesters from Oxford Street and Parliament Square during the day, and the remaining activists from Waterloo Bridge in the evening. Those demonstrators not arrested were being allowed to go to a small designated “legal” protest area at nearby Marble Arch.A fter evicting them, police remained at all three sites in force.

There was no let-up in calls by the right-wing media that the police step in and clear the streets. The Sun, owned by billionaire oligarch Rupert Murdoch, editorialised Monday, “The Mayor and the Met have huffed and puffed in the press—but the green tents are still standing [in Marble Arch].” It warned of the danger that “Their pathetic efforts have emboldened protesters,” adding, “Tomorrow, Britain goes back to work. The Home Secretary must ensure police have cleared the streets.”

On Monday, around 100 Extinction Rebellion activists protested in London’s Natural History Museum, lying down for around 30 minutes in a “die-in”.

The arrests were stepped up following a tweet issued Thursday morning by Home Secretary Sajid Javid. He wrote, “No one should be allowed to break the law without consequence” and called on police to “take a firm stance” against “any protesters who are stepping outside the boundaries of the law” and “significantly disrupting the lives of others.”

After a meeting between Javid and Cressida Dick, the Met described the protests at Waterloo Bridge, Oxford Circus and Parliament Square as “illegal.”

The Conservative government’s response was backed up by Labour Party Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. On Saturday, Khan declared, “I remain in close contact with the Met Commissioner and agree that Londoners have suffered too much disruption.” The protesters had to “let London return to business as usual,” as they were “now taking a real toll on our city—our communities, businesses and police. This is counter-productive to the cause and our city.”

Describing the massive state operation he was authorising, Khan said more than 9,000 police officers had been deployed, which had proved “extremely challenging for our over-stretched and under-resourced police.” He slandered those demonstrating, saying, “It simply isn’t right to put Londoners’ safety at risk like this.”

This followed comments from former Labour home secretary under Tony Blair, David Blunkett, who said, “The full force of the law needs to be used against those who have been warned and yet who persist with their anti-social protests.”

On Sunday, those gathered at Marble Arch were addressed by 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, whose protests outside Sweden’s parliament last year sparked the current wave of global strikes and demonstrations by school youth and students.

Thunberg, who will meet politicians, including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn over the next week, said to a standing ovation, “Despite all the beautiful words and promises. … For way too long the politicians and people in power have got away with not doing anything at all to fight the climate crisis and ecological crisis …”

She added, “We are now facing an existential crisis, the climate crisis and ecological crisis which have never been treated as crises before, they have been ignored for decades.”

The nominally “left” Corbyn has not issued a single statement condemning the scale of arrests that even Met chief Dick said was the largest number she had ever seen in a single policing operation in her 36 years on the force.

In spite of the sincere intentions of many joining its protests, the Extinction Rebellion offers nothing more than a version of “green” capitalism. It makes no appeal to the working class in Britain and internationally—the only social force that can prevent the planet’s ecological destruction—but to the capitalists and their politicians, whose relentless profit drive has created the crisis. On Sunday, as these same politicians and their police units were ramping up their mass arrests, XR’s leaders declared it was time to stand down their protests and made calls for direct negotiations with the government.

Farhana Yamin, XR’s political circle coordinator, said Sunday represented “a transition from week one, which focused on actions that were vision-holding but also caused mass disruption across many dimensions. … Week two marks a new phase of rebellion focused on negotiations where the focus will shift to our actual political demands.”

She added, “We can do that by showing we are disciplined and cannot only start disruptive actions but also end these when needed. … Being able to ‘pause’ a rebellion shows that we are organised and a long-term political force to be reckoned with.

“This will give XR leverage as we enter into negotiations with those in power to make headway on our three demands.”

XR organiser Sam Knights, stated, “We are now calling on the government and political class to come to us.”

Their demands are for the government to “tell the truth about climate change”; to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2025; and to create a citizens’ assembly to oversee progress on its agenda.

This bankrupt perspective only provides political cover to the very Conservative government and Labour “opposition” which have jointly orchestrated the mass arrests of those demanding change. The Tories and Labour have imposed decades of austerity in which millions of people have been pauperised. They will do nothing to imperil the accumulation of wealth by the super-rich, whatever the cost to the environment.

More fundamentally, it is impossible to resolve the environmental crisis based on forlorn hopes of one or even several governments tinkering their policies, within the confines of the existing economic system. What is needed to resolve the climate crisis is a global effort, mobilizing the scientific, technological and productive resources of the entire human race.

Overcoming the challenges of rapidly rising sea levels, accelerating CO2 emissions, loss of biodiversity, collapse of food chains and desertification is bound up with the task of overthrowing the failed capitalist system and its replacement with a socialist society based on rational planning, democratically undertaken on a global scale.

New police crackdown in France as Macron to announce further austerity cuts

Will Morrow

As French President Emmanuel Macron is set to announce new social attacks on the working class in a speech on Thursday, the government is stepping up its police crackdown against social opposition and “yellow vest” protesters opposing social inequality.

At last Saturday’s “yellow vest” protest, police were once again given free rein to violently assault and arrest protesters. A video from Paris posted on Twitter and shared more than 2,500 times showed one such incident: As a swarm of riot police charge at a group of demonstrators, an officer runs up behind a lone woman walking away with her back turned, and beats her in the back of the head with his baton. The officer keeps running as the woman falls unconscious to the ground. Other police run past, stepping over her motionless body.

More than 60,000 police were mobilised across the country, using water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets. The Interior Ministry reported that it had detained more than 200 people and that 17,000 people were stopped and searched as they tried to enter the capital.

A number of incidents indicate that the police are increasingly targeting journalists reporting on police repression. Gaspard Glanz, a freelance reporter and founder of Taranis News, was arrested and, as of this writing, remains in detention. Glanz was clearly identifiable as a journalist on Saturday. He approached a group of riot police and demanded to speak to the captain, after he said the police had shot at him with a stun grenade and was physically pushed away by police.

When Glanz allegedly gestured at them with his middle finger while walking away, police threw him to the ground and arrested him.

Glanz has been detained for more than 48 hours and is reportedly being charged for “participation in a group aiming to commit violence or damages” and “offence against officials representing the public authority.”

Hundreds of people protested outside the Paris police offices yesterday evening, and a petition launched by Glanz’s father demanding his release has been signed by more than 18,000 people. The petition states that “the free and independent press is prevented from operating in our country. Gaspard Glanz fights for freedom of information, a fundamental condition for the preservation of our liberty.”

Another journalist, Clement Lanot, published a video on Twitter showing police taking aim and firing at him with a rubber bullet gun. A third female journalist was also reportedly badly injured when a stun grenade exploded on her hand. A video on social media shows her being carried away by other protesters.

Last Saturday was the first weekly “yellow vest” protest since the fire on Monday night at the Notre Dame cathedral. The Macron government immediately sought to exploit this event, which was the outcome of the socially destructive policies of the French ruling class, its reckless gutting of social expenditure and funnelling of wealth to the corporate elite, to demand national “unity” and call for an end to protests against the government.

On Friday evening, Interior Minister Christopher Castaner used this argument to declare at a press conference that “the rioters” had “not been touched by what happened at Notre Dame,” and so would “be out once again.” “The threat is serious and calls for an enhanced response,” he said.

Signs at the protests opposed the fact that while nothing is being made available for the working class, large corporations and their billionaire owners are being subsidised to posture as generous benefactors to society by donating a tiny fraction of the billions they have taken from the labour of the working class to the Notre Dame repairs. Most of these “donations” will be borne by the working class in the form of a 60 percent tax rebate.

A number of banners in several cities opposed the arrest and planned extradition to the United States of WikiLeaks journalist and whistleblower Julian Assange. In Paris, a banner stated “Vive Assange,” and in Toulouse, a mask of Assange was placed over the statue of Joan of Arc. These actions express the widespread support for Assange in the French and international working class.

The government’s violent crackdown takes place as Macron is due to give a speech Thursday that will include further social cuts. He had been due to give the speech last Monday to summarise the results of the so-called Grand Debate, a fraudulent spectacle of town hall-style meetings and online surveys aimed solely at promoting the illusion that the government, a representative of the corporate and financial elite, will respond to the demands of the population.

The speech was called off during the Notre Dame fire, but a leaked version published by Lundi Matin revealed the measures that were to be announced. While the speech is couched as a response to the demands of the mass protests, all the measures it contains will either do nothing to improve or will significantly reduce workers’ living standards.

It rejects any overturning of Macron’s slashing of the fortune tax on the super-rich. Instead, “taxes will be lowered for those who work by significantly reducing income tax.” These measures invariably combine negligible tax cuts for workers with large tax cuts for the rich. Moreover, they are to be funded by “cuts to our public expenditure” and “the necessity to work more.”

The last measure was detailed this weekend by government deputy and spokeswoman Aurore Bergé, in an interview with Le Journal de Dimanche. She said the government is planning to create a new “day of solidarity”—i.e., the abolition of a public holiday—to force workers to work an extra day every year for free. She cited May 8, which marks the victory of the allied powers over Nazi Germany in World War II.

“I am persuaded that the French are willing to work more if we explain to them 100 percent that the income of the day of solidarity will be devoted to the reduction of taxes or financing pensions,” she said.

The only measure nominally aimed at addressing the crisis of public services is a pledge not to close any more schools and hospitals until the end of Macron’s current term. This comes amid a massive wave of school and hospital closures that have devastated entire regions of the country.

A study conducted by Le Monde in March revealed that in the 22 years from 1997 to 2019, more than 338 maternity hospitals out of 885 were closed. As a result, the number of adult women living more than 45 minutes from a maternity hospital almost tripled, from 290,000 to 716,000. The percentage living more than 30 minutes away more than doubled from 12.6 percent to 26 percent.

Many surgery departments have also been closed, under conditions where heavy snow in some regions of France can make it impossible to travel long distances for treatment.

Washington tightens sanctions to cut Iran oil exports to “zero”

Bill Van Auken

With the lifting of waivers that allowed five major countries to continue purchasing Iranian oil, Washington has launched another and far more dangerous phase of its illegal and unilateral economic sanctions against Iran.

The waivers were granted last November, when the Trump administration imposed a second round of punishing sanctions designed to choke off all Iranian energy exports and freeze Iran out of the world banking system, so as to crash its economy. They covered the countries of China, India, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, Greece and Italy, as well as the island of Taiwan. The waivers for the last three lapsed as they ended imports of Iranian oil. Now, the exceptions for the other five are to end on May 2, exposing them to penalties including fines and being frozen out of US markets.

Announcing the US action on Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo used the language of a gangster threatening retaliation against anyone daring to defy Washington’s dictates.

“We will no longer grant exemptions,” he said. “We’re going to zero. We’re going to zero across the board. We will continue to enforce sanctions and monitor compliance. Any nation or entity interacting with Iran should do its diligence and err on the side of caution. The risks are simply not going to be worth the benefits.”

The waivers were originally granted with a demand from Washington that the respective countries reduce their oil imports from Iran and find substitutes for Iranian crude. They were also aimed at preventing a sudden cutoff of all Iranian oil leading to a spike in global petroleum prices and possible political repercussions over a rise in the price paid at gasoline pumps in the US itself.

News of the US decision to yank the waivers sent global crude oil prices up 3 percent in trading early Monday, with futures climbing to more than $74 a barrel, the steepest increase in six months.

In the case of China, the amount of Iranian oil being imported has only risen over the past six months.

Even before Pompeo’s formal announcement, news of the impending US action led to a sharp rebuke from Beijing.

“China opposes the unilateral sanctions and so-called ‘long-arm jurisdictions’ imposed by the US,” the country’s foreign ministry spokesman said Monday. “Our cooperation with Iran is open, transparent, lawful and legitimate, thus it should be respected. Our government is committed to upholding the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and will play a positive and constructive role in upholding the stability of the global energy market.”

The withdrawal of the waiver for Chinese importation of Iranian oil sets the stage for another confrontation between Washington and Beijing as the two powers are in the midst of negotiations supposedly aimed at heading off a full-blown trade war provoked by the Trump administration.

While government officials and energy industry sources have indicated that India, which is dependent upon imports for some 80 percent of its energy needs, has succeeded in finding alternatives to Iranian oil, the sudden lifting of the waivers poses problems for the ostensible US allies, Turkey, Japan and South Korea.

Turkey is the most heavily dependent upon oil imports with Iran, with which it shares a roughly 300-mile border. Ibrahim Kalin, a senior adviser to the president of Turkey, was in Washington last week pressing US officials to extend the waiver on Iranian oil imports to the country.

“In terms of oil, Iran is one of our main oil suppliers, and we made it clear that not only would we like to continue to buy oil from Iran, but also Iran is a neighboring country,” Mr. Kalin told the media after the talks. “We have a long border with Iran, we have cultural ties.”

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu posted a message on Twitter saying that “Turkey rejects unilateral sanctions and impositions on how to conduct relations with neighbors.”

Both Japan and South Korea rely on particular types of Iranian oil for their petrochemical industries and have not found ready substitutes.

Before the Trump administration unilaterally abrogated the 2015 Iran nuclear accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May of last year and began the imposition of ever-tightening US sanctions, Iran exported some 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd). That amount, which has fallen to less than 1 million bpd, still accounts for 40 percent of the government’s revenues.

All the other signatories of the JCPOA accord—Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union—insist that Iran has fulfilled all of its obligations to limit its nuclear program. This assessment has been verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN body charged with ensuring Iranian compliance.

The Trump administration’s actions have met with hostility from the major European powers, all of which saw the signing of the JCPOA as opening up Iran for investments by major European energy conglomerates and for increased trade.

The White House issued a statement saying that the decision on the waivers was aimed at “denying the [Iranian] regime its principal source of revenue.”

“The Trump administration and our allies are determined to sustain and expand the maximum economic pressure campaign against Iran to end the regime’s destabilizing activity threatening the United States, our partners and allies and security in the Middle East,” it said.

This policy, which the US administration has dubbed “maximum pressure” against Iran, also saw the Trump administration earlier this month take the unprecedented action of designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an integral part of Iran’s military, as a foreign terrorist organization. The action was taken over objections from both the Pentagon and the CIA, which fear that it will provoke reciprocal treatment toward US military and intelligence personnel operating in the region.

The US attempt to cast Iran as the principal “destabilizing” force in the Middle East has been continuous under Democratic and Republican administrations alike ever since the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the US-backed monarchical dictatorship of the Shah, a pillar of imperialist domination in the Middle East.

This US narrative has only intensified as Washington has invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which border Iran, and unleashed wars for regime change in Libya and Syria. The victims of these wars number in the millions.

Under the Trump administration, the axis of US Middle East policy has been the forging of an anti-Iranian alliance comprised of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the other reactionary Sunni Gulf Oil sheikdoms, with Washington supplying massive amounts of arms to Iran’s regional enemies.

The Trump administration is counting on its regional allies among the monarchical dictatorships, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to increase oil production to offset any impact from the decrease in energy supplies created not only by the sanctions against Iran, but also by those imposed against Venezuela. Even further tightening of the market stems from the escalating civil war in Libya.

Such action, by the Sunni oil sheikdoms, however, is far from assured. The Saudi monarchy, which is on the verge of filing an initial public offering (IPO) for its giant state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco on the stock market, has ample reason to welcome a spike in oil prices.

Tehran issued a defiant response to the US announcement on the end of the waivers. “Given the illegal nature of these sanctions, the Islamic Republic of Iran has not considered and will not consider any value or credit for waivers granted [to customers of the Iranian oil] on [US] sanctions,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Moussavi said on Monday.

Meanwhile, the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy warned that Iran could close down the Strait of Hormuz, a key passageway for Middle East oil bound for Asia, if the US blockade prevented its own oil from passing through it.

“In case of any threat, we will not hesitate to support and defend Iran’s waters. We will defend our honor and will take reciprocal measures when it comes to protecting Iran’s rights,” IRGC Navy Commander Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri said.

The US drive to effect regime change in Iran by crashing its economy has exacerbated the country’s social and economic crisis, with the government of President Hassan Rouhani, representing the interests of the Iranian bourgeoisie, compelled to maneuver between the threats from an increasingly rapacious US imperialism and the movement from below by the working class in opposition to conditions of unemployment and austerity and the rolling back of the limited social concessions the mullahs made as they consolidated their power in the early 1980s.

The Trump administration’s criminal Iran agenda—its repudiation of the JCPOA and unleashing of economic war on Iran—has placed Washington and Tehran on a collision course, threatening to ignite a Mideast-wide war that could draw in all of the major nuclear-armed powers.

UK education system breaking apart after decade of cuts

Tom Pearce

Many UK schools returning after the Easter break face an unprecedented crisis. A decade of cuts to education funding are having such an impact that some teachers and pupils are cleaning classrooms, while others are taking pay cuts to save ancillary staff jobs.

Shortfalls in funding across the education sector have led to huge budget deficits, with head teachers being forced to make desperate decisions about how to keep their schools running.

So dire is the situation that last term five teachers at Furzedown primary school in Wandsworth, south London, volunteered to up to a £7,000-a-year pay cut in order to save the jobs of two of their teaching assistant colleagues.

Headteacher Monica Kitchlew-Wilson was forced to ask older pupils to clean classrooms after one of the school’s cleaners moved jobs and there was not enough money to replace her. The head even drafted in her husband, a trained plumber, to help. The school is buying fewer books and reducing investment in IT, as well as on services for children with behavioural and learning difficulties.

Schools are relying on teachers and parents to finance state education and plug deficits. One in six state schools sent letters to the families of around 1.4 million pupils asking for contributions of £20 a month or more. Some schools have requested the setting up of direct debit payments or for families to make one-off contributions—in some cases up to £600. More than 1,000 schools across England have turned to crowd funding on the internet.

Fundraising by school communities has been used to pay for new technology and revamp school playgrounds, none of which would have otherwise been possible. Donations of equipment, such as crayons, paper and glue sticks, are commonplace, with head teachers seeking the support of local communities.

A survey published last week by the NASUWT education union found that 20 percent of teachers were spending their own money on basic classroom supplies and nearly half surveyed were paying for food, clothes and basic toiletries for poor pupils. One teacher said she had paid out £5,000 on classroom supplies in recent years.

Cuts have hit the most vulnerable children. Disabled children at Kings Heath, a school in Birmingham, were forced to leave after the school considered scrapping provision for them due to budget cuts. Chair of Governors Penny Colbourne said: “We are being asked to make impossible choices and impossible decisions.” School head Shirley Hanson said she was “distressingly” having to consider closing the specialist resource base for children with physical disabilities.

Funding per pupil in England continues to fall, with a further 3 percent drop to come in the next period, a study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) revealed. This would lead to a £130 cut for every pupil in primary school and a £170 cut for each secondary school pupil. Most schools will not be able to cope with this further funding reduction. The effect on the standard of education on offer will be devastating.

Analysis of official figures by campaign group, the School Cuts Coalition, showed that the shortfall in funding reached £5.4 billion across England’s schools between 2015 and 2018. To put this in perspective, in the county of Yorkshire the sum amounts to more than £481 million—with 90 percent of schools affected—and a £66 million shortfall in the city of Leeds alone.

Most secondary schools, and almost 30 percent of primary schools, are run as Academies—publicly funded by central government though privately controlled. Academies were an initiative of the Blair Labour government in 2000.

Many Academies are run as chains, whereby one Academy trust runs more than one school. To offset the cuts, many Academy trusts are considering changing the terms and conditions of their workers to save money.

One academy chain in Yorkshire, the Bradford Diocesan Academies Trust (BDAT), which runs 13 schools, launched a consultation on changes to terms and conditions last autumn.

The Trust aims to add an extra month on the notice period that teachers can give when leaving the trust. Currently, conditions state that there are only three dates throughout the school year that staff can give notice to leave. This change would “give the trust the power to give staff notice in mid-April, forcing them to leave at the end of the summer term.” As a result, teachers would not be paid over the summer months, saving the trust thousands of pounds. If this is passed, other academies will follow suit and use the cuts to force through other changes to working conditions.

At the same time, some chains have been accused of squandering hundreds, even thousands of taxpayers’ money, both legally and illegally.

While slashing the overall education budget successive Tory-led governments have found millions of pounds for academies to take over schools and set up multi-academy trusts.

According to a Schools Week investigation, since 2013 the Department for Education allocated more than “£126 million in sponsor capacity funding.” However, Schools Week found that during the 2016–17 academic year, after £5 million was handed out, “six trusts paid a combined £195,334 have not taken on any new schools.”

The report notes that “four trusts that received funding in 2015–16 are yet to expand. Southmoor Academy Trust, Brighter Futures, the Keys Federation and Zest Academy Trust received £293,045 between them.” This is taxpayer’s money that could be the difference between a school staying open or closing.

This revelation follows a previous Schools Week investigation in 2017 which exposed that millions of pounds were wasted in the creation of “northern hubs” but nothing actually materialised.

Other high profile cases, such as Bright Tribe and Wakefield City Academy Trusts, which received almost £1.5 million between them, have collapsed.

A BBC1 Panorama documentary shown last month, “The Academy Schools Scandal,” exposed financial corruption on a criminal scale in some Academy chains—but the perpetrators have not faced any criminal investigation.

That educators are placed in this intolerable situation is an indictment of the teaching trade unions, who have done nothing to mobilise their membership in opposition to the tide of cuts to education. The National Education Union (NEU), the biggest teachers’ union, correctly declares that schools are facing a “national emergency.” Teachers are only too aware of this, with NEU members repeatedly returning strike ballots to fight back. In opposition, the NEU and others are suppressing this willingness to fight. Instead the unions call on their members to note school cuts on a website as “Politicians care what voters think, but we’ve got to make sure they continue to make them feel the pressure from around the country.”

The last national strike action by UK teachers was to defend their pensions, alongside other public sector workers. These were eventually wound down in 2011 by the unions, so that today teachers and others in the public sector have to pay more and work longer for a smaller pension.

The unions are insisting teachers wait for the election of a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government. But Corbyn has made it clear that a Labour government led by him would be fully committed to “fiscal responsibility,” with Labour councils everywhere carrying out millions in budget cuts as they set balanced budgets as instructed by the Labour leader.

Across the country, communities are setting up their own organisations to fight back. This month, parents and their children who attend St Matthew’s Primary School marched through Cambridge to demand action on school funding. Following the march, a rally heard the school will face a £60,000 cut to the school budget in September. The parents have formed the Fund Our Schools campaign group.

The Socialist Equality Party urges all teachers and workers in education to unite with other public sector workers alongside workers in the private sector, both in the UK and internationally. Ongoing strikes by teachers in Poland, who are taking action in defiance of their unions, show the way forward. Central to this fight is the formation of rank-and-file committees in workplaces and local communities independent from and in rebellion against the trade unions, who have collaborated for a decade with the Tory-led Conservative governments as they dismantle public education.

Germany’s IT Security Act 2.0: Another step towards a police state

Wolfgang Weber 

Just a few days after the publication of a draft for an “Intelligence Enabling Act,” the German interior minister Horst Seehofer has submitted proposals to the cabinet for a comprehensive extension and tightening up of the 2015 IT Security Act.

The “IT Security Act 2.0” would allow the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) to carry out intelligence tasks, expand the powers of the police and extend criminal law by introducing new criminal offences. The platform www.netzpolitik.org published the draft on March 27.

Until now the main work of the BSI was to ward off attacks on the IT system, such as to inform the public about viruses and trojans, draw attention to security gaps in well-known programs such as Windows, Office and Adobe Flash and close such security gaps. Now, on the pretext of protecting the public interest, the BSI is to be upgraded into an offensive agency capable of cracking, hacking and manipulating IT systems, private databases and networks.

In the future the BSI will be able to use systematic scanning of identifiable portals (device access) to search for insecure, i.e., vulnerable devices. In the so-called Internet of Things such devices include internet-connected refrigerators, washing machines, cameras, automobiles, even children’s computers or baby monitors, through which an attacker could penetrate the WLAN of a business or individual.

The BSI will be allowed to log onto such devices to detect passwords and then spy on, and also change data. Actions that up to now are punishable are thus legalised in the case of the BSI. In addition, telecommunication providers are required to submit to the BSI the personal data corresponding to an IP address.

The Federal Office may inform affected owners of insecure IT systems or systems that have been broken into, but need not do so. In addition, it can alter devices, networks and IT systems that it has classified as “insecure.” To this end the BSI can oblige telecommunications providers to install software patches developed by the BSI on a system registered under a specific IP address to delete or change “malware.”

The ability to secretly infiltrate and manipulate IT systems allows the security forces to act against, and even manipulate evidence against individuals and organisations deemed to be “suspicious” or “anti-constitutional.” This constitutes a radical breach of basic democratic rights such as the inviolability of the home, telecommunications security, the right of self-determination and the privacy of those affected and, depending on the target, a possible violation of the freedom of the press or the confidentiality rights of doctors and lawyers.

The Interior Ministry has justified IT Security Act 2.0 by claiming it allows security agencies to protect “insecure systems” from attackers and take control of groups of remote-controlled devices—so-called botnets—to prevent them undertaking attacks or sending spam. The ministry is deliberately concealing the fact that protection against botnets is also possible in other, defensive ways to secure, for example, critical infrastructure such as the energy or water supplies, or railway networks.

Paragraph 163g, located at the very end of the draft, makes clear the dictatorial aims hidden behind the mask of “IT security.” It allows prosecutors and the police the right “to access the user accounts or functions” of a suspect, against his or her will, and “contact third parties using this virtual identity.” The draft continues: “The suspect is required to provide the access data required to employ the virtual identity.”

A general, and not a concrete suspicion that someone has committed a crime, plans to commit one, or is participating in a crime with the help of an internet service, is sufficient to force that person to hand over their account details. Should he or she refuse, they can be detained for up to six months under Section 70 of the Criminal Code.

Among the crimes that are supposed to provide the pretext for state intervention are a long list of offences, ranging from “abduction to falsifying an asylum claim” (i.e., helping a refugee) and murder, but also minor everyday offences such as abuse via email or Ebay fraud. The list provides ample opportunity for arbitrary searches and raids, along with “covert investigations” on the internet.

The draft also states that, “Accounts ... can be taken over and used even if the government agency obtains the access data in other ways, for example by means of covert investigations or as part of an online search,” e.g., through the deliberate use of trojans.

Finally, the IT Security Act 2.0 stipulates a number of new offences, while other criminal law provisions are tightened up considerably. For a whole range of existing crimes, such as spying, intercepting or manipulating data, the maximum penalty is increased from two to five years imprisonment. This does not apply, of course, when the perpetrators are the BSI, the intelligence services or the police.

These same offences are now upgraded to the level of serious offences, permitting the authorities to not only listen into telephones during an investigation, but also deploy so-called state trojans, i.e., spyware and malicious software developed by the BSI or other state agencies.

A new offence has been created of providing “Internet-based services” that make it possible or easier to commit crimes via internet services. This is directed against trading platforms in the so-called Darknet, but also against services offering anonymity or private communication spaces such as the TOR browser. This is another assault on basic democratic rights, such as the right to the self-determination of information and freedom of expression, of which the right to anonymity is crucial.

In future, it will also be a criminal offence to publish or plan to publish private data, with a penalty of up to 10 years. A particularly serious case of such a crime exists if the act “threatens serious disadvantage for the Federal Republic of Germany.” This could undoubtedly include such acts as publicising leaked data revealing, for example, the involvement of the German army in war crimes in Afghanistan or Mali.

The draft also makes “digital trespassing” or, as it is called in the bill, the “unauthorised use of IT systems,” a criminal offence. This would include infiltrating a government database for the purpose of disclosing state crimes, as Chelsea Manning did in 2010 when she transmitted to the world, via WikiLeaks, American military documents exposing US Army war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The last two clauses in particular clearly show that the IT Security Act 2.0 must be seen in connection with the arrest of Julian Assange and his imminent extradition to the US. Anyone who, like Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange, stands up for democratic rights and exposes imperialist crimes is to be intimidated, punished and silenced.

A host of lawyers in the various ministries are now working feverishly, and often in grotesque detail, to concretise the future laws governing the activities of the police and intelligence agencies. They seek to neatly sew up the “legal” abolition of democratic rights in order to preserve the appearance of a “rule of law” as long as possible. The German judiciary has considerable experience in this sort of planning for dictatorship, and not just from the monarchy before 1918 and the Weimar Republic. Without the active collaboration of leading judicial figures, the dictatorship of Hitler, the persecution of the Jews and their extermination would not have been possible.

The speed with which similar work is now being undertaken is breath-taking. It corresponds to the global intensification of the class struggle against social inequality, militarism and dictatorial regimes. These class struggles are the main reason why the ruling classes in Germany, Europe, and also the US, are increasingly turning towards dictatorship and fascism.

Landslide victory for Zelensky over Poroshenko in Ukrainian presidential election

Jason Melanovski

In the second round of Ukraine’s presidential election on Sunday, comedian Volodomyr Zelensky won a landslide victory over the incumbent president, Petro Poroshenko, who was brought to power in an imperialist-backed far-right coup in February 2014.

Exit polls showed Zelensky winning 73.06 percent of the vote (almost 10 million votes), compared to just 24.61 percent for Poroshenko (less than 3.4 million votes). In the face of the overwhelming vote for Zelensky, Poroshenko quickly conceded defeat, stating that while he was “leaving office,” he was not “leaving politics.” With the exception of a small province in western Ukraine, the entire country voted overwhelmingly for Zelensky.

The victor will officially be sworn into office in June. In the wake of Zelensky’s victory on Sunday, his campaign staff reported that he had already received congratulatory phone calls from French Preisdent Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump.

Zelensky, whose recently created Servant of the People Party has no parliamentary representation, has announced that he will seek quickly to dissolve parliament prior to the parliamentary elections currently scheduled for October. In that case, new parliamentary elections will be held in July.

The election results reflect, above all, the enormous popular hostility toward the right-wing nationalist and militarist policies of the Poroshenko regime, which was installed in 2014 by the imperialist powers as a puppet regime to spearhead their war preparations against Russia.

Since then, Poroshenko has subjected the Ukrainian working class to far-reaching austerity measures, the continuation of the war in the east of the country and extreme nationalism and xenophobia. His presidency has relied heavily on the promotion of far-right forces. His government banned references to communism and the victory of the Red Army aganst Nazism in World War II, and made the glorification of the Nazi collaborators of Stepan Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-B (OUN-B) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) official state policy.

Poroshenko’s entire presidential campaign was based on whipping up militarism and anti-Russian xenophobia. It followed a major military provocation in the Azov Sea against Russia and the declaration of martial law in several regions of the country where Ukrainian workers had joined strikes and protests against poverty wages and austerity.

In the weeks prior to the election, Poroshenko attempted to portray Zelensky as an agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, claiming that a vote for Zelenskiy would lead to Ukraine’s return to the “Russian empire.”

Poroshenko will leave office as one of the most despised incumbent presidents in modern European political history, with close to 60 percent of the population holding a negative view of him, according to one recent poll.

Zelensky, despite his appeals to anti-war sentiment and to popular hostility to austerity measures, is a representative of the Ukrainian oligarchy and will act on its behalf and on behalf of Western imperialism. In all essentials, his agenda will continue the hated policies of Poroshenko.

He is a close associate of Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky, the owner of Ukraine’s 1+1 Media Group, who has been living in exile in Israel in recent years and is now planning to return to Ukraine.

Zelensky’s most important meeting during the campaign took place not in Ukraine, but rather in France, where he met with French President Macron. In a sign that Western imperialism was orienting itself towards working with a Zelensky presidency, Macron met with Zelensky in mid-April, prior to a separate meeting with Poroshenko.

Little is known about what was discussed between Macron and Zelensky, with the latter stating simply, “We discussed life and essentials. Ending the war in Donbass.” Zelensky had previously expressed his admiration for Macron, who has been mobilizing the French army to crush protests against social inequality by the “yellow vests.”

Zelensky has reportedly hired a public relations firm in Washington to set up meetings with representatives of the Trump administration and various US think tanks.

He won much of his support by criticizing the blatant corruption of the Poroshenko regime and by making fraudulent promises to end the war in Donbass, negotiate directly with Putin and work to prevent a full-scale war with Russia. However, in an interview with RBK Ukraine given shortly before Sunday’s election, Zelenskiy called Russia an “aggressor” in Donbass and Putin an “enemy.” He expressed his support for the banning of Russian-language press and artists, and called World War II Ukrainian war criminal Stepan Bandera, who worked with the Nazis to persecute the Jews, a “hero,” who “defended the freedom of Ukraine.”

He proclaimed that he did not plan to deviate from the proposed entry of Ukraine into NATO and promised to hold a referendum on the issue, pledging to “win over” skeptical Ukrainians in the east of the country. Zelensky is also a long-standing supporter of Ukrainian membership in the European Union. The entry of Ukraine into both the EU and NATO would signify a major provocation and escalation of tensions with Russia.

Throughout the campaign, Zelensky was careful to not reveal anything concrete about his economic agenda, but in his interview with RBK Ukraine, he admitted to being a supporter of all types of “deregulation”—in other words, the elimination of what remains of Ukraine’s social services.

He has won the support of several prominent free market “reformers” within Ukraine, including ex-Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk and former Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius. Abromavicius is notorious for his attempts to push through the wide scale privatization and sale of Ukraine’s remaining state-owned industries.

Both Zelensky and Abromavicius are dedicated to carrying out the orders of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and have stated that Ukraine will remain in the IMF loan program for as long as necessary. Zelensky has also proposed to end a moratorium on the selling of farmland, per IMF order, and has equivocated on the IMF-ordered hiking of natural gas prices, which plunged many Ukrainians into the cold the past winter.

Regarding education, one of Zelensky’s advisors, Serhiy Babak, suggested that a massive privatization of public education was in the cards, stating, “We will open the market for educational services for private initiatives and for foreign educational institutions, and we will develop a state partnership [with private educational organizations].”

At least 290 killed in terrorist bomb attacks in Sri Lanka

K. Ratnayake

At least 290 people have been killed and around 500 injured in a series of powerful bomb blasts yesterday in Sri Lanka. In a co-ordinated attack between 8.45 a.m. and 9 a.m., unidentified terrorists struck three Christian churches and three luxury hotels frequented by tourists. Among the dead are some 35 foreigners, including from the US, European countries, China and Japan.

The three churches—St. Anthony in Colombo, St. Sebastian in Negombo to the north of the capital and the Zion Church in Batticaloa on the east coast of the island—were packed for Easter Sunday services. The blasts ripped off the roofs and left body parts strewn among the rubble. The hospitals, particularly in Negombo where the death toll was the highest, were overwhelmed by the large number of injured, many of whom are in a serious condition.

People recovering bodies in Katuwapitiya Church

The three luxury hotels—the Shangri-La, Cinnamon Grand and Kingsbury—are all in Colombo. Two further blasts in the capital several hours later claimed more lives—one in the suburb of Dehiwela killed two people and the second in Dematagoda killed seven, including three police officers.

The Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka) unequivocally condemns this barbaric murder of innocent people, including children and women. Whoever is responsible for this heinous crime and whatever their motives, it will be exploited by the political establishment to strengthen the state apparatus and further attack basic democratic rights.

The government immediately imposed a nationwide block on social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, WhatsApp and Viber, claiming that they had been used to circulate “false news reports.” While saying the shutdown would be temporary, it is part and parcel of moves by governments internationally to censor the internet so that only government-approved news is readily available.

No organisation or individual has so far claimed responsibility for the terrorist attacks. State minister for defence affairs and media, Ruwan Wijewardena, said the government knew the “identity of the culprits” but would not elaborate. The police have arrested 13 people but have not revealed their identity. Even the nature of the bombings is not clear, although there is some evidence that suicide bombers were involved.

Agence France Presse has reported that the Sri Lankan government and police had received a warning, 10 days before, that suicide bombers planned to attack prominent churches. The intelligence alert to top police officers declared: “A foreign intelligence agency has informed that the NTJ (National Thowheeth Jamma’ath) is planning to carry out suicide attacks targeting prominent churches as well as the Indian High Commission in Colombo.”

Neither the police nor the government took any action to warn the public of an impending attack. Nor is there any evidence that the police took any measures to prevent the bombings. Yet the alert was quite specific and Easter is an obvious time for churches to be full.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday acknowledged that there had been a warning from an unnamed foreign intelligence agency. He claimed, however, that he and his ministers did not know about the alert. He indicated that there would be an inquiry as “there had not been adequate attention [paid] to the information.”

National Thowheeth Jamma’ath is an Islamist organisation based in Sri Lanka that is suspected of having links to Islamic extremists internationally. At this stage, however, one cannot rule out other possibilities.

The Colombo political establishment, which waged a brutal three-decade-long war to defeat the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), has close connections to Sinhala Buddhist supremacist groups, which have a history of attacks on Christians and Christian churches, as well as the island’s Tamil and Muslim minorities. In many cases, the police have simply turned a blind eye to such attacks.

The government is desperate to deflect rising anger over the bombings. In his comments, Wickremesinghe hinted that President Maithripala Sirisena was responsible for taking no action to prevent the attack. Sirisena took over the law and order ministry, which includes the police, last December as part of the bitter rivalry between himself and the prime minister. The president, as defence minister, already has control of the country’s three armed forces.

The opposition, led by former President Mahinda Rajapakse, yesterday condemned the attack but sheeted home the blame to the government. The Rajapakse government was responsible for the brutal end to the war against the LTTE, which involved the killing of tens of thousands of civilians in the final military operations, as well as hundreds of “disappearances” by military-connected death squads.

Rajapakse has defended the “war heroes” against any charges of war crimes and is looking for the military’s support in his bid to return to power. Yesterday, he declared that the attack was a “dire consequence that innocent people have to face because the government has paralysed the intelligence officers and officers of the three armed forces.”

Both the governing and opposition parties, however, were responsible for prosecuting the communal war against the island’s Tamil minority and for vastly expanding the military and state apparatus, as well as its police state powers. The government will undoubtedly exploit yesterday’s bombings to ram through its Counter Terrorism (CT) Bill, which replaces the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act and retains the bulk of its sweeping, anti-democratic powers.

In separate statements, Sirisena and Wickremesinghe urged people to be “calm” as the security measures were put into force—after the bombings. As well as the block on social media, police special task force officers were deployed to guard Colombo railway station, Katunayake International Airport among other places. Several hundred soldiers have been deployed onto the streets of Colombo and a curfew has been imposed.

Police prepared with water cannon near the National Hospital

World leaders yesterday rushed to denounce the terrorist attack. US President Donald Trump condemned the “horrible terrorist attacks,” offered “heartfelt condolences” and declared that the US stood “ready to help.” British Prime Minister Theresa May also decried the attacks saying the “violence was truly appalling.” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that “there is no place for such barbarism in our region.”

Hypocrisy knows no bounds! The US and its allies are responsible for criminal wars in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa that fueled the Islamic extremists, if they were, indeed, responsible for yesterday’s bombings. Washington backed successive Colombo governments that waged the island’s brutal war, which created communal tensions and hatreds that Sri Lanka's elites continue to stir up and manipulate.

Amid a rising tide of working-class struggles, the ruling classes internationally are whipping up anti-immigrant xenophobia and deliberately nurturing fascist parties and organisations. Last month, the Australian fascist Brenton Tarrant shot dead 50 people, including women and children, in mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Despite Tarrant’s connections in far-right circles internationally, the police and intelligence services claim that they had no forewarning. The response of the government in Wellington has been to blame the internet and censor websites.

The government in Sri Lanka will use yesterday’s bombings for the same purpose. Over the past year, there has been a wave of strikes by workers and protests by students, farmers and the poor against the government’s austerity measures. The police-state measures put in place, on the pretext of fighting terrorism, will inevitably be used against the working class.

Conflict continues over Peruvian copper mine as peasant blockade is lifted

Cesar Uco & Armando Cruz

After five hours of deliberations, on Thursday April 10, representatives of 27 peasant communities, whose lands are used to transport copper concentrate from the Las Bambas mine reached an agreement with the government to end a 66-day road blockade that interrupted the export of the mineral to China.

The government represented by the prime minister Salvador del Solar plus four other ministers and a representative of the Chinese transnational MMG Ltd., owner of Las Bambas, agreed to all terms presented by the president of Fuerabamba—the peasant community that maintained a road blockade.

The deal will allow the resumption of the daily passage of 250 heavy load trucks transporting the copper concentrate to the seaport of Matarani in the department of Arequipa, a 500-kilometer trip. It was emphasized, though, that the measure was temporary, pending the success of negotiations.

In exchange, the government agreed to withdraw its police from the area and lift a “state of emergency” declared last October after violent confrontations between the peasant community members—in Spanish known as “comuneros”—and the police.

The government’s giving in to the comuneros’ demands expresses how desperate it is to ensuring the uninterrupted export of what amounts to 400,000 tons of copper concentrate to China. It saw the continuation of the Las Bambas conflict as casting Peru as unstable and unsafe for foreign capital to invest in mining. Peru is the second largest exporter of the metal worldwide.

However, the Fuerabamba comuneros’ president, Gregorio Rojas, warned that the underlying problem was not fully solved.

Fuerabamba is asking to be paid for the use of the road that crosses its “communal” lands and those of 38 other peasant communities, with whom they share the road from Las Bambas to the Hacienda Yavi Yavi. The conflict occurred when last year the central government unilaterally reclassified the road owned by the local communities from “communal” to “national,” so that the owners of the Las Bambas mine wouldn’t have to pay for its use.

In 2014, MMG Ltd, the Melbourne-based unit of Chinese state-owned Minmetals Corp, bought Las Bambas from the Swiss mining company Glencore for US$ 7 billion, with a total estimated investment of US$ 10 billion. Las Bambas, an open-pit mine, is expected to become the sixth largest copper mine in the world, producing 400,000 tons per year, responsible for 2 percent of the global market.

At the time, an important agreement reached by the comuneros and Glencore was to build an underground “pipeline” through which the copper would be transported instead of using the dirt road that would end up ruining the communally owned land. When Las Bambas was purchased by MMG Limited, this proposal was rejected and the decision made to use the road that leads to Yavi Yavi, crossing the land of 39 communities, with the new owner promising to pave the road.

Faced with the breach of what was agreed to by MMG, the community members, gathered in an assembly, decided on February 4 to block the road demanding its asphalting and that it be paid for its use, because they were not consulted as required by the ILO conventions. For the comuneros, the road is still “communal” and their property.

In the first 50 days—until mid-March—the road blockade had no impact on production at the mine and its concentrator plant, with the mineral being kept in storage located on the mine’s own land.

The Chinese company MMG reacted by threatening to execute “force majeure” and lay off 8,000 employees—including 2,500 workers operating the mine and the concentrate plant. The conflict was thereby radicalized, and a clash on April 4 left seven civilians and five policemen injured. The news of a possible paralysis of the Las Bambas operations went global. Bloomberg warned of the impact it could have on the price of copper worldwide, which, due to its shortage, has already increased 7 percent this year.

Just as MMG was about to run out of storage capacity after more than 50 days of the blockade, late in March the central government ordered the arrest of the president of Fuerabamba, Gregorio Rojas, his two legal advisers, the Chávez Sotelo brothers, and one more leader, accused them of trying to extort MMG in exchange for lifting the road blockade.

Outraged by the arrest of its leaders, Fuerabamba immediately won the support of the other 38 communities located in the departments of Apurímac and Cusco, which decided to go on indefinite strike, and also the support of the governors of the departments of Apurímac and Cusco. In solidarity, comunerosin Arequipa occupied the transoceanic highway for three hours. Angry over not being taken seriously, when a helicopter carrying three ministers was departing from Fuerabamba after failed negotiations, comuneros stoned it. With the conflict threatening to expand, encompassing the entire regions of the Southern Andes in which several multibillion dollar transnationals operate, the central government finally decided to pay attention to Las Bambas.

The indigenous communities of Quechua and Aymara origin were brutally exploited, humiliated and ignored, first by colonial Lima and then by the descendants of Spaniards born in South America who retained ownership of the large haciendas.

These landowners had total control over their lands, including the local priests, mayors and the police. The centralized bourgeois state in Lima had virtually no jurisdiction over the haciendas, especially over those located in the remote Andes where the Quechua and Aymara communities live. To this day, the comuneros continue to practice their ancestral customs of life, with many communities not speaking Spanish.

Transnational mining companies contribute 40 percent of Peru’s export revenues, with these companies operating in the departments with the highest poverty. The poorest is Cajamarca with its large gold mines, followed by six departments, including Apurímac, with a poverty rate between 33 and 36 percent. In remote regions, poverty is even greater. This is the case of Fuerabamba, where it reaches 84 percent.

Because the mine was located just below the old town of Fuerabamba, MMG offered to build a “modern” town 25 kilometers away, known as Nueva Fuerabamba.

The business daily Gestión reported on the deterioration in the standard of living of the community members of Nueva Fuerabamba: “Three years after moving, many of the residents still struggle to adapt to the suburban environment. ... [although some received up to 400,000 soles or US $ 125,000 to relocate, a figure not confirmed by the mine] ... they miss the life of growing potatoes and raising cattle.”

“Many have squandered what they received. Idleness and isolation have blunted the spirits of [the] community ...” Gestion continues, “Their new two and three story drywall houses seem weak and cold compared to their old roofed adobe huts of straw that were heated with wood stoves ...”

The newspaper adds that “Most jobs ... are for maintenance of the town because many lack the skills to work in a modern mine.” Therefore, the residents “demand ... more jobs and title deeds of their homes” not yet delivered.

“Now they have to pay for basic needs such as water, food and fuel that they used to take from the land.” Alcoholism is increasing, it added. “During a 12-month period, four residents committed suicide by taking agricultural chemicals.”

An independent study indicates that “prior to the relocation ... the old village of Fuerabamba suffered from high rates of domestic violence, alcoholism, illiteracy, poverty and lack of access to basic public services.”

While the general manager of MMG, Troy Hey, and the bourgeois state qualify the transfer of the comuneros as “a positive change”, Camilo León, specialist in mining resettlements, said that for “subsistence peasants it is usually very difficult to leave their traditions and getting used to the ‘very urban, very organized’ environment of the planned cities...”

In Peru there are six transnational corporations that have relocated indigenous peoples. “And this month,” León said, “a US$2 billion copper project, Michiquillay, would be tendered, which would also involve relocating another community.”