Indian Economy unlikely to Recuperate Quickly under Double Whammy of COVID-19 Lockdown and Global Economic Meltdown

Sushant Kumar Singh

Covid-19 which originated in China’s Wuhan city has taken the shape of pandemic all over the world calling for severe medical emergencies world-wide. The world has no vaccine or a drug to control it medically, as such the World Health Organisation (WHO) urges all the nations to implement complete lockdown in their country, which is the only available strategy that can effectively minimize the spread of disease and save more lives. A major part of the world is presently observing complete lock-down which has led to the halt of all economic activities worldwide. In the wake of increasing Corona infected cases, India has also declared 21 days complete lock-down of all social, political and economic activities except the supply of some essential services like groceries, health, banking transaction, petrol pump and LPG gas for a limited period of time each day. India’s 1.3 billion people are strictly decreed to stay at home.

India being the 5th largest economy in the world, locking down of such a large economy will have huge cost towards both global and domestic transactions. If this lockdown continues for a longer period of over one month then it will wreak havoc in the Indian economy. Indian economy is going to be affected not only by the termination of their domestic economic activity but also by the global lock-down scenario. World’s top two economies in terms of both PPP and Nominal GDP, China and US are also suffering due to the Corona virus lock-down. Both the countries aggregately constitute 36% of world GDP (in nominal method) and 24% of global trade. China and US are also the top two leading trade partners of India. As such slowdown of these two huge economies will definitely have negative consequences for Indian economy like decrease in exports and standstill of exporting industries, which can further result into huge amount of unemployment and decline in GDP growth rate. China’s economic growth slowed to 6.2% in the second quarter, which is its lowest growth rate in 27 years. US economy slowed down to 2.1% from the expected growth of 3.1%. Economists are suggesting it will plummet below 2% over the next quarter. Slowing down of these two economies in the wake of Corona crisis and protracted tariff war between them may fuel global economy crisis in the upcoming days.  OECD has marked that world economic growth will decline by half i.e., to 1.5% from 2.9%, and may experience greater economic disruption than the 2008 financial crisis, if the lock-down to contain Corona virus infection persists for a longer period of time. United Nation (UN) estimates that the present crisis may cost $220 billion to developing countries and world economy could lose approximately $2 trillion income. According to the World Bank, East Asian and pacific economy could face significant economic slowdown,  growth in this province may decline to 2.1% against forecast of 5.8% and in worst case scenario growth may plunge to 0.5% and 11 million people may end up below poverty line. World GDP may decline by 2.2% to 4%, estimated loss of approximately $ 3 Trillion.

Economic disturbance caused by this lock-down has led to three major impacts in the Indian economy. First, severe plunge in the stock market led to devaluation and volatility in financial market and slowing down of the industrial production due to global blocked. BSE Sensex started falling uninterruptedly from 41170.12 on 20th Feb to 29468.49 on 31st March which accounts for 28.4% decline in market value and is continuously dropping down till date. In Banking and NBFC sector ICRA anticipates assets quality stress likely to reflect with a lag of 1-2 quarter after removal of moratorium period. This will lead to spike in stressed assets and increased in generation of non-performing assets (NPA’s). Second, complete disruption of supply chain causing cessation of small and major economic activities. It has badly impacted logistics industry and employment there.  Only the supplies of essential services are just keeping this industry going right now. Third, mass exodus of migrant labour from cities to their native villages, who were a huge part of the informal sector. Most of them worked in the Micro, Small and Medium size Enterprises (MSME’s sector), so this mass departure could lead to temporary suspension of production activity or entirely closing down of some of the MSMEs and large enterprises in the short run. Lockdown has forced millions of migrant worker into joblessness. All these factors together are pushing the economy into a tailspin and future uncertainty, if strong expansionary fiscal policies are not taken into consideration. Some industries that have already been hit hardest by the lock down are tourism & hospitality and travel and logistic industry. Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) anticipates the loss of 20 million jobs in tourism and hospitality industry if its activities not pick up by the October. It also assessed that this is one of the worst crisis Indian economy is experiencing which has terribly impacted all the aspects of tourism sector.

According to FAITH (Federation of Associations in India Tourism & Hospitality), tourism industry is running towards the condition of bankruptcy, which could leave around 70% of the workforce in a lurch of mass unemployment. National Sample Survey (NSS) believes Indian economy is on the verge of losing 136 million jobs.

In the short-run, the economy will experience both negative supply and demand shocks. Complete shutdown of MSMEs and big enterprises’ production activities will lead to a decrease in aggregate supply. At the same time, there will be massive shortage of effective demand in the economy due fall in the mass consumptions, ascribable to decrease in the income level of households for various reasons such as increased unemployment, leave without pay or half salary to the employees and decline in business turnover. As a consequence, there will be decrease in profit and investment level which will lead to a fall in aggregate demand. Asian Development Bank (ADB) and National Statistics Office NSO estimates the expected annual growth for the economy is 4% and 5% respectively. All the other credit agencies have also revised their growth model of the financial year 2020 for India. Moody has downgraded growth rate from 5.3 % to 2.5 %, CRISIL has demoted economic growth from 5.7 % to 5.2%, S & P has reduced the growth expectation from 6.5% to 5.2% and Fitch has relegated the expected growth to 5.1% from 5.6%. At a time when the Indian economy is yet to completely recover from the two shocks of demonetization and GST implementation; it is now got stuck into the severe economic obstruction due to Corona lock down.  CARE has accounted for 6.3 – 7.2 lakh crore loss of income to the economy in 21 days of lockdown.

Raghu R. Rajan in his recent interview to India Today, said that government need to be cautious about temporary shocks to the economy does not become a more permanent shock. For now we are seeing downturn in the economy, slow revenue generation, slow cash flow, no income to worker, substantial layoff and MSME’s firms are closing down. The main concerns should be for the government to efficiently bridges between the present time crisis and the period after the lockdown over, when this crisis brought under the control and most importantly the government has to make crucial decision regarding prevention of closing down of MSME’s. Dun and Bradstreet in their forecast estimated that the economy may enter into recession, companies may go bankrupt and the economy’s expected vulnerability cannot be decoupled from the global melt down.

Corona Virus is not only affecting the human respiratory system but now it has also started infecting the respiratory system of the country’s economy. There will be some bigger challenges to the government as to how it will treat this economy’s respiratory ailments in the near future under looming economic recession: For how long the government is going to impose this ongoing lock-down considering the economic health and at the same time control the Corona pandemic? How is the government going to restore faith in financial sector, manufacturing sector and especially in the MSME’s sector? Who will the government bailout and to what extent? If the number of Corona patients increases in the upcoming days to huge numbers like those in US, Italy or Spain then, how is the government going to allocate the limited medical resources, like who will be given attention and extra care or who will not get it (in terms of admission and ventilators)? How is the government going to take care of gig workers, daily wagers, precarious labour and contractual labors, who have lost their job amid this Corona virus lock-down? How is the government going to ensure that all those migrant labour are placed again in the production circuit after the lock-down crisis will calm down? What ought to be the greatest learning from this devastating socioeconomic crisis will be depend on the how we as a political society respond to the double whammy of global health crisis and economic mayhem. Hope this global COVID-19 health crisis along with the massive fall down of global economy alters the government’s and economists’ view on global and domestic economic system and urges them to change the pattern of public expenditure towards the provision of universal health care system, expansion and access of social security programmes to each and every needy people, affordable housing, clean water and environment and free education for all and paved the way for a better society.

Australian government “pauses” hounding welfare recipients in face of massive jobless queues

Margaret Rees

The Australian government said last Friday it would partly suspend the pursuit of alleged welfare debts for six months during the coronavirus crisis, a measure triggered by a growing public outcry and the political establishment’s fear of social unrest.

Even though tens of thousands of newly unemployed people struggled to apply for welfare assistance on huge jobless queues, Services Australia was still deploying 1,500 “compliance officers” to pursue alleged debts until the pause was announced on Friday.

Outraged welfare recipients had taken to social media, as well as some corporate media outlets, to reveal threatening “accounts payable” letters they had received from Centrelink, the government’s welfare agency, demanding payment of supposed over-payments.

In addition, Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Liberal-National government is still delaying repaying hundreds of millions of dollars to recipients who were unlawfully accused of over-claiming benefits under the government’s discredited automated “robodebt” scheme, even as the government channels billions of dollars in “rescue packages” to big business.

Friday’s decision, described as a “pause” on “certain debt activity,” was announced by Government Services Minister Stuart Robert, who said it would allow the redeployment of staff to process benefits claims. But he said “fraud and serious non-compliance” action would continue, leaving the door open to continuing to hound thousands of welfare recipients.

At the same time, Services Australia issued a notice that it intends to use Medicare records for a data-matching program that would include “detecting over payments and recovering debt.” The Medicare information would be used to “make sure Centrelink payments are only made to people who are entitled to those payments” and “help the whole-of-government approach to identify serious and complex fraud.”

The notice indicates that, having been compelled by a Federal Court ruling to abandon the automated “robodebt” scheme of computer-generated debt allegations, the government will now use Medicare data to pursue supposed welfare benefit over payments.

“Services Australia expects to match approximately 9.8 million unique records held in its Centrelink database,” it said. “Based on fraud criteria, Services Australia anticipates it will examine approximately 5,000-9,000 records per year.”

Families and Social Services Minister Anne Ruston last month issued a “public interest immunity” claim to prevent her department officials answering questions in a Senate committee hearing about the robodebt “income compliance scheme,” which is now the subject of a class action by about 10,000 people.

The class action—“Katherine Prygodicz & Ors versus Commonwealth of Australia”—accuses the government of unjust enrichment and negligence, basically for gouging illegal repayments out of poor and vulnerable welfare recipients and denying any duty of care to them.

Despite Ruston’s manoeuvre to avoid public scrutiny, a leaked confidential cabinet submission revealed that the government expects to lose the class action, so it will have to refund 449,500 debt repayments worth a total of $555.6 million.

However, the payments will not commence until July and will take 12 months to complete, according to the cabinet submission by Ruston, Stuart Robert and Attorney-General Christian Porter.

Services Australia stopped initiating reviews under the robodebt method of automatic income averaging last December, after the Federal Court ruled the method unlawful. But the government had not halted its broader debt recovery program, and was also denying cash advances to people whose “robodebts” had been frozen.

The government’s callous, punitive and financially cruel regime had continued in the face of the enormous social distress caused by the COVID-19 disaster. Newly-sacked or laid-off workers were forced to wait in massive queues outside the government’s Centrelink welfare offices to seek assistance.

Workers queuing at a Centrelink office in Sydney late last month

They could not access the MyGov website to lodge claims because it crashed due to years of staff and resourcing cuts in Services Australia, the government agency in charge of the welfare payment system. Nor could people get through by phone.

According to Australian Council for Social Services CEO Cassandra Goldie, the $555.6 million mentioned in the leaked cabinet submission represents just 70 percent of the $785 million that the government extracted via the robodebt system by August 2019.

The Labor Party’s shadow minister for government services, Bill Shorten, last week said staff working on robodebts should be redirected to help Services Australia handle the thousands of people applying for welfare due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fearing a potential social explosion, Shorten called on Stuart Robert to settle the case and “immediately front the Australian public and apologise to the multitude of robodebt victims who have suffered so much because of this scandal.”

This is sheer hypocrisy. It was the last Labor government that launched the “data matching” offensive against welfare recipients.

While assistant treasurer in the Greens-backed Gillard Labor government in 2011, Shorten declared that income compliance detection would be stepped up. “The new matching data link is expected to increase the number of former customers identified for this process by an additional 65,000, above current detection levels, over four years,” he promised.

One newly unemployed young mother, who worked in the welfare sector until she lost her job last week, told the WSWS about her experiences trying to access Services Australia.

“I tried but I couldn’t get through. I’m waiting for them to call back, but I have been waiting five days. I haven’t had any news. My partner was trying too.

“Everything the prime minister says is confusing. All the conditions are unclear.

“We also tried online, but we’re not going to queue up. That’s another contradiction. It is so unhealthy. They are not prioritising lives of workers. There are so many issues for us right now.

“These people in power don’t care. Even the laws that exist can’t cope with this situation.

“There is so much pressure and guilt. They are supposed to be for the whole of society, not just a sector. I’m not naïve, I know what they are like.”

African continent in social and economic chaos as official COVID-19 cases hit 10,000

Stephan McCoy

The scale of the disaster confronting Africa in the coronavirus crisis, with the least robust health care systems in the world and a venal bourgeoisie incapable of responding to the surge of cases, is becoming ever clearer.

Nearly 10,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed on the African continent—a huge underestimate given the lack of testing kits—and 376 people have died. At least 148 health care workers have tested positive and four have succumbed to the virus.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, secretary general of the World Health Organization (WHO) said, “The best advice for Africa is to prepare for the worst and prepare today”—advice African governments have ignored.

The Global Health Security (GHS) Index, which assesses countries’ abilities and preparedness to respond to biological threats and novel flu epidemics or pandemics, exposes African governments’ lack of preparation for the pandemic, which was both foreseeable and foreseen.

Its 2019 report stated, “National health security is fundamentally weak around the world. No country is fully prepared for epidemics or pandemics, and every country has important gaps to address.”

It found, “Only 19 percent of countries receive top marks for detection and reporting” of biological threats, with only “5 percent of countries scoring in the highest tier for their ability to rapidly respond to and mitigate the spread of an epidemic.”

The average overall GHS Index score among all 195 countries assessed was 40.2 out of 100. The majority of countries ranked as “least prepared” are in Africa, with Somalia (16.6) and Equatorial Guinea (16.2) listed at the bottom. Only South Africa comes in with a relatively high number—34.

A recent Bloomberg article, “Trapped by Coronavirus, Nigeria’s Elite Faces Squalid Hospitals,” notes that the Nigerian elite, who have long been accustomed to flying to the UK, France or India for medical treatment, will now have to face the consequences of their own policies.

Francis Faduyile, head of the Nigerian Medical Association, said, “The health system is not strong enough. Over the years, it’s been denied normal funding and things are not where they’re supposed to be. If the burden of the coronavirus is added, it may be too heavy; it may actually cause a total collapse.” He said, “It’s going to be a lesson for those who think they can neglect the health system.”

What the article describes is horrific. And Nigeria is by no means the worst case as the GHS index shows. According to its health ministry, Nigeria has 75,000 doctors, 180,709 nurses and 25,000 pharmacists for a population of 200 million. But half of all registered doctors have emigrated to the advanced Western countries. Nigeria has 0.5 hospital beds per 1,000 people, far below WHO thresholds, and only five laboratories are able to test for the coronavirus.

Health spending accounted for about 5 percent of the government’s budget over the last decade, falling far short of the African Union’s recommended minimum of 15 percent. It has largely focused on recurrent spending, with little or no capital investment. Only N427.3 billion ($1.096 billion) of the federal budget (4.5 percent) went to health, which amounts to just N2,000 (US$5.50) for each of Nigeria’s 200 million population.

The Financial Times noted that African governments spend an average of $12 per capita a year on health compared with $4,000 in the UK. In Nigeria, there are just 169 ventilators for 200 million people. Nigeria has one of the highest mortality rates of children under five in the world, with one in ten children dying before the age of five. It provides health care coverage to only 3 percent of its population through the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

Life expectancy, at 52 years, is below the African average. HIV, tuberculosis and malaria are among the leading causes of death, together accounting for around 20 percent of all deaths. Some 40 percent of the population lack access to clean drinking water while only 30 percent have adequate sanitation.

This terrible situation is not due to a lack of resources. According to Oxfam, “The combined wealth of Nigeria’s five richest men—$29.9 billion—could end extreme poverty at a national level, yet 5 million face hunger. More than 112 million people are living in poverty in Nigeria, yet the country’s richest man would have to spend $1 million a day for 42 years to exhaust his fortune. … The amount of money that the richest Nigerian man can earn annually from his wealth is sufficient to lift 2 million people out of poverty for one year.”

The worldwide economic slowdown has led to plummeting demand and prices for Africa’s natural resources, including oil and gas, a collapse in tourism and travel and remittances from the African diaspora, while border closures and flight bans have curtailed the export of key agricultural produce.

Ahunna Eziakonwa, the UN Development Program regional director for Africa, warned that the economy faces a “complete collapse” unless the spread of COVID-19 is controlled. Up to 50 percent of all projected job growth will be lost. “We will see a complete collapse of economies and livelihoods. Livelihoods will be wiped out in a way we have never seen before.”

Governments throughout the continent are using the pandemic and the attendant lockdowns as the pretext for military dictatorship to deal with mounting opposition in the working class.

The Japan Times reported that in Nigeria a soldier enforcing the lockdown killed Joseph Pessu, a resident of the oil city of Warri in the southern state of Delta. In Kenya, security forces enforcing the lockdown killed a 13-year-old boy on his balcony. Yusuf Moyo, the boy’s father, said, “Where is our safety if not in our own homes?” Four others have been killed.

In South Africa, the police and the army have used whips, rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse people in Hillbrow, an inner-city Johannesburg neighbourhood. In Zimbabwe, the army and police forced thousands of homeless people from the streets and transported them to open fields, empty school grounds and stadiums where makeshift shelters are being set up to enforce social distancing.

Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF, estimates that emerging countries may need as much as $2.5 trillion in support. The possibility for widespread unrest will only grow as food shortages hit ailing African economies. Vera Songwe, executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, “If we need an example of what the lack of multilateralism looks like, we’re seeing it today. If one of us has the virus, all of us have it.”

An international and coordinated response to stop the spread of the virus on the African continent must be mounted. Measures must be taken to provide the necessary medical equipment and staff to halt the pandemic—without which the coronavirus will spread, killing millions. A socialist leadership in the African working class must be built, pulling behind it the impoverished peasantry and in unity with the workers in imperialist centres for an uncompromising struggle against the banks, corporations and world imperialism.

Anarchy of capitalist food production exposed as dairy farmers ordered to dump milk

Jacob Crosse

In scenes reminiscent of the Great Depression, dairy farmers across the US have been ordered to dump perfectly good milk into their fields and lagoons where it will seep into the earth. The inability of the capitalist system to scientifically plan and coordinate production has left producers no choice but to dump millions of gallons of milk, with no end in sight.

Images of farmers dumping their milk has provoked outrage among workers, as grocery stores across the country are still limiting purchases of essential dairy products. While being told to shelter in place, millions of people are obliged to make return trips to the grocery store in order to purchase perishables such as milk, putting their families and essential workers at risk.

This comes at a time of mass layoffs, with millions of families being thrown into food insecurity and compelled to rely on food banks for sustenance. In an interview with the GuardianJerry Brown, media spokesman for St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance, a coalition of 700 food banks, reflected on the unprecedented demand for their services in the US, “The 2008 recession doesn’t touch this. It’s a different ballgame.”

Cow Stock (Stock image Envato)

The implementation of social distancing guidelines has collapsed several traditional milk markets such as schools and restaurants. US public schools were the number one consumer of liquid milk according to Pam Jahnke, editor of the Midwest Farm Report. Unable or willing to make the socially beneficial investments to freeze and store the milk for later use or distribution, the market demands it be discarded in order to keep prices artificially inflated.

The capitalist system has no answer for the crisis of “overproduction.” In her editorial Jahnke advised readers who wanted to help farmers to “Pray that COVID-19 dissipates. Pray that life begins to return to somewhat normal patterns. Pray that this milk dumping situation is just a temporary story. Pray for all the farm families that are trying to make their way through this.”

While the almighty hasn’t yet intervened, travel restrictions and tariffs have crippled supply chains and slowed trade, especially between China and the US. Before the restrictions were implemented, China was the number one importer of dairy products in the world. Even though this pandemic was foreseen for months, food and dairy processors took no steps to prepare for possible disruptions.

Instead of preparing their facilities to switch from wholesale to retail production by ordering the necessary equipment and packaging materials, processors have been scrambling to shift workers from wholesale plants towards retail plants, laying off workers in the process.

These shifts have ensured the continued spread of COVID-19 among the workforce. In Greely, Colorado an estimated 900 workers called off work on Monday after several COVID-19 cases were confirmed at the JBS USA meat processing plant.

The plant, deemed an essential facility, operates 24 hours a day and has three shifts employing some 4,500 workers, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union. The UFCW has worked with company management to keep the line moving during the pandemic and done nothing to make sure workers are protected on the job.

Kim Cordova, president of UFCW Local 7, speaking to the Denver Post, grudgingly conceded “maybe folks are sick,” adding she didn’t, “want to speculate until we get the information.”

Unwilling to provide a safe work environment, processors have meanwhile had a difficult time keeping up with the increased demand from farmers looking to dispose of their products as restaurants and schools turn away deliveries.

In addition to workers falling ill at plants, causing slowdowns, the increased retail demand has resulted in shipping delays. Long-haul truck drivers who transport the bulk of consumer goods in the US have either been unable to pick them up or forced to wait hours for their deliveries due to increased traffic congestion at the plants. Because of this and a shortage of drivers, agriculture groups have been lobbying states to increase truck weight limits on highways, increasing the danger of accidents or rollovers.

Speaking in a radio interview with Farm Report, Ryan Elbe, a dairy farmer in West Bend, Wisconsin, confirmed that his family farm had already dumped 250 million pounds of milk by April 1 and would continue dumping for at least another week. Elbe told reporters he expected his family would be compensated for their milk, however he did not know by whom or when.

Elbe confirmed that his family received a phone call from the Dairy Farmers Alliance (DFA) on March 31, instructing Golden E Dairy that due to an “oversupply” of milk in the market they would have to begin the dumping process. The DFA is a dairy cooperative in which concentrated animal feeding operations, that is farms that have a minimum of 1,000 animal units as defined by the US Department of Agriculture, are organized under the umbrella of the DFA.

Billed as “grassroots cooperatives,” farmers have no input or say in how their milk is produced or where they can sell it. Instead the DFA operates as a cartel in which “farmer-leaders” are elected and overseen by a 49-member board of directors. The DFA has been the defendant in several class action lawsuits brought by farmers alleging everything from price-fixing to monopolization of the market.

In 2013 and 2014 the DFA settled two lawsuits out of court, while admitting no fault. The settlements required the DFA to pay farmers $140 million in one case and $50 million in the other.

The DFA claims it serves more than 14,500 dairy farmer-members representing 8,500 dairy farms in 48 states. It is unclear if all of its farmers are going to dump their milk. However, Elbe was able to confirm that every farmer-member in the co-op that he spoke to had received the same call his father had. The same day, March 31, that the DFA ordered its membership to begin dumping milk a Federal Bankruptcy court in Kansas City, Kansas, where the DFA is headquartered, signaled its approval for a DFA bid to buy out Dean Food Company assets for $433 million.

Dean Food had declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November in 2019. Shortly thereafter DFA submitted several bids to purchase a majority of the assets of the company, the largest dairy processor in the US. The purchase would include the “assets and properties” related to 44 fluid and frozen dairy facilities. For the bid to be approved it will need to be signed off on by the US Department of Justice, as it would mean the largest dairy cooperative in the US would also become the largest milk processor in the country.

It is not just the US dairy industry that is facing a crisis of overproduction, an absurd situation given the chronic hunger suffered by millions in the United States and globally. This crying contradiction is a product of the capitalist profit system, which subordinates any consideration of human need to the drive for profit.

This same absurd situation is being replicated globally. After the shuttering of restaurants in the Netherlands the potato crop is at risk of going to rot as storage tanks remain full from last year's harvest. Speaking to Reuters , Dutch potato farmer Dirk De Heer said he had hoped he would be able to sell his crop at 18 euro cents per kilogram. After finding no other buyers De Heer has been left with no choice but to sell his crop to a dairy farmer at 0.01 euro per kilogram.

Warning of food riots, Rome sends 20,000 troops to patrol southern Italy

Allison Smith

In recent weeks, there has been a massive deployment of 20,000 army soldiers to the southern Italian regions of Campania, Puglia and Sicily to guard commercial centres and streets, as the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown enters its second full month and citizens run out of money to buy food and other basic necessities.

After an incident in Palermo, Sicily, where a group of residents ran out of a grocer shouting that they could not pay, the media and the state sought to paint a picture of disorderly citizens looting stores and threatening the public good. Media headlines blared that without military intervention, the Mafia would take control. But there is no evidence the Mafia is taking over. The Mafia, just like the state, has left southern Italians in distress. Workers blame state corruption and political apathy for their plight.

“There are no riots,” a grocer near Bari told the WSWS. She continued, “Clients at my store are orderly and everyone wears masks and gloves when they come to the store. There have been robberies of closed restaurants, people stealing anything they can sell to get money. Many people work in the black [economy], and they can’t find normal, regular work.”

Coffins with the bodies of victims of coronavirus are stored waiting for burial or cremation at the Collserola morgue in Barcelona, Spain (Image Credit: AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Rather than providing financial support and provisions for food, however, Italy’s regional councils are calling for increased military and police presence.

The Council of Sicily recently invoked Article 31 of the Sicilian Statute that provides the region with the power to “take over the direction of the public security services (including military and police) to deal effectively and promptly with any state emergency situations that affect public order, health, and safety in the territory of the Sicilian Region or any part of it.”

Article 31, which has never been applied until now, puts the police and army at the regional president’s disposal for use in suppressing any form of protest or class struggle that emerges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.

In describing the developments in Sicily, Giornale di Sicilia writer Giacinto Pipitone said, “[Sicilian President Nello] Musumeci has, for weeks, been moving as if we were at war.”

The constant drumbeat of criminal accusations of the Italian population is overbearing and reactionary. Both the media and the ruling class are seeking to divert public attention away from the government’s inability to deal with the pandemic, in order to shift the blame for the state’s unpreparedness from top officials to the people who are living in quarantine and no longer have the financial means to buy food and other necessities.

The same grocery worker told the WSWS that 10 to 20 percent of her customers are receiving government support to buy their groceries, and that many small business owners now find themselves without any income because of the pandemic. One of her friends owns a travel agency, and all of her bookings are cancelled this year, leaving her with no income virtually overnight. She passes through police and army checkpoints, however, carrying with her a self-declaration that she is going to work.

The diversion aims at concealing the criminal responsibilities of the ruling class, from a delayed response to a completely inadequate plan for fighting the virus. At the same time, after mass wildcat strikes broke out across Italy and internationally to protest the official COVID-19 policy and demand the right to shelter at home, the government is clearly attempting to strengthen its position against the working class.

Governments, in Italy as elsewhere, have sought for decades to divert social resources to the financial oligarchy instead of utilizing them for a rational, scientific plan to strengthen health care, halt infectious diseases and ensure the survival of society. This has led to a situation where governments instead bring the army out onto the streets.

In early March, when the government could no longer ignore mounting deaths and spreading contagion, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte called in the army—the only force in Italian society with enough funding and instruments—to construct coronavirus field hospitals, distribute medical materials to local hospitals on the frontlines of the battle against the deadly pathogen, and to cart off the dead for mass burials.

By mid-March, the government imposed a nationwide lockdown, asking residents to shelter in place for an unspecified time. However, the government leaked news of the lockdown the night before the official announcement, causing panic and sending thousands of Italians scrambling to get home for fear of being trapped away from their families, especially southern Italians who work in the industrial north.

This reckless breach of public trust sent the media into overdrive to blame southern Italians for the spread of the contagion and give authorities cover to deploy thousands of soldiers to control the population, under the army’s “Secure Streets” (Strade Sicure) program. This policy is now receiving support from capitalist politicians of all political colorations.

Lombardy’s governor, Atillo Fontana, sought to dismiss worries that the use of army patrols is a breach of citizens’ democratic rights, saying that his call for the army was supported by Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella. “I reiterated in a phone conversation with the president the need to use the army to support police forces and reinforce the network of controls aimed at applying the rules,” Fontana said, then added: “I can say that Mattarella has shared my request, which is aimed at guaranteeing the collective good.”

Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese boasted, “At the moment the contingent of 7,300 soldiers already in the streets will be used, but if they are not enough there are at least another 13,000 soldiers available. They have already arrived in Campania and Sicily … they will respond to [the request by] Governor Fontana and in the next days to the Mayor of Rome.”

For his part, Minister of Defence Lorenzo Guerini threatened, “The army is ready to do more checks. We will guarantee security on the ground,” adding, “The armed forces are ready to do their part, as they are already doing both on the health front and in the control of the territory. Let’s help the Civil Protection and watch over the ‘misery’ in the South.”

Luigi Di Maio, leader of the Five Star Movement, suggested the government include a provision in the next national government emergency decree that explicitly provides for domestic military intervention, thus giving the government the immediate and unequivocal power to deploy the army against the civilian population as and when they want during, and especially after, the pandemic.

Doctors in Germany will soon have to decide on life and death

Peter Schwarz

Doctors in Germany will soon have to decide which COVID-19 patients will receive intensive care and which will be at the mercy of death, as is already the case in Italy, France, the United States and other countries.

On Wednesday, seven professional medical societies adopted a paper with treatment recommendations, which states, “According to the current state of knowledge on the COVID-19 pandemic, it is likely that in Germany, too, in a short time, and despite the capacity increases that have already been made, there will no longer be sufficient intensive care medical resources available for all patients who need them.”

If this happens, the paper states, “it is inevitable that decisions will have to be made about which patients requiring intensive care should be treated acutely/intensively and which should not (or no longer) be treated acutely/intensively.” Over a total of eleven pages, the criteria are then developed for doctors who have to make this decision.

Above all, the elderly, sick and infirm with lower chances of recovery would be rejected for intensive care. The “prioritisation of patients” is based “on the criterion of the clinical prospect of success,” which means that those “for whom there is no or very little chance of success” should be refused treatment. This is the case, for example, with serious illnesses—including neurological and cancer—a severe immune deficiency, multimorbidity and increased frailty.

The paper states that priority should be given to patients who “thus have a higher probability of survival or a better overall prognosis.” Not only a “clinically relevant change in the condition of the patients” is decisive for the decision, but also the “changed relationship between need and available resources.” In other words, the fewer ventilators, intensive care beds and specialist staff are available, the lower the threshold above which patients are no longer treated.

The paper, which has also been signed by medical ethicists, does not say a word about how the current catastrophic situation came about. Nor does it contain any recommendations on how to prevent doctors from being put in the terrible position of having to decide on life and death. Instead, it uses an expression from war and disaster medicine to describe such a development as inevitable.

It says that “analogous to triage in disaster medicine, decisions must be made on the distribution of the limited resources available.” The term triage (from the French trier: to sort, select, pick out) goes back to Napoleon’s personal physician Dominique-Jean Larrey, who developed a catalogue of criteria under which soldiers are saved on the battlefield and which are not. It was established for situations in which a sudden and unpredictable catastrophe overwhelms the available medical resources.

However, the coronavirus crisis is not such an unforeseeable disaster. Experts have been warning of such a pandemic for years. A study by the public health body the Robert Koch Institute in 2012, for example, urged the German government and the Bundestag (federal parliament) that in the event of a virus pandemic, the necessary medical care for the population “exceeds existing capacities many times over.” But the government did nothing to prevent it. Instead, it continued the closure and privatisation of hospitals unchecked.

Even after the outbreak of the current pandemic, the German government continues to pursue a policy of criminal irresponsibility. While it has put together a 750-billion-euro package in no time at all, primarily to safeguard profits, large corporations and banks, nursing staff continue to work mostly unprotected. No vigorous initiatives are being taken to expand the necessary capacities for intensive care patients either.

In the meantime, thousands of doctors and nurses throughout Germany are infected with the coronavirus due to a lack of protective clothing, according to a survey by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and broadcasters NDR and WDR. But the federal and state governments do not even consider it necessary to collect figures on the numbers of infected medical staff, who are essential for the survival of thousands, let alone for their protection.

When asked, the Robert Koch Institute told the research team that 2,300 members of medical staff in hospitals are currently infected. Doctors’ surgeries, laboratories, retirement and nursing homes and outpatient care services are not included in this figure. Based on written inquiries to 400 health authorities, medical associations, state governments and other institutions, the research team concluded “that thousands are already affected throughout Germany.” However, it was not able to obtain complete figures. The Bavarian Ministry of Health even forbade the state’s health authorities from answering the journalists’ questions.

Meanwhile, the total number of confirmed infections in Germany continues to rise unabated. In the last two weeks, between 4,000 and 7,000 people in the country have become newly infected every day. With more than 100,000 infected people, Germany is now fourth ahead of China and France—and just behind the US, Spain and Italy. The number of fatalities has also risen to over 1,500.

The federal government’s attitude towards doctors and nurses is in line with its attitude towards the working class as a whole. Thousands of workers are being forced to work in non-critical companies without adequate protection. And even in indispensable sectors—such as the food trade, public transport, etc.—workers are often denied the most basic protection. For millions of poor, those precariously employed, single parents, workers, artists and small businesses, the crisis means the loss of their livelihoods without receiving the necessary aid.

In the meantime, numerous highly qualified ethics experts who have appeared on talk shows and in newspaper columns are informing the population that the most vulnerable to the coronavirus will be denied intensive treatment.

On Markus Lanz’s evening chat show, criminal lawyer Reinhard Merkel, who is a member of the German Ethics Council and advises Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (Christian Democratic Union, CDU), defended the triage of intensive care patients. He talked about “tragic conflicts for which there is no morally blameless solution” and described different scenarios for refusing or discontinuing the treatment of elderly patients. The most likely scenario was: “The doctors say to themselves, before I make the decision, I won’t put an 80-year-old on the ventilator because a 30-year-old is coming along soon.”

The obvious and only ethically justifiable solution—providing enough ventilators and intensive care beds and training personnel to treat everyone—is not even considered by such ethics “experts.” Yet this would easily be possible.

The German mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and automotive industries together comprise more than 12,000 companies, employ almost 3 million workers and achieve an annual turnover of 725 billion euros, more than half of which is exported. They manufacture complex, technically advanced products and could also build ventilators and intensive care beds—enough to supply the whole of Europe.

However, this would require an intervention into capitalist private property and the use of substantial sums of money. If the government were preparing for war, this would not be a problem. Production would be switched over in a very short time. Instead of engine blocks, shell casings would be cast, instead of trucks, tanks would be assembled and instead of machine controls, missile systems would be built.

But what applies to the instruments of death does not apply to those that can save lives. The old, sick and infirm are simply not worth the effort of the ruling class. Within a very short time, they have provided 600 billion euros to secure the profits of the banks and large corporations. For the weakest victims of the COVID-19 epidemic, the ruling class has only cynical “ethical” justifications for why they have to die.

French state covered up mass COVID-19 deaths in retirement homes

Jacques Valentin

Over the weekend, the reported number of daily COVID-19 deaths in France nearly tripled from the levels earlier in the week. According to initial data, it appears this increase was almost entirely due to the French government’s decision to acknowledge that COVID-19 has run rampant across the country’s retirement homes—leading to thousands of deaths that the government had not even bothered to acknowledge.

After a record high of 509 COVID-19 deaths announced on April 1, April 2 saw 1,355 deaths, followed by 1,120 on April 3 and 1,053 on April 4. These three days by themselves roughly doubled the overall death toll in France in the epidemic. With Sunday’s figures of 2,886 new cases and 518 new deaths from COVID-19, this brought the official national totals to 93,780 cases and 8,093 deaths so far.

Though the pandemic is the most serious global health crisis in a century, official data published by the French state is a farce. Only cases confirmed in hospitals are counted, while at the same time state policy is to demand that anyone suffering from COVID-19 monitor themselves and not come to hospital. As such, most COVID-19 patients in France who are resting or dying untreated in their own homes or in rest homes are not included in the official toll.

The state has acknowledged that its figures are wild underestimates. When the official toll in France was 16,018, Health Minister Olivier Véran said he believed the true total was 30,000 to 90,000. The lack of accurate information, while it serves to mask the depth of the crisis from working people, hampers scientific analysis of the epidemic and the implementation of necessary protective measures.

It is now emerging that President Emmanuel Macron’s government oversaw decisions that would block reporting of the disaster unfolding in the retirement homes, acting with barely disguised contempt for the homes’ roughly 700,000 elderly pensioners and their families. The government has made slashing social spending, including healthcare spending, a centerpiece of its plan to shovel hundreds of billions of euros into the pockets of the superrich and the army.

On April 2, after news of COVID-19 outbreaks in a few retirement homes made national news, Professor Jérôme Salomon, France’s chief medical officer, announced that at least 884 elderly people living in retirement homes had died in the country since the beginning of the pandemic. He added that 14,638 “confirmed or possible” cases had been noted in these homes. Salomon said that this data was incomplete, stating, “This is an initial partial estimate due to the great unevenness in reporting between regions, and critical work is being done to bring together all of the data.”

Salomon gave no estimated data for other social institutions for the elderly or for deaths of working age people in their homes.

The Macron government has claimed that it is desperately trying to set up an agency that would gather and analyze COVID-19 pandemic data. On March 25 LCI reported, “The General Health Directorate (DGS) informed us that an app allowing for daily reporting of the number of deaths that have occurred in medical-social establishments will be operational in the coming days.’’

This is an attempt to mislead the public. In fact, the DGS and the Health Ministry can already rely on the existing data collection program of the “Weekly Flu Bulletin” assembled to monitor and provide real-time data on the spread of acute respiratory infections and deaths, including among the elderly. It compiles data from the general population, hospitals and rest homes.

There is no benign explanation for the Macron government’s decision to ignore this existing agency, whose own rules specify that it should be compiling data on COVID-19.

In 2012, the High Council on Public Health laid out a “Code of Conduct for acute respiratory infections (IRA) in collectivities of elderly residents.” It specified that data collection should be launched and a national report sent if interhuman spread of an IRA led to a situation in which at least five IRA cases emerge among residents in a four-day time period, not including institutional staff. COVID-19, like the flu, is an acute respiratory infection that meets the criteria for reporting.

Indeed, the 11th “Weekly Flu Bulletin” posted on March 18, the last one available online, proposed creating a weekly report on the situation in elderly care institutions, noting that “655 episodes of grouped IRAs have been reported,” and that at least three of these were confirmed COVID-19 IRA outbreaks.

The bulletin added that given the relatively mild nature of the regular flu season this year, the new outbreak was “likely linked to the COVID-19 epidemic in France.” It also noted, however, that “it is difficult to know to what extent these are individuals with flu symptoms who more frequently resort to care, fearing a COVID-19 infection, and to what extent they are genuine COVID-19 patients.” This uncertainty stems from the fact that the state did not place COVID-19 test kits at the disposal of retirement homes.

Thus, contrary to the claims of the Health Ministry, the state administration not only had an established mechanism to monitor the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, but this mechanism was in fact producing statistics on the spread of the disease. However, a decision was taken at top levels of the state to ignore and hush up these reports.

As a result, thousands of people have been dying for weeks in retirement homes with virtually no public discussion and often with minimal response from authorities.

In one instance, at the Thise retirement home near Besançon, 10 residents were infected with COVID-19 by a nurse’s aide returning from Mulhouse, a center of the epidemic in France. On March 7, a local newspaper Ma Commune reported the outbreak and added: “Asked to comment, the Regional Health Authority (ARS) indicated that their situation was not cause for concern and that they would have been hospitalized if it had been such. Residents who have the virus are confined to their rooms to avoid infecting others in the retirement home.”

A month later, France3 television news reported on the now catastrophic situation at Thise: “Since the detection of the first COVID-19 cases at the home on March 5, 25 people have died, that is, more than a quarter of the 80 residents of the home, whose average age was 88.”

At the time of the initial infections, Macron and the government were repeating that the epidemic would be uncontrollable and that measures to block the spread of the disease could not be allowed to harm the economy. Some, echoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, made the fascistic argument that the population should be forced to acquire immunity by allowing the disease to spread—contained only by limited mitigation measures.

As Europe’s COVID-19 death toll nears 50,000, British PM Johnson admitted to hospital

Robert Stevens

In a dramatic turn of events, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to hospital in London Sunday night with persistent symptoms of COVID-19. He tested positive for the disease 10 days ago.

The Guardian reported that it was "told last week that Johnson was more seriously ill than either he or his officials were prepared to admit, and that he was being seen by doctors who were concerned about his breathing." The Times reported that Johnson “was given oxygen treatment" at St Thomas' hospital.

His pregnant fiancée Carrie Symonds also has the virus, as does his key adviser Dominic Cummings. Cummings’ uncle, retired senior judge Sir John Laws, died from the disease yesterday after being hospitalised for three weeks with other health problems.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a news conference giving the government's response to the new COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, at Downing Street in London, Thursday March 12, 2020. (Simon Dawson/Pool via AP)

Thousands continue to die every day in Europe of COVID-19. On Saturday, a further nearly 3,000 people died across the continent. Deaths in Europe are approaching 50,000. By Sunday evening, overall deaths reached 49,096 as a further 2,902 people died.

Europe is reporting nearly 40 percent of all new COVID-19 cases globally, with Sunday’s 26,786 taking the European total to 645,295.

The reported death toll consists mainly of people who have died in hospital. Many countries are excluding those who die at home or in care/residential homes from their daily totals. There is mounting evidence that fatalities are much higher when deaths outside hospital are factored in.

On Saturday, one care home in Glasgow, Scotland, reported that 13 of its elderly residents had died. There are more than 410,000 people in care homes in the UK. This represents four percent of the over-65 UK population and 16 percent of those aged 85 or above.

French health authorities have recorded an extraordinary surge in the number of cases and deaths in recent days, with the number of newly dead rising from several hundred to over a thousand. April 2 saw 2,116 cases and 1,355 deaths, April 3 saw 23,060 new cases and 1,120 deaths, and April 4 saw 7,788 new cases and 1,053 deaths—nearly doubling the overall death total over these three days alone.

With Sunday’s figures of 1,873 new cases and 518 new deaths, the total in France to date is 92,839 cases and 8,078 deaths.

The main reason for the extraordinary surge in the number of cases was evidently the sudden inclusion of contagion and mortality statistics from France’s rest homes.

A horrific outbreak is ravaging France’s elder care homes, amid shocking and malign neglect by the authorities. The French government deliberately chose not to use the nationwide reporting system established in rest homes to report on flu deaths. It did not receive real-time data and refused to provide more than three COVID-19 testing kits per rest home, even after reports emerged that dozens were dying of COVID-19 in rest homes across the country. Now it appears that tens of thousands, at the very least, have died.

In Italy, there have been nearly 16,000 deaths (15,887), representing almost a quarter of all global fatalities. Italy is one of many countries recording only hospital-based COVID-19 deaths. The 525 death total announced Sunday was the lowest figure since a record high 969 fatalities on March 27.

Coffins with the bodies of victims of coronavirus are stored waiting for burial or cremation at the Collserola morgue in Barcelona, Spain (Image Credit: AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A huge number of people remain hospitalised (28,949), but for the first time this figure fell (by 61) between Saturday and Sunday. Despite this, the number of new infections increased by 2,972. While this was an increase of more than 3 percent in 24 hours, it is a drop of nearly 50 percent from the height of new cases on March 20.

Reuters reported the tragedy of one family. Silvia Bertuletti phoned health services for 11 days to try to get a doctor to see her 78-year-old father, Alessandro, who had a high fever and was struggling to breathe. Over the phone he was prescribed only a standard painkiller and a broad-spectrum antibiotic.

An on-call doctor finally went to see Alessandro on the evening of March 18, but it was too late. When an ambulance arrived, hours after it was called, Alessandro had already been pronounced dead 10 minutes earlier.

Reuters notes that “Interviews with families, doctors and nurses in Italy’s stricken Lombardy region” reveal that “scores are dying at home as symptoms go unchecked… In Bergamo province alone, according to a recent study of death records, the real death toll from the outbreak could be more than double the official tally of 2,060…”

According to one doctor, Riccardo Munda, the fear of infection and even death has led doctors to avoid making the required visits to patients at home who have symptoms. “And I can’t blame them,” he said, “because that’s how they saved their own skin.”

If prompt medical attention was given to people at home, he added, “many deaths could be avoided,” but “doctors were swamped, lacked enough masks and suits to protect themselves from infection, and were discouraged from making visits unless absolutely necessary.”

In the Bergamo area, 142 doctors were either sick or in quarantine, according to the state-run ATS health agency.

A further 674 died in Spain Sunday, as total deaths rose to 12,418. Total infections rose by more than 6,000 to 130,759.

Last Friday, a further 684 people perished in UK hospitals, as the number of people dead from COVID-19 rose five-fold in a week. An additional 708 deaths were announced Saturday, the biggest one-day rise since the outbreak began. Another 621 patients died Sunday, taking the total to 4,934. Despite talk of the cases plateauing in the UK, Sunday’s 5,903 new cases took the total to 47,806, the largest daily increase so far at 59 percent.

As in every European country, health workers in Britain are dying and suffering horrifically due to years of health service cuts and a lack of basic protective equipment. A tiny proportion of frontline National Health Service (NHS) staff has been tested for the virus, despite thousands self-isolating after being infected. Just 0.3 percent (195,524) of the entire UK’s population of 66 million had been tested by Sunday.

Last Friday, the death of two NHS nurses, Areema Nasreen, 36, and Aimee O’Rourke, 39, was announced. This was followed by the weekend’s news that a 24-year-old nursing assistant, John Alagos, looking after coronavirus patients at Watford General Hospital in Hertfordshire, had died and is being tested for COVID-19.

The Daily Mail reported that Alagos “collapsed and died at home after an exhausting 12-hour shift.” The young man “returned home on Friday following a night shift, after complaining of suffering a headache and high temperature throughout the night.”

His mother, Gina Gustilo, said, “I asked [John], ‘Why didn’t you come home?’ He said he had asked other staff, but they said they were short of staff and they did not let him go. I said, ‘OK, take some paracetamol.’ After a few minutes, I found him turning blue in his bed.”

Lack of adequate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) was no doubt a factor in his death, with Gina revealing she had been told by her son’s co-workers that he was not wearing “proper” protective clothing. “They wear PPE, she said, “but not totally protective of the mouth. They wear the normal masks.”

Rinesh Parmar, chairman of the Doctors’ Association, said, “I worry that if we don’t sort out our issues with Personal Protection Equipment and testing of frontline staff in the coming days that we will start to follow a trend that’s very similar with Italy. I dread to think how high it could go… I worry it’s going to go in excess of 50.”

Warnings about the necessity for stockpiling ventilators, PPE and other essential resources were ignored by governments all over Europe, which adopted a slash and burn policy towards public health care in enforcing savage austerity over the past decade. In the UK, barely 5,000 ventilators were in operation when the pandemic began. Despite repeated promises to secure the required amount, Health Secretary Matt Hancock admitted to the BBC Sunday that there may be only 13,500 ventilators in hospitals by Easter, when the government claims COVID-19 is expected to peak.

In Germany, 132 new deaths were recorded Sunday, bringing deaths to 1,576. Previous days saw fatalities at around 140, meaning Sunday’s toll was an increase of around 1.5 percent.

Ten years since WikiLeaks published Collateral Murder

Oscar Grenfell

Yesterday marked 10 years since WikiLeaks published the Collateral Murder video, showing US soldiers in an Apache helicopter indiscriminately firing upon unarmed civilians and journalists in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

The footage, filmed by the US military on July 12, 2007, shows the gunship circling above a group of 10 men, going about their business in the suburb of Al-Amin al-Thaniyah. In increasingly exasperated tones, those on board ask whether they have been given permission to open fire on the individuals, who pose no conceivable threat.

When the signal has been given, they let loose with 30 mm cannon fire. The viewer’s horror at the massacre is matched only by revulsion at the glee of the American soldiers.

As the 10 men lie catastrophically wounded or dead, a US soldier expresses his hope that one of them will pick up a non-existent weapon, so that the fusillade may be resumed. A van pulls up to give assistance to the wounded. It is fired upon, killing the driver and inflicting horrific wounds on his two young children.

At the end of the carnage, as many as 18 lie dead. They include Reuters journalists Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen. Congratulations and more blood lust are the response from within the Apache.

Collateral Murder, 17 minute version

The video has had an indelible impact on the consciousness of millions of people around the world. Its 39 minutes of footage exposed the real character of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq as an illegal, neo-colonial operation involving the perpetration of war crimes and an assault on the social and democratic rights of an entire population, unprecedented since the horrors of the Nazi regime.

A decade on and none of those responsible for the 2007 massacre depicted in the video, or for the illegal invasion which resulted in the deaths of over a million people, has been brought to justice.

Some, such as former US President George Bush and then Australian Prime Minister John Howard, are enjoying a quiet retirement. Others, including former British PM Tony Blair, remain politically influential and powerful figures, while still more are at the helm of the US and allied militaries as they continue to perpetrate crimes in the Middle East, and plot new wars, including against China and Russia.

The only individuals who have suffered any repercussions as a result of Collateral Murder are Chelsea Manning, the courageous US army private who leaked the video, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who published it.

Most recently, Manning was released from six months imprisonment last month, after refusing to give false testimony against Assange before a secret US Grand Jury. Behind bars without charge or conviction, she was again driven to attempt to take her own life.

Assange, after almost a decade of arbitrary detention, faces the prospect of extradition from Britain to the United States, where he would be hauled before a kangaroo court, convicted on espionage charges and sentenced to life in a supermax prison. Assange’s only “offence” is having exposed the war crimes, global diplomatic conspiracies and mass spying operations of the American and allied governments.

Even before he has been extradited, all of the WikiLeaks founder’s rights have been trampled upon by a corrupt British judiciary and political establishment. After years of abuse, his life is in imminent danger. The British government and the courts have refused to release him as the coronavirus pandemic hits British prisons, despite the fact that Assange is on remand and has been convicted of no crime.

The very individuals responsible for the crimes exposed in Collateral Murder are spearheading the attempt to destroy Assange. They include the US military and intelligence agencies, the American ruling elite’s political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, and their allies in the British Tory and Labour Parties and the Australian political establishment.

The video revealed, not only the crimes of individuals, but the systemic criminality of the entire occupation of Iraq, implicating the military commands, governments and a pliant corporate media.

On July 13, 2007, the US military issued a statement which declared that the Reuters employees Chmagh and Noor-Eldeen, had been “killed during a firefight with insurgents.” An August 2007 Freedom of Information request for the footage, lodged by Reuters, was denied by the US government and the military.

Perhaps most damningly, the publication of Collateral Murder exposed the corporate press as an adjunct of the military as it was wantonly committing war crimes. All of the major publications in the US, from the New York Times to the Washington Post, had promoted the lies about weapons of mass destruction used to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Manning had contacted those outlets, and others, but never received a reply, prompting her to turn to WikiLeaks.

At least some corporate journalists, however, were already intimately familiar with the crimes that politically radicalised Manning. During the invasion of Iraq they were “the embedded ones,” integrating themselves into the military and filing breathless reports hailing the decimation of Iraq’s civilian and military infrastructure and the catastrophe that befell its population.

In a 2009 book, David Finkel, a Washington Post journalist, described a scene that bore striking similarities to the 2007 Apache attack in Baghdad. His book was titled, unironically, The Good Soldiers. Finkel’s follow-up work was headlined Thank You for Your Service.

According to some sources, Finkel and the Washington Post had had access to the video since at least 2009. There are even allegations that the reporter showed it to friends and colleagues at dinner parties held in his plush Washington DC home.

The response of WikiLeaks, a tiny organisation with extremely limited resources, was very different.

Assange and a group of colleagues spent months decrypting the video, studying its contents and investigating the events it depicted. This alone should put paid to the claims of the corrupt corporate stenographers of the intelligence agencies that Assange is “not a journalist.”

Current WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hraffnson risked his life to track down the victims of the attack, travelling to Iraq two years after a secret US military document had outlined a strategy to destroy WikiLeaks.

Hraffnson met the widow of Matasher Tomal, the man who was killed while attempting to help those wounded in the first barrage of artillery fire. He spoke to Tomal’s children Sayad, who was 10 at the time of the attack, and Doaha who was just 5-years-old. Both suffered wounds that will affect them for life.

In an interview at the time, Hraffnson commented on the experience of speaking to Sayad: “When I was watching his eyes [I felt] I was looking into the eyes of my own son. I think I have never been as touched by anything I’ve seen. The sorrow of a child who loses his father is so deep, so devastating. I really wanted to get that to the public.”

Asked by the interviewer if it had not been dangerous for him to travel to Iraq, Hraffnson commented: “Yes, but journalism should be dangerous. Journalists are becoming, and have been, a part of the military propaganda machinery—easily manipulated.”

For his part, Assange unveiled the footage at the US National Press Club, despite the clear danger that he would be targeted by the CIA and the US military.

All of those credited on the Collateral Murder video, including those who ended their collaboration with WikiLeaks many years ago, have been subjected to harassment and surveillance by the military intelligence complex, including having their personal details and correspondence subpoenaed from major internet conglomerates.

The Collateral Murder video will be remembered for decades as testimony to the barbarity of imperialist war. Its contents are more significant than ever, amid stepped-up inter-imperialist tensions and preparations for new and catastrophic military conflicts.

Workers, students and young people must do everything they can to fight for Assange’s freedom and for the safety and security of all those involved in this historic exposure of militarism and war.