The 2020 US election has seen the biggest voter turnout in 120 years, driven by mass popular hatred for Donald Trump. Former Vice President Joe Biden has defeated the incumbent by more than four million votes and is certain to reach the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes needed to become president.
But the inability and refusal of Biden and the Democratic Party to advance any program to address the catastrophic public health impact of the coronavirus pandemic or the Depression-era social crisis it has triggered have actually strengthened the position of the Republican Party in the US Congress and in statehouses across the United States.
In the US Senate, the Democrats have to date netted only one additional seat, leaving Trump’s GOP in control, while in the House, their anti-Russia impeachment debacle and complicity in denying unemployment benefits to tens of millions impacted by the pandemic have resulted in a loss of seats.
The Senate side of the US Capitol is seen on the morning of Election Day, Tuesday, November 3, 2020, in Washington [Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite]
Perhaps the sharpest expression in the elections of the bankruptcy of the Democratic Party is its failure to make any inroads into Republican control of state legislatures across the country. These state bodies largely determine the rules for elections, the exercise of reproductive rights, spending for education and the availability of health care.
As of Tuesday’s election, the Republicans controlled some three-fifths of legislative chambers, having won two dozen in the 2010 election cycle. States with Republican-controlled legislatures include Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Texas, North Carolina and Florida.
In Tuesday’s vote, despite an unprecedented public health, economic, social and political crisis, the lowest number of state chambers changed hands in more than 70 years. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), there were changes or potential shifts of control in just four bodies. The Republicans took back the New Hampshire House and Senate from the Democrats, and the Democrats may have captured the House and Senate in Arizona, although the contests for the Arizona chambers are still too close to call.
“This is crazy in that almost nothing changed,” said Tim Storey, an expert with the NCSL. “It really jumps off the page.”
The Democrats’ failure came despite having poured millions of dollars into campaign ads aimed at gaining control of the state legislatures in Texas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and other key states. David Abrams of the Republican State Leadership Committee gloated, “Democrats spent hundreds of millions of dollars to flip state chambers. So far, they don’t have a damn thing to show for it.”
Republican-led state houses have spearheaded the attack on abortion rights and voting rights, imposing ever more onerous restrictions on access to abortion and measures such as voter IDs to make it more difficult for working and poor people to vote. The Democrats have put up no serious resistance to these attacks on democratic rights.
Control of state legislatures is particularly important in this election because the incoming state bodies will carry out redistricting next year on the basis of the just completed decennial census. They will redraw congressional districts for the next 10 years, gerrymandering them to suit partisan aims and further entrench the interests of the corporate elite.
In Texas, the second most populous state in the US, where the GOP controls both legislative chambers and the governorship, the Republicans are considering redrawing state maps based on “citizen voting-age population” instead of counting the total population. This will exclude all non-citizens, disproportionately Hispanic, and lower representation from Democratic strongholds in south Texas and fast-growing parts of Dallas and Houston.
As for gubernatorial races, the Democrats failed to pick up any Republican governorships and lost an open seat in Montana that had been vacated by Democrat Steve Bullock, who ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate. Republican Greg Gianforte won against Lieutenant Governor Mike Cooney, ending more than 16 years of Democratic leadership in a state that usually votes Republican in presidential contests.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has ordered repeated air strikes against military targets in Tigray, one of Ethiopia’s semi-autonomous, ethnically defined provinces, and declared a six-month state of emergency. With phone and internet lines cut, the region has been effectively sealed off.
Abiy launched the strikes in response to what he claimed was an “attack” by Tigray’s ruling party on an army compound that he said had the support of an unnamed “foreign hand.”
While details are unclear, amid claims and counterclaims, the United Nations has reported armed clashes in eight different locations with dozens of casualties and warned that nine million people could be displaced by the fighting.
The parliament, meeting in an emergency session, declared Tigray’s regional government illegal and voted to dissolve it. The Tigray leadership had “violated the constitution and endangered the constitutional system” and a new caretaker administration would hold elections and “implement decisions passed on by the federal government.”
The Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) that heads the regional government has refused to back down in the escalating conflict with the federal government in Addis Ababa. With more than half of Ethiopia’s army based in Tigray, a legacy of its war with Eritrea, Abiy cannot rely on the military’s support or a brief skirmish. Yesterday, he sacked his army chief, head of intelligence and foreign minister.
Ethiopia regions (credit: map for use on Wikivoyage, English version)
Tigray is only one of the country’s festering ethnic conflicts and there are fears of a civil war that threatens the breakup of Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country that is a mosaic of ethnicities and languages. As the regional powerhouse, Ethiopia’s risks the broader destabilisation of the Horn of Africa.
The Tigrayan conflict has been brewing for some time. The TPLF, an armed ethno-nationalist movement that emerged in 1975, played a prominent role in defeating the Moscow-aligned government of Mengistu Haile Mariam, known as the Derg, in 1991. Mengistu’s regime had brutally suppressed the politically amorphous social movement that overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, jailing its political opponents, carrying out a series of civil wars against separatist movements of Eritreans and Tigrayans, as well as the Oromos and Somalis, and presiding over droughts and famine in 1984 and 1985 in which hundreds of thousands perished.
The TPLF was the dominant party in the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of several militia groups and parties, that governed the country after Megistu’s overthrow in 1991. The EPRDF was to remain in power, courtesy of rigged elections, for nearly three decades, presiding over an increasingly authoritarian state.
Map showing the location of Ethiopia on the Horn of Africa (credit: map for use on Wikivoyage, English version)
In 1995, the government, under the leadership of Meles Zenawi, a Tigrayan, had devolved some powers to the regions, including the right in principle to secede. Resentment grew against Tigrayan political and economic dominance—Tigrayans constitute six percent of the population—as politicians whipped up ethnic tensions as a diversion against a unified struggle by the impoverished masses against the Ethiopian elites.
There were huge protests starting in 2014, precipitated by Addis’ land grab of historic Oromo lands that were handed over to overseas companies—often from the Gulf and China, for infrastructure and export-orientated agribusiness. Ethnic protests in Oromia and Amhara, who constitute about 35 percent and 27 percent of the population respectively, saw thousands killed and tens of thousands arrested.
In February 2018, as the protests and political crisis mounted, Hailemariam Desalegn, who became prime minister after Meles’ death in 2012, resigned as both head of government and the EPRDF. His successor, Abiy Ahmed, a former military intelligence officer and an Oromo, was welcomed at home and abroad as a “reformer,” receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for making peace with Eritrea one year later. In November 2019, he disbanded the EPRDF, replacing it with the Prosperity Party (PP), which TPLF refused to join.
Abiy released tens of thousands of political prisoners, ended the internet blackout imposed by the previous government, lifted a ban on several political parties, some of which had been designated “terrorist” groups, paving the way for the leaders of the banned groups to return to Ethiopia and ended the 20-year long war with neighbouring Eritrea. He introduced a raft of measures aimed at reducing the TPLF’s dominance, including retiring their military and government officials, instigating corruption charges against some members and announcing plans for the privatisation of swathes of the state-owned economy and liberalisation of the banks, in a bid to secure Washington and the International Monetary Fund’s approval.
This sparked furious opposition within the military and led to last year’s abortive coup. Viewed as collectively responsible for the crimes of the previous regime, some 100,000 Tigrayans have been driven from their homes and are living in internally displaced people’s camps due to racist violence.
Despite Abiy’s promise to end ethnic discrimination, ethnic violence has increased, with some 1.7 million internally displaced people living in camps as the danger grows of still bloodier ethnic violence. The sale of land has also continued, under conditions where 80 percent of Ethiopia’s 104 million people are dependent upon the land for their subsistence and at least 25 percent of the population ekes out an existence on less than $2 a day.
The COVID-19 pandemic has served to intensify the social, economic and political crisis, with Abiy announcing the postponement of this year’s general election, viewed as an important component of Ethiopia’s transition to democracy—initially to August, but now indefinitely. His decision was backed by parliament and a Council of Constitutional Inquiry (CCI), prompting Abiy’s opponents to accuse him of illegally extending his term in office. The Tigrayan regional government rejected the postponement, holding its own election in September.
After the federal government declared the result illegal, the finance ministry announced plans to bypass the Tigrayan regional government and send funds directly to local authorities, reportedly also blocking welfare payments to poor farmers and preventing people travelling to Mekelle, the regional capital—moves that the TPLF said were tantamount to a “declaration of war.”
The country has also been destabilised by the widespread protests that took place throughout Oromia, in the wake of the assassination of the popular Oromian musician, activist, and former political prisoner, Hachalu Hundessa.
Abiy responded by deploying troops to put down the riots, shutting down the internet and media offices, and arresting thousands of people. These included journalists accused of inciting violence and a leading opposition politician Jawar Mohammed, also an Oromo and former ally turned opponent of Abiy. The state-controlled media blamed Hachalu’s assassination on the Oromo Liberation Army, a rebel group, and the TPLF.
The last few weeks have seen several massacres, mostly of Amharas, with Amnesty International reporting the killing of dozens of women and children in a schoolyard in western Oromia on November 1, adding to this year’s 147 clashes that have left several hundred dead. There are widespread fears that the open conflict in Tigray will inspire secessionist sentiment in other parts of the country.
This crisis takes place amid an escalating international conflict over Ethiopia’s giant Renaissance Dam over the Blue Nile, that supplies 80 percent of the Nile’s downstream waters. Defeated United States President Trump has backed Egypt and Sudan against Ethiopia, amid threats that Egypt could blow up the dam and cuts in Washington’s aid to Addis.
The desperate situation in Ethiopia is part of the ongoing fragmentation and disintegration of the countries in the Horn of Africa, which includes Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and Djibouti. The Horn is an arena of intense great power and regional rivalry for control of oil reserves and mineral resources in neighbouring countries and the sea route through the narrow Bab al-Mandeb straights—through which much of Europe’s oil passes—with the US and Europe engaged in a ferocious struggle with China.
Retired Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, the Mexican defense secretary from 2012 to 2018, appeared in a US federal court in Brooklyn last Thursday, following his Oct. 15 arrest at Los Angeles International Airport.
Cienfuegos, referred to as “The Godfather” in the indictment, pleaded “not guilty” to charges of conspiracy, drug trafficking to the United States and money laundering. Between December 2015 and February 2017, according to the court filing, “in exchange for bribe payments, he permitted the H-2 Cartel—a cartel that routinely engaged in wholesale violence, including torture and murder—to operate with impunity in Mexico.”
The prosecutors claim to have thousands of incriminating BlackBerry Messenger exchanges with the H-2 Cartel, a remnant of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel, they obtained through US phone-tapping operations against Cienfuegos and cartel members. One message allegedly indicates that he provided assistance for far longer to another organization, which is widely believed to be the Sinaloa Cartel.
General Cienfuegos in 2018 receiving award at Pentagon's Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (Credit: NDU Audio Visual)
The trial of Cienfuegos is the latest in a string of cases pursued by the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn since it handed down a life sentence against Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán last year.
Currently, the two main overseers of the so-called “war on drugs” during the administration of Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto are being charged for working with the drug cartels. Genaro García Luna, former secretary of public security, arrested last year in Texas, has also pleaded not guilty to charges of receiving millions to protect the Sinaloa Cartel. The case also involves charges against his closest underlings Luis Cárdenas Palomino and Ramón Pequeño García.
The Cienfuegos arrest sent shockwaves through the Mexican ruling elite, with nervous press commentaries calling it “irresponsible” and warning that it “shatters trust in Mexico’s armed forces.”
Cienfuegos was not under any investigation in Mexico, raising suspicions about the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who claims to be leading a campaign against corruption. He has responded to the charges in the US by claiming that “We won’t cover for anybody,” while refusing to remove any of the officials appointed by Cienfuegos, or even those in his circle of confidence like the current chief officer of the secretary of defense, Agustín Radilla.
“I don’t see anyone in the Army happy about this detention,” wrote Mexican reporter Eunice Rendón, who added, “They are the same then and now under [López Obrador’s] ‘Fourth Transformation.’”
The recent cases have gravely tarnished all institutions involved in the “war on drugs,” from the presidencies of Felipe Calderón (2006–2012) and Peña Nieto (2012–2018), to the military and police leaderships, as well as the US administrations that backed the war through the $3.1 billion Merida Initiative since 2007.
As in other countries in the region, chiefly Colombia, drug trafficking has long been exploited by US governments to further Washington’s influence over the region’s security forces and, through this, over domestic politics. “Prior to FY2008,” explains a 2020 report by the US Congress Research Service, “Mexico did not receive large amounts of U.S. security assistance, partially due to Mexican sensitivity about U.S. involvement in the country’s internal affairs.”
The corporate media has largely avoided commenting on the questions the cases raise about the role of the US government itself. García Luna, especially, played a key role in setting up and selling the Merida Initiative to the US and Mexican public.
A December 2007 diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks indicates that then Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte was a personal handler of García Luna, helping him “fill in the blanks in preparation for future questioning regarding the Merida Initiative.”
García Luna was also allowed to personally “vet” officials in the Mexican police, a cover used by US agencies to assuage fears of corruption in the Mexican state. An April 2008 cable explains that “unprecedented cooperation … would not be possible without our ability to work with vetted units [by García Luna] supported by USG agencies including DEA and ICE.”
After the killing of several of García Luna’s officials by rival drug cartels in 2008—officials eulogized by the US embassy for their “outstanding work” and “highest professional standards”— an embassy cable expressed “concerns about García Luna’s ability to manage his subordinates.” Nonetheless, in October 2009, the US ambassador said García Luna, who had just quintupled the size of the federal police with the help of US aid, would be a “key player” in reaching “new levels of practical cooperation in two of the country’s most important institutions.”
After the war claimed more than 300,000 lives, left 73,000 missing—including numerous extrajudicial massacres by the military— and cost Mexican taxpayers $120 billion, the promises to end the war and the Merida Initiative by Andrés Manuel López Obrador were central to his 2018 election as president.
Shortly after the 2018 election, an Internal Security Law approved by Peña Nieto and requested by Cienfuegos—allowing troops to carry out police functions and granting greater autonomy to the military to select targets, wage operations and collect intelligence—was declared unconstitutional.
As soon as he came to power, however, López Obrador and his Morena party changed the Constitution to permit the domestic deployment of the military and created a National Guard as a new cover for the discredited military.
Meanwhile, the US Congress, with bipartisan approval, has granted AMLO nearly $300 million under the Merida Initiative.
Commenting on the Cienfuegos arrest, the renowned journalist and expert on Mexican drug cartels, Anabel Hernández, stressed that, “The same system remains embedded in his own political party Morena.” She explained that Morena’s security chief in Mexico City, Omar García Harfuch, rose through the ranks under the patronage of García Luna and Cárdenas Palomino, and cites federal police documents confirming Harfuch’s talks with organized crime.
A December 2009 cable published by WikiLeaks shows that the US State Department vetted Harfuch when he was working for the federal police under García Luna so that Harfuch could complete programs with the FBI, DEA and Harvard University.
Additionally, a DEA agent told Proceso in December 2012 that they had long known about García Luna’s ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, but kept quiet “out of respect for Mexican institutions and because he was the direct contact with the United States.”
In the case of Cienfuegos, several cables note his constant collaboration with the United States, with the Pentagon awarding him an award for excellence two years ago.
The US legal cases against the Sinaloa Cartel and their partners in the previous governments can only be understood in the context of the new buildup of the Mexican military encouraged by the United States. Its main target, amid a resurgence of the class struggle across North America and internationally, is the working class.
While carrying out widespread austerity measures amid the pandemic crisis, including the elimination of $3 billion for science, culture and victim protection, the Morena administration granted $1.5 billion for military equipment and subsidies for the families of the chiefs of staff and proposed a 20 percent budget increase for defense.
This context explains why the US case against Cienfuegos ignores the widespread human rights abuses carried out by the military under the general’s term, including countless extrajudicial executions.
Last September, soldiers were first arrested in Mexico for their involvement in the killing of the 43 Mexican teaching students from Ayotzinapa in 2014. Cienfuegos lied repeatedly about the involvement of the military, which collaborated in the killings with Guerreros Unidos, another splinter of the Beltrán Leyva cartel.
From 2005 to 2007, Cienfuegos headed the IX military region of Guerrero, the state where Ayotzinapa is located, at a time when the Beltrán Leyva cartel prospered out of their base in Acapulco, the state’s largest city. Cienfuegos would then lead the first military region of Mexico City from 2007 to 2009, which was then a stronghold for the Sinaloa Cartel.
In 2012, Sergio Villarreal, a leader of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel known as “El Grande,” testified after his arrest that in 2007 and subsequently, he and his then partners of the Sinaloa Cartel had “bought” the commanders of the security forces in Guerrero and Mexico City.
In war-torn Yemen—devastated by five years of a US- and EU-backed war led by Saudi Arabia—the coronavirus pandemic is exhibiting its murderous potential. Doctors there report a death rate of 20 to 30 percent among those infected.
Intensive care physician Tankred Stöbe from the aid organization Doctors Without Borders told the German newspaper Tagesspiegel of the dramatic consequences of the pandemic . The pandemic, he noted, has swept through the bitterly poor and war-ravaged country “like a deadly desert storm.”
Stöbe estimates a 30 percent mortality rate among COVID-19 patients, the highest in the world. A significant lack of testing renders the official figures—just over 2,000 confirmed cases and 600 deaths—meaningless. “The vast majority of patients have suffocated in their homes without being counted, diagnosed or treated.”
Yemen students wear face masks to help curb the spread of COVID-19 as they take a final-term school exam at a public school in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)
Many Yemenis live far from a clinic and are left to fend for themselves if infected with the coronavirus. The virus spreads virtually unchecked. “There is hardly a family that has not been affected by the pandemic,” Stöbe reports.
Doctors Without Borders erected a specialized COVID-19 clinic whose 40 beds were immediately filled. “The mortality was very high because patients came too late,” Stöbe explained. “The average length of stay was five days—but not because people recovered, but because they died.” The clinic contends with a chronic shortage of personnel and materials. Moreover, the staff must transport oxygen bottles across residential districts devastated by war.
The high mortality rate is primarily due to the preexisting, unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe in the country from a years-long civil war and an imperialist-backed bombing campaign.
Saudi Arabia has waged an unrelenting air war in Yemen since March 2015 aimed at toppling the Huthi rebel government and reimposing the puppet regime of imperialist stooge Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. The United States, France, Great Britain and Germany have all supported this murderous war, directly or indirectly. As such, the German government has exported over €1 billion in weaponry to countries participating in the war.
Stöbe described the situation now unfolding in Yemen as an “unbelievable tragedy.” Bombing and live fire continue on a daily basis: “Tens of thousands have already died. Millions have been displaced.”
Were the criteria and legal principles of the Nuremberg Trials to be applied to Yemen, the politicians responsible for these crimes against humanity would be tried in court and locked behind bars. Sentences handed down in Nuremberg after the Second World War sent the surviving leaders of the Third Reich to the gallows or a lifetime in prison.
Today, however, the United Nations sees this differently: Of all countries, they chose Saudi Arabia to host the charity conference for Yemen in June of 2020.
Under international pressure, early this year Saudi Arabia announced a temporary abstention of aerial raids against Yemen “for humanitarian reasons.” In fact, the bombing continued. Between March and June, the Yemen Data Project recorded 1,078 air attacks, at least 142 on civilian targets like residential areas, schools and hospitals.
The war perpetrated by Saudi Arabia with support of Western powers against the Yemeni population has impacted primarily civilians. The monarchy in Riyadh, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has blockaded food and medical aid to the country with the conscious intention of causing mass suffering and starvation. Roughly 20 million Yemenis depend on food aid for survival.
Ten million human beings are threatened by starvation, as reported this summer by the German broadcaster Tagesschau. It has been two years since the aid organization Save the Children reported that 85,000 Yemeni children had starved to death.
Other diseases—cholera, malaria, dengue fever—are taking an additional toll. Just this year over 110,000 people contracted cholera. A cholera clinic set up and operated at great personal sacrifice by Doctors Without Borders volunteers was bombed by Saudi fighter planes in the battle for the port city of Hodeidah.
Doctors Without Borders’ account of the pandemic is corroborated by Essen, Germany cardiologist Dr. Marwan Al-Ghafory, an advocate for suffering Yemenis. Via the free app “Tabiby” (my doctor) he has reached tens of thousands of people in Yemen.
The cardiologist concludes that the real situation in Yemen is far worse than officially reported. According to Johns Hopkins University, there are currently 2,070 known coronavirus infections and 602 deaths. “But the information our team has gathered, the statistics that we have collected ourselves, tell us quite something else,” the doctor said in an interview. “We peg it at more than 100,000 cases with a mortality rate of over 20 percent.”
For Dr. Al-Ghafory, the most important task is warning the population about a second, more severe wave of coronavirus. Yemenis have very little access to reliable information. He said: “I write articles every day and translate medical studies. My team and I post between seven and ten articles a day. We’ve taken the task upon ourselves to educate our forgotten people about COVID-19.”
The coronavirus pandemic is only accelerating the enormous catastrophe long wrought by imperialism. As a result of the war, the country is lacking not only necessary health care, but clean water for drinking and washing, sanitary systems, sufficient nutrition, shelter, as well as prospects for the future—in short, every elementary necessity for a healthy life.
The imperialist powers, especially the US, but also Germany, support the belligerence of Saudi Arabia because they consider Riyadh an important ally in their conflicts with Iran, Russia and China. Above all, however, they see in the Saudi monarchy a bastion against the threat of working class uprisings throughout the Middle East.
Late last month, the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements issued a nearly 600-page report into the 2019-2020 Australian bushfire disaster, after hearing 270 witnesses and receiving 1,750 public submissions.
Despite all the evidence presented, the report faithfully follows the instructions of the Liberal-National government, which called the inquiry in February as an exercise in political damage control and cover-up.
On the release of the report, Emergency Management Minister David Littleproud quickly announced the government’s agreement with its 80 recommendations. “In terms of the federal recommendations there is nothing there that the federal government is concerned about,” he told the media. “I think they are very pragmatic recommendations and ones that we will continue to proceed.”
Fire on the outskirts of Harrington, NSW late last year (Credit: Kelly-ann Oosterbeek)
First and foremost, the report holds no one, least of all the government, responsible for the catastrophe. The foreword states: “Although informed by the existing national arrangements, we took a deliberate decision not to find fault, ‘point fingers’ or attribute blame.”
The three commissioners appointed by the government were ex-armed forces chief Mark Binskin, former judge Annabelle Bennett and environmental law professor Andrew Macintosh.
Their report begins by paying lip service to climate change as the driver of bushfire disasters. Based on testimony from witnesses from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), the official Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Geoscience Australia, it notes that clear global warming trends have emerged, and that Australia has warmed by approximately 1.4 degrees since 1910.
According to the BoM, further warming over the next two decades is inevitable, with the global climate system continuing to warm in response to the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. The CSIRO stated that some further climate change is “locked in” because of emissions already experienced.
Yet the report advances no recommendations at all for responding to global warming. What is advanced instead is the catchphrase “resilience,” which means accepting more extreme weather-related disasters as inevitable, and somehow co-existing with them.
Accordingly, the report proposes that “a more mature understanding of the root causes and effects of disaster risk and, in particular, systemic vulnerability, is needed, so that our efforts to mitigate the risk and build resilience can meet the challenges of the future.” This is exactly in line with the terms of reference for the inquiry set out by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
The report presents the resulting national disasters within the framework of the profit system, citing estimates of economic costs. It quotes Deloitte Access Economics, which in 2017 estimated that, for the previous decade, the national bill for natural disasters was $18.2 billion annually. The report projects that this amount will blow out to $39 billion per year by 2050, even without accounting for climate change.
The report takes a similar approach with the lack of civilian resources to combat infernos of the intensity experienced over the past year. It covers up the criminal lack of civilian firefighting resources—aerial capacity, modern trucks, professional firefighters and evacuation infrastructure—revealed by the bushfires.
The inquiry commissioners warn that the “increasing complexity of disaster risks” has “the potential to overwhelm the capabilities of our fire and emergency services.” Yet they make no recommendation for the allocation of the necessary billions of dollars to address this threat.
Given the lengthening of bushfire seasons in both northern and southern hemispheres, due to climate change, the hire of aircraft for aerial bushfire fighting from overseas is becoming increasingly difficult.
The report notes that during the 2019-2020 fires, 66 overseas aircraft were leased for firefighting, but the severity of the fires meant that more were needed at short notice, and could not be obtained.
In Australia, about two-thirds of aerial firefighting aircraft are owned or contracted directly by the states and territories, which meet the costs. The remaining one third (160) are contracted through the National Aerial Firefighting Centre (NAFC), which does not own any aircraft itself.
The report calls for a “modest” national aircraft fleet, ensuring a “sovereign aerial firefighting capability.” What is meant by “modest” is indicated by the mere $15 million per year that the Morrison government committed to spending on aerial firefighting between 2018 and 2021. This amount was hastily topped up during the 2019-2020 catastrophe by an extra $31 million, enabling an additional four Large Air Tankers to be procured for the season.
The report deals likewise with the inadequacy of evacuation facilities, with state, territory and local governments merely advised to provide nationally-consistent evacuation centres, Neighbourhood Safer places, places of last resort and natural disaster shelters.
The commissioners admit that during the last bushfire season “people slept on floors with limited to no bedding and others slept in cars or other vehicles.” Desperate people arrived together with their animals, big and small. There were chaotic evacuation scenes at fires such as those at Lake Conjola in New South Wales, Mallacoota in Victoria, and Kangaroo Island in South Australia. Yet the report provides no costing for evacuation centres.
The same attitude is maintained in relation to power outages, which proliferated during the 2019-2020 bushfire season, in some cases lasting for weeks. The insistence by the private power companies that they should not have to put power lines underground, is advanced in the report without any criticism, on the grounds that it would be “significantly more expensive.”
Then the Morrison government is applauded for having allocated $37 million toward “enhancing telecommunications resilience”—a mere drop in the bucket.
In line with the report’s underlying profit-driven response, it insists that governments cannot protect everyone. “Even the best prepared and resourced governments and fire and emergency services cannot entirely protect the public from the impact of natural disasters,” it states.
“Some bushfires, for example, will be too widespread; some Australians will live too remotely; and there are only so many firefighters, aircraft and trucks that can be deployed at the same time. Furthermore, governments and charities by no means cover the cost of rebuilding uninsured homes and replacing other property lost in natural disasters.”
Moreover, the report makes clear that the overwhelming volunteer base of the fire service should remain, rejecting calls for more full-time firefighters.
“Australia has a strong culture of volunteerism with over 200,000 volunteer emergency responders nationally,” it states. “Volunteers are willing to give their time to protect their communities, generally seeking no more than support and respect.”
Because of the extraordinary demands on volunteers, and the impact on their employment, the report merely suggests offering them some financial aid. “Volunteers need to be supported and enabled to participate in a way that respects the values of volunteerism, and considers the competing demands on their time.”
Under the heading of “land management,” the report proposes allowing farmers more leeway to clear land of trees, saying it is necessary to “ensure that there is clarity about the requirement and scope for landholders and land managers to undertake bushfire hazard reduction activities; and minimise the time that is necessary to obtain approvals.”
The report estimates that during and after the 2019-2020 bushfires, over $8 billion was provided for disaster recovery, by all levels of government, non-government organisations, charities and the private sector. This includes $2 billion from the Morrison’s government’s National Bushfire Recovery Fund, $1.8 billion from state and territory governments, and $2.3 billion from insurance.
Much of the proclaimed amount has not been dispensed, leaving many of the disaster’s survivors still in limbo, often in temporary accommodation. Furthermore, this outlay pales into insignificance besides the $575 billion to be spent over the next decade on the military, including for an expanded domestic role in dealing with social unrest and other “emergencies.”
Several public universities in Sydney have returned to on-campus classes, requiring staff to physically deliver teaching and other student services. Although confirmed COVID-19 cases are currently low in the city, there are ongoing community outbreaks and a new wave of infections is possible.
Evidence from the US, Europe and around the world shows that a small rise in case numbers, accompanied by the lifting of restrictions, can have devastating consequences while the virus is still circulating in the community.
In both the United States and Britain, campuses have become centres for outbreaks of the virus among students and surrounding communities. In the UK, the University and Colleges Union has reported almost 40,000 infections among students and staff in higher education since the start of the academic term.
Part of Macquarie University [Credit: mq.edu.au]
Despite the clear dangers, the trade unions covering Australian university workers—such as the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU)—have mounted no opposition to the return to campuses.
This is part of the broader “return to work” campaign by the corporate media, big business and the federal Liberal-National government. It is also bound up with the drive to recruit a new cohort of international students. In June, the federal government approved a pilot program to bring international students to Australia, despite the border restrictions for general travelers, but only on pre-approved plans for particular institutions.
Education Minister Simon Birmingham defended the program on explicitly pro-business grounds, saying that international education was a key part of the economy. A report by the Mitchell Institute said that: “for every $1 lost in university tuition fees, there is another $1.15 lost in the broader economy due to international student spending.”
The collapse in the number of international students, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has exposed the deep funding crisis in the tertiary sector, which has driven universities to treat full fee-paying international students as cash cows. Following decades of cuts by both Labor and Liberal-National governments, the sector is forecasting billions of dollars of losses. If universities were to remain fully online, there would be little incentive for international students to continue or commence their studies.
The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Macquarie University recommenced face-to-face teaching for a large percentage of students at the beginning of their Spring semesters. While both universities are continuing to deliver lectures online, small group teaching, including practicals, labs and tutorials have resumed for the majority of courses.
Sydney University delayed the commencement of its Spring session until late August for most courses and is also teaching face-to-face small group activities. The University of New South Wales began onsite teaching in September, accompanied by the full return of all staff to the campus. Of the major campuses in Sydney, only Western Sydney University has remained largely online.
Macquarie University staff members were informed that the management was exercising its exemption, under COVID-19 health directives, to bring students back onto the campus. Under the state government’s Public Health (COVID-19 Restrictions on Gathering and Movement) Order (No 4) 2020, the four-square-metre rule does not apply to a university when a gathering is necessary for its normal business. The UTS website notes that university learning activities are considered exempt “essential gatherings.”
Many Macquarie University workers were required to return to work on campus on July 20, while face-to-face teaching recommenced on July 27. Since then, there has been a further drive to get staff back onto campus. Many departments and offices are insisting that staff return to working from their offices full-time, with management insisting that even those in high-risk categories will not be in danger.
In its official communications, Macquarie University management promised additional cleaning regimes and the maintenance of social distancing—where possible. In reality, the additional cleaning is limited to a small number of staff members wiping down door handles and lift buttons. Students and staff are expected to wipe down surfaces in teaching and communal rooms, before and after their use. Cleaning wipes are provided for this task.
The situation at the other universities is similar. Students and staff are being asked to wipe down teaching and learning spaces when they enter and leave, and there is minimal cleaning of high-contact areas, such as door handles and lift buttons.
In learning and teaching spaces where, due to the nature of the space or the learning activity, it is impossible to physically distance at all times, Macquarie University staff and students were promised that additional risk control measures would be in place. This is limited to the availability of masks and disinfectant wipes. However, staff and students are not required to wear masks. In fact, the university web site notes that face masks are not recommended for the general population.
UNSW points out on its website that in teaching, learning, research or operational situations there will be situations where physical distancing cannot be maintained. It requires that face masks be used in those situations. But while staff were to be provided with face masks, students are expected to provide their own. Similarly, UTS students are required to wear masks where the 1.5 metre rule cannot be adhered to.
All the universities in the Sydney region draw students from across the city, as well as from satellite urban centres in the north, south and west of the city. Since the return to face-to-face teaching, several universities have reported active cases on campus. An outbreak at any one of these universities could have disastrous consequences for the greater Sydney metropolitan area, which has a population of five million.
The return-to-work campaign, amid the global pandemic, demonstrates the willingness of the financial elites to sacrifice the lives of workers and students in the interests of private profit. The refusal of the NTEU and other unions to oppose this drive underscores the necessity for the formation of genuine rank-and-file committees of educators and students, completely independent of the union apparatuses.
These committees are essential to organise a unified struggle to defend all jobs and basic rights, protect university staff and students from unsafe COVID-19 conditions, and link up with workers and students internationally who are facing similar critical struggles.
Under capitalism, profits come first. In order to ensure that workers attend their workplaces despite a surge in coronavirus infections, their children have to go to school, which in turn means public transport has to function. The key role in ensuring that public transport runs on time in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic is played by the country’s main public service trade union, Verdi (United Services Union).
In October, thousands of public transport workers went on strike in numerous German cities. The short term “warning strikes” and protest actions were not only directed against miserable wages and poor working conditions. The danger of infection by the coronavirus due to completely inadequate security measures increasingly became the focus of the dispute.
Verdi tried to dampen the growing anger of workers with a nationwide campaign to accompany its contract negotiations for 2020 (TVN2020). It organized isolated, regionally based strikes and phony forms of ineffectual industrial action. The main aim was to prevent a combined mobilisation of bus, streetcar and metro drivers with municipal and federal public service workers—a total of 2.3 million whose contracts had all been negotiated by Verdi at the same time. First, Verdi agreed a sellout of federal and municipal public service workers, now the union is doing the same for transport workers.
As part of its TVN2020 campaign, Verdi loudly demanded a new national contract for the 87,000 employees of the country’s 130 municipal transport companies aimed at ending regional divisions between sections of workers. A nationwide agreement was supposed to define minimum standards regarding vacations, overtime pay and shift allowances. In some states, Verdi also demanded a reduction in working hours and/or shorter shifts.
In the midst of the rapidly developing second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, however, the union did not raise a single demand directed at protecting transport workers from the risk of infection with COVID-19!
This is not surprising. The murderous strategy of federal and state governments, which have fueled the pandemic on the basis of facilitating “herd immunity,” is supported by the trade unions against the members they are supposed to represent.
There are now many studies revealing the dangers of infection in public transport where hundreds of thousands of people congregate daily in very confined spaces. A deliberate decision has been made to either refrain from collecting statistical data on drivers who fall ill with COVID-19 or withhold any relevant information from the public.
Last week, Verdi dropped its demand for a uniform nationwide contract and signed separate agreements in the two German states of Saxony and Baden-Württemberg, affecting around 12,000 bus, streetcar and subway drivers.
The contract agreed on October 27 with public transport employers in Saxony will run until the end of 2023. The union’s original demand for a reduction in working hours will not come into force until April 1, 2023. According to the agreement, working hours will then be reduced to a 38-hour week with corresponding wage compensation. Holiday entitlement is to increase to 30 days.
Wages are to be frozen for the time being and will only increase in stages by an average of 1.7 percent from April 2021. In light of rising prices and rents, this amounts to a wage cut, which the union has sought to sweeten with a paltry €200 extra payment this year, which it promotes as a “Corona bonus.”
In Baden-Württemberg, Verdi has agreed to a nominal wage increase for 6,400 workers in the municipal public transport sector—a step-by-step increase of 3.2 percent within a period of 28 months—which is in fact an effective wage cut when accounting for the rising cost of living. With the exception of some workshop employees, the agreed Corona bonus amounts to an increase in vacation pay of €120. Drivers on shift work with 10 years of service are to receive one additional “relief day” per year commencing in 2022.
A separate agreement is still being negotiated for employees in the Rhine-Neckar region, involving the cities of Mannheim, Heidelberg and Ludwigshafen.
In Berlin, due to the particularly tense situation caused by the latest partial lockdown and growing worker discontent, Verdi proposed freezing contract negotiations until next spring. In exchange, the Municipal Employers’ Association (KAV) was to agree the payment of a coronavirus premium.
However, the KAV has refused the proposal, offering only a one off €500 payment in exchange for a suspension of contract negotiations until June 2021. Union members objected to the employers’ plan and Verdi announced that negotiations would be continued. According to the union’s propaganda, the way is now “clear for the first cornerstones in a forward-looking, fully-fledged collective agreement.”
Similar negotiations are taking place in all other federal states.
This means that any common nationwide uniform wage agreement is dead and buried. On its website Verdi declares: “The VKA [Association of Local Employers’ Associations] refuses to negotiate a nationwide framework collective agreement now, but is prepared to enter into talks with us to reach an agreement on a joint process in the future. However, such a process will take some time.”
Sellouts are now being prepared in one federal state after another. In Saxony, Verdi writes: “In the midst of the pandemic and a pronounced economic crisis, i.e., extremely difficult economic times and also times of long-term uncertainty, a compromise was reached which offers a starting point for the further development of working conditions in public transport.”
Who is the union trying to fool? “In the midst of a pandemic and a pronounced economic crisis, i.e., extremely difficult economic times,” the European Union, German government and state administrations are handing out trillions of euros to major corporations. At the same time pittances are been given to transport workers—and all those key workers who were so loudly “applauded” for their services during the pandemic earlier this year.
Those affected are well aware of this. A driver for Munich’s public transportation company expressed her anger on social media with the manner in which Verdi functionaries patted themselves on the back for “the deal and laughable Corona bonus.” Another colleague, a bus driver in Munich, wrote: “If you calculate the Corona premium over three years, it amounts to 16.67 euros a month! O yay!” Calculated over 12 months, the wage increase in Baden-Wuerttemberg amounts to €50 per month. “But I bet,” the bus driver continued, “we’ll be sold out in the same way in Bavaria.”
A bus driver for Berlin public transport (BVG) told the WSWS: “The two deals in Saxony and Baden-Württemberg show you can’t expect much from Verdi here in Berlin. One hour less work and only a small wage increase over three years says it all.” Another Berlin bus driver said: “This deal is a slap in the face. It goes beyond belief. How does it help in anyway? After 10 years of service an extra vacation day first in 2023 does not help workers at all. This is no longer a joke.”
Another BVG worker said: “It’s typical Verdi. First of all the union talks big and then does not even conduct a joint struggle. With a real strike many more would immediately join in. But that is exactly what they don’t want. They all sit at the same table and just want peace and quiet.”
As the WSWS warned during the token strikes, “Verdi works very closely with the employers.” As in the past, the strike manoeuvres serve merely to let off steam within the workforce and “prevent independent action … and thereby ensure that transport is maintained even under adverse and dangerous pandemic conditions.”
Public transport is essential for the business and political ruling elites which are intent on maintaining their stream of profits. Without public transport, students cannot get to school. Without school attendance, parents cannot go to work—the priority for companies and governments at both federal and state level.
Verdi stands staunchly on the side of the employers and government and is ready to sacrifice the wages, working conditions, health and life of the members it claims to represent. Workers can only protect themselves and defend their interests by taking up a struggle against the union. They must form independent rank and file action committees and link up with fellow workers across Europe to prepare a continent-wide general strike.
Schools in the Republic of Ireland (RoI) reopened last week after a two-week mid-term break, despite secondary teachers voting for strike action against dangerous working conditions if COVID-19 related safety measures were not put in place by October 30.
6,759 teachers, members of the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI), voted by a large majority to support action up to and including strike action in seeking:
Redefinition of “close contact” as being more than 15 minutes in a classroom with a positive COVID-19 case
A serial testing programme for schools
Guaranteed test turnaround times of 24 hours
Provision for high-risk teachers to teach from home or have "reasonable accommodations" in school
Free laptops in the event of students and teachers self-isolating or schools closing
However, the belated ASTI ballot, announced September 19, was a smokescreen to obscure the role ASTI's leadership, like that of all the trades unions, has played in fully complying with government demands to reopen schools as the coronavirus pandemic spreads.
Despite teachers having voted, by clear majorities, to strike, ASTI President Ann Piggot went on TV with the opposite message. She told Susan Keogh of Newstalk Breakfast: "I want to assure every parent in this country that second-level schools will definitely be open on Monday morning and the ASTI shall not stop them opening. If we do strike, it's a very last resort, we have no intention of closing schools."
The union is also working in close collaboration with the Irish government.
Immediately after the vote, Taoiseach (prime minister) Micheál Martin took the same line as Piggot. Martin insisted the schools would open regardless of the vote and said there was a "good working relationship between all sides, and there is a determination on all sides to keep our schools open." This was, according to Martin a "very, very important national objective for the country."
The Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO), which has around 47,000 members, is also functioning as a conduit for government policy. On the day of the ASTI teachers' strike vote, INTO General Secretary John Boyle issued a statement which did not mention the ASTI vote at all. Rather, he merely insisted, "It is beholden on the government to match its desire to keep schools open with a commitment to working with education stakeholders and to resourcing the system to best deal with the effects of the pandemic in primary and special schools."
What this "commitment to education stakeholders" amounted to was a Health Service Executive telephone line that school principals alone could use if they if have case of COVID-19 in their school. INTO insisted this number should not be made available to teachers, parents or pupils, clearly with the intention of ensuring schools remain open if at all possible.
For their part, the Teachers Union of Ireland took the same stance, calling on November 3 for "ongoing, robust engagement” between unions, the Department of Education and public health authorities to "ensure that the concerns of teachers are fully addressed."
This is despite dangerous infection rates across the country.
Having rejected repeated demands from the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) for an intensified lockdown, the government suddenly changed its mind late last month with reports of a "rapid deterioration" in the situation and a recognition that hospitals and intensive care units were rapidly filling up.
The latest figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) record 64,538 infections in the RoI and 1,940 deaths. Although the infection rate has somewhat slowed, last Friday, November 6, another 499 cases and 8 deaths were recorded. Around 4.3 percent of tests carried out in the last week were positive. Of the new cases, 175 were in Dublin, 72 in Cork, 29 in Limerick, 26 in Mayo, and 21 in Meath, with the remainder spread across the country.
Mirroring the actions of governments across Europe, in October the government introduced belated and partial lockdown measures aimed at curbing social interaction and travel while keeping business and production running, schools open and profits flowing. These included a 5km restriction on travel, no visitors apart from extended households, and no organised outdoor or indoor events apart from weddings and funerals. Cafes, bars and restaurants are restricted to takeaways and deliveries.
The government also handed the police power to call on homes and break up indoor gatherings, which are now an offence under new legislation drawn up last month. 2,500 extra officers are now on duty with powers to impose on-the-spot fines and prison sentences.
This is in line with corporate media and government insistence that the majority of outbreaks are in the home.
Yet, after schools opened in August, after the summer break, public health officials announced, as early as September 19, that outbreaks had taken place at four schools in Cork. Cases have escalated in the subsequent weeks. In all some, 599 cases have been detected in Ireland's 4,000 or so primary and secondary schools, and 156 clusters—meaning more than one case per school—recorded. Thirty of these were recorded last week alone and 125 of the clusters remain active.
Other institutions are also dangerously infected.
41 of 500 prison officers and staff at Midlands Prison in Portlaoise have either tested positive, have symptoms or are self isolating. Five inmates of 810 have also tested positive. The prison authorities have restricted movements in the jail and cut time inmates can spend outside their cells. The Midlands infection is thought to have spread from a disciplinary meeting attended by one prisoner and three staff members. The RoI has 13 prisons and this is the first case in which internal transmission has been confirmed.
Five nursing homes are reported as facing serious "red" outbreaks, according to HSE officials, while another 35 have "amber" outbreaks. A "red" outbreak is deemed to be occurring when, as well as positive COVID-19 cases, the home has staff shortages, PPE shortages or poor infection control. Around one half of all COVID-19 cases have been in nursing homes.
November 6 it was reported that three mental health units had to close to new admissions after 55 cases were detected amongst patients and staff. 18 people have died from COVID-19 in mental health units since the start of the pandemic.
Overall, 1 in 5 of COVID-19 infections has been amongst healthcare workers. The HSE reported n October 21, the day the current lockdown was introduced, that there were 1,697 health workers off work with the virus. This was five times higher than the summer level. Ireland has one of the highest rates of diagnosed healthcare worker infection in Europe. The health unions have been as complicit in this as their teaching counterparts.
Thousands of cases have also been reported in meat packing plants.
Workers cannot go forward with the trade unions. New rank-and-file organisations, committees of action, independent of management and the trade union apparatus are urgently required. They must seek the broadest mobilisation of the working class, across sectors, industries, communities, and national borders, to oppose the ruling class’ policies of 'herd immunity' and mass killing. In this, as in all matters, workers in Ireland face a common struggle with their class brothers and sisters across Europe and internationally.
