Dozens killed in Uganda as police and military carry out brutal crackdown on protests

Eddie Haywood

Thirty-seven people were killed by security forces, scores of others injured and hundreds more detained after two days of protests shook Uganda’s capital city Kampala and several other towns last week. The largest unrest in the East African country in a decade was sparked by the arrest of presidential candidate Bobi Wine during a campaign rally Wednesday.

After a campaign stop in Luuka, a town in eastern Uganda, police arrested Wine, claiming he violated the Electoral Commission’s guidelines against holding political rallies with more than 200 persons, breaking a decree made by the election body in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Wine was released on bail on Friday.

Wine’s arrest was the second in less than a month. On Nov. 3 Wine was arrested shortly after filling out forms to register his candidacy, with television cameras recording police pulling him from his car.

Ugandan supporters of opposition presidential candidate Bobi Wine protest his arrest and call for his release and an end to police brutality, outside the Ugandan High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020 (AP Photo)

Wine and several other opposition politicians have faced arrest, beatings and torture from police forces in a blatant attempt at intimidation by the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party, led by President Yoweri Museveni.

After the news of Wine’s arrest, thousands of protesters immediately took to the streets in the capital city and other major towns across the country, setting tires afire and occupying major thoroughfares, shouting the slogan, “Free Bobi Wine!”

In a brutal response to the protests, large numbers of Ugandan police, augmented by a contingent of troops from the Ugandan People’s Defence Force (UPDF), the armed forces of Uganda, deployed to repress the demonstrations.

Security forces fired live rounds and deployed armored vehicles in attempt to brutally quell the social unrest in Kampala. Other towns and cities also saw a heavy-handed police crackdown on demonstrators.

Security Minister Elly Tumwine told the media that “the police have a right to shoot protesters dead if they reach a certain level of violence.” Ensuring reporters had heard him correctly, he emphasized, “Can I repeat? Police have a right to shoot you and you die for nothing… do it at your own risk.”

Lieutenant Colonel Deo Akiki, spokesman for the UPDF, announced that the army would take charge of security specifically in Kampala, Mukono, Wakiso and Entebbe, for the duration of the election season. Additionally, he stated UPDF soldiers would occupy various other areas around the country.

Kampala police spokesman Patrick Onyango denounced as criminals the youth and workers who largely comprised the mass demonstrations. “We want to warn the youths who have been lured into participating in illegal activities to desist from participating in such acts. The joint security teams are on top of the situation and will handle anyone who attempts to destabilise the capital city.”

In a demagogic response to the protests on Thursday, President Museveni told a campaign rally in the northern Ugandan town of Karamoja that protesters “were being used by outsiders… homosexuals and others who don’t like the stability and independence of Uganda. But they will discover what they are looking for. We shall not tolerate confused people. They are playing with fire.”

Wine, a popular reggae music artist, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, was first elected to the National Assembly in 2017, representing Kyaddondo East, in Wakiso district, an extremely impoverished and densely populated area located a few miles east of Kampala.

After growing up in Kamwokya, one of the most impoverished sections in Kampala, Wine attended Makerere University, studying music, dance and drama, obtaining a diploma in 2003. He began his music career shortly thereafter, recording several hit songs, performing in the distinctive musical style known as Afrobeats, which catapulted him to popularity in the East African music scene.

Standing as the candidate for the newly formed National Unity Platform party (NUP), Wine is challenging Museveni in the election set to take place on Jan. 14, 2021, presenting himself as an anti-corruption, reformist candidate.

Since his election to the National Assembly, Wine has emerged as the most significant challenger to the longtime president, who has been in power since 1986 after taking power in a paramilitary coup.

The popular support Wine’s campaign has drawn, particularly from youth and poorer sections across the country, has rattled the incumbent Museveni regime.

Utilizing the slogan “Our People, Our Power,” Wine has made the central plank of his campaign the stated aim of uniting Ugandans against the human rights abuses and corruption of the Museveni government.

Making various pledges as a presidential candidate, Wine has advocated nothing more than a series of minor reforms which, if implemented, would do nothing to address the underlying social crisis ravaging the Uganda population. His promises to “increase business investment” in the country make clear he has no plans to disturb the flow of profits to the major corporations and banks which exploit the working class and peasantry.

The elections take place amid a period of acute social crisis gripping Uganda. The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the country, and as of Sunday, there are a total of 17,968 confirmed infections, with a rising infection rate showing no sign of slowing down.

The economic crisis has been exacerbated by the lockdown instituted by the Museveni government to control the pandemic, which has been accompanied by little governmental financial support for the masses who lost their means to make a living, driving millions of Ugandans to destitution.

The exploding social tensions and the economic crisis wracking Uganda must be understood as part of the broader breakdown of bourgeois capitalist rule across the African continent. The historic crisis of the capitalist system and its complete failure to address the social catastrophe afflicting the Ugandan masses makes it clear that only the working class, based on a socialist and internationalist perspective, can lead the fight for social equality and democratic rights.

Backed by the union, Mercedes plans to close its oldest factory in Berlin

Ludwig Weller

The Daimler group plans to discontinue production of the V6 diesel engine at its oldest plant in Berlin locality of Marienfelde. Eighty percent of the factory’s 2,500 jobs will be cut, the beginning of the end for the factory.

In closing the plant, Mercedes management is relying on intensive cooperation with the factory’s works council and the IG Metall union. For many decades, every corporate decision affecting the workforce made at Marienfelde, and all other Mercedes factories, has been discussed beforehand with the works councils, which then develop strategies for their implementation.

The rally in front of the Mercedes plant in Berlin-Marienfelde

One part of this rigged game are the pseudo-protests held at the factory gate with IG Metall flags and whistles, such as on November 12. IG Metall bureaucrats turned up and distributed flags, whistles and IGM caps to their stewards. The media was informed and the head steward of IG Metall Berlin, Jan Otto, made his appeal for the company management to act responsibly. Workers changing shift provided the background scenery for the IGM media show.

The aim of the rally was to provide a smokescreen and distract from the union’s own role in the closure of the plant. Under conditions of increasing discontent and anger on the part of workers over the closure, and growing signs of militancy at other Daimler factories and elsewhere against historically unprecedented cost-cutting measures, IG Metall is refusing to organise any sort of meaningful protest. On the contrary, the union is using the threat of closure to blackmail workers and impose drastic cuts to wages and working conditions.

The extent of the complicity of the unions became apparent last week at Lufthansa. In an act of complete submission, the three trade unions with members in Germany’s biggest airline offered the Lufthansa board of directors a €1.2 billion cut in incomes and the elimination of one-fifth of the workforce. The proposal involves wage reductions of up to 50 percent.

One day before their rally in Berlin, IG Metall announced via the press that the manager of the engine plant, René Reif, was to leave the company and switch to competitor firm Tesla. At the rally, the IG Metall functionaries and the chairman of the works council then loudly denounced this “betrayal” by the manager.

Jan Otto, who took over the highly remunerated post of head steward of IG Metall in Berlin two months ago, scolded the “soulless manager” who had changed sides and offered his services to a non-German company. Otto’s reactionary, nationalist ranting is well known from his time in Gorlitz, when he called for more government support against foreign competition and allowed the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to participate in an IGM demonstration.

Otto said nothing about the announced mass layoffs in other Mercedes plants and the billions in cost-cutting measures that the Daimler group has already imposed on the workforce in close cooperation with IG Metall.

He said nothing about the fact that the company, like the entire auto industry, is using the coronavirus pandemic to rapidly implement a long-planned program of massive cost-cutting. He also had no problem with the fact that, despite rapidly rising numbers of Corona infections, tens of thousands of Daimler workers are still being forced into the factories, risking their lives in the process. Nor does he care about the many other Daimler sites in Germany, Europe, and around the world that are to be closed or drastically cut back.

All his indignation was concentrated on his indictment of the “shameless” plant manager, who had let down the works council and IG Metall. In addition, he requested that company boss Ola Källenius organise a faster transition from combustion engine to electric motor production, a process in which IG Metall was ready to play its part.

Jan Otto appealed to the head of Daimler as an old friend: “Ola Källenius, you are making a mistake, what you are doing is nonsense, but you are lucky. We are here, we are saving you from the biggest mistake of your—hopefully not very short—career.”

Works council chairman Michael Rahmel sang the same tune—no less vociferously, but even more theatrically—openly admitting his own intimate and confidential collaboration with plant manager René Reif. Now these bureaucrats have been exposed as utterly empty-handed before the workforce. Workers’ anger over the role of the works council as the henchman of management is becoming more and more obvious, and opposition is growing day by day.

IGM Plenipotentiary Jan Otto

The closure of the Berlin plant is a turning point. It is the oldest Mercedes plant in the world still in production and was founded 118 years ago. In 1902, Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft took over an ailing engine factory and expanded it. In the same year, Daimler registered “Mercedes” as its brand name.

Initially, Daimler produced vehicles and ship engines in Marienfelde. In 1916/17, production was switched to armaments and the first German tank, the “A7V,” was developed and built there. In 1926, the company merged with Benz & Cie. to form Daimler-Benz AG. A huge engine plant was then built on an area of around 38,000 square meters.

For years, IG Metall argued that this tradition meant the company could not afford to shut down its Berlin factory. Time and time again, the works councils have lied to the workforce, declaring that a succession of job cuts was the price necessary to secure the site. These lies have now been completely exposed.

It is well known that works council leader Michael Rahmel is an integral member of company management. He sits in the select circle of the Supervisory Board of Mercedes-Benz AG, receives all relevant information, and pockets handsome remuneration and allowances. Together with the other heads of the Daimler/Mercedes works council, he regularly sits with management in the control centre of the global corporation, which has over 300,000 employees.

The list of bought and paid for union bureaucrats is extensive. At the very top is Michael Brecht, chairman of the central works council of Daimler AG. He is the deputy chairman of the company’s Supervisory Board, Mediation Committee, Presidential Committee and Audit Committee. In return, he receives compensation of almost €500,000 per year, plus countless bonuses. His actual salary is not even included in this figure; for his post as chairman of the central works council of Daimler AG, his salary is probably the same as that of a senior Daimler manager.

The union bureaucrats are not only embedded in management structures and well informed via the German system of “co-determination,” they also provide big corporations with sophisticated concepts and strategies. This support, usually invisible to the workforce, is essential for companies which would otherwise encounter direct resistance from workers when jobs and conditions are cut. These concepts are developed by the Hans-Böckler trade union foundation, which functions as a special type of management consultancy firm.

But there is more. This summer, IG Metall founded its own investment company called “Best Owner Group” (BOG). The BOG aims to buy up supplier companies threatened with insolvency, either whole or in part. In this way the supply chains of the auto companies are to be secured by preventing “over capacity” via cuts, or companies are shut down completely.

At the time, the WSWS wrote the following: “To date, IG Metall and its works councillors served as co-managers, helping to draft plans for restructuring and layoffs, and imposing them on the workers. Now they are going a step further and dismantling companies independently. Manager Magazin therefore humorously titled its report on the fund ‘The good vultures of IG Metall.’”

When it became known in the summer that company boss Ola Källenius wants to cut 30,000 jobs and close six plants, the German business periodical Manager Magazin headlined: “Daimler boss starts harshest program of cuts in history.” The Smart plant in Hambach, France, passenger car plant in Iracemápolis, Brazil, the new engine plant in Jawor, Poland, and a factory in Aguascalientes, Mexico are all to be closed down. In addition to the factory in Berlin-Marienfelde, the components plant in Hamburg and the Mercedes factory in Ludwigsfelde with its Sprinter production are also under threat.

The coronavirus crisis and technical changes in the auto industry are being used by investors and shareholders to clear the decks in the auto industry by laying off tens of thousands of workers, rip up social achievements fought for in the past and introduce slave-like conditions in the factories.

The unions, which defend the capitalist profit system and are closely linked to the nation-state, always act against the interests of workers. It is high time Daimler workers took action against this conspiracy between management and the works councils.

The right to work and decent wages stands higher than the obscene enrichment of major shareholders and their henchmen. The works councils must be forced to disclose all details of their secret negotiations with management.

Guatemalan government cracks down on anti-austerity protests

Andrea Lobo

Amid a deepening and historic social crisis in Guatemala, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricanes Eta and Iota this month, thousands joined demonstrations across the country to oppose austerity.

The demonstrations on Saturday and Sunday were triggered by the Congress’s approval of a 2021 budget that included cuts to programs against hunger, public education, care for coronavirus patients and protection of human rights.

The restoration of funds for food programs at the last minute failed to appease demonstrators, who demanded major increases in social spending.

Flames shoot out from a corridor of the Congress building after protesters set a part of the building on fire, in Guatemala City, Saturday, Nov. 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Oliver De Ros)

Hundreds on Saturday entered the Congress building in Guatemala City and set a hall on fire, initially without the intervention of police who were present.

The main demonstration of about 7,000 people, involving families with children, marched to the Plaza de la Constitución, about four blocks from the Congress.

“The resignation of the legislators and President, the blocking of the 2021 budget and anger for the lack of aid to communities affected by the storms were the main slogans,” according to El Periodico, which also reported demonstrations in the cities of Alta Verapaz, Petén, Chiquimula, San Marcos and Quetzaltenango.

A protester told the AFP, “Guatemala cries with blood; the people have had it. We have been living while getting stomped for over 200 years.” Others denounced the lack of economic aid during the pandemic.

Immediately after the fire at the Congress, the Police Special Forces moved in against the protesters and passersby at the Plaza and neighboring streets with anti-riot gear, tear gas canisters and a water cannon. Fourteen demonstrators were treated at the nearby hospital due to beatings and effects of the tear gas—one lost an eye, and another remains in serious condition—and 40 were arrested.

Right-wing President Alejandro Giammattei also exploited the incident at the Congress to threaten demonstrators. “We will not allow vandalism against public or private property. Whoever gets caught participating in these criminal events will feel the full weight of the law,” he tweeted.

The main business umbrella group CACIF also called for the punishment of those responsible for “vandalism” and “violent actions.”

A day before the protest, however, Vice President Guillermo Castillo called on Giammattei for both of them to resign, expressing the fears of a social explosion. “I have expressed very clearly to the President that things are not going well,” he said in a video posted on social media. He then stated that such a maneuver was necessary to ultimately ram through a budget based upon “austerity to avoid further debts.”

In 2015, a series of mass protests compelled the Congress to strip immunity from then President Otto Pérez Molina, who was implicated in a vast corruption scheme, and forced his resignation. At the time, the unrest was ultimately suppressed by NGOs and parties with ties to Washington, which sought to channel it behind support for the US-sponsored International Commission Against Impunity (CICIG) that had investigated Pérez Molina.

This resulted in his replacement by the austerity-driven administrations of Jimmy Morales and Giammattei who ran “anti-corruption” campaigns aimed at covering up the class interests they represent and their subordination to US imperialism.

As the pandemic spreads freely amid a full economic reopening and ending of pandemic aid to those left without income, coronavirus deaths are spiking to levels not seen since July. More than 100 deaths were reported just on Wednesday and Thursday, with the total number of registered deaths now surpassing 4,000.

Extreme weather events, intensified by global warming, have also affected the livelihoods of millions. After five years of devastating droughts, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras have been ravaged this year by the tropical storms Amanda and Cristobal in June, and Eta and Iota in November, which caused widespread devastation of plantations.

The Guatemalan government estimates that 120,000 hectares of plantations were destroyed involving 30 different crops. The authorities have reported 59 dead and 100 missing from both storms. Eta caused a landslide that buried the entire indigenous village of Queja, where families fear the number of missing could be much higher.

Residents in several affected areas have already carried out demonstrations demanding aid, including a protest when Giammattei visited the town of Cobán for a photo op with emergency rescue teams.

By June, the NGO Action against Hunger had already estimated that the food-deprived population would double to 1.2 million in Guatemala due to the pandemic. They cited the loss of half a million jobs and a drop in remittances.

The UN Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) has estimated a similar increase in people living under official poverty, reaching 51.6 percent.

Exploiting the pandemic, the government issued $3.8 billion in debt, but only 15 percent of this was actually spent on the pandemic response, or about $570 million. By comparison, 15 percent of the 2021 public budget, or $1.9 billion, will go to servicing interest payments.

While there is undoubtedly rampant government corruption, the continued attacks against the social conditions of workers, youth and peasants and the imperviousness of the ruling elite to mass suffering are the result of broader historical and international processes.

Whatever the pressures from below, the government and all capitalist political parties are ultimately beholden to the tiny financial and corporate oligarchy in Guatemala and its imperialist patrons. Ever since its independence from Spain in 1821, the traditional landed oligarchy and rising commercial bourgeoisie never pursued the tasks carried out under the bourgeois democratic revolutions in the United States and Europe, chiefly the breakup of landlordism and its independence from the colonial powers.

This process was embodied by the Aycinena clan, which controlled vast swathes of trade and land across Central America before and after the 1821 independence from Spain, and continues its lineage up to Guatemalan ex-president Álvaro Arzú Irigoyen (1996-2000) and his family’s network of partnered business groups.

Researchers have also traced back the Diaz-Durán family fortune in Guatemala, whose ministers and businesspeople strongly backed the privatizations in recent decades, to the landowners that settled after the Spanish conquest of what would become El Salvador.

Guatemala also has one “self-made” dollar billionaire, Mario López Estrada, who came to control the country’s main mobile phone service company Tigo (formerly Comcel), after serving as Communications Minister when the company was handed monopoly control of the sector, while subsequently receiving numerous tax exemptions and cuts to public service bills.

During this entire period, the interests of this ruling elite, from access to credit and foreign investments to production and export markets, remained entirely subordinated to those of Wall Street and the US and European corporations.

Today, in order to pay the mountain of debt accumulated in the bailout of its banks and corporations, US and European imperialism are ruthlessly intensifying their exploitation of workers globally, their neocolonial plundering and the pursuit of hegemony against geopolitical rivals, chiefly China. This is what lies behind Guatemalan capitalism’s inability to meet the most basic social needs and its turn to police-state repression.

To oppose austerity, the Guatemalan working class must organize independently of all “anti-corruption” capitalist forces and the pro-capitalist trade unions and build a new political leadership under a socialist and internationalist revolutionary program.

Thanksgiving in America: Massive food lines and evictions as benefits expire

Kate Randall

As this week’s Thanksgiving holiday approaches, a social catastrophe is unfolding across America on a scale not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

As of Sunday, there were more than 12.2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US and nearly 257,000 deaths. The past week has seen an average of more than 170,000 cases per day, an increase of 59 percent from the average two weeks earlier.

Hospitals are being overrun by the surge of cases. Thousands of nurses at hospitals across the country are coming down with the virus, leaving hospitals short-staffed and placing patient care in extreme danger. In El Paso, Texas, a unit of 36 National Guard troops has been mobilized to work through a backlog of close to 240 bodies, victims of COVID-19, at the county morgue. The bodies will be loaded onto refrigerated trucks.

The Marshall Project, a nonprofit journalism website, reports that as of November 17 at least 197,659 inmates in state and local prisons had contracted the virus and 1,454 had died, a likely undercount due to poor reporting.

As the rise of hospitalizations continues unabated, working-class families across the country are facing a crisis of hunger and poverty alongside the sickness and death from the pandemic. Tens of millions of workers have lost their jobs or been hit by cuts in pay or work hours.

Food lines that already stretch for miles, evictions and foreclosures, and the loss of health benefits are set to increase exponentially when what remains of government assistance runs out immediately after Christmas.

The hunger relief organization Feeding America warns that some 54 million US residents, or one in six, currently faces food insecurity. Many families with children were already facing hunger before the pandemic hit.

In Arlington, Texas, 6,000 families arrived for a distribution of frozen turkeys outside a sports stadium on Friday. On November 14, people in Dallas waited up to 12 hours to receive a turkey, 20 pounds of nonperishables, 15 pounds of fresh produce and bags of bread. Photos of the lineup at the food bank showed thousands of cars backed up across four lanes, spanning several miles.

On Saturday in Los Angeles, some 1,000 people lined up on foot for a food distribution at a church.

The moratorium on evictions imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expires on December 31. Since the order does not cancel or freeze rents, all back rent will come due January 1. An estimated 11 to 13 million renter households are at risk of eviction, according to investment bank and global advisory firm Stout.

As no actual relief dollars have been provided by the government to help families with their rent, landlords have used unscrupulous tactics to illegally evict tenants. They have allowed conditions in rental units to deteriorate, leaving renters a choice between leaving or living with mold or infestations of bed bugs, roaches and maggots. Families forced out of their apartments face living on the streets, doubling up with relatives or friends or sleeping in shelters—all of which increase the danger of contracting COVID-19.

Many families struggling with paying for food and housing face the cutoff of remaining COVID-19 relief funds by the end of the year. Long gone is the $600 federal benefit to boost weekly unemployment benefits. According to the Century Foundation, 12 million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits on December 26 when two major pandemic programs expire. Another 4.4 million will have already exhausted these benefits before they expire.

The two programs set to lapse are the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), which provides benefits to self-employed individuals not eligible for traditional state programs, and the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program, which extends an extra 13 weeks of benefits to people who exhaust state benefits. Both were established by Congress as part of the CARES Act, which doled out trillions of dollars to corporations and banks.

President Donald Trump makes no secret of his contempt for the US and world population facing death and impoverishment. Focused entirely on his plot to nullify the election and establish a presidential dictatorship, he says nothing about the rising toll of sickness and death or the inability of millions of families to pay the rent and put food on the table. On Saturday, he skipped a discussion on the pandemic at the G20 summit in order to play a round of golf at his Virginia resort.

A week ago, Trump made his first public statement in days to reiterate his opposition to a lockdown of the economy to contain the pandemic and save lives. Days later, Democratic President-elect Joe Biden gave a press conference and declared that a Biden administration would never impose a national lockdown. This followed the call by Michael Osterholm, a member of his own coronavirus advisory board, for a six-week nationwide lockdown and full pay for affected workers.

Both parties have conspired to block any congressional action to provide a new round of jobless benefits and other relief measures for workers and small businesses following the July 31 expiration of the minimal benefits provided under the CARES Act.

The public health disaster and the social crisis are two sides of a human catastrophe that is the result of deliberate policies carried out by the Trump administration and, in all essentials, backed by the Democrats. The bipartisan response to the pandemic is driven not by the goal of saving lives, but by the economic interests of the ruling corporate-financial oligarchy. The sole concern is to protect the wealth of the billionaires through government handouts and free money from the Federal Reserve, ensuring a record rise on the stock market.

The antisocial interests of the financial elite are the main obstacle to any effective measures to contain the pandemic and save lives. Nothing is permitted that infringes on the self-enrichment of moguls such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who has doubled his personal fortune to $200 billion in the course of the pandemic.

And to pay for the bailout and explosion of corporate and government debt, workers are being forced into factories and workplaces that are rife with the virus so as to continue the flow of corporate profit. This is the dirty secret behind the back-to-work and back-to-school drive, the centerpiece of the deadly policy of “herd immunity” openly pursed by Trump and tacitly supported by Biden and the Democrats.

Workers are deliberately being driven to the edge of destitution and homelessness in order to force them back into the factories, workplaces and schools.

The corporatist trade unions are fully supporting the back-to-work and back-to-school drive, while covering up virus outbreaks in the factories and schools and policing the workplaces to block opposition by workers.

There is growing anger in the factories and among teachers. Many are following the lead of the Socialist Equality Party and the World Socialist Web Site and forming rank-and-file safety committees independent of the unions and the Democratic Party to coordinate action in defense of workers’ health and lives.

Only the independent intervention of the working class in opposition to both capitalist parties and the profit system they defend can produce a progressive and humane solution to both the pandemic and the social crisis.

The struggle to save lives and livelihoods is a struggle against the capitalist system. It requires the expropriation of the corporate oligarchy and utilization of its vast wealth to shut down all nonessential production until the pandemic is contained, provide full wages and income protection for laid-off workers, ensure safe working conditions for essential workers and marshal the resources needed to rebuild the health care system and provide free health care for all.

Workers and educators should establish rank-and-file safety committees at every workplace and school to enforce safe working conditions, organize strike action where necessary, and prepare the ground for a political general strike to halt the destruction of workers’ lives and livelihoods.

Economic life must be reorganized along socialist lines through the nationalization of the health care industry, the banks and the major corporations under the democratic control of the working class, so as to base the economy on social need, not private profit.

Trump continues drive to nullify election

Patrick Martin

President Donald Trump continued to press his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result and suppress millions of votes, despite a series of legal defeats and political setbacks in six closely contested states won by Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump announced he would appeal a devastating federal court ruling in Pennsylvania, where a conservative federal district judge—a former Republican Party official—denounced the Trump campaign for seeking to disenfranchise more than six million voters on the basis of zero evidence.

Judge Matthew Brann granted a request from Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar to dismiss the Trump suit, issuing a 37-page opinion that characterized Trump’s legal arguments as a “Frankenstein’s Monster” stitched together from irreconcilably opposed legal theories without any effort to reconcile them.

President Donald J. Trump talks to members of the press [Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian]

“This Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence,” Brann wrote. “In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more.”

“This Court has been unable to find any case in which a plaintiff has sought such a drastic remedy in the contest of an election, in terms of the sheer volume of votes asked to be invalidated,” he continued, “One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption… That has not happened.”

While Trump’s lawyers sneered that Brann was an “Obama-appointed judge,” he is actually a former Republican Party chairman and member of the conservative Federalist Society, appointed under the auspices of Senator Pat Toomey, the state’s lone Republican statewide officeholder. Toomey praised Brann as “a longtime conservative Republican whom I know to be a fair and unbiased jurist.”

The Trump campaign filed notice with the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia against Brann’s decision. Chief Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said the case should ultimately be decided by the US Supreme Court, which has a 6–3 right-wing majority, including three justices appointed by Trump himself.

The appeal will not stop the state of Pennsylvania from certifying Biden’s victory in the state, with its 20 electoral votes, most likely on Monday, when county election officials formally report their results to Secretary of State Boockvar. Biden won Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes, twice Trump’s margin when he carried the state in 2016 against Hillary Clinton.

In this Nov. 2, 2020, file photo, a county worker collects mail-in ballots in a drive-thru mail-in ballot drop off area at the Clark County Election Department in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

As in several other court actions it has filed, the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania dispenses with the wild claims of massive fraud made by Giuliani and other lawyers at press conferences. Instead, it focuses on the fact that counties used different standards in treating mail-in ballots, particularly in allowing voters to “cure” technical errors such as a failure to sign the outer envelope of the mail ballot.

The purpose of this legal argument is to invoke the “equal protection” doctrine devised by ultra-right Justice Antonin Scalia in the notorious Bush v. Gore decision, which awarded the presidency to the Republican candidate in 2000. Scalia claimed that the court could step in and suppress vote-counting in Florida on the grounds that different counties had used different standards in the handling of ballots with “hanging chads.”

This argument was so specious that the 5–4 right-wing majority insisted that it should not serve as a precedent for any future decision. But Trump’s attorneys have frequently sought to invoke it this year, since it provides a means for the Supreme Court to intervene and overturn the actions of state authorities in certifying their electoral votes.

Another tactic is being employed in Michigan, which Biden won by an even larger majority, more than 150,000 votes. Trump and the Republican Party are putting enormous pressure on Republican members of the Board of State Canvassers, which meets today to receive and approve the certification of the votes by the state’s 83 counties.

The Trump campaign has sought to elevate minor discrepancies in vote tallying in Wayne County, the state’s most populous county, in order to invalidate the nearly 800,000 votes cast there. The discrepancies are truly minor—357 votes out of 250,000 cast in the city of Detroit. Notably, one Republican official offered to certify the votes in the largely white Wayne County suburbs—which have similar small discrepancies—so long as the votes in Detroit, which is 80 percent African American and 95 percent Democratic, were thrown out.

The Trump campaign hopes that the two Republicans on the four-member state panel will force a 2–2 deadlock. Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and the state Republican Party appealed to the board to postpone action for two weeks, which would take it perilously close to the Dec. 8 deadline for certifying Michigan’s 16 votes in the Electoral College.

During this period, further pressure would be applied to the leaders of the Republican-controlled state legislature to nominate a pro-Trump slate of electors, which would be substituted for the Biden slate elected by the voters. Trump met with Michigan state legislative leaders Friday but so far has not gained their support for this brazenly unconstitutional and anti-democratic maneuver.

In a tweet Saturday night, Trump openly embraced this stratagem. “Hopefully,” he wrote, “the Courts and/or Legislatures will have the COURAGE to do what has to be done to maintain the integrity of our Elections, and the United States of America itself.”

But the conservative Detroit News published an editorial calling on the Board of State Canvassers to certify Biden’s victory and only 75 Trump supporters turned out for a rally at the state Capitol Saturday.

In the four other states where Trump is seeking to overturn Biden’s victory at the polls, both legal and political moves appear to have failed.

In Georgia, a hand recount concluded Friday with the certification of a Biden victory by a narrow but significant margin, 12,670 votes. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, both Republicans and Trump loyalists, signed off on the vote count as reflecting the will of the voters, certifying the state’s 16 electoral votes for Biden. The Trump campaign immediately filed for a second recount, to be conducted at state expense.

In Wisconsin, recounts began in Dane County (Madison) and Milwaukee County, the state’s two most populous and most heavily Democratic counties. The Trump campaign, which paid for the recounts, tried to bog down the proceedings by objecting individually to every mail ballot—the vast majority of those cast. Local election officials decided to record a general challenge to all ballots in order to complete the review in time for the state’s certification deadline of Dec. 1. Biden won Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes.

In Arizona, the Republican-controlled Board of Supervisors in Maricopa County, where two-thirds of the state’s population lives, voted unanimously Friday to certify the county’s election results after all of the Trump legal challenges were rejected by the courts. Biden won the state by just over 10,000 votes, thanks in part to a 40,000-vote majority in Maricopa County.

“It’s time to dial back the rhetoric, conspiracies and false claims,” said Clint Hickman, the Republican board chairman. “In a free democracy, elections result in some people’s candidate losing.” The county results go to Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, who will certify them on Nov. 30 and award Arizona’s 11 electoral votes to Biden.

In Nevada, all counties completed canvassing their votes last week and forwarded the results to Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican. According to state law, the Nevada Supreme Court will canvass the vote on Tuesday, Nov. 24, and Governor Steve Sisolak will then issue a proclamation awarding the state’s six electoral votes to Biden. Trump can then seek a recount, but Biden won Nevada by more than 33,000 votes.

The Pennsylvania court decision had a significant political impact. Senator Pat Toomey declared that Trump had exhausted all plausible legal challenges and should now accept the result of the election. He said, “I congratulate President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on their victory. They are both dedicated public servants and I will be praying for them and for our country.”

While such statements are generally made within hours of a US election result, the vast majority of Republican senators, representatives and governors have not publicly admitted that Biden is the winner of the presidential election and should be accorded the status of president-elect, with access to federal resources for his transition.

With the announcement over the weekend that Senator Rick Scott of Florida and Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia have contracted COVID-19, more Republican senators have acknowledged testing positive for coronavirus (eight) than have acknowledged Biden as president-elect (seven).

The most forceful criticism of Trump from within official Washington came from Senator Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, who denounced the president for “overt pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people.” He declared, “It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American president.”

Romney’s words went well beyond anything said by President-elect Biden or any other leading Democrat. The Democratic Party policy is to downplay the significance of Trump’s refusal to concede and cover up the dangers to democratic rights. They fear that Trump’s coup attempt could provoke a massive upsurge among working people and youth that would threaten not only the Trump cabal, but the capitalist system as a whole.

The White House and the Trump campaign are both clearly in deep crisis, and not only politically. Trump announced that his son, Donald Trump Jr., had tested positive for COVID-19. Trump Jr., with characteristic fascist arrogance, said he would make use of the quarantine period to clean his guns.

Giuliani’s son, Andrew, who works at the White House, also tested positive for COVID-19. As a result, Giuliani did not attend Trump’s Friday meeting with the delegation of Michigan legislators.

Late Sunday came the announcement that attorney Sidney Powell, who made the most inflammatory charges at a Trump campaign press conference Thursday, claiming a Chinese-Venezuelan conspiracy to subvert the US elections, was no longer working for the Trump campaign.

Miller Center Women’s Economic Empowerment Accelerator Programmes 2021

Application Deadline: 1st December 2020

About the Award: The world-renowned initiative aims to connect global social enterprise leaders with business executives to offer more sustainable, scalable market-based solutions to the problems of impoverished people across the globe.

In supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, Miller Center positions itself to support women’s economic growth.

Investing in women’s economic empowerment (WEE) across the globe is pivotal in engendering gender equality, poverty eradication, and inclusive economic development.

The goal of this initiative is to assist social enterprises that support women-owned businesses employing a vigorous and holistic approach to get their desired goals.

In addition, the upcoming accelerator programs serve as a platform whereby social enterprises with a gender-focused strategy are brought together to offer mentorship as well as help build sustainable and scalable businesses.

This first-ever Women’s Economic Empowerment GSBI Virtual Accelerator Cohort will commence in February 2021. GSBI provides 6 months of highly personalized mentorship and quality content.

Eligible Field(s): Agribusiness, Business services, Clean technology and energy, Utilities, Construction and manufacturing, Creative, media and entertainment, Education, Financial services, Healthcare, ICT, Leisure and travel, Retail and wholesale, Consumer durables, Consumer non-durables, Transport and logistics, Water, sanitation and hygiene, Automotive, Clothing and textiles production, Computer hardware, Electronics, Food production, Furniture

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: To qualify, interested social enterprises must meet all of the specified criteria:

• Address gender issues and promote gender equity by having: Women-owned and/or women-led teams Products or services that improve the quality and lives of women and girls substantially
• A focus on ensuring workplace equity in staffing, management, and boardroom representation
• Be workplace equity  focused along their supply chain
• Be focused on serving the poor and underserved communities with a commitment to be open to an earned revenue model with potential for scalability
• Be in operation for a minimum of one year
• Be willing to devote 3-6 hours per week to complete program deliverables and work with mentors virtually.

Eligible Countries: in Africa, Americas, Antarctica Region, Asia, Europe, Oceania

To be Taken at (Country): Online

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The programs offer many benefits to hand-picked social entrepreneurs such as:

PROVEN PROGRAM: Miller Center’s structured, proven curriculum has a proven track record of helping over 1,000 social enterprises attain operational excellence and prepare for investment.

MENTORS: Each participant will be accompanied by executive mentors with expertise in innovation and entrepreneurship

NO CHARGE: All Miller Center GSBI accelerator programs are offered without charge to selected social enterprises.

Duration of Award: 6 months

How to Apply: Interested applicants can sign up here. The deadline for applications is Tuesday, December 1, 2020.

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

The Yemen Civil War Arms Bonanza

Binoy Kampmark

“Making billions from arms exports which fuel the conflict while providing a small fraction of that in aid to Yemen is both immoral and incoherent.”

So thundered Oxfam’s Yemen Country Director, Muhsin Siddiquey after consulting figures from the Stockholm Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) showing that members of the G20 have exported over $17 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia since the Kingdom entered the conflict in Yemen.  “The world’s wealthiest nations cannot continue to put profits above the Yemeni people.”

They do, and will continue to do so, despite the cholera outbreak, coronavirus, poorly functioning hospitals, and 10 million hungry mouths.  The latest illustration of this is the Trump administration’s hurried $23 billon sale of 50 F-35 fighter aircraft, 18 MQ-9B Reaper drones, air-to-air missiles and various other munitions to the United Arab Emirates.  The UAE used to be a more enthusiastic member of the Saudi Arabian-led coalition that has been pounding Yemen since 2015.  Despite completing a phased military withdrawal from the conflict in February 2020 to much fanfare, Abu Dhabi remains involved in the coalition and an influential agent.  Amnesty International has issued a grim warning that such weapons might well be used in “attacks that violate international humanitarian law and kill, as well as injure, thousands of Yemeni civilians.”

With the imminent change of administration in the United States, there is a moral flutter in Congressional ranks, though much of it remains meek and slanted.  Democratic Senators Bob Menendez (NJ) and Chris Murphy (Conn.), along with Republican Senator Rand Paul (Ky) intend introducing separate resolutions disapproving of President Donald Trump’s sale. Menendez felt morally mighty in warning the Trump administration that “circumventing deliberative processes for considering a massive infusion of weapons to a country in a volatile region with multiple ongoing conflicts is downright irresponsible.”

Murphy expressed his support for “the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), but nothing in that agreement requires us to flood the region with more weapons and facilitate a dangerous arms race.”

The US President-elect, Joe Biden, has thrown a few titbits of promise to critics of the US-Gulf States circle of love and armaments.  During the Atlanta Democratic debate held in November last year, he entertained a departure from a policy embraced during the Obama administration, certainly with regards to Saudi Arabia.  “I would make it very clear that we were not going to in fact sell more weapons to them.”  A Biden administration would “make them pay the price, and make them in fact the pariah that they are.”  Specifically on the Yemen conflict, he promised to “end the sale of material to the Saudis where they’re going in and murdering children.”  Fighting words, easily said when a candidate.

This view was reiterated to the Council on Foreign Relations in August this year.  “I would end US support for the disastrous Saudi-led war in Yemen and order a reassessment of our relationship with Saudi Arabia.”  The Trump administration had issued the kingdom “a dangerous blank check. Saudi Arabia has used it to extend a war in Yemen that has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, pursue reckless foreign policy fights, and repress its own people.”

Progressive groups have picked up a scent they find promising.  Policy director for Win Without War, Kate Kizer, expressed hope “that [Biden] starts by immediately undoing as many of the just-notified sales to the UAE as possible, and by putting the brakes on transfers that Congress has previously tried to reject under Trump.”

The moral wash on this is, however, thin.  Menendez, for instance, is hardly giddy about the fate of Yemeni civilians in the context of such arms sales, citing “a number of outstanding concerns as to how these sales would impact the national security interests of both the United States and of Israel.”  Priorities, priorities.

Biden’s top foreign policy advisor, Tony Blinken, seems less concerned about who will be the target of the weapons in the UAE sale than any upset caused to that most unimpeachable of allies, Israel.  Sales of the F-35, for instance, were intended as a US-Israeli preserve.  Selling it to other powers in the Middle East might well compromise the “qualitative military edge” doctrine Washington adopts towards the Jewish state.  “The Obama-Biden administration made those planes available to Israel and only Israel in the region,” explained Blinken in an interview with the Times of Israel.  The new administration would have to “take a hard look” at the F-35 sale.  Was it, he wondered, a quid pro quo for the normalisation deal between Israel and the UAE?

Mammoth arms sales continue to remain matters of business and politics, with business tending to be the crowing representative.  Halting or curbing arms sales is only ever trendy and never permanent.  Oxfam reminds us of that blood-soaked truth.  “When arms exports by G20 nations to other members of this [Arab] coalition are included, the figure of $17 billion rises to at least $31.4 billion between 2015 and 2019, the last year for which records are available.”

UK government announces £21.5 billion increase in military spending

Thomas Scripps

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced an additional £16.5 billion in military spending over the next four years—a 10 percent annual increase, and the largest boost in real terms in 30 years.

The funding is in addition to the Conservative Party’s manifesto pledge to increase defence spending by 0.5 percentage points above inflation each year. Combined, the two measures will lift the UK’s defence budget by £21.5 billion by March 2025, to £63 billion.

A soldier with the 4th Mechanised Brigade is pictured engaging the enemy during Operation Qalb in Helmand, Afghanistan. (Wikimedia Commons)

Johnson’s announcement is the starkest confirmation that the ruling elite are stepping up their plans for military confrontations in pursuit of their geo-strategic aims.

The promised billions will be used to create a National Cyber Force and Space Command, establish a military artificial intelligence agency, and develop the UK’s next-generation fighter jet and drone programmes. The Royal Navy will take the bulk of the money “to restore Britain’s position as the foremost naval power in Europe,” said Johnson. This would allow plans for 13 new frigates and replace support ships for Britain’s new aircraft carriers.

Introducing the increased spending, Johnson reveled in the death and destruction enabled by “technologies that will revolutionise warfare”. Artificial intelligence would be able to offer “a soldier in hostile territory” an “array of options, from summoning an air strike to ordering a swarm attack, by drones or paralysing the enemy with cyber weapons.” “Our warships and combat vehicles would “carry ‘directed energy weapons’, destroying targets with inexhaustible lasers.” For the military “the phrase ‘out of ammunition’ will become redundant.”

Summarising the militarist agenda behind his statement, Johnson told Parliament, “Reviving our armed forces is one pillar of the government’s ambition to safeguard Britain’s interests and values by strengthening our global influence, and reinforcing our ability to join the United States and our other allies to defend free and open societies.

“The international situation is more perilous and more intensely competitive than at any time since the Cold War and Britain must be true to our history and stand alongside our allies. To achieve this we need to upgrade our capabilities across the board.”

The timing of the move is significant, coming shortly after the US presidential elections. Johnson is trying to extricate his government from its foreign policy crisis over Brexit—with just a few weeks remaining before Britain’s Brexit “transition” period expires on December 31 and no agreement yet reached with the European Union on a trade deal. The crisis is intensified by the US election victory of the anti-Brexit Joe Biden.

The Financial Times notes, “The new financial deal comes just a week after Mr Johnson promised US president-elect Joe Biden that Britain was determined to remain a valuable military ally.” According to Sky News, former Tory defence and foreign office minister Tobias Ellwood “said the news would not be lost on the incoming [Biden] administration...”

The Guardian reports that details of the defence spending were “put together at breakneck speed” as Downing Street sought “to reassert control after last week’s No 10 meltdown, which led to the departure of chief aide Dominic Cummings and his ally Lee Cain.” Cummings and Cain were leading figures in the Brexit campaign.

Johnson’s decision was also made with an eye on the Scottish National Party’s loudening calls for Scottish independence in the wake of Brexit. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace commented Wednesday, “It plays a very strong role—defence—in the Union… The United Kingdom, as the United Kingdom, is the only scale big enough to support such a broad and deep group of defence forces.”

At the same time, the spending announcement leaves open the door to a continuing alliance with Donald Trump’s administration, if he is able to remain in office as part of his ongoing coup operation. Trump’s fascistic appointee to the position of US defence secretary, Christopher Miller, responded to the news by saying, “The UK is our most stalwart and capable ally, and this increase in spending is indicative of their commitment to NATO and our shared security. With this increase, the UK military will continue to be one of the finest fighting forces in the world.”

Johnson intends to salvage the UK’s global position post-Brexit through a slavish embrace of American imperialism, centred on escalating aggression towards Russia and China. Coupled with transforming the UK into a low-wage, “Singapore-on-Thames” platform, militarism is pivotal to his “Global Britain” agenda.

The Conservatives’ Daily Telegraph house organ crowed yesterday, “Johnson has set his sights on transforming the UK into Europe’s leading military power, an aspiration that will have a significant bearing on post-Brexit Britain’s global standing…

“With a military equipped for the warfare of the future, Britain will be a prized ally throughout the world.”

Setting the tone for much of the British ruling class following the US elections, Dr Robin Niblett CMG, the Director and Chief Executive of the influential Chatham House foreign affairs think tank, called on the Johnson government to join a Biden administration in “defending democracy” and countering “the authoritarian alternative”. He cited the UK’s cynical and provocative offer of citizenship to Hong Kong residents—used to up the ante against China—and the introduction of the largely anti-Russian “Magnitsky provisions” into the UK Sanctions Act as positive examples.

“These steps,” Niblett said, “can now serve as the foundation for a more modern, 21st century ‘special relationship’ between the UK and the US…”

British aircraft carriers HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Queen Elizabeth moored at Portsmouth harbour, November 2020 (credit: WSWS)

Britain already has troops deployed as part of NATO formations across much of Russia’s western border and in the Middle East against Russia’s ally, Syria. Next year, the UK’s new £3 billion HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier will make its maiden voyage to the Far East, at the head of a nuclear-armed strike group, to take part in US-Japanese military exercises against China. Johnson’s spending announcement, and the proposed new US-UK “special relationship”, are preparations for even more aggressive manoeuvres. The carrier, announced Johnson, “[W]ill lead a British and allied task group on our most ambitious deployment for two decades, encompassing the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean and East Asia.”

These criminal adventures will be paid for with the lives and livelihoods of the working class. Besides the casualties of any military operations, the expansion of British militarism must bring with it an assault on living standards. The government is refusing to consider extending a miserly £20-a-week increase in Universal Credit welfare payments beyond next April—at a cost of £9 billion. Even more significant, it emerged just hours after Johnson’s announcement that Chancellor Rishi Sunak plans to freeze public sector workers pay for another three years in next weeks’ spending review. It is no coincidence that the projected £23 billion saving from the pay freeze is almost exactly the same as the military budget increase (£21.5 billion).

Johnson revealed his £20 billion-plus injection for the military just days after plans emerged to cut foreign aid spending from 0.7 to 0.5 percent of GDP.

In its Wednesday editorial, “This welcome boost to military spending will strengthen the UK's post-Brexit global role”, the Telegraph intoned. “If, as a nation, we want to spend more on defence then savings must be made in other programmes.” A spokesman for the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned that the commitment “will make funding health, pensions and social care in face of [an] ageing population even harder.”

The Labour Party warmly endorsed Johnson’s “long overdue” expansion of British militarism, seeking to outflank the Tory government on the right.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer responded in parliament, “We welcome this additional funding for our defence and security forces and we agree that it is vital to end what the prime minister calls…an ‘era of retreat’.” Shadow Defence Secretary John Healey attacked the Tories for their decade in power, during which “the size of the armed forces has been cut by a quarter, defence spending was cut by over £7 billion”.

The cross-party enthusiasm for a surge in British militarism is a mark of the explosive geopolitical tensions building up under the pressure of the pandemic and its economic fallout. Just two weeks ago, the UK’s most senior military commander, General Sir Nick Carter, made the extraordinary warning that a third world war was “a risk”. Describing the world as “a very uncertain and anxious place”, he continued, “you could see escalation lead to miscalculation.

“We have to remember that history might not repeat itself but it has a rhythm and if you look back at the last century, before both world wars, I think it was unarguable that there was escalation which led to the miscalculation which ultimately led to war.”