UK’s “spycops” inquiry continues coverup of Stephen Lawrence murder

Paul Mitchell

The UK’s Undercover Police Inquiry (UCPI) is continuing the cover-up surrounding the racist murder of 19-year-old Stephen Lawrence in Eltham, London on April 22, 1993.

The UCPI is formally investigating the use of at least 139 undercover police officers, “spycops”, to infiltrate, monitor and disrupt more than a thousand political groups over the course of four decades.

Last month, the first Inquiry hearings into the activities of the secret Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), including spying on the Lawrence family, took place online—six years after the inquiry's creation and two years after it was supposed to end.

Over three weeks, opening statements were made by individuals or lawyers representing “state core participants” (various police organisations and the Home Office) and “non-state core participants” (political parties, trade unions, justice groups and environmental campaigners) which had been subject to police infiltration and provocations.

Neville Lawrence (photo courtesy of Campaign Against Police Surveillance)

The delay has been caused by the police and intelligence services seeking to get the proceedings held in secret, “neither confirming nor denying” the existence of spycops and controlling the release, redaction or destruction of documents.

The SDS was first formed as the Special Operations Squad in 1968 under the Labour government of Harold Wilson to spy on the anti-war movement. Massively expanded in 1972, at a time of rising working-class militancy against the Conservative government, it was renamed the SDS and infiltrated hundreds of left-wing and progressive organisations at the behest of the Security Service (MI5).

Officers built their cover stories using the names of dead children, formed long-term relationships with and even fathered children to unsuspecting women before disappearing without warning.

The UCPI was only authorised by former Home Secretary Theresa May in 2014 because of the tenacious investigations by activists, deceived women and a handful of journalists. Several high-profile court cases resulted, forcing the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to admit abuses of human rights and pay millions in compensation. At the same time, it was revealed that an SDS officer who had wormed his way into the Lawrence family's campaign was reporting back to MI5 on all its activities.

May told the House of Commons, “Only a public inquiry will be able to get to the full truth behind the matters of huge concern” contained in a 2012-2014 review conducted by Mark Ellison QC into the handling of Lawrence’s case. The review included allegations of corruption surrounding “the initial, deeply flawed, investigation” of Lawrence's murder and suggestions that the MPS withheld evidence from the 1998 Macpherson Inquiry into the Lawrence case and racism in the police service.

Doreen Lawrence (source Twitter)

May said at the time, “Stephen Lawrence was murdered more than 20 years ago and it is deplorable that his family have had to wait so many years for the truth to emerge. For the sake of Doreen Lawrence, Neville Lawrence, their family and the British public, we must act now to redress these wrongs.”

Nearly seven years later, speaking on behalf of Doreen Lawrence (now Baroness Lawrence), lawyer Azhar Khan told UCPI chairman Sir John Mitting last month, “Sir, Baroness Lawrence is losing confidence, if she has not already lost it, in this Inquiry’s ability to get to the truth. The truth as to why she, her family and supporters were spied upon by the police. This Inquiry is not delivering on what she was promised and is not achieving what she expected. To say that Baroness Lawrence is disappointed is to understate her position.

Sir John Mitting (source: gov.uk)

“Baroness Lawrence is also disappointed by the approach of the Metropolitan Police Service in its Opening Statement with its suggestion that there has been ‘widespread and lasting change’ in the police. The reality is that there has been very little change. What change there has been was forced upon the MPS. It has never welcomed it or embraced it.”

Khan pointed out that “not a single police officer was disciplined or sacked, rather they were promoted in their careers or are now enjoying their retirement; and many of those that spied upon Baroness Lawrence and her family have, to date, evaded proper scrutiny.”

Khan explained how SDS officer turned whistle-blower Peter Francis revealed, in 2013, how he and three other undercover officers had wanted his SDS colleagues to sabotage a campaign for a "better investigation" campaign into Stephen Lawrence's murder, by digging up dirt" and "disinformation" and feeding back intelligence.

Khan noted that, in 2014, MPS Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe had promised to be “transparent and honest in our duty of disclosure.” However, Doreen Lawrence “is still waiting to receive material which might throw more light on the allegations made by Peter Francis and has seen or heard nothing in relation to the involvement of [undercover officers codenamed] N81, N78 and N86. Baroness Lawrence considers it an utter disgrace that over 6 years after the Commissioner of Police made those commitments, she is none the wiser as to why she and her family and supporters were spied upon…

“Baroness Lawrence is exhausted by the number of times that she has been given reassurances and promises. Each appears to have been as hollow as the next and some appear downright hypocritical.”

Khan concluded, “What Baroness Lawrence believes is actually happening is a ‘secret’ inquiry in which officer after officer is hiding behind a pseudonym and a screen. Not only does she not know who most of them are, but neither does the public... It appears to her that this Inquiry is more interested in protecting the alleged perpetrators than the victims.”

Similar outrage was shown by other non-state core participants. Heather Williams QC, the lawyer representing Neville Lawrence, declared, “It is now more than 6 and a half years since the Home Secretary’s announcement of this Public Inquiry. To date, the Inquiry has revealed virtually nothing to the public about the ‘profoundly shocking’ issues she had identified. Dr [Neville] Lawrence has received nothing substantive from the Inquiry about undercover policing in his case.”

Phillippa Kaufmann QC, representing 21 women deceived into relationships, criticised the MPS for claiming that these relationships resulted from “a lack of supervision” and the spycops for the “frankly obscene” way they spoke about the women.

Kaufmann concluded, “The women continue to participate in the Inquiry, but the hope they had at the outset that here they will finally be given the answers they need has diminished to the point of vanishing.”

The experiences of the Inquiry's non-state core participants confirms the UCPI’s essential role as a damage limitation exercise to clean up the fall-out from the earlier spycops court cases. It is as far as it is possible to be from the independent investigation of anti-democratic measures against political organisations and individuals it was purported to be.

From the beginning the Socialist Equality Party rejected the Inquiry’s terms of reference, which excluded many political organisations from being designated as core participants. This, we said, was “especially peculiar, given that the focus of the inquiry is the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), which was specifically created as part of high-level political operations against the left.”

Based on evidence from ex-MI5 agents and others, the SEP demanded “the immediate release of the names of all undercover police operatives, especially those active in the Workers Revolutionary Party (and its forerunners and successor organisations), their pseudonyms and dates of operation.”

The state’s refusal exposed the true character of the Inquiry. The UCPI is a fraud which serves only to torment the victims of undercover police operatives and screen the further development of police-state structures by the most right-wing government in British history, with the support of the Labour Party.

During the UCPI's seven years of existence, Boris Johnson’s government has introduced a raft of new repressive legislation in line with the move of the ruling elite internationally to dispense with democratic forms of rule. Last month, in a calculated rebuff to the UCPI, Johnson rushed through the House of Commons the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS) Bill giving immunity from prosecution to state agents who commit crimes, including murder, torture or sexual violence, while undercover. Only a small number of Labour MPs opposed the bill.

Mélenchon calls for military conscription, arms buildup in France

Will Morrow

On November 29, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of Unsubmissive France, gave an interview to L’Opinion as part of its “Presidential election” section to outline the policies of the major candidates in the leadup to the 2022 elections. Mélenchon used the interview to advance his credentials to the ruling elite as an aggressive promoter of French imperialism’s interests around the world, who would oversee a massive increase in military spending, introduce conscription, and suppress popular opposition in the working class through police repression.

Mélenchon restated his support for France’s nuclear weapons arsenal. They remained “an irreplaceable tool for France so long as there is no military alternative,” he said. While he supported general treaties for nuclear disarmament, “there can be no question of asking France to disarm first.” In fact, France would have to conduct an arms buildup in outer space to be able to act against major powers.

“The question of the militarization of space is essential,” he continued. “Could conventional or nuclear arms be used once you are up against a space power? We must make a calm evaluation of the situation. We French are capable of putting into orbit as many satellites as we want and of providing ourselves with a system that would protect the national territory.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon (Wikimedia Commons)

“As soon as it is a question of national protection, in my eyes, there are no limits,” he added. “French sovereignty is total, complete, nonnegotiable. If we do not have these capacities, we cannot be more independent, and therefore the people cannot be sovereign. Such is the republican doctrine.”

Mélenchon’s references to “republicanism” are a thin political cover for his wholehearted pursuit of the interests of French corporations and banks, including through wars for control of markets, natural resources, and geostrategic spheres of influence. His criticism of President Emmanuel Macron is largely from the right, that Macron did not sufficiently develop French military independence or pursue French military objectives.

He criticized Macron for failing to use the October 2019 Turkish offensive in Idlib to announce a massive escalation of the nation’s military presence in the Middle East. “The moment the Turks attacked in Syria in a zone held by the Kurds, who are our allies, the decision had to be taken to convoke a meeting of NATO to validate France’s right to deploy in Syria, where they believed they had to be. I maintain that Turkey must be held to account, and there are more possible reprisals against the Turks than it appears, including through military demonstrations.”

Mélenchon called for withdrawing from NATO and said that while he could increase military spending, under NATO this “is a line of credit that we are opening for the Americans.”

His statements are in line with growing demands in the French ruling elite to develop a more independent military policy from the United States. Macron has sought to develop a closer military alliance with Germany as part of the development of a European army, with the longterm goal of being capable of acting independently of and if necessary against the US and China.

To the extent that this involves joint arms production with Germany, however, Mélenchon denounced it for undermining French imperialism’s ability to act unilaterally against Germany. “I repeat in a realistic, pacifist, and well-meaning manner our aim: France must be independent. … What is the purpose of these joint programs with Germany to produce aircraft or tanks of the future? It permits Germany to rearm itself and appropriate the knowledge that it didn’t have.”

The Unsubmissive France leader concluded with an appeal for the return of military conscription. Pointing to the mass opposition to this measure among the millions who voted for him in 2017—many of whom falsely took him for an antiwar candidate, due to his criticism of the US-French airstrike in Syria in April 2017—Mélenchon admitted, “I’m not sure that all the Unsubmissives are in agreement with me.” However, he said, “I am in favor of conscription, and I was opposed to its suspension” by the government of Jacques Chirac in 1996. The “passive and armed popular defense remains a necessity in my eyes.”

Faced with a blowback of opposition to his comments, he published a cynical and lying Tweet on December 1, stating, “A precious detail for commentators: the citizens conscription is not a military service.” It included a graphical ad for a so-called “citizens service,” which would begin at 18 years of age, would have to be completed before the age of 25, and would span nine months. It would “include an initial military training, including the right to conscientious objection.”

His call for conscription included not only military service but for introduction into the police forces. “One can imagine that in the functions of the police, that is, the protection of civil peace, the conscripts could play a great role,” he said.

He absurdly presented this as a solution to police violence. In fact, his demand for a massive expansion of the police forces would not be aimed at rendering the police more benevolent, but at expanding police forces to suppress opposition in the working class to his own capitalist and militarist policies.

Mélenchon’s statements underscore the rapid shift to the right of the entire political establishment and its turn toward authoritarian forms of rule. The coronavirus pandemic has not only intensified the major geostrategic conflicts between the world’s major powers and their preparations for war. It has also exacerbated the tremendous levels of social inequality that are fueling growing working-class opposition that erupted in the Yellow Vest protests in France and a wave of strikes and protests by workers internationally over the past three years.

It exposed the criminal indifference to human life of the capitalist elite, which consciously permitted the virus to spread to prevent a prolonged shutdown from impacting corporate profits.

In July, Mélenchon declared in an interview with European newspapers that in preparing its response to the coronavirus pandemic, his party had reviewed the policies of the French ruling class during World War I. “We looked to the laws of 1915-1916 to see what had been done,” he said. “French society was a peasant society; all the men were at the front and dying in the millions. We were interested to see how social cohesion was guaranteed at the time.”

In other words, he develops his policies as a defender of capitalism, seeking to prevent any movement of the working class against it and ensure “social cohesion.” During World War I, this was achieved through antisocialist, militarist and nationalist propaganda, aimed at selling the lie that French workers must protect their “fatherland” against the workers of other countries.

Today, the Macron government is responding to a new upsurge of class struggle by building up a police state. Mélenchon’s response demonstrates that were he in power, he would pursue a policy that would be in all its essentials identical.

French President Macron hails Egypt’s dictator General al-Sisi in Paris

Will Morrow

Egypt’s dictator General Abdel al-Sisi held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris yesterday morning, as part of a three-day state visit. Al-Sisi also met Foreign Minister Yves Le Drian and the head of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand, before dining with Macron at the Élysée Palace.

In a joint press conference after their talks, Macron declared that “our regular exchanges illustrate the quality of the strategic partnership that ties our two countries, and the long period of work that we have had this morning has permitted to deepen these exchanges.”

Macron hailed al-Sisi, the head of a blood-stained military dictatorship that took power in a coup in July 2013. The coup brutally suppressed the revolution that overthrew US-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak at the beginning of 2011.

Al-Sisi thanked his “dear friend President Macron” for his “warm welcome since my arrival in Paris.” Macron bluntly brushed aside any criticism of French backing for his counterpart. In advance of the meeting, a collection of 18 human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, had signed an open letter criticizing the Macron government’s support for al-Sisi.

Macron and al-Sissi meeting on Monday

Rejecting a reporter’s question as to whether France would tie future arms sales to Egypt to empty “human rights” commitments, Macron stated, “I will not condition our cooperation in defense and economic matters” because “I believe in the sovereignty of people, and the respect of our legitimate and reciprocal interests.” A boycott would “reduce the capacities of a partner in the fight against terrorism and regional stability.”

Central to this “stability” is the bloody suppression of opposition in the Egyptian working class to the conditions of mass poverty and inequality and the defense of Egyptian and foreign capital in the country. Al-Sisi announced that the two had “agreed upon the necessity to work together, to increase direct French investment in Egypt, above all, to profit from the opportunities of development, notably in infrastructure.”

Their discussions also centered on the war policy in Libya, where France and Egypt are allied against Turkey as part of a regional proxy was for territorial control over the oil-rich region. Macron declared that peace in Libya was “threatened by regional powers who have decided to make Libya the theater of their influence rather than the place of stability of the Libyan people.” This from the head of the government that with the UK and US led the bombing of the country in 2011, overthrowing and killing its President Muammar Gaddafi, placing in power rival Islamist militia, and plunging the country into a decade-long civil war.

Macron’s declaration of support for the butcher of Cairo is a warning to the French and European working class about the advanced preparations for military-police dictatorships across the continent.

Since coming to power in 2013, al-Sisi has maintained his seven-year rule with European and US backing through police-state repression, jailing 60,000 journalists and political opponents, carrying out “disappearances,” ordering death sentences of hundreds at a time in mass show trials, and torturing prisoners in the country’s notoriously overcrowded jails.

In the space of just 10 days in October, the regime carried out 49 executions, according to a report by Human Rights Watch. They included 15 men convicted for political offenses, two women and 32 men convicted of criminal offenses. The report noted that the government typically does not even announce executions or inform prisoners’ families. The HRW report was based off accounts in pro-government newspaper reports.

At least five of those executed had been sentenced and held for seven years after allegedly participating in acts of resistance against military forces on August 14, 2013. The military launched a crackdown on a peaceful sit-in in central Cairo by supporters of the overthrown Muslim Brotherhood President Muhamed Mursi, massacring over 1,000 people. Two are accused of participating in an attack on the Kerdasa police station and were convicted as part of a mass show trial of 188 people that sentenced 183.

Thousands of people that are being held in prison have never stood trial. Under Egyptian law, the government can detain anyone for two years prior to a trial. In May, Human Rights Watch described a typical court decision to renew the pretrial detentions of hundreds of people at a time. On May 4, 5 and 6, the Cairo and Giza terrorism courts decided to extend the detention of 485, 745 and 414 people at a time. No defendants were present; there were no hearings, and the judges left the courtrooms without informing their lawyers about the decisions.

A report on the conditions among prisoners between 2016 and 2018 noted the widespread use of torture to extract confessions. Detainees are subject to electric shocks, blindfolded, stripped, handcuffed and beaten, and placed in stress positions for hours at a time.

In one example of those the national prison network, 64-year-old Ahmed Abdelnaby Mahmoud died in the Tora Maximum-Security Prison II in Cairo on September 2. He had been arrested on December 23, 2018, at Cairo airport, along with his wife, and was held without charge for 20 months. Prosecutors reportedly accused him of participating in an unspecified “illegal group,” and he died without ever being tried.

Ahmed Abdelnaby Mahmour and his wife

Mahmoud’s two US-Egyptian daughters reported his treatment on Facebook, noting that he was denied visitation and medical rights “despite his chronic conditions, including diabetes, high blood pressure and a herniated disc, he also developed a skin condition due to filthy inhumane conditions in cell, he also developed PTSD after his arrest due to the physical and psychological torture he endured including beating and electrocution which resulted in difficulty moving his left side of his body.”

France has provided unstinting support to the Egyptian regime. It was the largest arms provider to Egypt from 2012 to 2017, eclipsing the United States, including with a multibillion euro contract for Rafale fighter jets, warships, and Renault Truck Defense armoured tanks. The latter were revealed to have been deployed in 2013 and after by the military to put down antigovernment protests.

French private companies have provided surveillance and crowd control tools to military and police. In 2017 alone, France provided more than 1.4 billion euros of military and security equipment.

Like its Egyptian counterpart, the Macron administration lives in mortal fear of a social explosion of workers and young people against the ever-widening levels of social inequality and poverty and enrichment of the financial elite. A central component of their discussion was no double Macron’s plans for suppressing opposition and building up a dictatorship, following two years of mass Yellow Vest protests and strikes against his government, and explosive anger over its negligent, politically criminal response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Australian government’s citizenship cancellation sets anti-democratic precedent

Mike Head

The Australian government is currently seeking to have a man, who was convicted on vague terrorism-related offences over a decade ago, kept in prison indefinitely. At the same time, it has just cancelled his Australian citizenship.

Both the Liberal-National government’s court application for a “Continuing Detention Order” for Abdul Nacer Benbrika and its stripping of his citizenship by ministerial decree set far-reaching political precedents. Once again, laws passed on the pretext of combating terrorism are being used to abrogate basic democratic rights.

Benbrika’s arrest photograph

On November 25, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton confirmed that he had revoked Benbrika’s citizenship on November 20. At a media conference, Dutton boasted: “He’s the first individual to have lost his citizenship onshore under the terrorism related provisions of the Australian Citizenship Act of 2007.”

Dutton also revealed that 20 other “dual-nationals”—Australians holding citizenship of another country—had likewise had their Australian citizenships “ceased,” on the grounds of “engagement in terrorist conduct.” But, he repeated, Benbrika was the first to be still inside Australia.

With the Labor Party’s backing, the Citizenship Cessation Act was amended in September to apply to Benbrika or any other citizen convicted of terrorism-related offences from May 2003. The act previously applied to offences committed after December 2015, so this amounts to retrospective punishment.

In order to justify the unprecedented measures being taken against Benbrika, the corporate media, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, is echoing the government by labelling him “one of Australia’s most notorious terrorists.” He is routinely claimed to have been “plotting” to target major sporting events in Melbourne and Sydney’s Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in 2005 or 2006.

In reality, Benbrika was not convicted of any plot. The “counter-terrorism” laws were amended in 2005 to require no proof of any specific plot, let alone any actual “terrorist act.” Benbrika was sentenced to 15 years’ jail for being a member of and directing the activities of an unnamed “terrorist organisation”—apparently consisting only of his alleged followers—and for possessing “a thing connected with the preparation of a terrorist act.”

His conviction was based almost entirely on covertly-recorded conversations between a group of Islamic men that included statements about wanting to do “something big” or kill people to stop Australia’s involvement in the US-led occupation of Iraq.

An undercover police infiltrator, referred to as Security Intelligence Officer 39, took Benbrika to a remote hilltop to show him how to detonate an ice-cream container of ammonium nitrate. In other words, the only explosion presented as evidence in the trial was one conducted by a police provocateur. It was a classic case of entrapment, a technique commonly used for frame-ups.

Any talk of killing innocent people expresses the reactionary perspectives of Islamic fundamentalism and individual terror. But there is no evidence that Benbrika or anyone in the group took these words seriously enough to actually do anything. Jailing people for doing no more than voicing hostile sentiments toward the government and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan sets a dangerous precedent for use against political dissent.

Like much of the legislation passed by parliament in the “war on terrorism,” the Citizenship Cessation Act is not confined to terrorism-related offences. It covers conduct or convictions relating to a range of political offences, including “foreign interference,” sabotage, espionage and treason.

The home affairs minister can alternatively “cease” a person’s citizenship because they allegedly “supported” terrorist-related activity or were a member of a proscribed terrorist organisation. This is also far-reaching because the minister can issue regulations to proscribe political groups by arbitrarily branding them “terrorist.”

For now, these powers are confined to people who are deemed to be dual citizens, not sole citizens of Australia. But that affects more than six million people—about a quarter of the population.

These powers are profoundly anti-democratic. Without citizenship, people can be deprived of other basic civil and political rights, such as residence, voting, healthcare and welfare.

According to media reports, the intelligence agencies have raised concerns about trying to deport Benbrika to Algeria, where he is said to hold citizenship. So an alternative plan is underway to keep him imprisoned, potentially for life.

That is why the government is now seeking a Continuing Detention Order (CDO) against Benbrika in the Victorian state Supreme Court. CDOs violate the core legal principle of habeas corpus—no detention without a criminal trial. They allow prisoners to be incarcerated indefinitely, using renewable three-year detention orders, regardless of the original terms of their imprisonment.

Such orders require no proof of any intent to commit a further offence—just a “high degree of probability” that a crime could occur. This standard of proof is much lower than the criminal one of “beyond a reasonable doubt of guilt.”

Like the citizenship-stripping laws, this legislation, adopted in 2016, extends beyond terrorism-related offences. It also covers prisoners convicted of treason or “foreign incursions.” Treason includes “assisting enemies at war with the Commonwealth” and “assisting countries or forces engaged in armed hostilities against the Australian Defence Force”—which could mean opposing wars and other military interventions.

The list of relevant offences also includes: membership of, or raising funds for, an organisation declared by ministerial decree to be terrorist, and “providing support” to such a “terrorist organisation.”

Benbrika’s non-parole period has expired but Victoria’s Supreme Court has so far granted the government two temporary, 28-day extensions to keep him behind bars. The court hearing on the CDO is continuing.

A third draconian measure from the post-2001 “war on terror” has also been applied to Benbrika. A Federal Court judge last week granted the government a “control order,” imposing a curfew on Benbrika and ordering him to wear a tracking device if ever released.

Among other restrictions, Benbrika was also prohibited from forming prayer groups, in or out of a mosque, leading prayers or influencing anyone about religion in any group.

Control orders override basic freedoms such as speech, movement, association and communication, and can reach the level of complete home detention. All that the government has to assert is that such an order would “substantially assist in preventing a terrorist act”—again, far less than evidence of criminal intent, let alone any plan or act.

In effect, Benbrika has become a test case for three provisions that can be invoked far more widely, including against anti-war and other political activists. These dangers are magnified by the fact that the legal definition of “terrorism” is so sweeping that it can extend to any anti-government activity, or even discussion, that could be accused of involving violence or damage to property.

Since the “war on terror” was declared in 2001 by US President George W. Bush, echoed by Prime Minister John Howard’s government, Australia’s parliament has rubberstamped more than 100 “counter-terrorism” bills—reportedly more than any other country.

As the WSWS has warned from the outset, unprecedented police-state powers have been created that can and will be used increasingly to outlaw, silence or intimidate political and working class discontent as social inequality intensifies and preparations mount for new US-led wars.

Once again, the Labor Party rushed to solidarise itself with Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government in triggering the citizenship-stripping power, just as it has endorsed each piece of “terrorism” legislation and every measure taken by the government to bail out big business during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Labor’s shadow foreign minister Penny Wong told reporters: “We did understand when we passed those laws through the parliament that the cancellation of citizenship was a big step but a necessary step in certain circumstances.”

In other words, a Labor government would be no less committed to overturning democratic rights in an effort to suppress rising unrest.

UK deploys troops to Mali

Jean Shaoul

Around 300 British troops have arrived in the west African country of Mali. Presented as a contribution to the UN’s peacekeeping mission, it is part of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s efforts to reassert British imperialism’s interests in Africa against the challenge from its major rivals as the UK prepares to leave the European Union (EU).

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab sought to cover this blatant piece of imperialist militarism, declaring, “This new deployment of 300 British troops to the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Mali is part of our ongoing work in the Sahel region to build stability, improve the humanitarian response and help protect innocent civilians from violence.”

While this is partly bound up with efforts to reduce migration to Europe, vital geo-strategic issues are also involved. First announced in July 2019 shortly after Johnson became prime minister, the deployment of troops to West Africa began earlier this year when around 30 soldiers and Royal Marines took part in training special forces from West African nations in a US-led “counter-terrorism” exercise in Senegal involving more than 1,600 troops. Major John House, commander of the Senegal team, declared it was in Britain's interests to get more involved in the region, saying, “If we don't act, we may find the problems getting closer to our door. The more they have a presence in the region, the more we can feel the effect back in the UK.”

The warring parties in Mali in March 2020 (credit: House of Commons Library)

That exercise included special forces troops from Cameroon, Morocco and Nigeria that conducted a raid on a village to “take out” an unspecified group of extremists. Troops in Cameroon and Nigeria have been involved in such operations for years. Cameroon is suppressing an anglophone separatist movement and Nigeria is conducting operations against Boko Haram in the country’s north east, as well as recurring conflicts in the country’s Middle Belt and the oil-producing Niger Delta.

In July, small teams of Special Airforce Service, whose tasks include covert reconnaissance, counterterrorism, direct action, and hostage rescue, were reported to be in Mali preparing for the main force of Light Dragoons and Royal Anglian troops to arrive later in the year.

UK forces were sent to Gao, in eastern Mali, where they will form part of Minusma, the UN’s peacekeeping operation with 14,000 troops from 56 countries, in the vast desert and semi-arid region of the Sahel. According to the Ministry of Defence, their main task is to mount reconnaissance operations around Gao where several Islamist groups, including various al-Qaida affiliates under the banner of Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and a rival Isis affiliate, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, are active.

The Minusma mission has been described as the most dangerous in the world. Last year, at least 500 civilians were killed by these groups that also attacked French, European, and local armed forces, with one suicide attack killing more than 50 Malians in a military base in 2017.

Earlier this year Mali witnessed months of protests against the French occupation, launched in 2013, and the ethnic massacres between rival militias that Paris tolerates, and uses to divide and rule the country. France intervened in Mali in January 2013 against separatist and Islamist forces who came from Libya in the aftermath of NATO’s regime-change war in 2011. It has maintained more than 4,000 troops in Mali, increased to more than 5,100 since the beginning of 2020, as part of an international coalition that includes Germany, Canada, the US and the so-called G5 force of troops from Niger, Chad, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Mali.

British military personnel departing from a Hercules transport. [Picture: Corporal Andrew Morris RAF, Crown copyright]

Mali is Africa’s third-largest gold producer after Ghana, its southern neighbour, and South Africa. It also borders Niger, which hosts France’s military forces including drone bases and provides most of the uranium supplies required for nuclear power production in France.

Despite its gold, Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranking 184 out of 188 on the United Nations Human Development Index, with 78 percent of the population living in poverty. The median age of its 19 million population is 16.3 years, many lacking access to education. Climate change is having a devastating impact on Mali and the entire Sahel, where droughts and floods have obliterated crops and livestock herds, creating tension between farmers and nomadic herders competing for land and shrinking resources.

According to the United Nations, about 12.9 million people are affected by the crisis in Mali, with 6.8 million in need of humanitarian assistance. There are more than 250,000 internally displaced people as well as nearly 30,000 refugees from Burkina Faso and Niger. The insecurity in neighbouring Burkina Faso is forcing many Malian refugees to return home.

On August 18, amid mounting protests, a junta of Malian army colonels launched a pre-emptive coup, toppling President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, and declaring loyalty to the French occupation force. France supported the coup because it was aimed against the anti-war protests of youth and workers. Like the 2012 coup that paved the way for the 2013 French invasion, the 2020 coup started in the Kita army base. General Ibrahim Dahirou Dembélé, who has been decorated for his services to French national security, was again one of its leaders.

When they took power, the coup leaders made their loyalty to French imperialism clear. They called on the Malian army to continue working with French troops (Operation Barkhane), their European allies (Takuba), their UN auxiliaries (Minusma), and their auxiliaries from the Sahel countries (G5 Sahel). They declared, “The Minusma, the Barkhane force, the G5 Sahel, the Takuba force are still our partners for stability and the restoration of security. We call on you, our brothers in arms, to continue discharging your law-and-order and operational missions.”

The Sahel, which includes the francophone countries of Mali, Burkino Faso, Chad, Niger and Mauretania, is not one of Britain’s traditional fields of operations. But Johnson is determined to recoup some of Britain’s lost influence in Africa, while embracing US imperialism and its militaristic agenda. This is centred on escalating aggression towards Russia and China, which has become Africa’s largest trading partner, as part of his efforts to salvage the UK’s global position, post-Brexit.

Operating under the UN mandate, British forces will not be involved in the EU operations in the Sahel, including the EU mission to train Mali’s police, although it does provide helicopter support for Operation Barkhane, France’s 5,000-strong anti-insurgency force, headquartered in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad.

Africa is the arena for the largest number of Britain’s Armed Forces overseas on training or operational missions. According to the Ministry of Defence there many short-term military teams training security forces to respond “appropriately and proportionally” to security threats, terrorism, violations of human rights, wildlife preservation and emerging humanitarian crises.

Britain has for some years had forces in Nigeria, its former colony where Shell Oil Company has major investments, supposedly training its military and security forces to deal with Islamist terrorist groups. It recently emerged—after initial denials—that Britain had in 2019 provided training and equipment for Nigeria’s police and security forces, funded via its so-called “aid” budget. The notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), widely recognized as one of the worst in the world, was the focus of October’s mass anti-police brutality protest movement, which government forces ruthlessly suppressed.

In addition to its forces in Nigeria, Djibouti and Somalia, Britain has 14 training missions on the continent operating out of its base in Kenya, including in Gabon, Malawi, and Zambia. This is in addition to its participation in UN peacekeeping missions, recently doubling its deployments to South Sudan, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

News of the anticipated deployment to Mali comes in the wake of the government’s announcement of increased funding for the military that will lift the UK’s defence budget by £21.5 billion by March 2025, to £63 billion. This is the largest real terms increase in 30 years, confirming that the ruling elite are stepping up their military preparations in pursuit of their geo-strategic aims.

The Labour Party not only endorsed Johnson’s “long overdue” expansion of British militarism, but sought to outflank the Tory government on the right. 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.”

New Zealand housing crisis worsens under Labour

John Braddock

In response to growing outrage over New Zealand’s spiraling housing crisis, the finance minister in the Labour-Green Party government, Grant Robertson, last month wrote to Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr, asking him to cool the market.

According to Real Estate Institute and Statistics NZ figures, median house prices increased across the country by more in the past year than most workers earned. In Auckland, the median wage for a worker was $66,404, but the median house price increased by $140,000, with a similar increase in Wellington.

State Housing in Dunedin, New Zealand

The Reserve Bank, which is nominally “independent” of the government, is tasked with maintaining fiscal stability and keeping inflation under control. However, its low interest rate regime, imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, is a major contributor to skyrocketing property prices and rising social inequality.

The central bank’s Funding for Lending Programme (FLP), offering banks up to $NZ28 billion at the 0.25 percent Official Cash Rate, launched this week. The FLP is designed to provide additional stimulus, further reducing banks’ funding costs and interest rates. The program comes on top of the Reserve Bank’s purchase of up to $100 billion worth of government bonds with newly created money. The beneficiaries are big business, property investors and landlords.

Robertson’s letter was an empty charade. The minister sought Orr’s views on working together “to address the issue of rising house prices, as part of a wider suite of work that the government is carrying out on housing market settings in the economy.” Robertson politely suggested that the central bank take house prices into “consideration” when formulating monetary policy.

Orr’s response was swift and dismissive, insisting that the ball remains in the government’s court. He declared that lower interest rates “promote spending and investment,” and stated that there are “many long-term, structural issues at play” in determining housing affordability. He noted that the bank had reinstated loan-to-value ratio restrictions for “higher risk lenders,” essentially making it more difficult for those outside the financial elite to borrow.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern turned on the public who, she said, bore “some responsibility” for the crisis, telling TVNZ she lacked popular backing for tax increases. In fact, Ardern ruled out a Capital Gains Tax (CGT) in 2019 after caving in to her then coalition partner, the right-wing New Zealand First party, and insisting there would be no such property tax as long as she is PM.

There was substantial public support for Labour’s modest proposed CGT on property speculation. A 2017 ONCB poll found 58 percent backed a CGT and only 34 percent opposed. During the 2020 election campaign, Labour also ruled out any wealth tax, in a direct appeal to its upper middle-class supporters.

New Zealand is one of the most unaffordable countries in the world to buy a house. According to a 2019 Demographia International report, the median price is more than six times the median household income. Auckland was the seventh most unaffordable city, behind Hong Kong, Vancouver, Sydney, Melbourne, San Jose and Los Angeles.

House prices have soared by 27 percent in the last three years and median rents have gone up 17.5 percent. Prices inflated faster in 2020 than in the previous 16 years. According to property researchers CoreLogic, it now takes 9 years to save a 20 percent house deposit, up from 8.2 years in 2019. The share of income going to rent has increased from 19.8 percent last year to 21.2 percent.

A social disaster is unfolding. Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft told Radio NZ that with one in five children living in poverty, and 150,000 experiencing “severe material hardship,” housing is “the big driver in child poverty.” He mentioned a family of 14 living in a two-bedroom home in the predominantly low-income Wellington suburb of Porirua, where house prices are approaching a million dollars, having spiked by 49 percent since 2017. Porirua Mayor Anita Baker told Stuff, “the word ‘affordable’ no longer has any meaning when it comes to buying a house.”

Rents are also escalating as landlords cash in. Stuff recently reported on a four bedroom flat in Wellington’s student quarter advertised at $815 per week. The illegal “dungeon-like” earthquake-prone building had no heating, there were missing and broken windows and curtains instead of bedroom doors.

The waiting list for public housing has more than trebled in three years to over 21,000 families. A UN investigator, Leilani Farha, described the situation as a “human rights crisis.” She said everyone has the right to secure, habitable affordable housing with access to services. People in “transitional housing,” however, have no legal rights. Many families have been living in unregulated accommodation, including crowded motel rooms, for years.

The crisis is a stunning exposure, not only of the Ardern government, but of its Labour predecessors. Ardern’s mentor, former Prime Minister Helen Clark, presided over the previous highest housing price boom from 1999-2008 of 102 percent, or 11 percent per annum.

Ardern campaigned in 2017 on eliminating child poverty and the housing shortage. However, Labour’s flagship “KiwiBuild” policy, which promised to create 100,000 “affordable” houses by underwriting private investors was a disaster. It was eventually dumped with fewer than 500 houses constructed. All were sold at market rates, placing them out of reach for those who needed them most.

The Greens, for their part, last week abstained on a parliamentary vote to marginally lift the top tax bracket to 39 cents. Co-leader James Shaw said that taxing income without taxing wealth and property “just makes the [housing] problem worse.” Their posturing is all theatrics. The Greens are part of the government and have pledged to keep supporting it.

Like governments around the world, Labour has used the COVID-19 pandemic to transfer tens of billions of dollars to the super-rich, rejecting appeals to urgently lift welfare benefits while pouring cash into the pockets of the wealthy.

With a social explosion looming, there is growing alarm among trade union bureaucrats, pseudo-left groups and liberal commentators that Labour is discrediting itself and jeopardising its ability to head off a growing movement of the working class.

Writing in the Guardian last month, academic Bryce Edwards glorified the “pioneering” first Labour government of the 1930s under which, he declared, “state house building was turbo-charged” and a “home for life” guaranteed.

With the country currently short of 500,000 dwellings, Edwards called for “a programme of mass state house production.” A “genuinely progressive government would simply return this country to the large-scale state housing that New Zealand used to be known for,” he declared.

There can, in fact, be no return to the Keynesian policies of limited social reforms which once served to subordinate the working class to the capitalist state. In response to the globalisation of production, Labour, like its social democratic counterparts elsewhere, ditched its reformist program in the 1980s to impose the dictates of the free market and begin dismantling earlier social reforms.

Labour and the Greens are the open representatives of finance capital and big business. The right-wing government will inevitably come into conflict with the working class, which will seek to fight back against the historic assault on its jobs and living standards. Workers can only carry this struggle forward by breaking with Labour and taking up the program of socialist internationalism.

Ukraine, Hungary clash as NATO discusses Ukrainian membership

Jason Melanovski

A long-running dispute between Ukraine and Hungary has worsened in recent weeks as the two right-wing governments continue to trade accusations over the status of ethnic Hungarians living in the Zakarpattia region of western Ukraine. The region, which had earlier been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is today home to 1.26 million people, with 80.5 percent ethnic Ukrainian and 12 percent ethnic Hungarian residents.

Kiev and Budapest have been at odds over the status of the Hungarian ethnic minority in Zakarpattia since 2017, when the right-wing nationalist government of former President Petro Poroshenko introduced an undemocratic language law that limited the ability of ethnic minorities to be instructed in their native language and made Ukrainian the required language of instruction for all students in secondary school.

National guard soldiers wearing face masks stand at the parliament building in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 17, 2020. (Credit: AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

While the bill was clearly intended to target the use of Russian language in schools and “Ukrainianize” the country’s Russian population, it also angered the country’s other sizable ethnic minorities. Several European Union (EU) member countries, Hungary, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria, all filed complaints with the Council of Europe and the OSCE.

The right-wing government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, which has used the issue of ethnic Hungarian communities throughout Europe to expand its influence since it came to power in 2010, responded to the language law by distributing Hungarian passports to ethnic Hungarians within Ukraine. Hungary has repeatedly threatened to block Ukraine’s further integration into NATO and the EU and regularly cancels full NATO-Ukraine meetings over the language issue.

The most recent catalyst for a further breakdown in relations was a video on Facebook which showed local government officials in the western Ukrainian town of Siurte apparently singing the national anthem of Hungary during a meeting. Whoever posted the video purposely edited out the officials first singing the Ukrainian national anthem prior to the Hungarian.

The video was quickly exploited by right-wing Ukrainian nationalists who viewed the anthem singing as a deliberate provocation ordered from Budapest and pointed out that the meeting had taken place on November 21, which is known as the “Day of Dignity and Freedom” in Ukraine. The recently created holiday celebrates the anniversary of the beginning of the right-wing US- and EU-backed “Euromaidan” protests in 2013 that later led to the coup against the democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.

In response to the video, on November 30 the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) raided the offices of Hungarian political and civic organizations in the Zakarpattia region. The SBU claimed that they “were suspected of conducting subversive activity to the detriment of Ukraine in the interests of a neighboring country.”

As a result of the raids, the SBU claimed, “During searches, law enforcement officials discovered printed materials promoting a so-called ‘Greater Hungary’ and the creation of an ethnic autonomy in Zakarpattia.” Kiev also directly accused Hungary, a NATO member since 1999, of supporting Hungarian separatism and stated that it was investigating the Hungarian organization’s “complicity in a foreign government’s subversive activities to the detriment of Ukraine, including by committing high treason.”

Following the incident, Budapest summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to lodge a protest over the raids. In response, the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba summoned the Ambassador of Hungary to Ukraine István Íjgyártó to call Hungary’s claims of persecution “groundless speculation.”

Earlier in October, Kuleba had filed a complaint with Íjgyártó over the supposed interference of Hungarian officials into local elections in the Zakarpattia region.

Two Hungarian government officials were refused entry into Ukraine in November after they were accused of campaigning for the Party of Hungarians of Ukraine in local elections.

The Zakarpattia region is strategically important to Kiev. Ukraine’s natural gas transit system has its westbound outlet there en route to the European Union and the region directly borders the EU and NATO member countries Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. As a result, the region is also home to sizable non-Ukrainian ethnic communities, which are suspect in the eyes of the right-wing nationalist forces that came to power in Kiev in 2014.

The fallout between Ukraine and Hungary came at a particularly inopportune time for the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky as it took place just prior to a meeting of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Brussels on December 1-2.

Despite coming to power with pledges to end the now over six-year-long conflict in eastern Ukraine that has claimed the lives of over 14,000 people, the Zelensky government has doggedly pursued full NATO membership just as strongly as the previous regime of the right-wing nationalist Petro Poroshenko.

This past week Ukrainian Defense Minister Andrii Taran stated that he expects Ukraine to receive a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the next NATO Summit in 2021. Taran also called upon NATO member states to accept Georgia as well and claimed that “Ukraine’s and Georgia’s potential membership in NATO will have a significant impact on Euro-Atlantic security and stability, in particular in the Black Sea region.”

Prior to the 2014 US-backed coup, Ukraine had maintained a nonaligned status in regards to NATO, but after the coup the government embarked on a course of integration with NATO. In February 2019, the Ukrainian government passed a constitutional amendment, stating its commitment to join both NATO and the EU, and in June of this year it became a member of NATO’s Enhanced Opportunities Partnership program.

At the recent NATO ministers of foreign affairs meeting, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke directly on the dispute between Hungary and Ukraine, hinting at the deep crisis within NATO over the potential membership of Ukraine. He said, “I will not go into the details of a classified discussion at the NATO ministerial meeting. But what I can say is that it’s well known that there is a bilateral dispute between Hungary and Ukraine. And I hope that the two countries will be able to solve this bilateral dispute. But I think the meeting today demonstrates that we are able to continue to, of course, strengthen our partnership with Ukraine. We are able to provide more support, and we also are able to meet at the ministerial level to discuss issues of common concern.”

For Hungary, the meeting in Brussels was an opportunity to further condemn Kiev in front of its NATO allies. Speaking via video, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó ominously stated, “Ukraine, a country not a member of NATO, has launched an attack against a minority group originating from a NATO member country. This is obviously a scandal, and it is unacceptable in the 21st century,” Szijjártó said. “Especially from a country claiming to want to draw closer to NATO.”

Tens of millions of Americans struggle to pay rent as unemployment benefits and eviction moratorium near expiration

Alex Findijs

As the expiration of the federal moratorium on evictions looms at the end of the year, millions of working class Americans have fallen significantly behind on rent and utility payments.

According to Moody’s Analytics, 12 million renters will owe an average of $5,850 in back rent and utility payments by January 1.

A rental sign is posted in front of an apartment complex Tuesday, July 14, 2020, in Phoenix. (Credit: AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

A survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found that 7.5 million renter households (23.5 percent) that had at least one person working in February of this year have experienced unemployment at some point between March and August. They warn that evictions will increase 50 percent next year as millions struggle to pay back months of rent and utilities at once.

So far, more than 60 million workers have filed for unemployment this year, with 11.1 million currently collecting state benefits.

With these considerable disruptions to the labor market, the International Labor Organization estimates that North American workers have lost 15.3 percent of their work hours. In the United States, two-thirds of this cut in working hours came from job losses, with half of that coming from unemployment.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded 159 million workers in November 2019, with an average hourly wage of $28.3 an hour. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates that the American working class averages 1,779 hours worked a year per worker.

Using these figures, it can be estimated that American workers worked a total of 282.86 billion hours this year and lost approximately 42.4 billion hours during the pandemic, worth an estimated value of $1.2 trillion, or $10,000 per household.

With such substantial monetary losses for the working class, with the poorest and most disadvantaged certainly bearing the greatest cost, it is no wonder that so many families are struggling to pay their bills and a testament to the failure of the capitalist system to support them.

The Cares Act was signed into law on March 27, providing $300 billion in direct cash payments and $260 billion in supplemental unemployment insurance benefits. The enhanced unemployment benefits lasted for four months, after which rates returned to normal but with a 13-week extension to the maximum number of weeks allowed by each state.

According to data from the Department of Labor, the average weekly unemployment benefits for the second quarter—April, May and June—were just $318, even with the funding for extended benefits.

Four weeks of this sum is not even enough to cover rent alone in many cities. A review by Clever Real Estate found that workers could survive on unemployment insurance in just 12 out of 109 metro areas.

Now, with millions of Americans suffering from the pandemic, the Democrats and Republicans negotiate over pennies, taking turns rejecting deals that do not even come close to alleviating the crisis.

The Republicans, true to form, have offered nothing for housing and utility assistance. The Democrats proposed $50 billion for low-income renters. Ultimately, a $25 billion compromise was reached as part of the $908 billion stimulus package currently being discussed in congress.

Twenty-five billion dollars is a grossly insufficient amount. Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, estimates that there will be $70 billion in unpaid debt by January.

The political parties of the ruling class have demonstrated their complete indifference to the plight of the working class.

In 2019, US renters paid $512 billion for housing. With millions out of work and hundreds of billions of dollars in wages lost, it is impossible to expect workers to somehow conjure their debt payments from thin air by January.

To the extent that the US government offers anything, it is only to prop up the profits of the capitalist system, funneling trillions into the stock market and providing millions to big business through the Paycheck Protection Program, while small businesses owners and workers are left with nothing.

Even with the meager assistance that the federal government is offering, it will be extremely difficult for workers to pay off their debts.

Between 2001 and 2018, the median wage of a renter rose just 0.5 percent while median rent rose 13 percent. More than 8 million renter households pay more than half of their income toward rent, affecting 23 million people.

The Census Bureau’s most recent Household Pulse survey found that 83 million adults reported struggling to pay for essentials such as food, housing, transportation and medical care. Now, 66 percent of people receiving unemployment benefits will lose them on December 26 and face eviction at the end of the month.

All evictions must be halted, workers must be given full income support, essential workers must be granted substantial hazard pay and adequate utilities must be provided to all people without charge.

This is what is required to fight the pandemic and ensure that no person is forced from their home. Neither the Republican nor Democratic party can be trusted to provide workers with relief. Only an independent movement of the working class based on a socialist program demanding financial assistance and an end to evictions can save lives and bring the pandemic under control.