Deadly BA.2 subvariant of Omicron spreading in more than 74 countries

Benjamin Mateus

The BA.2 subvariant of Omicron accounts for a rising proportion of COVID-19 cases across the globe. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported this week that it was present in more than 74 countries worldwide.

This colorized transmission electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19—isolated from a patient in the U.S. Virus particles are shown emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab. (Source: NIAID-RML)

The WHO’s Technical Lead for COVID-19, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, elaborated on Omicron and its sublineages during a press briefing, underscoring the critical distinction that infections with Omicron are not mild and continue to hospitalize and kill at record numbers across the globe.

She noted, “It’s really quite incredible how quickly the Omicron, the latest variant of concern, has overtaken Delta around the world. Most of the sequences are this sublineage BA.1. We are also seeing an increasing in proportion of sequences of BA.2. Omicron is more transmissible than Delta—all of the sublineages [are].”

Van Kerkhove continued, “But within the sublineages, Omicron BA.2 is more transmissible than BA.1. And so, what we are looking for in the epi[demic] curves, we’re looking at not only how quickly those peaks go up, but how they come down. And as the decline in cases occur, we also need to look at is there a slowing of that decline or will we start to see an increase again? If we start to see an increase, we could see some further infections of BA.2 after this big wave of BA.1.”

Worldwide, there were more than 16 million new infections and over 73,400 deaths last week. Since December 27, 2021, weekly global deaths have been rising for six consecutive weeks surpassing the Delta peaks seen in the late summer of 2021. Currently, based on sequenced coronavirus genomes uploaded into GISAID, the BA.1 subvariant remains dominant.

BA.2 appears to be increasing steadily in several countries where it is displacing BA.1. Its prevalence has notably risen in South Africa, Denmark and the UK.

COVID cases and deaths in South Africa

In South Africa, where Omicron was first sequenced, the seven-day moving average of new infections has plateaued at 2,500 per day. The death rate, however, has risen tenfold since mid-November, with an average of 164 deaths per day. Of note, more than 9,000 South Africans have died during the Omicron wave accounting for almost 10 percent of all COVID deaths. Rates of children dying were up by a factor of 2.2.

On February 17 there were 435 deaths reported, a single-day high during the Omicron phase of the pandemic. In line with these findings, the moving average case fatality rate of COVID-19 in the country has been rapidly climbing. Viral sequences submitted to GISAID between January 24 to February 7, 2022, found that BA.2 accounted for 65 percent of cases.

The question that has arisen from these developments is what role BA.2, with all studies supporting its increased infectivity, will have on the course of the pandemic.

Dan Barouch, an immunologist and virologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, told Nature, “It might prolong the Omicron surge. But our data would suggest that it would not lead to a brand-new additional surge.”

In an earlier report published in the BMJ at the end of January, the UK Health Security Agency warned that BA.2’s “apparent growth advantage is currently substantial.” They also reported that those infected with BA.2 were more likely to pass it to others in their household. Dr. John Edmunds, professor at the Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Disease at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the BMJ, “It is difficult to say what the implications of this will be. It may well extend this wave of infection, or even lead to another peak. The good news is that at present there is no evidence to suggest that it is more severe than Omicron and, as the UKHSA analysis shows, the vaccines appear to be as effective against it as they are against BA.1.”

However, a much-discussed new animal- and cell-culture-based study from the University of Tokyo, conducted by lead scientist Dr. Kei Sato, found not only was BA.2’s effective reproductive number 1.4 times higher than that of BA.1, but also that BA.2 was more pathogenic, showing in their animal models that the BA.2 virus had a more deleterious impact on lung tissue.

Additional findings found BA.2 was both more evasive of previous immunity from vaccines or infections and found to be resistant to several monoclonal antibodies, which raises the critical concern that the current arsenal of therapeutics may be limited considering these mutations in SARS-CoV-2. Indeed, one of the much-vaunted justifications for treating COVID as endemic was the plethora of treatment options people have if they become infected.

The paper summarizes the findings:

Although BA.2 is considered an Omicron variant, its genomic sequence is heavily different from BA.1, which suggests that the virological characteristics of BA.2 are different from that of BA.1. Here, we elucidated the virological characteristics of BA.2, such as its higher effective reproduction number, higher fusogenicity [ability to fuse to cells], higher pathogenicity when compared to BA.1. Moreover, we demonstrated that BA.2 is resistant to the BA.1-induced humoral immunity. Our data indicate that BA.2 is virologically different from BA.1 and raise a proposal that BA.2 should be given a letter of the Greek alphabet and be distinguished from BA.1, a commonly recognized Omicron variant.

The study remains in the peer review process, and one of its main limitations is its reproducibility in human populations. Jeremy Kamil, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Louisiana State University Health Shreveport, told Newsweek, “the study looks highly credible and rigorous and was from an excellent research group. I think it’s always hard to translate differences in animal and cell culture models to what’s going on with regards to human disease. That said, the differences do look real.”

Dr. Daniel Rhoads, section head of microbiology at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, who reviewed the study, told CNN, “It might be, from a human’s perspective, a worse virus than BA.1 and might be able to transmit better and cause worse disease.” In terms of severity, it has been compared to Delta. Also, it harbors multiple distinct mutations that distinguish it from the original Omicron strain leading many to recommend that the WHO designate it with a Greek letter.

According to the WHO, the BA.2 subvariant accounts for about one in five new Omicron cases recorded across the globe. Indeed, how all this will translate for countries will largely be determined by how aggressively measures are implemented to stem infections or if policies are enacted that will allow the virus to spread unchecked.

On February 1 all COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in Denmark. According to the government rules and regulations for COVID-19, the only stipulation in place is that “there [would] continue to be recommendations for the use of face masks and corona passport for an example at hospitals and in elderly care. It is also still possible for private businesses and private cultural institutions as well as associations etc. to make demands, for example, Corona passport or the use of a facemask/shield.”

COVID cases and deaths in Denmark

The BA.2 variant became dominant in Denmark by mid-January, displacing BA.1, and presently accounts for more than 90 percent of all sequenced SARS-CoV-2 samples in Denmark. Cases peaked at the end of January, where they have remained consistently high with a seven-day moving average of over 40,000 cases per day. Worrisome has been the acceleration of the daily death counts, which have edged above last winter’s peak. Thirty-three people are now dying every day.

Placing these figures into context for comparative purposes, Denmark has 5.83 million people while the US has 331 million. If Denmark had an equivalent population, the case rate would be over 2.2 million infections daily and the daily death close to 1,900 per day.

With efforts underway by states and federal officials in the US to lift all measures against COVID-19, the Department of Health and Human Services has reported that COVID-19 cases due to the BA.2 sublineage are beginning to climb. The highest figures are on the east and west coasts, accounting for 6 percent of sequenced cases. It remains too early to predict how the next few weeks will transpire, but if the objective findings prove valid, then the US may experience another crushing wave by the end of March.

As journalist Chris Turnbull recently observed on his social media account, “Maybe I’m just pointing out the elephant in the room here, but if Delta waves have been blunted by vaccines, and you have a variant such as BA.2 that looks theoretically just as severe as Delta, but is 1.4 times more infectious than BA.1—which was already more infectious than Delta … and on top of that, you have vaccine immunity resistance of BA.1, then that’s a combination for the worst variant we’ve seen since the start. It’s obviously early days, and I’m just speculating here, but theoretically, that does seem quite possible.”

Turnbull’s comments underscore the importance of adhering to the precautionary principles that deem taking any threat posed by the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the population as serious, necessitating the implementation of broad public health measures to protect the life and livelihood of its citizens. In this context, Dr. Rochelle Walensky’s recent comment about giving the population a “break” from wearing masks is profoundly disturbing and outright criminal.

COVID-19 disaster intensifies across the Pacific

John Braddock

After thousands of COVID-19 cases, including of the virulent Omicron strain, gained a foothold in the Pacific last month, the pandemic is running out of control across the region.

The impoverished island countries, which recorded virtually no infections in 2020–2021 due to their geographic isolation and strict border controls, are now battling the virus and seeking to prevent it from overwhelming fragile health and social systems.

Medical staff test shoppers who volunteered at a pop-up community COVID-19 testing station at a supermarket carpark in Christchurch, New Zealand. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

Case numbers are climbing in Tonga as the kingdom reels from the devastating January 15 volcanic eruption and tsunami. Recovery work is hampered by the COVID-19 outbreak, with 208 confirmed cases, up from 139 last Monday. Infections are in both main islands of Tongatapu and Vava’u, including the suburbs of the capital Nuku’alofa. Thirty cases are in Hu’atolitoli prison.

Tonga’s government imposed a five-day lockdown on February 2, after five people tested positive. The virus appears to have spread from foreign ships bringing aid. The initial cases included two workers who were helping unload ships at the Queen Salote Wharf in the capital. The Australian navy vessel, HMAS Adelaide, reported 23 of its crew had the virus when it arrived on January 26 and made a “contactless” delivery of supplies.

Twenty-five passengers who arrived in Tonga earlier this week have also tested positive. The infected passengers were among 180 Tongan nationals on three repatriation flights from Fiji, New Zealand and Australia.

Conditions in Tonga are dire, with the United Nations warning that more international help is desperately needed. An estimated 85,000 people, about 85 percent of the population, have been directly affected. The government says the recovery will take years. According to World Bank estimates, there is $US90.4 million in immediate damage, the equivalent of 18.5 percent of Tonga’s GDP.

Journalist Kalafi Moala told Stuff on February 12 that the psychological effects of the eruption and now the COVID-19 outbreak are a major concern. Tonga had recovered from natural disasters before, but this is a “different ball game altogether,” Moala said, involving “a huge sense of grief and despair.”

As governments across the Pacific ease border controls and public health measures in line with their international counterparts, COVID-19 is escalating in their communities. The Cook Islands, a semi-colony of NZ with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants and one of the last remaining countries without COVID-19, has now reported its first cases.

A New Zealand tourist tested positive upon their return home on February 8, after 8 days in the Cook Islands, while the second case arrived on a flight from New Zealand on February 10. The traveller was asymptomatic on arrival but returned a positive result a few hours later. Two close contacts have since tested positive and Prime Minister Mark Brown warned that “silent transmission” in the country is likely.

The Cook Islands and New Zealand governments re-opened a “travel bubble” on January 14, enabling travel between the two countries without quarantine restrictions. Cook Islands authorities told TVNZ that despite the danger of an outbreak “the border remains open” and “it’s business as usual.” Children under the age of 5 can head to the Cooks from March 1 after a travel ban on them was lifted this week. Cook Islands Tourism manager Graeme West declared the move will make the destination “even more attractive to families.”

The Kiribati government extended its nationwide lockdown by another two weeks from Friday, due to widespread community transmission of COVID-19. There have been 2,757 infections across the atoll islands and nine deaths. There were 1,844 cases reported in the last two weeks, the majority in South Tarawa where the capital is located.

The virus was first detected in Kiribati on January 14, when 36 passengers on a charter flight from Fiji tested positive. They were the first travellers to arrive since the borders reopened in over two years, during which time the country had been COVID free.

Fiji’s own borders had reopened on December 1 with the health ministry reporting the first Omicron case on January 4, followed quickly by a sharp surge in cases. While numbers have since dropped away, 396 cases were reported from February 4–17. The health crisis has been exacerbated by recent outbreaks of leptospirosis, dengue fever and typhoid, with 14 deaths thus far.

Fiji’s government lifted its nationwide curfew on February 7, ending almost 22 months of night-time restrictions. Measures governing public transport, sports events and nightclubs were also relaxed while the use of a contact tracing app is no longer required. Classes in schools and early childhood centres have resumed.

Acting Prime Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum claimed Fiji is “past its worst” with over 90 percent of the population over the age of 15 fully vaccinated (two doses), and the number of people hospitalised declining. Repeating the lie of capitalist governments elsewhere, Sayed-Khaiyum said: “We are moving to a stage where we can remove our blinders and treat COVID as an endemic disease instead of a pandemic, not unlike the common flu.”

The Solomon Islands, free of COVID-19 a month ago, has now recorded nearly 5,000 infections and 61 deaths. The Red Cross said last week authorities reported one in every two people had COVID-19 symptoms. Health Minister Culwick Togamana told the Solomon Star that the speed at which the virus spreads “is beyond our testing capabilities, meaning we are under-reporting the actual number of cases, which may be much higher.”

The outbreak began with the illegal entry of a vessel from Papua New Guinea to the atoll of Ontong Java in mid-January. A lockdown in the capital was imposed after a passenger on a ferry that travelled into Honiara tested positive.

A health catastrophe is developing. Only 12 hospitals cover more than 347 inhabited islands, with 340 health care clinics serving the rural population. The country has just 157 doctors, equating to two fully trained doctors for every 10,000 people. Infectious disease epidemics, including malaria and tuberculosis, have left the health system overwhelmed. Just 11 percent of the 700,000 population are fully vaccinated.

The French Pacific territory of New Caledonia recorded 18,357 cases from February 4, but the French High Commission in Noumea decided against another lockdown. The territory was COVID-19 free until last September when Delta infected thousands and killed more than 280, mainly indigenous Kanaks. There are now a total of 42,848 recorded cases and 287 deaths.

French Polynesia also reported 8,739 cases over the past fortnight. The territory first opened its borders in July 2020 for quarantine-free travel to boost tourism. President Edouard Fritch declared that without re-opening, the economic consequences would be “catastrophic.” COVID quickly spread to 45 islands, including Tahiti, and has reached a total of 58,260 cases with 637 deaths.

Papua New Guinea (PNG), the largest and most vulnerable country in the region, is open for quarantine-free travel for vaccinated visitors from this week. Domestic regulations have also been loosened with the lifting of all COVID-19 restrictions on public transportation. PNG has recorded over 2,000 cases this month but with testing having all but collapsed, the figure will be much higher.

Prime Minister James Marape cut short a visit to China this month after catching the virus. Marape absurdly declared that when people get infected, they can “live with it in almost a normal manner.” PNG has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the world, with less than 3 percent of the 9 million population fully vaccinated.

Macron announces withdrawal of French troops from Mali

Alex Lantier

On Thursday, as a European Union (EU)-Africa summit opened in Brussels, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the withdrawal of French troops from Mali. French troops have been stationed in Mali ever since 2013, when Socialist Party (PS) President François Hollande intervened in Mali after the 2011 NATO war in Libya.

French President Emmanuel Macron, second right, flanked by Ghana's President Nana Afuko Addo, right, Senegal's President Macky Sall, and European Council President Charles Michel, left, holds a joint press conference on France's engagement in the Sahel region, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Feb. 17 2022. (Ian Langsdon, Pool via AP)

This withdrawal is driven by explosive popular opposition to French imperialism, notably in the aftermath of NATO’s humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan last year and after repeated massacres committed by French troops or local militias set up with tacit French backing in the Sahel region of Northern Africa. Macron made very clear, however, that Paris will not fully withdraw from its former African colonial empire but will rather step up its diplomatic intrigues in the region.

Standing next to Senegal’s President Macky Sall and European Council President Charles Michel, he referred to NATO’s threats of war with Russia over Ukraine: “At this time, as other strategic threats loom over the security of the European continent and legitimately attract our diplomatic attention, it was first of all necessary to send a signal of continuity in the struggle against terrorism in the Sahel.” He hailed the “federating role” France has supposedly played, overseeing the deployment of 25,000 troops from over a dozen countries to Mali, including 5,000 French troops.

Macron made clear France’s role in its former African colonial empire would remain essentially unchanged and that it would now work through a broader Coalition of the Sahel alliance. “We will continue, as I told my partners yesterday, to play this federating role and, when a military dimension is needed, the role of the leading nation. Beyond the continuation of our engagement, these discussions also have made clear a consensus exists to develop our action in the Sahel,” he said.

Macron laid out a strategy of isolating Mali by surrounding it with a broader alliance of neo-colonial regimes, like that of Sall in Senegal, that are closely allied with French imperialism.

In addition to a UN military contingent and the Takuba task force of European troops, Macron currently works with the so-called G5 alliance of Sahel states who provide the French military with cannon fodder for its operations in Mali. These states are Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad. However, Macron also proposed to integrate the countries of the “Accra Initiative” along the Gulf of Guinea coast—Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo and Benin—into his Coalition of the Sahel.

Without referring to protests against the French military presence in Mali, Burkina Faso and beyond, Macron admitted that it was necessary for him to “change the parameters of our military presence. In the Sahel and in the Gulf of Guinea, the expectations of our partners have developed. The sensibilities of public opinion in the region have, also, changed.”

On this basis, Macron announced the withdrawal of French troops and the Takuba coalition of German and other EU troops. He said, “This withdrawal will involve the closure of bases in Gossi, Ménaka and Gao. It will be carried out in an orderly manner, together with the Malian armed forces and the UN mission in Mali. … With the agreement of the authorities in Niger, European elements will be redeployed alongside Niger’s armed forces in the border region with Mali.”

Macron insisted that he “completely rejects” the notion of a French “failure” in Mali, blaming the withdrawal instead on the Malian military junta and its supposed disloyalty to France. He said, “We cannot remain militarily engaged alongside authorities whose strategy we do not share, any more than we share their hidden objectives. This is the situation we face in Mali today. The war on terror cannot justify everything. It must not, on the pretext of being an absolute priority, become an exercise in indefinitely maintaining oneself in power.”

Macron’s attempt to cover up mass opposition provoked by the French war in Mali is based on hypocrisy and lies. The withdrawal from Mali is driven not primarily by the Malian military, which has a long record of collaborating with French forces, but by rising opposition among workers and rural toilers across Mali and all of West Africa to the French military presence. The decisive issue is unifying this movement, together with that of the working class in Europe, in an international struggle against war and for the withdrawal of French-EU troops from Africa.

Throughout the Mali war, the pretext Paris advanced was a fraud. In response to revolutionary uprisings of the working class in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011, Paris worked closely with the CIA and Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms to arm Islamist terror groups in wars for regime change in Libya and Syria. Even as it relied on Al Qaeda-linked “rebel” militias in Syria, however, it invaded Mali, claiming it would save the regime in Bamako from these same Islamist networks.

Anger mounted in Mali, especially over the last several years, amid atrocities such as the French bombing of a wedding ceremony in Bounty that killed 22 and massacres by rival local self-defense militias set up across the region with tacit French backing. Dozens or hundreds were slaughtered in Ogossagou, Sobane Kou and Solhan in neighboring Burkina Faso. In 2020, the army toppled Malian President Ibrahim Bouba Keïta and then, after Malian unions shut down a planned general strike in Bamako, launched another coup in May 2021.

Bitter debates erupted inside the French ruling elite over how to deal with the new Malian junta led by President Assimi Goïta, which tacked back and forth between pledges of loyalty to Paris and statements in line with mounting popular anger at the French presence. Moreover, the junta began seeking out ties with Russia, as well as the Russian private security firm, Wagner Group.

Last October, Malian Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maïga accused Paris in an interview with Russia’s RIA Novosti of arming Islamist terrorists to feed the war in Mali and justify a continued French military presence. Four days later, however, Maïga granted an interview to the French daily Le Monde to insist that the junta still supported a French military presence in Mali.

Asked point-blank whether the Malian government wanted French troops to leave its territory, Maïga replied: “We have never said this. We have never broken the bilateral defense accord that unites us with France. But in June, we woke up one morning to media reports that France was suspending military operations with the Malian army, without warning or explanation, because a new government had been set up that they did not like.” Maïga stressed that the Malian junta was in talks with Moscow and with the Algerian military regime.

Paris refused to be won over, however. The Macron government provoked mass protests last month across Mali when it backed sanctions by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) cutting off trade in nonessential goods with Mali and freezing Malian state assets at the Central Bank of the West African States. Hundreds of thousands marched, with many holding signs that read: “Down with Emmanuel Macron, Long Live Russia.”

As NATO threatens Russia with war over Ukraine, Paris is clearly doubling down on its strategy of isolating Mali and seeking to assert its neocolonial hegemony over West Africa, despite explosive popular opposition and the deep unpopularity of its Africa policies among workers at home.

As NATO works to instigate a war with Russia in Ukraine, the key issue is building an international movement in the working class against war and neo-colonial occupations. Moscow and the Malian junta are clearly trying to exploit an explosive growth of working class and popular anger against Paris. However, neither the Malian junta nor the Algerian dictatorship—which in 2019 faced mass anti-government hirak protests by millions of Algerian workers—nor the Putin government in Moscow stand for either democratic rights or opposition to imperialism.

Indeed, it is more or less apparent that an important calculation in France’s support for the emerging NATO war against Russia in Ukraine is that it will put more pressure on the Malian regime to cut ties with Moscow and instead deal only with Paris. Moscow, which is responding to NATO threats by desperately seeking to leverage its economic ties with the EU, will not prove a reliable ally of the Malian workers and oppressed masses.

Strikes, protests engulf Haitian capital as workers demand higher wages, better conditions

Alex Johnson

Thousands of garment workers in Haiti’s capital city Port-au-Prince continued their demonstrations Thursday following several weeks of strikes and protests demanding livable wages and an end to the super-exploitative conditions at the hands of US-based clothing retailers. The citywide eruption of protests, uninterrupted even in the face of mounting police brutality, is an indication of growing working class opposition to the regime headed by Prime Minister Ariel Henry and backed by US corporations.

Factory workers during a protest demanding a salary increase, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

Protests first arose in late January as videos circulating on social media showed workers in Caracol Northern Industrial Park in Haiti, a major industrial hub employing upwards of 60,000 workers. Workers had been forced to labor in sweatshop conditions nine hours a day for a daily wage of $4. Police immediately responded to the walkout with brutal aggression. One graphic video showed an officer shooting a protesting worker in the back with live ammunition as he lay on the floor with blood trailing down his back.

A little more than a week later, the Valdor Apparel’s Tabarre 27 site, which is just outside Port-au-Prince, attempted to shut down the facility without compensating workers, triggering massive protests from workers who surrounded the building for several days. The owner of the facility, Robert Rothbaum, was reportedly trapped inside the factory. Workers claimed slave-like treatment, verbal and psychological abuse and the theft of pension and health taxes deducted from their miserable pay.

Last week, sweatshop workers at the SONAPI complex in the capital walked out to denounce the $4 a day wage, which many say cannot cover basic meals and transportation. Police were sent to the area where they unleashed tear gas against the protesting workers.

One worker spoke on video denouncing Rothbaum and the oppressive attempts to close the factory without paying workers. She said: “When we arrived … we learned that the factory was closing down and they were fleeing with our money. He [Rothbaum] has 11 factories in other countries. Robert is a multi-millionaire.

“For him to steal our money like this. We spent seven years working the machines. They’ve been sucking our blood for seven years. Working in these factories is not easy. It takes up all your energy. We have to pay for our children’s school. We have to pay for housing. All these things. Robert can’t do this to us. I will not lose my money.”

Union leader Dominique St. Eloi, who is also a coordinator for the National Union of Haitian Workers, told Reuters in a telephone interview that workers are seeking to raise their daily wages to approximately 1,500 gourdes (USD $15) from an appalling 500 gourdes (USD $5) a day. “With 500 gourdes per day, without any government subsidies, we cannot meet our needs while the price of basic goods, transport costs have increased,” said St. Eloi.

A spokesman for the office of Prime Minister Henry said he has been in discussion with the High Council of Salaries, the organization responsible for adjusting the country’s minimum wage, on how best to end the demonstrations. Henry also reportedly met Tuesday with industry leaders of dozens of US apparel makers operating in Haiti, but no information from the meeting has been released. There can be no doubt that the employers are deeply shaken by the uprising and are relying on Henry to crush social opposition.

Haiti has for decades been a haven for American apparel manufacturing companies to generate super-profits from operating massive sweatshops where workers are not paid enough to eat three meals a day. The destitution and exploitation of Haiti’s textile and garment workers can be traced back to the early 1990s, when the United Nations and the Organization of American States declared a trade embargo of Haiti but still granted concessions to US companies to reap booming profits from the impoverished workforce.

More than 60 US corporations are involved in shipping a torrent of goods intended for assembly into Haiti and then reimporting the assembled products back into the United States. Among the traded products are toys, fishing lures, cord, clay floor tiles, brooms, baseballs, softballs, pajamas, pants and T-shirts. The corporations received incentives offered under the Caribbean Basin Initiative, the US program to promote economic development in the Caribbean Basin, and the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), which allows goods from developing countries to enter the United States tax-free.

The incentives for US corporations to move labor-intensive, low-technology assembly operations to Haiti helped reinforce an already lucrative enterprise for US multinational companies, which could pay low wages and virtually no taxes while reaping fabulous profits. In the decade prior to the election and ouster of President Jean Bertrand Aristide, the real wages of Haitian apparel workers were slashed by more than 50 percent, while assembly exports from Haiti to the United States skyrocketed. Apparel exports more than doubled from 1983 to 1989, rising from $81 million to $180.9 million.

Tensions had been burgeoning inside Haiti’s garment factories for the past two years due to the companies’ persistent non-compliance with social security payments and the disastrous health consequences for workers. This was detailed in a report in August of 2020 issued by GOSTTRA, a syndicate of the global union federation IndustriALL, describing the struggle for basic survival facing thousands of workers amidst the deepening social and health crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier that year, two workers employed by the investment and manufacturing firm Palm Apparel Group died after being denied medical care after their employer reportedly failed to pay their social security contributions on time. Sandra René died from complications during her pregnancy, while Lionel Pierre died after being denied dialysis treatment. Workers at both factories downed tools in protest shortly after both deaths to oppose their egregious treatment at the hands of management.

Palm Apparel management had also clamped down on GOSTTRA union leaders and rank-and-file workers who had been fighting against the anti-democratic and oppressive atmosphere inside several factories. In one instance, dozens of union leaders and members were dismissed after protesting against the company’s decision to send them home in the middle of the day. At a Horizon facility, union leader Sandra Emilion was dismissed after lodging a complaint against excessively high target quotas and company speedups. In the MBI factory, union leader Sonia Saintvil was unfairly dismissed after rejecting an offer of promotion on condition she quit the union.

At the time of the GOSTTRA report, roughly a third of the 57,000 workers in the country’s garment industry were suspended or terminated and had yet to receive any compensation from the government in spite of earlier promises to the contrary. The rest had been, and still are, working reduced hours in unsafe factories that lack even the most basic precautions to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The leaders of the trade unions organizing the strikes have resorted to fruitless appeals aimed at pressuring management and the Haitian government to address the workers’ demands. National Union of Haitian Workers leader St. Eloi told Associated Press (AP) news that if factory managers did not respond with concessions to protesting workers, the union would ask Haiti’s government to raise the minimum wage, a totally bankrupt strategy.

Countless protests have taken place at Haitian factories in the nation’s poorest slums, which have for years seen waves of strikes over abysmal salaries and deplorable conditions. The recent demonstrations bear a resemblance to the mass protest movement that began in 2018 following an announcement in July of that year from then-President Moise that fuel prices would rise astronomically, further plunging the nation’s desperate workers and peasants deeper into poverty.

Opposition to the hike in the price of gas and other consumer goods eventually evolved into widespread demands for the immediate resignation of the corrupt president, who was at the center of scheme carried out by Haitian officials accused of stealing billions of dollars from a development fund subsidized by Venezuela that was intended to help low-income Haitians and rebuild dilapidated social infrastructure.

The mass protest movement would go on to plague the presidency of Moise and his Parti Haitien Tet Kale (PHTK) party for the next three years all the way up until the president’s assassination. Moise routinely made use of armed gangs and police to crack down on the protesters and terrorize the population, which included the infamous massacre of 57 people in Port-au-Prince’s La Seline neighborhood in 2019.

The widely despised president also faced social upheavals as a result of his own refusal to relinquish his position at the end of his term in early 2021 and his moves toward consolidating an authoritarian government.

The main demand of the demonstrators has been higher wages in the face of a surge in the cost of living that has made life intolerable for the population. According to the latest government statistics, the inflation rate in Haiti increased to 24.60 percent in November of 2021 from 19.70 percent in October. The social crisis has been magnified by the deterioration in the world economy as increases in commodity prices on the international market have substantially raised Haiti’s import spending and amplified inflationary pressures.

Exacerbating these conditions is the extraordinary uncertainty and instability surrounding Haiti’s political and social crisis. Prime Minister Henry, whose INITE party represents ruthless sections of the venal Haitian bourgeoisie, presides over an illegitimate government implicated in the assassination of President Moise last summer and has refused to step down despite his term ending on February 7. The country has also seen a sharp spike in violence and kidnappings by warring gangs acting in the interests of rival sections of the nation’s ruling class.

The dispute over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline

Peter Schwarz

There is no honour among thieves, goes the proverb. This also applies to NATO and its preparations for war against Russia. While governments on both sides of the Atlantic are surpassing each other with their accusations and threats directed at Moscow, mobilising a huge war machine, and assuring each other of their agreement, behind their backs their knives have long since been drawn.

As in the wars of the 20th century, control over strategic raw materials plays a significant role in the present confrontation with Russia. While the First World War was about the coal of the Ruhr area in Germany and the iron ore of Alsace-Lorraine, oil came to the fore as the most important energy source during and after the Second World War.

Pipes for Nord Stream 2 in Mukran (Photo: Gerd Fahrenhorst / CC BY-SA 4.0 / wikimedia)

In the meantime, natural gas, which is slightly more environmentally friendly than oil and coal, has also become very important. In the last 30 years, global gas production has doubled, while oil production has only increased by a quarter. Currently, about 30 percent of the world’s energy needs are met by oil, 27 percent by coal and 24 percent by natural gas. Russia is the world’s second largest producer of natural gas and oil behind the USA. It is by far the largest exporter of natural gas and, behind Saudi Arabia, the second largest exporter of oil.

Since the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union three decades ago, NATO has moved ever closer to Russia’s borders. The largest imperialist military alliance will not rest until it has gained unrestricted access to Russia’s vast mineral resources, subjugated the country, and eliminated it as a military rival.

This—and an intractable domestic crisis—are the reasons why neither the USA nor the European powers are willing to accommodate Russia’s demand for security guarantees and are recklessly heading for a third world war. But there are fierce tensions within NATO over who bears the burden of the confrontation and who gets the spoils in the end.

This lies behind the conflict over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which the US has long insisted will not be put into operation. During Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s inaugural visit to Washington, President Biden even blatantly threatened he wanted to “put an end to it”. Scholz himself has long hesitated to put Nord Stream 2 on the list of possible sanctions against Russia and continues to dodge the issue.

The 10-million-euro Nord Stream 2 was completed last year despite American sanctions but is still awaiting its final operating permit. The 1,250-kilometre pipeline connects Russia directly to Germany under the Baltic Sea. It bypasses Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and other Eastern European countries that collect high transit fees and could turn off the gas tap in case of conflict.

Nord Stream 2 doubles the capacity of the parallel Nord Stream 1, inaugurated in 2011, to 110 billion cubic metres a year. That is significantly more than Germany’s current annual consumption of just under 90 billion cubic metres. However, German gas consumption will increase significantly over the next ten years due to the phasing out of nuclear and coal power and the growing demand for energy to power electric vehicles. The pipeline also supplies other countries, such as Austria, the Czech Republic and France, via the widely distributed European gas pipeline network. The whole of Europe currently receives 160 billion cubic metres of gas a year from Russia.

The non-operation of Nord Stream 2 would not directly threaten the energy needs of Germany, which currently obtains 55 percent of its gas and 42 percent of its oil from Russia via the existing pipelines. However, this would be the case if existing pipelines were to be shut down or Russian supplies came to a complete standstill due to the escalation of the Ukraine conflict. Such a halt to supplies could also occur if Russia was excluded from the SWIFT system and could no longer process international payments.

In such a case, not only would hundreds of thousands of German households be left in the cold, but some parts of industrial production would also come to a standstill due to a lack of energy supplies. With a share of 35 percent, industry is the largest gas consumer in Germany. In many processes, natural gas is difficult to substitute. The second largest consumer is private households with 30 percent; half of German homes are heated using natural gas.

The German government and the EU Commission are feverishly searching for substitutes. Since existing gas storage facilities are only marginally full and the most important suppliers after Russia, Norway and the Netherlands, are at the limits of their capacity, only liquefied natural gas (LNG) comes into question. However, this is considerably more expensive than pipeline gas, as it must be cooled down to minus 160 degrees Celsius, loaded and unloaded in separate terminals and transported by special tankers. Germany does not yet have its own LNG terminal.

Qatar, the world’s largest LNG exporter, has offered to supply more to Europe, to the detriment of Asian and developing countries that depend on supplies from Qatar.

The USA is also showing a willingness to help. According to the finance daily Handelsblatt, “top officials of the EU Commission are currently speaking almost daily with experts of the National Security Council in Washington via tap-proof connections” to discuss the matter.

The US is not acting without self-interest. The country, which consumes over a fifth of the world’s natural gas, has become a major LNG exporter thanks to fracking technology. It is an extremely lucrative business, as the price of gas is reaching record levels—not least because of the Ukraine crisis. According to a Reuters report, LNG ships from the USA are already being diverted to Europe because market prices there are much higher than in Asia.

Handelsblatt expects “shock waves on the markets” in the event of a war in Ukraine: “European shares would plummet by up to ten percent, Brent oil would rise to 100 dollars a barrel, the price of gas would increase even more by up to a fifth.” Markus Krebber, head of the energy giant RWE, warns: “I’m afraid that the high industrial prices will lead to a creeping de-industrialisation and hardly anyone will notice.”

Purchasing large quantities of LNG from the US would also make Germany more dependent on the US in the long term. The importation of oil and gas from Russia goes back to Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik in the early 1970s. At that time, German steelworks supplied the pipes for the pipelines to Russia, which were then paid for by gas exports. Germany thus secured greater independence from the USA during the first major economic crisis of the post-war period.

After World War I, when America first emerged as a leading world power in Europe, Leon Trotsky wrote that it would put capitalist Europe “on rations”: “It will divide the market into sectors, it will regulate the activity of European financiers and manufacturers.... This means that America will tell Europe how many tons, litres or kilograms of this or that commodity it may buy or sell.” (Leon Trotsky, Europe and America)

This is now being confirmed again. Washington is pushing for all NATO members to join the war front against Russia and is careful not to let Germany and the European Union become too powerful. Nevertheless, there are no significant voices in the German media and establishment parties that opposes the war course.

In 2003, the German and French governments had still spoken out plainly against the US invasion of Iraq, which affected their own imperialist interests in the region. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, a conservative Gaullist, delivered an incendiary speech at the United Nations against the US war plans. Around the world, millions took to the streets against the Iraq war.

Today, German politicians and the media never tire of assuring Washington of their support and their willingness to pay a price for it. The peace movement has completely collapsed.

Green Party Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock assured the Bundestag (federal parliament) that Germany must be ready for sanctions, even if they brought economic disadvantages. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) applauded. “If Putin knows that we will only accept sanctions if they don’t hurt us, then he also knows that they won’t hurt him either,” emphasised CDU foreign policy expert Roderich Kiesewetter.

This attitude has both domestic and foreign policy grounds.

The last thing the ruling class wants is an anti-war movement, which would inevitably combine with the growing opposition to its policies of deliberate mass infection, social inequality, and social cuts. Like the US ruling class, its German counterpart uses war to channel internal tensions outwards.

Eastern Europe, moreover, has always been the traditional direction of expansion for German imperialism, alternating peaceful methods with violent ones. In both world wars, Germany occupied Ukraine and tried to conquer Russia and the Soviet Union respectively. Now it is joining the USA because it fears being left out in the division of the spoils.

Germany increases military spending for war against Russia

Johannes Stern

Germany is playing an ever greater role in NATO’s aggressive buildup against Russia, increasingly threatening a third world war.

Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (Social Democrats, SPD) yesterday called for a rapid and massive increase in defense spending to prepare the German armed forces for a possible war against Russia. “The threatening situation on the borders of Ukraine has once again shown us very clearly how important an effective deterrent is unfortunately again today,” she explained to Der Spiegel. From this, Germany’s governing coalition must draw conclusions “for the financing of the German army.”

German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) with her U.S. counterpart Lloyd J. Austin III at the NATO defense ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Feb. 16, 2022 (Stephanie Lecocq, Pool Photo via AP)

Lambrecht explained that national and alliance defenses within NATO—a code word for the preparations for war against Russia—is one of the core tasks of the German armed forces. “They have to be equipped in the best possible way for this, and that also means that the defense budget must continue to increase,” she said.

The spending figures being discussed behind the scenes are gigantic. According to a detailed paper reported on by Der Spiegel, planners for the armed forces have calculated that the military will need an additional €37.6 billion in the years up to 2026. This extra spending will be needed “to fulfill commitments already made to NATO and to be able to implement urgently needed modernization steps, such as the purchase of a new fleet of fighter jets.”

In a speech at the Munich Security Conference, which was all about the war offensive against Russia, Lambrecht repeated her demand. “We have to pay for the security of tomorrow today. And I mean that literally: In order to give ourselves the necessary room for maneuver to modernize our armed forces, we have to be in good financial shape. In other words, we must continue to increase defense spending and do so sustainably,” she commented.

Without mincing words, she declared that the ruling class is once again preparing for full-scale wars. “The conflicts of the future will no longer only be fought on land, at sea and in the air, but also in cyberspace and in space,” she said. “We will always be dealing with new weapon systems: just a few years ago, steerable hypersonic missiles were a thing of the future. Today they are reality.”

Lambrecht identified the nuclear powers, Russia and China, as opponents. Moscow has “developed an exoskeleton that makes soldiers more mobile, more efficient and more resilient,” and in China “bionic research has military priority.” She concluded, “We recognize that we must make our society more resilient to attacks of any kind; that we have to make our armed forces fit for new forms of conflict, for the areas of conflict and the weapons of the future.”

In fact, “the conflicts of the future” have long since begun. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union 30 years ago, the imperialist powers have been at war almost continuously in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. With regard to Russia, they are pursuing the goal of subjugating the resource-rich and geostrategically central country, also as a prerequisite for a war against China.

In the past few weeks and days, the conflict has continued to escalate. The United States and NATO are working systematically to launch a war against Moscow under the fabricated pretext of an alleged Russian invasion of Ukraine.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) speaks at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 18, 2022 (Ina Fassbender/Pool via AP)

“Today, we have to say this very clearly, a new war is threatening in the middle of our Europe,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in her speech at the Munich Security Conference. Russia is making “an absolutely unacceptable threat with its troop deployment against Ukraine, but also against all of us and our peace architecture in Europe.”

Who does the Green foreign minister, who appeared in Munich together with her US counterpart Antony Blinken, think she is kidding? In the Ukraine conflict, it is not Russia that is the aggressor but NATO. In early 2014, Washington and Berlin, in close cooperation with fascist forces, organized a coup against the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. Ever since, they have been systematically moving troops to Eastern Europe.

At their meeting in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday, the NATO defense ministers decided to further strengthen their presence in Eastern Europe. As part of the so-called “Enhanced Forward Presence,” the military alliance wants to station “battle groups” in Bulgaria and Romania, and possibly also in Hungary and Slovakia in the future. The “Battlegroups” in the Baltic states and Poland, which have existed since 2017, are currently being strengthened.

Germany is playing a central role in the war buildup against Russia. On Thursday, the German army reported that “the first large marching group of reinforcement forces” had reached the German-led NATO battle group in Lithuania. On the same day, three Eurofighters from the Tactical Air Force Squadron 74 arrived at the Romanian air base Mihail Kogalniceanu to take part in NATO’s so-called air policing.

On Friday evening, Germany, together with other NATO allies, increased the operational readiness of the NATO intervention force. “At the request of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General Tod Wolters, and in close coordination with the Allies, the federal government will increase the responsiveness of the German army’s forces registered in the NATO Response Force,” said a statement from the Ministry of Defense.

In concrete terms, this means that the readiness to relocate almost 14,000 soldiers who were deployed to Germany as part of the NATO Response Force is reduced to the minimum of 30 days. According to the Defense Ministry, “further preparatory measures to increase operational readiness and improve NATO’s responsiveness” could follow.

The mobilization is being accompanied by a deafening propaganda campaign in the media, whose lead opinion makers are foaming at the mouth with the demand for war and claiming the government is still responding too timidly. It is “characteristic of the German debate that it is conducted almost exclusively in moral categories, but not based on the question of what helps to assert German interests,” complains Stefan Kornelius, head of the politics desk of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. In other words, crimes must be committed once again to secure resources and geostrategic influence. This is the mindset of the ruling class, which has already taken over 120,000 lives in the pandemic.

The aggressive behavior of the German ruling elite confirms the warnings of the Socialist Equality Party (SGP). When then Foreign Minister and current Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) announced at the Munich Security Conference in 2014 that Germany was “too big to only comment on world politics from the sidelines” and had to “engage in foreign and security policy earlier, more decisively and more substantively,” and shortly thereafter supported the coup in Ukraine, we wrote:

History is returning with a vengeance. Almost 70 years after the crimes of the Nazis and its defeat in World War II, the German ruling class is once again adopting the imperialist great power politics of the Kaiser’s Empire and Hitler. The speed of the escalation of the war propaganda against Russia recalls the eve of World War I and World War II. In Ukraine, the German government is cooperating with the fascists of Svoboda and the Right Sector, which stand in the tradition of Nazi collaborators in the Second World War. It is using the country that was occupied by Germany in both world wars as a staging ground against Russia.

Eight years later, the imperialist powers are implementing the program of their fascist collaborators in Ukraine. Oleh Tyahnybok, a member of Ukraine’s parliament and leader of the neo-Nazi Svoboda party, said earlier this month that Russia would have to be “dismembered” and divided into “20 nation-states” to bring Crimea back to Ukraine. Tyahnybok was already one of Steinmeier’s closest allies in 2014.

The Putin regime has no progressive response to the aggression that increasingly follows the lines of the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union by the Nazi Wehrmacht. It represents the interests of a corrupt oligarchy, which has amassed enormous fortunes since the Stalinist restoration of capitalism, and also, with its reactionary nationalism and militarism, it is further increasing the danger of war.

A Demilitarized Zone in Eastern Europe

Arnold Oliver

Europe has been a flash point for war among both great and small powers for centuries. Conflicts beginning there have been known to spill over outside Europe, sometimes encompassing nearly the entire planet. These wars have unleashed untold human suffering and death, destroyed entire societies and produced campaigns of mass killings and genocide. Over the years, a number of organizations have been created to reduce or eliminate the risks of war in Europe and around the globe. Now is the time for them to step up.

With the current crisis in Ukraine, there has been renewed interest in peaceful and lasting solutions to European security issues. One proposal that is receiving renewed interest is the potential for a neutral, and perhaps even demilitarized, Eastern and Central Europe.

Even if Russia does launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days, the points raised here will if anything become more relevant.

Demilitarized Zones have an extensive history, and some have lasted for centuries. In 1819 for example, the Rush-Bagot Treaty established a DMZ around the North American Great Lakes between the United States and Great Britain, which governed Canada at that time. Later the Zone was expanded to include the entire US-Canadian border. The agreement has lasted for over 200 years with only minor glitches along the way.

Other DMZ’s exist, for example along the Uruguay-Argentine border at Martín García Island; several areas along the borders between Israel, Egypt and Syria; and the continent of Antarctica. Other nation states, including Costa Rica, Grenada and Panama, have self-declared their DMZ status by abolishing their militaries.

Political neutrality differs from de-militarization in that the governments that embrace it often retain military forces. In Europe, Switzerland, Ireland and Austria are not part of defensive alliances, yet retain armed forces. It is important to understand that Russia/USSR agreed to abide by Austrian neutrality in 1955, and has done so. Finland too has been neutral since 1948, and has so little in the way of armed forces that it almost as well be a demilitarized zone. Russia has also respected that arrangement.

But now, the threat of yet another large war in Europe exists. Russia may invade Ukraine to control it, to use it as a buffer state against the West, to remove Ukraine as a potential adversary, to prevent it from joining NATO, and/or to secure water resources for Crimea.

Today’s Eastern European crisis has antecedents. The newly independent states of Eastern Europe in the 1990’s erred by not sufficiently respecting ethnic Russian civil and political rights. In particular, Ukraine has allowed its security forces to be infiltrated by Nazi sympathizers. All this was bound to lead to tension with whatever government was in charge of Russia. Russia erred grievously in the 1990’s by allowing authoritarians to seize control of the process of political reform. (The government of the United States was singularly unhelpful in that regard, siding with the thoroughly corrupt Boris Yeltsin.)

The United States and NATO are far from blameless in the current crisis. In spite of promises made during the early 1990’s the US and NATO rushed to expand the alliance to include nine new members near the Russian border. Warsaw Pact military forces were withdrawn from these areas with the understanding that they would be neutral, an understanding that the US and NATO ignored.

The original architect of Containment policy during the Cold War, US diplomat George Kennan saw the present crisis coming 25 years ago when he wrote that “…expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.” In part, what Kennan had in mind was Russia’s experience with invasions from the West. Napoleon was bad enough, but against Nazi Germany Russia faced a struggle to the death. These memories are seared into the souls of the Russian people, and explain part of their security concerns.

It is time to renew the calls for the establishment of a neutral and perhaps demilitarized zone in Central and Eastern Europe. This zone would include at least Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Belarus, Slovakia and the Baltic States – later, other states may be added. As agreed by the parties involved, all outside military forces would be withdrawn from this region.

Russia would be expected to pull back offensive military forces from its borders with Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic States. The creation of the agreement would be facilitated by the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe defining the limits of the demilitarized zone and the methods of supervision. The Commission will organize resources to pay for the Zone’s creation and maintenance.

With the creation of a neutral Central and Eastern Europe, US and NATO forces and installations would be removed from the Zone. Russia would acquire a buffer against possible aggression from the West. The people of Europe and the US would get peace and many more resources to devote to social progress instead of war.