Greek forces fire on a ship in Aegean Sea amid rising danger of war with Turkey

Ozan Özgür

On Saturday, the Greek coast guard opened fire on the Comoros-flagged ship Anatolian, as it sailed in international waters 11 nautical miles off the Turkish island of Bozcaada at the Aegean Sea entrance of the Dardanelles, further escalating tensions between Turkey and Greece.

The ship’s 18 crew members were not injured, but many bullets hit the ship’s wheelhouse. The two Greek coast guard boats that fired on the ship left the area before the Turkish coast guard boats arrived at the scene. The Turkish coast guard released footage taken by the ship’s crew of the incident. It shows Greek coast guard units opening fire and bullets hitting the ship. Turkey protested the incident and demanded an immediate investigation.

The Greek daily Proto Thema reported that the Greek coast guard rejected Turkey’s claims. It claimed that before the incident took place northwest of Lesbos Island, a suspicious Comoros-flagged ship moving towards the Turkish coast did not stop despite the calls and warnings of the Greek coast guard, and then they fired warning shots into the air.

The Greek daily Ta Nea cited diplomatic sources, who said that problems “involving fishermen or migrants in the Aegean Sea could start with an accident” that could escalate tensions between the two countries and even lead to a military clash.

Dimokratiki, published on the Island of Rhodes, reported that Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou will visit four islands neighboring Turkey this week, as well as islets that are not inhabitable according to the Lausanne Treaty but are armed by Greece.

Tensions between Greece and Turkey over the Aegean Sea islands, hydrocarbon resources in the Eastern Mediterranean and maritime borders have escalated throughout the US-NATO war with Russia. Greece has become an important military transshipment base in the war, while Turkey seeks to play a mediating role due to its important economic and military ties with Russia. Turkey’s decision to increase trade ties and criticize NATO’s efforts to prolong the war, rather than join sanctions against Russia, has angered Western capitals.

In early September, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Greece of “occupying” the islands, saying: “Greeks! Look at history. If you cross the line any further, there will be a heavy price to pay. Don’t forget Izmir,” a reference to Turkish forces’ decisive defeat of Greek forces who occupied Izmir, in western Turkey, in 1922. He added, “Your occupation of the islands does not bind us. We will do what is necessary when the time comes. As we say, we could come all of a sudden one night.”

In June, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu threatened to invade the islands, saying “the sovereignty of these islands will be discussed” if Greece does not stop arming them.

On Friday, Erdogan accused Washington and other NATO powers of applying double standards to Turkey and Greece, saying: “On the one hand, there are [Greece’s] violations in the Aegean Sea, harassment of some of our planes on NATO missions, and aggressive actions up to radar locking with S-300 missiles [at the end of August]. Have you ever heard anything about Greece’s S-300s from those who are talking about our S-400s? The S-300s belong to Russia, and the S-400s also belong to Russia. But there is no objection for it [Greece].”

The United States imposed a series of sanctions against Turkey in April 2021 due to Turkey’s purchase of S-400 air defense systems from Russia.

Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu Agency reported: “Turkish jets engaged in NATO missions over the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean seas on Aug. 23 were harassed by a Russian-made S-300 air defense system stationed on the Greek island of Crete.” In response to a question from an Anadolu reporter, “Greek S-300s locked on Turkish F-16s on a NATO mission, do you think this is acceptable behavior?” Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said, “I have nothing to say about this.”

On September 1, the Turkish Foreign Ministry sent letters signed by Çavuşoğlu to 25 European Union (EU) capitals, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres explaining Turkey’s position and views on the resolution of the Aegean issues.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias asked NATO, EU states and the United Nations to formally condemn what he called “outrageous and increasingly aggressive talk by Turkish officials.” Peter Stano, Borell’s spokesperson, said: “The continuous hostile remarks by the political leadership of Turkey against Greece and the Greek people raise serious concerns.”

In response to President Erdoğan’s belligerent remarks, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said, “I say to them in a language they will understand, don’t bully Greece.” Asked by the Associated Press whether the recent escalation could be the prelude to an armed conflict, he replied: “I don’t believe this will ever happen. And if, God forbid, it happened, Turkey would receive an absolutely devastating response.”

As the US-led NATO powers escalate the war against Russia in Ukraine, they are concerned that growing tensions between Greece and Turkey could fracture the alliance. A US State Department spokesperson said, “At a time when Russia has again invaded a sovereign European state, statements that could raise tensions between NATO allies are particularly unhelpful,” before adding: “Greece’s sovereignty over these islands is not disputed. We call on all parties to refrain from rhetoric and actions that could further escalate tensions.”

Jim Townsend, former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense on European and NATO policy, said: “Whatever little cracks can appear in European unity, Putin can make them even larger and in fact split the rock. So, it not only undercuts European unity but also can spill over into NATO councils if one or the other country uses NATO as a weapon to hurt the other.”

At the end of May, Erdoğan claimed that the nine military bases established by the US in Greece were targeting Turkey, stating: “Look, Greece currently owes €400 billion to Europe. There are 9 American bases in Greece right now. So against whom are these bases being established, why are these bases there? This is what they say: ‘Against Russia...’ This is a lie. ... They are not honest. Their attitude towards Turkey in the face of all this is obvious.”

On the other hand, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, who met with her Greek counterpart Dendias in Athens last week, reiterated French support for Greece. Asked how France would support Greece in a conflict with Turkey, she said, “We signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement and Article 21 describes exactly this situation. It provides for mutual solidarity if both parties agree that there is an armed attack in the country of one of the parties.”

The Turkish and Greek bourgeoisies, which are threatening a major war over their reactionary geopolitical interests in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas, both face growing working class opposition amid a deepening economic and social crisis ahead of national elections in 2023. This is why they are uniting in an attempt to use militarism and nationalism to divide the working class, prevent strikes and suppress growing struggles on both sides of the Aegean.

Australia and New Zealand end daily COVID-19 reporting: The “let it rip” conspiracy against the population

Oscar Grenfell

Within days of one another, the Australian and New Zealand governments have announced the abrupt ending of daily COVID reporting, sharply curtailing their populations’ access to information about rates of infection, hospitalisations, vaccinations and deaths. Both countries will move to a stripped-back weekly report.

The change has been made as the fatality and case rates in both countries for 2022 dwarf those of the first two years of the pandemic, after their governments abolished successful public health measures and turned to a profit-driven “let it rip” program.

Under these conditions, the shift in reporting, declared without a hint of democratic discussion, much less a popular mandate, has the character of an internationally-coordinated conspiracy against working people.

It is of global significance, marking the overturn of the very last vestiges of a coordinated, public health response to the pandemic in any advanced capitalist country. 

In Australia, the change to weekly reporting was quietly made last Friday, and was the subject of only a handful of cursory and uncritical reports in the domestic media. In New Zealand, Labour Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the end of daily reporting yesterday, without any forewarning.

The decision has no scientific or medical basis. It has been sharply condemned by principled epidemiologists in both countries as an attack on the populations’ right to know about the still unfolding medical emergency and the ability of public health experts to track it.

The governments, however, are simply not interested. Instead, they are openly proclaiming that business interests are the supreme priority.

Ardern bluntly stated: “This is the time when finally, rather than feeling that COVID dictates what happens to us, our lives and our future, we take control back, as we continue to drive economic activity and our recovery.” In other words, all public health measures, however limited, must be dispensed with to ensure full workforce participation in a bid to drive up production and corporate profits.

In line with this program, Ardern announced the end of all previous mask mandates, except in health and aged care settings. People who live with a COVID-positive individual will no longer be required to isolate, in a blow to the most basic infection control, while the last vaccination mandates, including for health workers, have been abolished.

Australia’s Labor government has similarly slashed the isolation time for COVID-infected people from seven to five days. The move, which experts have warned will result in up to half of all COVID cases mingling in the community while infectious, is transparently aimed at keeping workers on the job, even if they are carrying a potentially deadly virus. Masks will also no longer be required on domestic flights.

The clear purpose of the suppression of information is to promote the fraud that the “pandemic is over,” or at least the “worst is behind us,” to justify these dangerous measures.

But nothing could be further from the truth. In Australia, September 9, the last day of daily reporting, was the sixth deadliest of the entire pandemic, with 133 fatalities confirmed across the country. August witnessed the most deaths of any month, with 2,056 people losing their lives to the virus.

In New Zealand, deaths have soared from fewer than 30 late last year to almost 2,000. That has repeatedly placed the nation of five million people near the top of the list of global per capita fatalities, while the coronavirus has become the country’s leading cause of death.

The Australian and New Zealand governments are following a blueprint laid out by the Biden administration in the US on behalf of the major US banks and corporations.

In February, the US Department of Health and Human Services ended its system for hospitals to report daily COVID-19 deaths to the federal government. 

Britain announced the ending of its own daily reporting system the very same month as in the United States. Similar measures are underway in a host of countries and jurisdictions. In Canada, for instance, Ontario and several other provinces have already abolished their daily reporting.

The shift in Australia and New Zealand is particularly notable, because of the relative success of both countries in limiting deaths and infections earlier in the pandemic. They are thus a microcosm of the gulf between a scientifically-grounded response to the pandemic, even with limitations, and the naked “herd immunity” policy that both countries have since adopted.

The Australian state and federal governments always rejected a program to eliminate the virus, on the grounds that it would be too costly. They were nevertheless compelled under pressure from key sections of workers and health experts to institute safety measures, including lockdowns, which, notwithstanding a host of pro-business exemptions, repeatedly stamped out the virus. New Zealand was the only country in the world outside of China to consistently pursue elimination.

[Photo: WSWS]

In the first two years of the pandemic, there were fewer than 400,000 infections in Australia and deaths stood at 2,239. For extended periods, safety measures ended all transmission of the virus.

As a consequence of the full “reopening of the economy” last December, those figures have skyrocketed to 10.1 million infections and 14,357 deaths. Because of the crashing of the testing system, a substantial majority of the country’s 25 million people have likely been affected this year. Long COVID, a set of serious conditions associated with even “mild” cases, has debilitated up to 10 percent of the workforce.

In New Zealand, there had been fewer than 5,000 total infections and 30 deaths before the Ardern government overturned its elimination program in October last year. Now, official infections are at 1.76 million and deaths almost 2,000.

The transformation is a warning of what would occur if China dispensed with its elimination strategy, as has been demanded by the major imperialist governments, corporations and media. Hundreds of thousands or millions would die in the country of 1.4 billion, joining the estimated 20 million who have perished around the world since the pandemic began. 

The protracted assault on China’s elimination program is not only because of its impact on the activities of global finance and big business, but also because it demonstrates that there is an alternative to the homicidal policies of “herd immunity” implemented everywhere else. 

The developments in Australia and New Zealand are also of note because in both countries the untrammeled spread of the virus is being presided over by a social-democratic government.

In New Zealand, Ardern, presented in the media as a saint-like figure, brushes away the mass infection and death her government has unleashed, instead proclaiming the all-importance of “economic activity.” In Australia, Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says nothing about the record daily fatalities, and pledges to business that there will never be a return to lockdowns.

This line goes hand in hand with the Labor governments presiding over Australia and New Zealand’s ever greater integration into the US confrontations with Russia and China, threatening world war, and the implementation of budget austerity and attacks on the wages, jobs and conditions of workers.

Police crackdown on UK anti-monarchy protesters tears apart democratic pretensions of ruling elite

Robert Stevens

As the queen’s cortege has passed through various cities, ahead of the state funeral next week, police have arrested and threatened individuals protesting against the monarchy.

People watch as the Queens cortege with the hearse carrying Queen Elizabeth's coffin departs from St Giles Cathedral en route to Edinburgh Airport. September 13, 2022. [AP Photo/Petr Josek]

At least four people were arrested in Edinburgh, Scotland, including a woman who was subsequently charged. A man was arrested in Oxford during a proclamation event for Charles III and then de-arrested by Thames Valley Police.

Some of the cases included:

• In Edinburgh, a woman was arrested “in connection with a breach of the peace” for holding up a sign saying, “Fuck imperialism, abolish monarchy” outside St. Giles’ Cathedral where the Queen’s coffin was due to arrive.
• A 74-year-old in Edinburgh charged for the same “offence”.
• A 22 year old man, identified as Rory, was arrested for calling out, “[Prince] Andrew, you’re a sick old man” during Edinburgh’s royal procession. He was charged with breach of the peace.
• In Oxford, Symon Hill was arrested and handcuffed for “disorderly conduct” after shouting “Who elected him?” during a reading of Charles’s proclamation.
• On Monday a woman was led away from parliament in London for holding up a sign reading “Not my king” while Charles addressed MPs. A video of the incident posted by the Evening Standard went viral on twitter with over 4.7 million views.

The deluge of pro-monarchist bilge the population is being subjected to is whipping up, as intended, filthy right-wing elements.

When the young man in Edinburgh shouted comments about Prince Andrew [in relation to his friendship with a convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein], he was thrown violently to the ground by one man and then shoved by two more before being taken away by police and arrested.

The headline of the Sun tabloid newspaper hailed the “TAKE DOWN” of a “yob thrown to ground by royal mourners”.

For its part the BBC ran an interview with several people who attended the Edinburgh event as a supposed vox pop sample of the feelings of the population. Among these was a young man wearing a Rangers Football Club shirt who said he attended, “Because I’m a proud patriot in my own country. I think the monarchy holds a place, to the whole tradition and pride that I feel is going out of the window. There are not a lot of patriots left in Britain and Scotland anymore.”

Rangers is notorious for the considerable sectarian support among its fans for loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland.

Also Monday, Paul Powlesland, a solicitor, was threatened with arrest in London. Video footage of the event was seen by over 1.4 million people.

Powlesland tweeted, “Just went to Parliament Square and held up a blank piece of paper. Officer came and asked for my details. He confirmed that if I wrote ‘Not My King’ on it, he would arrest me under the Public Order Act because someone might be offended.”

Speaking on ITV’s GMB show Tuesday, Powlesland said, “I was outside Parliament, the centre of our politics, where someone has proclaimed himself King and said that I am their Subject. I think at least I get a chance to make my opinion on that in very polite terms.”

Widespread anger at the police clampdown led leading political commentators and newspaper columnists with a long record of upholding the interests of British imperialism to warn that police attacks on people with republican views—a position held by at least a quarter of the population—was undermining faith in the institutions of the state.

Andrew Marr, who until recently fronted the BBC’s flagship political comment programme, said as he opened his LBC Tonight with Andrew Marr show, “A monarchy which can’t survive some booing and a few pieces of cardboard is pretty flimsy, isn’t it?” He warned, “This kind of idiotic heavy-handed policing is actually, longer-term, dangerous for the monarchy. If the suggestion is that we can have a King or we can have free speech, millions of us will say - ooh, I think free speech, thanks.”

Guardian political editor Pippa Crerar tweeted, “Whether you agree with her or not, this woman [who was led away from Buckingham Palace by a phalanx of police] has a right to protest. Nor is this an isolated example. Police need to be careful not to over-step the mark.” Guardian columnist Marina Hyde also opined, “quashing public dissent can backfire in ways even those with power cannot foresee.”

By 9.16pm on Monday, London’s Metropolitan Police, which is mounting the largest policing operation in its history around the queen’s death, was forced to issue a statement by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy declaring, “We’re aware of a video online showing an officer speaking with a member of the public [Powlesland] outside the Palace of Westminster earlier today. The public absolutely have a right to protest. We have been making this clear to all officers involved in the extraordinary policing operation currently in place and we will continue to do so.”

Many opposed to the clampdown noted that the police are threatening the arrest of people protesting the monarchy utilising draconian legislation brought in by the Conservative government just months ago.

In an article, “Could an anti-monarchy placard get you arrested after the Queen's death?” Sky News acknowledged, “The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, which became law this year, gives police more power to disrupt protests deemed to cause ‘significant impact’ on those nearby.”

The clampdown on freedom of speech would not be possible without the support of the Labour Party and trade unions. Within an hour of the queen’s death, the postal and rail unions called off current and upcoming national strikes. The Royal College of Nursing even halted an ongoing strike ballot of around 300,000 members out of “respect”.

On Tuesday, Guardian columnist and Labour member Owen Jones reported guidance “sent to all Labour MPs by the party leadership, banning them from posting anything on social media except for tributes to the Queen or whatever the party tells them, and banning them from talking to the media.”

Among the edicts handed down are, “All campaigning and party activity must remain suspended until further notice”; “When in public continue to follow the dress code (sombre and dark colours) during this period”; “All political communications, including MP updates/newsletters, should be postponed during this period.”

The events of the last days represented a devastating exposure of the democratic pretensions of the British ruling elite, which is putting into place the structure of a police state.

For the last eight months the population has been regaled with unrelenting propaganda that what is at stake in the war against Russia in Ukraine is the very future of democracy and the rule of law. The warmongers never tire of declaring that if anyone attempts to protest in Putin’s Russia, including holding up placards, they are immediately arrested.

Yet this is the very scenario being played out before the eyes of millions as a super-rich parasite is proclaimed head of state as his supposed birth right—the very antithesis of democratic rule. Powlesland was threatened with arrest a few yards from Westminster Hall, where the self-same King Charles III was pontificating that parliament was the “living and breathing instrument of our democracy”.

The state clampdown on anti-monarchy protests takes place as the Truss Conservative government prepares legislation to criminalise strikes in designated essential industries and services. It confirms that in a society riven by unparalleled levels of social inequality and amid an eruption of the class struggle that has only been interrupted by a period of compulsory national mourning, the bourgeoisie is embracing dictatorial forms of rule.

Far-right Sweden Democrats gain ground in election as composition of future government remains unclear

Jordan Shilton

The far-right Sweden Democrats, a party which emerged from Sweden’s neo-Nazi movement, was the clear winner in Sunday’s general election in the Scandinavian country. Although the vote totals for the two major blocs of parties remain so close that a final result will only be known after postal votes and overseas ballots are tallied on Wednesday or Thursday, the Sweden Democrats increased their support more than any other party and are now the second-largest political party in Sweden.

As of Monday afternoon, preliminary results gave the right-wing bloc of parties led by the conservative Moderates 175 seats and the “left” bloc led by the Social Democrats 174. However, the Moderates were replaced by the Sweden Democrats as the largest party in the right-wing four-party bloc, which also includes the much smaller Christian Democrats and Liberals. The Sweden Democrats saw its share of the vote increase from 17.5 percent in 2018 to 20.6 percent, while the Moderates dropped from 19.8 percent to 19.1 percent.

The Social Democrats remained the largest single party, making slight gains from their 2018 result to finish with 30.5 percent of the vote. Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, who depended in the outgoing parliament on the toleration of the Centre Party, Greens, and Left Party to stay in power, has refused to officially concede defeat. There is still a slim chance that the remaining votes could secure the Social Democrat-led bloc the 175 seats required for a majority in the 349-seat parliament (Riksdag).

The election result is a damning indictment of what has passed for “left” politics in Sweden. Long held up by left-leaning media outlets and political parties internationally as a “progressive” paradise, Sweden has witnessed wave after wave of privatisations and public spending cuts, tax cuts for the wealthy, an explosion of military spending and the scapegoating of immigrants under successive governments of the “left” and “right.”

This culminated in the policies pursued by the Social Democrats under Andersson and former Prime Minister Stefan Löfven over the past eight years, including bringing Sweden into the NATO military alliance, lining up full square behind the US-NATO war with Russia, and championing a homicidal “profits before lives” pandemic policy that left Sweden with one of the highest death rates from COVID-19. Supported by the Greens and Left Party, the Social Democrats also enforced budgets dictated by the right-wing parties and adopted punitive measures against asylum seekers and immigrants.

Whatever the final outcome of the vote, the Sweden Democrats have emerged politically strengthened as the entire political establishment lurches sharply to the right. Even in the unlikely event that the Social Democrats manage to cling to power, the far-right Sweden Democrats would be the official opposition in parliament.

Prior to the election, Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson raised the possibility of forming a government consisting of the three traditional right-wing parties with himself as prime minister with the far-right Sweden Democrats providing parliamentary support from the outside. This proposal was a tacit recognition of the deep hostility felt by broad sections of the Swedish population to the far-right party, which has never before held government office.

But on election night, Sweden Democrat leader Jimmy Akesson made clear that the Sweden Democrats would not be satisfied with a supporting role, declaring, “Right now it looks like there will be a change of power. Our ambition is to sit in the government.”

On Monday afternoon, leading tabloid Aftonbladet reported that Akesson visited the Moderates’ headquarters for talks in central Stockholm. Talks were also held by the Moderates with Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch and Liberal leader Johan Pehrson. Kristersson reportedly hopes to negotiate an arrangement whereby the Sweden Democrats and Liberals support a minority government consisting of the Moderates and Christian Democrats.

Akesson and the Sweden Democrats’ ability to play the decisive role in determining the incoming government’s policies and composition is the outcome of the far-right’s systematic integration into official political life by all the established parties. When the fascistic Sweden Democrats first entered parliament at the 2010 election, all other parties claimed that they would refuse to cooperate with them. In 2014, Social Democrat Prime Minister Löfven justified his acceptance of an agreement with the traditional right-wing parties as necessary to stop the rise of the far right. The deal involved Löfven committing the Social Democrats to enforce budgets based on the right-wing parties’ spending plan, which involved continued austerity for public services after decades of cuts and privatizations. In return, the right-wing parties promised not to topple Löfven’s minority government with the votes of the Sweden Democrats.

After Kristersson took over as Moderate leader in 2017, the Moderates switched course and began openly collaborating with the Sweden Democrats. This cooperation resulted in parliament voting last year in favour of a budget drafted by the Moderates and Sweden Democrats, which the minority Social Democrat government headed by Andersson agreed to implement. The Centre and Liberal parties, which constantly claim to oppose in principle joining or supporting a government that includes the Sweden Democrats, also voted for the budget.

Behind the parliamentary maneuvering, powerful objective forces have driven the Swedish ruling elite to embrace the far-right Sweden Democrats. Sweden has one of the fastest growing levels of social inequality among the OECD countries. This trend has been produced by the comprehensive dismantling since the 1990s of the social welfare system and public services, which were among the most generous in Europe during the postwar period. One of the most glaring expressions of this process is the increasingly segregated character of Sweden’s major cities, which have impoverished suburbs dominated by immigrant populations where unemployment is sometimes more than double the national average.

The Swedish ruling class is also playing a leading role in transforming Scandinavia into a second front in the US-NATO war with Russia, including by applying to join NATO with its neighbour Finland and sending weaponry to Ukraine. And last but not least, Stockholm spearheaded the homicidal “herd immunity” policy in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, a policy that found favour with the most reactionary political forces around the world, including the fascist-minded former US President Donald Trump.

The intensification of these policies under conditions of a global crisis of the capitalist system necessitates the mobilisation of openly fascist forces to intimidate working class opposition, as is underscored by developments in all the major capitalist countries. The rise of the Sweden Democrats to the position of the country’s dominant right-wing party resembles the transformation of the Republicans in the United States into an ever-more explicitly fascist party following the attempted coup on January 6, 2021, and the British Conservatives’ emergence as a vicious far-right party under the leadership of Boris Johnson and now Liz Truss. In a general election due later this month, Giorgia Meloni, leader of the neo-fascist Fratelli d’Italia that honours the fascist dictator Mussolini, has strong prospects to become Italian prime minister.

None of these far-right forces enjoys mass popular support. Rather, these forces’ political strength comes from two key factors: first, the support they enjoy from key sections of the ruling elite and its state apparatus; and second, the role played by the official “left” parties and their trade union allies in blocking the working class from intervening independently into political life. The latter factor has proven especially critical in Sweden, where the ex-Stalinist Left Party and the trade unions have kept working people subordinated politically to the Social Democrats as they have marched steadily to the right and adopted many of the Sweden Democrats’ key policies.

Fuel price hike sparks protests in Indonesia

Owen Howell

Last week, mass protests erupted across Indonesia after the government of President Joko Widodo announced price hikes that will result in the cost of subsidised fuel surging by over 30 percent. That is the first government ordered petrol price increase in eight years.  Rallies and demonstrations are continuing.

Student activists shout slogans after knocking down police barricade during a rally against sharp increases in fuel prices, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022. [AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim]

The decision, announced on 3 September, was taken amid a global inflationary spiral that has sent the prices of essential commodities in Indonesia skyrocketing. This year, the costs of cooking oil, electricity, and multiple food staples have soared as a result of the massive infusion of government funds into the stockmarkets, the US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine war and the disruptions stemming from the “let it rip” COVID-19 program.

President Widodo said in a televised address that the hike was the “last option,” due to a ballooning energy subsidy budget caused by rising global oil and gas prices. 

Widodo’s initial announcement immediately sparked spontaneous rallies, involving workers and students who burned tyres and blocked roads. On September 5, the Indonesian Trade Union Confederation (KSPI) then stepped in, holding its own organised protests.

The KSPI called on the government to reverse the price hike and lift the minimum wage by 10 to 13 percent before next year.

The September 5 rallies involved tens of thousands of workers and students across the country in the cities of Jakarta, Surabaya, Makassar, Kendari, Aceh, Yogyakarta, Bandung, Medan and Semarang. Demonstrations were planned in a total of 34 provinces, union leaders told Tempo magazine, including in rural areas outside the offices of provincial governors and local officials.

In the capital city Jakarta, an estimated 5,000 industrial workers marched and chanted slogans outside Parliament, denouncing the government’s move and demanding higher wages. The protest was also attended by teachers, domestic workers, farmers and fishermen, as well as hundreds of university students.

In Makassar, a major city on the island of Sulawesi, student protesters raised that the price increase would especially burden workers who have not fully recovered from being infected with COVID-19.

Ahead of the rallies, a massive police presence was established across the archipelago. In Jakarta, around 7,200 police and military personnel were deployed in and around the capital, with the largest concentration of forces near Parliament and petrol stations. Roads leading to the Presidential Palace were blocked.

Price hikes in fuel and other basic commodities were the initial trigger for the mass protests in 1998 which toppled the Suharto dictatorship amid the South East Asia economic crisis. The last fuel price increase in 2014, just months after Widodo first assumed office, set off a wave of protests around the country.

The social conditions in Indonesia today are even more explosive. The pandemic, allowed by the Widodo government to rip through the country with minimal health measures in place, has wrought enormous physical and economic devastation on the Indonesian working class and rural masses.

The official pandemic statistics, 6 million cases and 150,000 deaths, are acknowledged by medical experts to be a vast undercount, the result of a chronically low testing regime and a large number of unreported deaths. The government’s criminal pro-business program of “reopening” amid the pandemic led to the horrific mass death caused by the Delta wave in July 2021, with over 2,000 official daily deaths at its peak and thousands more dying at home.

The massive corporate bailouts and injection of money into the financial markets worldwide has precipitated the inflation crisis, which the Indonesian government is seeking to resolve by austerity and further inroads into workers’ living conditions.

The fuel hike has raised the price of gasoline from about 51 cents to 67 cents per litre and diesel fuel from 35 cents to 46 cents. As subsidised fuel accounts for more than 80 percent of state-owned oil giant Pertamina’s sales, the price increase will have a major impact on workers’ families and small businesses, and is predicted to elevate food and energy costs.

Another protest last Thursday involved more violent clashes between demonstrators and police. Students gathering at Jakarta’s National Monument burned tyres and dismantled razor wire barricades erected by authorities. Footage released on social media showed riot police firing on student protesters with water cannon. Elsewhere in the city, protesters attempted to block the vice president’s motorcade, causing the convoy to quickly flee.

The unions have indicated rallies will continue until December and have said that they are considering a national strike. Said Iqbal, president of the KSPI, addressed the workers’ rally outside Parliament on Tuesday last week: “We have won before and we are confident that President Joko Widodo will hear the people’s voices alongside the voices of the elites who do not care about the interests of the common people.”

The KSPI, one of Indonesia’s peak union groups, has a long record of organising carefully coordinated one-day rallies outside government buildings, designed to allow workers to blow off steam and prevent a major social explosion. It has played a critical role in diffusing workers’ struggles over recent years amid growing opposition among workers to the Widodo government’s assault on their rights and conditions.

In November 2021, the KSPI held similar rallies in response to price rises of up to 10 percent for basic commodities. Workers also wanted to fight against the government’s anti-worker Omnibus Law, passed in 2020, which has allowed the financial elite to slash wages, job protections and further enrich big business. The KSPI’s demands for a minimum wage rise fell on deaf ears.

In 2019, protests of workers emerged after the government passed legislation weakening the official anti-corruption body. The KSPI declared that it would work “as a team” with the Widodo government and boasted of its backing for pro-business measures to “build a good investment climate.”

The unions, moreover, are an active participant in the sordid intrigues of official politics. During the 2019 presidential elections, the KSPI endorsed Widodo’s far-right opponent, Prabowo Subianto, a former general under Suharto. After Widodo’s victory, union leaders quickly pledged their fealty to the president.

This union is not planning to defend the “interests of the common people” before the “elites,” as Iqbal claimed. Instead, the KSPI is seeking to direct the mounting social anger back into the safe channels of feckless appeals to the Indonesian ruling class as it proceeds with its austerity program.

Yesterday, government ministers declared that they would “consider” some of the union’s demands. This is a clear sop to the union bureaucracy aimed at assisting it to end the protests without any change to workers’ conditions.

Russia’s debacle in Kharkiv

Andre Damon

By all indications, Russia has suffered a catastrophic military defeat near Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine, located in the country’s northeast.

Ukrainian soldiers fire into Russian positions from anti-aircraft gun in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, early Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022. [AP Photo/Andrii Marienko]

In the course of six days, the Ukrainian military, armed and financed by the United States and NATO, has taken dozens of miles of territory. The Institute for the Study of War reports: “Ukrainian forces have penetrated Russian lines to a depth of up to 70 kilometers in some places and captured over 3,000 square kilometers of territory in the past five days since September 6—more territory than Russian forces have captured in all their operations since April.”

Borrowing the methods of the Stalinist Soviet bureaucracy, the Kremlin is responding to this catastrophe with lies and evasions. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Russian forces are “regrouping,” a statement that is obviously false. It is impossible to deny that what is taking place is a rout and a massive military and political debacle.

The disaster in Kharkiv is the product of not only incompetent military leadership, but also, and more fundamentally, the bankrupt political strategy upon which Putin based his “Special Operation.”

Whatever the short term results of the defeats of the past week, the events continue the course of unending disasters produced by the Stalinist dissolution of the USSR and restoration of capitalism.

It will further intensify the crisis of the Russian regime, riven by factions that are arguing for a reckless escalation and those who are calling for concessions to be made to the US and NATO.

The Putin government’s decision to invade Ukraine was a desperate and reactionary response to the intensifying pressure of the US and NATO on Russia. Putin’s strategy, to the extent there was one, was to create the circumstances for a favorable negotiation of terms with the United States and its NATO allies.

Putin’s entire strategy in waging the war is bound up with the social outlook of the Russian oligarchic bourgeoisie, whose primary concern is to retain for itself control over the mineral and energy resources that the imperialists wish to plunder.

Putin sought to make an agreement with US imperialism that the Russian oligarchy could live with. Speaking for Russia’s capitalist oligarchy, Putin is far more concerned with domestic social opposition.

The US and NATO have shown, however, that they are uninterested in negotiation. They view the complete subjugation of Russia, including its carve-up into multiple statelets, as a critical strategic goal. Time and time again, the Kremlin has underestimated the determination of the US and its European imperialist allies.

The rapid breakthrough by Ukrainian forces is the result of the massive escalation of the conflict by the United States and NATO. American paramilitary forces are on the ground, directly coordinating the offensive. Ukrainian missile strikes are directed by the US intelligence agencies, which designate targets.

Increasingly, the rifles borne by Ukrainian troops, the armor they wear and the vehicles that transport them are all NATO-standard weapons, paid for by the US and its European allies. Most importantly, Ukraine has been provided with the forces to strike dozens of miles behind Russian lines in the form of the HIMARS guided missile system and M777 long-range howitzer, as well as the HARM anti-radar missile and the Harpoon anti-ship missile. Ukrainian troops are backed by the NASAMS anti-aircraft system, the same system that guards the White House.

The American media no longer seeks to conceal the extent of direct US involvement in the war. In the words of The Hill, the US has become “brazen” in its intervention in the war. “Over time, the administration has recognized that they can provide larger, more capable, longer-distance, heavier weapons to the Ukrainians and the Russians have not reacted,” former US Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor told the newspaper.

The New York Times, ecstatic over the Ukrainian advance, wrote: “Senior Ukrainian officials stepped up intelligence sharing with their American counterparts over the summer as they began to plan the counteroffensive that allowed them to make dramatic gains in the northeast in recent days, a shift that allowed the United States to provide better and more relevant information about Russian weaknesses.”

The Times quoted Evelyn Farkas, a top Pentagon official for Ukraine and Russia in the Obama administration, as saying, “These guys have been trained for eight years by [US] Special Ops. They’ve been taught about irregular warfare. They’ve been taught by our intelligence operators about deception and psychological operations.”

To refer to the conflict as a “proxy war” is an understatement. The Ukrainian army has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the US military, which has armed, funded and trained it to the standards of the US Armed Forces.

The US-led offensive has resulted in a catastrophic loss of life, both for Ukrainian forces and for Russia, with reports of more than a thousand people dying per day in recent fighting.

The capitalist governments of the United States and Europe are absolutely determined to carry out their goal of subjugating Russia. The consequences, in terms of the lives of Ukrainians and Russians, along with the disastrous economic and social impact on workers throughout the world, amount to nothing in comparison to the geopolitical imperatives of the ruling class.

It is not ruled out that the Kremlin will conclude from this military catastrophe that it is necessary to wage a massive military escalation, which would itself only lead to an escalation by NATO. Paradoxically, the desperate efforts by the Kremlin to reach an accommodation with imperialism do not preclude a series of actions that could trigger a thermonuclear war.

Putin opened the Russian offensive against Ukraine with a condemnation of Vladimir Lenin. But for all Putin’s bluster, the world we inhabit today is the world Lenin described in his 1916 work, Imperialism, which demonstrated that war and colonial domination express the essential characteristics of the capitalist system.

The Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the Soviet Union based on the false belief that imperialism was merely an invention of Lenin, and that a capitalist Russia could reach a modus vivendi with European and American imperialism. The ensuing three decades have shown, however, that this was a colossal delusion.

The central task is to mobilize the working class in opposition to imperialist war. This requires a break not only with all of the forces of the petty-bourgeois pseudo-left that defend the US/NATO war drive, but those who claim that Russian nationalism offers a solution to the catastrophe created by the dissolution of the USSR.

It is necessary to make a warning: The debacle suffered by the Russian military over the past week only presages a further and even more bloody escalation of the war. The imperialist powers smell blood in the water, and they will redouble their efforts to conquer and subjugate Russia.

Russia’s debacle will only further embolden the most reactionary forces within Ukrainian society, as well as the US war planners, to believe they can reproduce this success by triggering a war with China over Taiwan.

But this escalation will at the same time intensify the war on the populations of the United States and Europe, who will pay the cost of the war in the form of surging prices and falling living standards. Already, the war has triggered a collapse in workers’ living standards amid a staggering escalation of military budgets, as prices for natural gas have surged ten-fold in Europe.

Pakistan faces massive humanitarian crisis as unprecedented flooding continues

Sampath Perera

Unprecedented flooding—arising from and demonstrably tied to climate change— continues to ravage Pakistan, with the official death toll rising by more than 250 since last week.

1,391 people are now reported as having perished due to the floods, which have inundated a third of the impoverished South Asian country. A further 12,700 have been injured. On Friday, Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Agency reported that 36 new fatalities had been recorded within the previous 24 hours.

An aerial view of Shahdadkot, Khairpur Nathan Shah, Mado, Faridabad, Mehar and other cities of Sindh, Pakistan covered with flood water in 2022. [Photo by Ali Hyder Junejo / CC BY 4.0]

The official death and injury counts are widely recognized to be gross undercounts, since many areas remain totally cut off due to the destruction of hundreds of bridges and other infrastructure. Furthermore, there is a growing threat of infectious disease.

More than 33 million people, or one in every seven Pakistanis, are variously described as displaced, homeless or directly affected by the floods. Among these are 16 million children.

Even prior to the devastation wrought by the floods, nearly half the population was considered food insecure. Millions of people are now forced to live in makeshift shelters or barely maintained camps. Due to a lack of emergency supplies at these sites, many people are sleeping in the open air.

Flood survivors face shortages of food, drinking water, and sanitary supplies. The lack of toilets has compelled camp residents to relieve themselves outside in the surrounding areas. Worst affected by these unbearable conditions are children and pregnant mothers. According to the United Nations Population Fund, there are 650,000 pregnant women among those affected by the floods, of whom 73,000 are expected to deliver this month.

The absence of adequate sanitary supplies has created ideal conditions for the spread of infectious diseases. Skin infections and stomach flu, spreading widely among those in the camps, have been attributed to the unavailability of toilets. More than 134,000 cases of diarrhea and 44,000 cases of malaria have been reported in Sindh alone. Other mosquito-borne infections are also spreading, with Karachi reporting 1,265 dengue cases in August and 347 cases in the first five days of September.

There is virtually no coordination of rescue efforts to locate people stranded by the floods. Nor are the relief efforts, largely entrusted to the armed forces, in any way commensurate with the scale of the crisis. 81 of the country’s 160 districts have been affected by flooding, and with heavy rain forecast for the coming days a rapid receding of the flood waters is unlikely.

The National Flood Response Coordination Centre (NFRCC) reported Wednesday that the military flew 20 helicopter sorties during the preceding 24 hours, rescuing 217 stranded individuals while delivering 30 tons of relief items to affected areas. The navy and air forces are also running rescue and relief missions, but of a smaller scale.

Despite a slight drop in water levels in recent days, Manchar Lake, the country’s largest fresh water lake, is under constant threat of bursting its banks, which could cause a massive loss of life. To prevent such an outcome, several planned breaches have been made in the lake, which is situated in the central part of Sindh province. As anticipated, the breaches have led to the flooding of many nearby villages and forced the evacuation of several hundred thousand people. On Wednesday, officials in Bhan Syedabad issued an evacuation alert to 150,000 residents, and 10,000 displaced people who had sought refuge there.

The provincial government of Balochistan, the poorest and least developed province in the country, described 32 of its 34 districts as “calamity hit” as of September 1. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the north is also badly affected.

There are fears the flooding could wash away the ruins of Mohenjo-daro, one of the world’s most important archeological sites, which dates back to 2,500 BCE. Floodwaters have not yet touched the site, but it has been damaged by the exceptionally heavy rains, with several walls collapsing. A centre of the Harappan or Indus Valley civilisation, Mohenjo-daro has an elaborate ancient drainage system that has helped it survive previous floods. The site is considered the best preserved ancient urban settlement in South Asia.

On Aug. 30, the United Nations issued an urgent appeal to member states for $160 million to provide flood victims with food, shelter and medical supplies. Despite the massive humanitarian crisis, even this meagre amount has not been raised in the intervening week-and-a-half.

The top priority for Pakistan’s interim government, which is led by a coalition of the big-business Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and People’s Party (PPP), is to restrict spending to the limits specified by the International Monetary Fund, as part of a loan bailout package.

To date, the government has allocated just 70 billion rupees or US $314 million for cash handouts to the more than 33 million flood victims—many of whom have seen their homes, crops and livestock destroyed.  

The floods were preceded by extremely high temperatures in March and April, which regularly surpassed 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) and in some places 50 degrees. This was followed by an early start of the monsoon season and rainfall that was three to eight times the average during July and August. The extended heat waves accelerated long-term glacier melting in the Himalayas and Hindu Kush mountains. This has triggered a phenomenon known as glacial lake outburst-floods, as large bodies of water formed by melting glaciers suddenly overflow their makeshift banks and rush down the mountainside to inundate lower-lying areas. In addition to the deadly flash floods, the glacial lake outbursts have triggered devastating landslides.

Dr. Fahad Saeed, the “regional lead for South Asia” for Climate Analytics, an international climate science and policy analysis organization, told BBC the devastating floods in Pakistan are “absolutely a wake-up call” to governments around the world. “All of this is happening when the world has warmed by 1.2 degrees Celsius. Any more warming than that is a death sentence for many people in Pakistan.”

Ahead of his visit to Pakistan on September 9, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addressed the continuing refusal by global powers to respond to climate change. “There is a lot of attention,” said Guterres on the war in Ukraine. “But people tend to forget there is another war—the war we are waging on nature, and nature is striking back, and climate change is supercharging the destruction of our planet. To deal with climate change, that is the defining issue of our time, with a business-as-usual approach is pure suicide.”

Such purely rhetorical protests are falling on the deaf ears of the major powers.

Guterres did not mention that the United States is the leader in scuttling an effective response to climate change. This week, Washington pledged $30 million to assist Pakistan’s climate change victims, less than a dollar for every person impacted. This pitiful sum pales into insignificance compared with the tens of billions of dollars in military assistance the US has poured into Ukraine to expand a war against Russia that has already killed tens of thousands on both sides and threatens to trigger a catastrophic nuclear conflagration.

Last week Pakistan’s government placed flood damages at $10 billion, but that figure has been dramatically revised upwards as the scale of the disaster becomes more apparent. Its new estimate is $30 billion or more than 60 percent of Pakistan’s $47 billion national budget. According to Pakistani authorities, more than 5,700 kilometers of roads have been damaged, over 240 bridges destroyed or rendered unusable, and more than a million dwellings either washed away or heavily damaged. UNICEF says 18,000 schools have been damaged or destroyed.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported on August 29 that nearly 80 percent of the crops in Sindh, the country’s second largest province, have been ruined. Among the worst affected is the cotton crop. Raw cotton is Pakistan’s third largest export and is vital to Pakistan’s textile industry, the country’s biggest export earner.

The destruction of crops will also drive up food prices, under conditions where Pakistan, like countries around the world, is being battered by energy and other price increases. Earlier this month, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics reported the inflation rate has reached an all-time high of 45.5 percent.

The biggest inflation driver came from the removal of subsidies for energy products, which caused prices to skyrocket. As part of an agreement with the IMF, which last week released a $1.16 billion loan tranche to Pakistan, the government is bound to increase gas prices by a further 53 percent. In addition, according to Dawn, it is pledged to revive the general sales tax on petroleum products and slash other price subsidies. The gas price increase alone is intended to generate 786 billion rupees in additional revenues for the government, more than 10 times the sum Islamabad has committed to support the tens of millions of flood victims.

Meanwhile, the floods in Pakistan are disrupting the food supply to Afghanistan, worsening the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in that landlocked country. There are also 1.3 million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, of whom 420,000 are estimated to be living in the areas worst hit by the floods.