African Union; The Dream Vs. Reality

Thomas C. Mountain

The predecessor of todays African Union, the Organization for African Unity, OAU, was launched in 1963 with the glorious goal of uniting Africans to help liberate the continent from colonialism. Unfortunately, despite the dreams of Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Ture and others, reality quickly showed its face and the dream turned out to be a fantasy.

Why do I say this? Because the OAU was founded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where the US backed compradore Emperor Haile Sellasie regime was actively engaged in a counter insurgency war against the Eritrean Liberation Front fighting for independence from…Ethiopia! To put it simply Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was the headquarters of the OAU which was formed for the purpose of ending colonialism in Africa all the while Ethiopia was killing Eritreans in an attempt preserve its control of its Eritrean colony.

Yet this hasn’t stopped all to many Africans and blacks in the west from continuing to propagate the line that the OAU, and the African Union that took its place were and are anti colonialist by every year celebrating African Liberation Day on the anniversary of the founding of the OAU.

Being that Eritrea is the only country in Africa that won its independence on the battlefield by defeating the Ethiopian ruler Haile Mengistu Mariam in 1991 and subsequently running Mengistu the butcher out of Ethiopia on the wings of a US military jet it is important to take a deeper look at Eritrea and its history of problems with the OAU and todays AU.

One of the best places to look at the corruption and bootlicking role of the AU is when it guaranteed the Algiers Peace Agreement between Eritrea and the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) regime in 2002. This took place after the TPLF regime had launched a war in 1998 in what was ultimately a failed attempt to re-colonize Eritrea. Despite major US help, both with funding, arms and intelligence in support of the TPLF, the western backed TPLF invasion of Eritrea was defeated by the Eritrean Defense Forces in 2000 at the battle of Tsorona.

After the defeat of the TPLF invasion followed by two years of negotiations a “final and binding” peace agreement between Eritrea and the TPLF was signed in Algiers on Dec. 12, 2002. The AU, alongside the EU, UN and the USA all promised in writing to enforce another “final and binding” agreement with UN sanctions if either party violated the deal. Part of the deal was to enforce a border demarcation between Eritrea and the TPLF, to be carried out by a supposedly neutral party overseen by the UN because the “border dispute” allegedly being the reason for Ethiopia launching its invasion of Eritrea in the first place.

Like what the world has witnessed in Ukraine regarding the war against the Russian people of the Donbas by the CIA coup government installed in Ukraine in 2008 the western powers had no intent in honoring the Minsk Agreement they “guaranteed”?

It turns out the AU really had no intention of enforcing the deal with the TPLF, following meekly in the footsteps of its masters in the west. What could the AU do, bite the hand that feeds it for the EU is the majority funder of the AU. And could the AU seeks sanctions against Ethiopia where it made it’s home from its birth and which it had help glorify with blatant falsifications of history claiming Ethiopia had never been colonized?

The AU literally never lifted a finger to see the deal implemented and allowed the TPLF to continue to violate the deal until November 2020 when Eritrean fighters, at the request of the new Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed intervened in Ethiopia after the CIA instigated coup attempt by the TPLF in 2020. While destroying the backbone of the TPLF terrorist army Eritrea liberated the town of Badme and its surrounds, which had been awarded to Eritrea by the “final and binding” border demarcation deal later signed, again, with a promise of enforcement by the AU, EU, UN and the USA.

Today it should be clear for all to see that the purpose of the “final and binding” peace deal between Eritrea and the TPLF regime was not to bring peace to the Horn of Africa, just the opposite, rather to help the TPLF regime to lick its wound suffered in its defeat by Eritrea and consolidate its rule in Ethiopia while continuing to be the US policeman on the beat in the critically strategic Horn of Africa.

And where is the AU in all of this? I guess you could say its silence proven golden for it has received billions of dollars from the EU and USA over the past twenty years for loyally keeping its mouth shut about the crimes committed by the TPLF.

Today, the AU leads delegations of African leaders to sit down with the criminals in the US government to talk about what’s best for Africa? How the US is blackmailing Zambia and DRCongo into giving the US all of their cobalt and copper? How the US will not restore free trade access to the US with Ethiopia unless the CIA is given control over the supposed “investigation” into crimes committed in the war in Tigray from 2020-2022. If what the CIA through its mouth pieces in the western media has been saying is anything to go by, a whole cesspool of lies will be spewed about fabricated crimes by Eritrea and Ethiopia in Tigray. And the AU remains party to all of this, the judas goat leading the African sheep to slaughter in Washington DC.

There was a great dream involving the founding of the OAU but that dream quickly ran into the brick wall of reality and was still born at birth, never to actually do anything concrete to help bring about real independence from Africa’ former western colonial masters as well as the Ethiopian home grown imperialists colonizing Eritrea. Actually the opposite, the AU did what it could to help prevent Eritrea from achieving its independence from Ethiopia and beginning its historic leadership of Africa.

When it comes to the African Union its not about the dream, its all about the reality of a compromised, corrupt, subservient organization.

Anti-Netanyahu protests continue, but their Zionist agenda cannot combat fascist threat

Jean Shaoul

More than 130,000 people rallied on Saturday evening in Tel Aviv to voice their opposition to the fascistic government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Another hundred thousand rallied in 60 towns and cities across Israel, with the organisers claiming that 250,000 people in total had participated.

This was the seventh consecutive weekly protest against Netanyahu’s plans to give his government the dictatorial powers to enforce an agenda driven by the needs of Israel’s oligarchs.

Israelis protest against the government's plans to overhaul the country's legal system, in Tel Aviv, Israel, January 14, 2023. [AP Photo/Oded Balilty]

At the end of last year, after four years of increasing political instability, Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving prime minister, assembled a coalition made up of far-right, racist and ultra-religious figures. They collectively seek the total annexation of the West Bank, which Israel has illegally occupied since the 1967 Arab Israeli war; are committed to apartheid rule as embodied in the “Nation-State Law” that enshrines Jewish supremacy as the legal foundation of the state; and to Jewish prayer at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. They are determined to roll back already circumscribed anti-discrimination measures through sweeping changes to Israel’s legal system and to step up police and military repression against the Palestinians and against workers, Jewish and Palestinian, in Israel itself.

Netanyahu has given a prominent role to Bezalel Smotrich, a settler and the leader of the ultra-nationalist Religious Zionism Party, assigning him not only the finance ministry but also responsibility for Israel’s West Bank settlements, ensuring their expansion.

Another key figure is Itamar Ben-Gvir, Jewish Power leader who was once a member of Kach, a party that was outlawed in Israel and spent 25 years on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. He heads national security and controls the police and is establishing the National Guard as his own militia to enforce military rule in Israel’s mixed Palestinian-Jewish cities. His first act was a provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa compound in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, the third holiest Muslim site.

Netanyahu, facing multiple corruption charges, appointed Arieh Dery, Shas leader and thrice convicted for financial misconduct, to head two ministries—health and interior—an appointment since ruled by the High Court as “unreasonable.”

This week the Knesset is discussing legislation preventing the High Court from carrying out judicial reviews of government actions that relate to Israel’s quasi-constitutional Basic Laws and increasing the number of political appointees to the judge selection committee. Another bill will require unanimous agreement by the court in any judicial review, while allowing a simple Knesset majority to overrule the court on the striking of laws. Taken together, these laws will give the government unassailable powers.

Netanyahu’s plans have aroused the anger of almost the entire legal establishment, as well as a layer of secular generals and opposition leaders from Israel’s short-lived and misnamed “government of change” under Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, many of whom have served in governments headed by Netanyahu in the past. Commentators in Israel and internationally are talking of a constitutional crisis and the possibility of civil war.

Netanyahu’s coalition partners have demanded that Lapid and Gantz, along with former generals Moshe Ya’alon and Yair Golan, are charged with “treason against the homeland” after they called for “widespread civil disobedience” to halt the judicial coup. His Likud Party filed a complaint with the police against former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and opposition activists over alleged incitement and for civil disobedience.

Police commissioner Kobi Shabtai is preparing his forces to suppress dissent. Speaking on television, he said, “The current situation makes me sleepless, we are on a steep slope,” and that the authorities were taking precautions against assassinations. He added that he had established a special unit against incitement to violence, saying, “The Israel Police will not allow violent discourse or any publication that incites violence and harm to public figures or any person.”

The rallies were addressed by former general Moshe Ya’alon, Lapid and Gantz—right-wing figures with few policy differences with Netanyahu who fear his fascist-backed power grab is endangering the stability of capitalist rule and the Israeli state.

Many demonstrators at Saturday’s rallies carried Israeli flags and chanted “No to Dictatorship” and “Democracy.” Some called on Netanyahu’s paymasters in Washington to rein in the new government. This is an exercise in futility and deception.

While US ambassador Tom Nides called for Netanyahu to “pump the brakes,” he insisted that, despite disagreements over the government’s plans for the judiciary and settlement expansion, the US would continue to have “Israel’s back on security and at the UN… It’s going to be rough, but… you can have a great relationship with your ally, and when you disagree, you disagree.”

A small number of protesters defied the enforced Zionist consensus, linking the decades of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories with the decline of democracy, with posters reading, “Rights for Jews only is not a democracy” and “A nation that occupies another nation will never be free,” in Arabic, Hebrew and English.

The Histadrut trade unions do not support the demonstrations, doing everything in their power to limit workers’ strikes and protests against the government.

The leaders of the demonstrations are hostile to any appeal to Israel’s Palestinian citizens, turning away Palestinians in earlier demonstrations and enthusiastically and often violently enforcing the ban on Palestinian flags instigated by Ben-Gvir, with the result that few Palestinians have taken part. Instead, the protests have been limited to protecting the Supreme Court, which has nodded through Israel’s Jewish Nation-State Law and authorized settlements, land seizures and evictions in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

Netanyahu’s efforts to eliminate the Supreme Court’s occasional and limited restraints on government actions go hand-in-hand with stepped-up harassment, including arrests, body searches, detentions at checkpoints and tickets for unjustified traffic offences, and repression of the Palestinians both in the occupied territories and Israel.

Hardly a day goes by without the killing of Palestinians by the security forces or armed settlers. New legislation strips the families of Palestinians accused of terrorism of their residency or citizenship rights if they have accepted financial aid from the Palestinian Authority. This could affect 140 Israeli Palestinians and 211 Palestinians from East Jerusalem with Israeli residency permits, a crime under international law. The government is to approve the widespread licensing of guns for Jews, tantamount to legitimising vigilante groups. It has recognized nine settler outposts in the occupied West Bank and approved the construction of 10,000 homes in existing settlements. This prompted calls for a general strike in East Jerusalem on Sunday.

While there is no doubting the democratic impulses of many of those participating in the rallies, they are a dead end without rejecting a political leadership and perspective that upholds Jewish “national unity” based on the oppression of the Palestinians and the rule of the financial oligarchy.

Israel is one of the most socially polarised countries in the world. With around 71 billionaires in 2021, and the second highest number of billionaires per capita in the world. The richest 10 percent of Israelis control 62 percent of the wealth, while the top 1 percent control no less than 31 percent.

For years, its ruling elite has been slashing social welfare programs and key public services such as education, health and transport, upon which Israeli workers depend, and attacking wages and working conditions in pursuit of “free market” policies.

It is this huge disparity in wealth and the consequent explosive social tensions that has driven the Zionist regime’s rabid nationalism, implementation of apartheid-like measures under the stepped-up attacks on the Palestinians and its provocative stance against Iran and its allies in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen. Its aim is to rally Jewish Israelis under the Zionist flag and deflect rising social and political tensions outwards.

It is the commonality of the class issues faced by Palestinian (both within Israel and the occupied territories) and Jewish workers that provides the objective foundation for a united political offensive against the Israeli state, the Arab bourgeois regimes that have now openly lined up with Israel, and their imperialist sponsors.

Turkish official says earthquake death toll could reach 150,000 as aftershocks shake region

Ulaş Ateşçi

Two aftershocks of magnitude 6.4 and 5.8 killed at least three people and injured over 200 in Hatay on the Turkish-Syrian border yesterday. The main cause of casualties in these aftershocks, which followed two major earthquakes two weeks ago, is thought to be the shortage of tents and containers being used as emergency housing for quake victims. This led some to enter their apartments, which were thought to have “minor” or “moderate” damage.

Meanwhile, a statement has emerged confirming suspicions that the death toll is far higher than official figures given after the February 6 quakes. In a speech that surfaced on social media and was reportedly delivered on Monday, February 13, Şırnak Governor Osman Bilgin, who was appointed “coordinator” for the earthquake-hit Nurdağı district of Gaziantep province, said the real death toll could be five times worse. As of February 13, the day of his speech, the official death toll in Turkey was around 31,000.

Aerial photo shows collapsed buildings and destruction in Hatay, Turkey, on Feb. 7. [AP Photo/IHA]

Addressing quake victims in Nurdağı, Bilgin admitted that the state had intervened too late, saying; “I’m sorry, maybe we came late, but the situation is much worse than what you saw and knew. Maybe 3–4, maybe 5 times worse than the announced figures.”

He added, “We are completely demolishing Nurdağı district, we took this decision yesterday with the environment minister. We are demolishing all of it. I’m telling you this so that you can understand the disaster… There is an apartment building where 150 people died. Of course, this [disaster] was the will of God. But we must fulfill our responsibility as human beings.”

The “responsibility” of the state was to take precautions against the earthquake danger that scientists and state institutions had warned about for years in official reports. Settlements on the fault line and buildings known to be unsafe during major earthquakes should have been evacuated. Instead of taking these steps, which would have eaten into corporate profits, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government abandoned the people of the region to their fate.

As of yesterday, the official death toll in Turkey exceeded 41,000, while in hard-hit Syria it has remained unchanged at 5,800 for 10 days. As Syria has already been devastated by NATO’s war for regime change and crippling imperialist sanctions since 2011, this number, tragically, is also likely to be a serious underestimate.

Such estimates clearly suggest that the preventable social catastrophe of the Turkey-Syria earthquake disaster is far more horrific than previously thought. This would imply a loss of life on the scale of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in 2004, which caused around 228,000 deaths, and the Haiti earthquake in 2010, which caused an estimated 316,000 deaths—that is, the largest natural disasters in the 21st century.

The Turkish Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change announced that 927,000 buildings in the affected area had been inspected as of yesterday, of which about 118,000 had collapsed or been heavily damaged. Last week, Erdoğan said 2.2 million quake victims had fled the region. It is thought that this number may now exceed 4 million.

Erdoğan said, “those who will take shelter outside the container cities will receive a monthly rent subsidy of 5,000 liras for homeowners and 2,000 liras for renters.” While this distinction between renters and homeowners has caused social anger, it is not possible to find an apartment for rent for 2,000 liras in Turkey.

In Syria, the UN estimates that over 5 million people are homeless after the earthquakes. Little international aid has reached the country, abandoned and blockaded by the imperialist powers. The ongoing occupation of northern Syria by US and Turkish troops as well as Islamist jihadist forces has prevented a centralized earthquake response by the Syrian government.

In another demonstration of imperialist hypocrisy, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Turkey on Sunday, announcing an additional $100 million in earthquake aid to Turkey and Syria. It is unknown how much of the total $185 million in US “aid” will go to Syria and reach the earthquake victims. However, this sum pales in comparison to the billions of dollars NATO has spent on weapons to destroy Syria and now to wage war in Ukraine.

Moreover, on Sunday Israel bombed civilian areas in the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing at least five and wounding 15. “The strike on Sunday is the deadliest Israeli attack in the Syrian capital,” said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Al Jazeera reported that the airstrike “hit a densely populated district close to Omayyad Square.”

Last month, Israel struck Damascus International Airport, killing four.

While there have been few reports on the plight of the millions of earthquake victims in Syria, two weeks after the quake, the situation in the affected area in Turkey remains dire. While the Erdoğan government boasts of the aid it has collected and provided, pictures show masses of people sleeping outside at night in the cold.

According to the daily Evrensel, there is still no state response or aid in the earthquake-hit Yeşilyurt district of Malatya. A quake survivor there said: “It has been 14 days since the earthquake, but the state does not see this district. From digging the rubble to everything else, we did everything here with our own means. There are no toilets; we have been using empty fields for days. We haven’t showered for 13 days, and we are covered in dirt and filth. There is no state here.”

An elderly woman said, “For days, aid has only come from the people. We haven’t seen anyone from the state. Hot food doesn’t come anyway. We only get soup once a day. We don’t know what to do, we don’t have a house, and we don’t know where to stay.”

There are serious problems, especially the risk of epidemics in tent cities set up by Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD). Speaking to Evrensel on Sunday from Pazarcık district of Maraş, health workers’ union (SES) executive Prof. Dr. Sibel Perçinel said, “The need for toilets and bathrooms cannot be met. The AFAD team does not pay enough attention to the earthquake victims. We saw a patient whose legs were infected with gangrene and amputation was not carried out.”

She also pointed to the horrific situation facing Syrian refugees in Turkey: “The situation of Syrian families is even more difficult here. They live in larger numbers and have communication problems. Volunteers can provide more preventive health services here. If hygiene conditions are not improved as soon as possible, outbreaks that may occur will make the work even more difficult.”

While it describes the two massive 7.8 and 7.6 earthquakes within nine hours on February 6 as “the disaster of the century,” the Erdoğan government continues to deny its responsibility for this preventable social catastrophe. So far 133 people, mostly contractors, have been arrested, and no senior officials have resigned.

However, lawyer Hüseyin Cimşit from Samsun Bar Association filed a criminal complaint against President Erdoğan; Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Murat Kurum; Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu; Minister of National Defense Hulusi Akar; Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca; and Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Adil Karaismailoğlu.

The criminal complaint reportedly covers mayors, municipal council members, project officers and managers of GSM operators who served between 1999 and 2023 in the provinces which the earthquake devastated.

The complaint, which demands prosecution of these individuals, includes accusations such as “causing the deaths of over 36,000 people as a result of neglect and abuse of duty,” “paving the way for the collapse of thousands of buildings” and “putting the country’s economy in a bottleneck.”

German interior minister to tighten up “radicalism decree”

Justus Leicht

A bill introduced by Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (Social Democratic Party, SPD) is intended to make it easier in the future to “remove” civil servants for “extremist misconduct.” To this end, their democratic rights in disciplinary proceedings will be massively restricted. This is intended to arm the state apparatus for political and social conflicts.

Demonstration in West Berlin against the “Berufsverboot” (occupational bans) in 1977 [Photo by W. Hermann / Fotostab am IfP / CC BY-SA 3.0]

Presently, those classed as civil servants—whether working in city halls, police stations, schools or universities—have lifetime employment, i.e., they are basically not subject to dismissal. Unlike other employees, they do not have to pay into the social security system but receive health and pension benefits from the state. Although a civil servant is bound by directives, he or she does not have to follow arbitrary or unlawful instructions but is bound by law and the constitution. Therefore, so the theory goes, they should be economically and legally secure.

Up to now, only the courts could remove a civil servant from office. According to Faeser, this is now to be a thing of the past. Instead of taking disciplinary action before the administrative court, in future the authorities themselves are to order all disciplinary measures by means of a decree.

It is true that the civil servant could appeal against the order. But for the time being, he or she is faced with a fait accompli. It is no longer the state but the civil servant who must bear the litigation risk, as well as the economic and social uncertainties and disadvantages of the dismissal for the period until a final decision is reached on the complaint. Judicial protection against “disciplinary orders” is also to be limited as far as possible. An appeal is only possible in exceptional cases if it is declared admissible by the administrative court.

In addition, a civil servant “legally removed from public service for extremism” must repay the remuneration paid during the duration of the disciplinary proceedings. He thus exposes himself to a risk if he defends himself against the dismissal, because the longer the proceedings last as a result, the more he must pay back in the event of defeat in court.

In addition, the bill provides for easier termination of civil service employment in the event of a criminal conviction for incitement of the people. In future, in such cases a sentence of six month’ imprisonment instead of the previous 12 months will lead to the loss of civil service rights or pension benefits.

In this context, it should be noted that the “traffic light” coalition government of the SPD, Liberal Democrats (FDP) and Greens has just drastically tightened up the paragraph on incitement of the people. This was supplemented by a paragraph, according to which it can be punishable with up to three years in prison if one “publicly or in an assembly” approves of, denies or grossly trivializes genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.” Even those criticizing government war propaganda therefore run the risk of being dismissed from the civil service.

According to Faeser, this is based on a regulation that has been in effect in Baden-Württemberg since 2008. In that state, all disciplinary measures are implemented via a disciplinary order. The Supreme Court confirmed the basic admissibility of such a regulation in 2020. Shortly thereafter, following the 2021 federal elections, in its coalition agreement the coalition parties agreed to “remove enemies of the constitution from the civil service more quickly than before.”

The legal provision enabling removal from the civil service solely by means of a judge’s decision had been introduced for the whole of Germany in 1932, shortly before the end of the Weimar Republic. Since the end of the Second World War, it then applied to the Federal Republic (West Germany), as the Supreme Court acknowledged in its 2020 majority decision.

Once again, it is the SPD that is leading the way in purging the state apparatus of those it deems politically unreliable. In doing so, it is following up on the 1972 so-called Radikalenerlass (Radical Decree), which came about under SPD Chancellor Willy Brandt.

On January 28, 1972, Brandt and the state premiers had agreed “principles on the question of anti-constitutional forces in the civil service.” The aim of this “Minister Presidents’ Decision” was to purge the civil service of federal and state employees alleged to be “enemies of the constitution” via a uniform procedure.

When applying for a position in the civil service, the hiring authorities would normally ask the Verfassungsschutz (Office for the Protection of the Constitution, as Germany’s domestic intelligence agency is called) whether it had “knowledge” about the applicant. Often, it was enough to have attended an event or demonstration that the intelligence service classified as “anti-constitutional.”

If such “findings” were said to exist, the applicant had to comment on them in so-called hearing interviews. If they could not dispel the doubts, the applicant was usually rejected. It was possible to take legal action against this, but the possibilities for appeal meant such proceedings usually extended over many years, during which the applicant would not be employed.

According to official government figures, 450,000 such inquiries were made to the intelligence services between the beginning of 1973 and mid-1975 because of the Radikalenerlass. This resulted in 5,700 cases of “findings” and 328 rejections. The organization “Weg mit den Berufsverbot” (End the occupational bans) even counted 1,250 rejections.

Some 260 people who were already civil servants were also dismissed. For the most part, it was teachers (about 80 percent) and university lecturers (about 10 percent) who were affected; there were also cases in the judiciary, railroads, and postal services. Despite the official claim that the Radikalenerlass was directed equally against “extremists from the right and the left,” almost exclusively members or supporters of left-wing organizations were affected.

Over the course of the 1980s, such routine inquiries were gradually abolished. In most federal states, however, a so-called needs-based inquiry is still lodged with the Verfassungsschutz if there are doubts about an applicant’s “loyalty to the constitution.”

In February 1987, a commission of inquiry established by the International Labor Organization (ILO) concluded that the implementation of the Radikalenerlass violated the prohibition of discrimination in employment and occupation. A ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg on September 26, 1995, involving the case of a teacher from Lower Saxony who had been dismissed from the teaching profession in 1986 because of her membership in the German Communist Party (DKP), considered this to be a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights’ right to freedom of expression and association.

The current tightening of the law continues the tradition of the Radikalenerlass and Berufsverbot. As usual, it is being justified primarily by citing the need to combat right-wing extremism. Most recently, raids against a terrorist network from the “Reichsbürger“ (Reich Citizens) scene gave limited insight into how riddled the state apparatus is with fascist elements.

But one should not be deceived here. Leon Trotsky had warned as early as 1938: “Theory, as well as historic experience, testify that any restriction to democracy in bourgeois society is eventually directed against the proletariat.”

More recently, the domestic intelligence service, which checks the “constitutional fidelity” of civil servants, was led for years by right-wing extremist Hans-Georg Maassen. This once again makes clear that the political instruments of repression, no matter how their introduction is justified, are ultimately always directed against those on the left. Right-wing professors like Jörg Baberowski at Humboldt University in Berlin do not face disciplinary measures even after making physical attacks on their political opponents but enjoy the backing of their superiors against their critics.

US prisoner deaths rose more than 60 percent from 2019 to 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic

Alex Findijs

Deaths of prison inmates increased over 60 percent in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic according to a new report by the UCLA School of Law’s Behind Bars Data Project. Data acquired by the project, which in many cases exceeds the data reported on by states and prisons themselves, indicates that 6,182 imprisoned people died behind bars in 2020 compared to 4,240 in 2019, a 62 percent increase despite a 10 percent decline in the prison population. 

Folsom State Prison, located 20 miles northeast of the state capital of Sacramento

This increase in prison mortality was led by 16 states which saw an increase in inmate deaths of more than 90 percent. Notable among these are Michigan, which saw a 130 percent increase with 131 more deaths in 2020 than in 2019, and New Jersey, which saw an increase of 142 percent with 47 more deaths than in 2019. 

The collection and reporting of this data is a significant achievement that compiles invaluable information about the cost in life that the pandemic has taken on prison populations. Many states have stopped reporting publicly on COVID deaths and data on deaths in prisons can be difficult to acquire. The Bureau of Justice Statistics used to take detailed records of inmate deaths for monitoring of health and safety but stopped in 2019, leaving a large gap between the real numbers of inmate fatalities and the official figures reported by government agencies. 

Missouri, a state with over 23,000 prison inmates, declined requests from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to provide data on COVID deaths, and both Pennsylvania and Georgia claimed that they did not have or could not access data on COVID deaths in prisons to provide to the BJS. Additionally, no data was collected from privately run prisons operating under federal contracts, making accurate reporting on deaths of incarcerated individuals virtually impossible.

The Behind Bars Data Project used a variety of methods, including extensive public record requests from state agencies, to collect their data at the facility level and make it available to the public, collecting data at a scale and accuracy that has not been available for years. 

From this research the project was able to identify that 1,942 more deaths occurred in 2020 over 2019, a 47 percent increase in the total number of deaths. However, many jails and prisons released a limited number of inmates in response to the rapid spread of the virus, resulting in a 10 percent decrease in the total prison population in 2020. Adjusting for this change in population, the crude death rate rose 62 percent to 47 deaths per 10,000 inmates. 

This is significantly higher than previous estimates of deaths for incarcerated individuals by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which has placed the death rate of inmates at 15 deaths per 10,000, and is nearly four times higher than the average 12.5 per 10,000 for the rest of the United States.  

The driving cause of this increased death rate was the spread of COVID-19 through the country’s overcrowded and unsanitary prisons. Nationally, federal prisons were 23 percent above capacity in 2020, with similar problems at the state level. In California, 24 of the state’s 35 prisons exceeded 100 percent capacity. 

Overcrowding allowed for COVID-19 to spread rapidly, with at least 641,890 infections and nearly 3,000 coronavirus deaths in US prisons as of February 17 according to The COVID Prison Project. The real figure is likely higher due to common problems with the underreporting of case numbers and the dismantling of all COVID mitigation measures by the Biden administration.

When waves of infections made their way through prisons there was little pubic health infrastructure to deal with the outbreaks. Prior to the pandemic, illness was the cause of 79 percent of deaths among incarcerated people. A significant component of this is that prisons lack adequate medical services to care for patients, particularly the growing population of those over the age of 55, which has risen from 5.1 percent of prisoners in 2004 to 12.8 percent in 2016. 

The care provided to inmates in prisons is so paltry that a federal court found in 2002 that California’s state prison system provided such low quality medical care that it violated the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution barring “cruel and unusual punishment.” The prison’s medical system remains in an abysmal state more than 20 years after the court ruling. Such poor medical services are not uncommon among state and federal prisons in the United States. 

The latest revelations about the extent of deaths caused by the pandemic in prisons are reflective of the criminal policy of malign neglect pursued by the Trump and Biden administrations and the ruling class as a whole. Sections of the population that are considered expendable—prisoners, the elderly, those with medical problems, and the working class as a whole—are allowed to be killed or maimed by a dangerous virus in order to keep the economy open and profits flowing. 

The Behind Bars Data Project plans to continue its research for the next two years to bring data from 2021-2023 to the public. However, as of January 18 the project will no longer record data on deaths from COVID-19.

Modi orders raids on BBC offices after documentary points to his role in 2002 Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom

Kranti Kumara

Four weeks after the BBC aired a documentary that examined the role Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi played in instigating and enabling the 2002 Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government ordered tax officials to mount a massive raid on the BBC’s offices in Mumbai and the nation’s capital, New Delhi.

Beginning on Tuesday, February 14, and continuing for three days, scores of Income Tax (IT) Department officials harassed and intimidated BBC journalists, technical staff and other employees while searching the BBC premises. The tax officials confined the journalists and other staff to their offices for hours on end and seized numerous documents, laptops and cell-phones, including those belonging to BBC staff. Several employees, including journalists, were reported to have undergone “questioning” for 60 hours.

Private security guards close the gate of a building housing BBC office in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023. [AP Photo/Altaf Qadri]

The BBC tweeted on Thursday that “some of [the staff] have faced lengthy questioning or been required to stay overnight.”

Indian authorities claimed that the tax officials were investigating the BBC’s “diversion of profits, tax evasion and non-compliance with Indian laws.” Unsurprisingly, last Saturday the IT Department released a statement claiming to have “uncovered irregularities,” adding that the income and profits of the corporation are “not commensurate with the scale of (its) operations in India.”

In justifying the attack on the British state-owned BBC, the Hindu-supremacist BJP government and its supporters tried to frame it as a blow against “western” bullying and even “colonialism.” None of this could hide the twin raids’ true aim. Nor was it truly meant to, for that would have run counter to their sinister purpose.

The raids were intended to intimidate the press or anyone who dares shed light on the crimes perpetrated by Modi and his Hindu-supremacist BJP by demonstrating that they are prepared to use all the resources at their command to target and silence their critics. Not even the state broadcaster of a major ally and one of the world’s largest media conglomerates is off limits.

The BBC documentary, India: The Modi Question, did not add much to the vast body of evidence that proves Modi, who in 2002 was Gujarat’s chief minister, helped instigate mass anti-Muslim violence, then ordered police to allow it to unfold. This resulted in the deaths of at least 2,000 people, the vast majority of them Muslims, and rendered hundreds of thousands of others homeless. But the first part of the two-part BBC documentary did bring to light that the British government, based on an on-the-spot investigation in the days immediately following the February–March 2002 pogrom, had concluded that the violence had been well-orchestrated, bore “all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing” and “Narendra Modi is directly responsible.”

Modi government and BJP spokespersons responded to the BBC’s airing of the documentary in Britain with venom and have gone to extraordinary lengths to try to block its dissemination. In a tweet, Kanchan Gupta, an adviser to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, boasted that “Videos sharing @BBCWorld hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage, disguised as ‘documentary’ on @YouTube, and tweets sharing links to the BBC documentary have been blocked under India’s sovereign laws and rules.”

When students at several Delhi universities tried to organize showings of the documentary, the authorities intervened. At Jamia Millia Islamia University, large numbers of riot police were deployed in advance of a planned screening and a dozen or so students arrested. Power and internet service were cut to prevent the film from being shown at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Government spokespersons cynically described last week’s raids of the BBC as “survey operations.”

The Press Club of India called the raids “a clear cut case of vendetta.” A handful of major English-language Indian publications, like the Hindu, issued editorials, which with varying degrees of forthrightness, dispensed with the government’s lies and called the raids a frontal attack on freedom of the press. Several opposition parties, including the Congress Party, which itself has a long history of trampling on democratic rights, issued pro forma statements condemning the raids. But by and large, the corporate media, which like Indian big business as a whole is strongly pro-BJP, treated the raids as a sideshow or breathlessly regurgitated the government’s claims about their aim.

The Modi government has by now a long record of using the state machine, including trumped-up tax investigations, to lash out at those it perceives as getting in its way. This is part of a much larger reactionary modus operandi in which the BJP’s promotion of rabid communalism goes hand-in-hand with its use of authoritarian measures to suppress working class opposition and even marginalize and silence its rivals in the bourgeois political establishment.

In July 2021 the tax authorities raided the Hindi-language daily Dainik Bhaskar. This occurred after the Dainik Bhaskar carried critical reports showing the devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and criticized the Modi government for its ruinous mishandling of the pandemic.

Amnesty International—which had operated in India since 1966 and documented numerous gross human rights violations by the BJP government and its predecessors, including in Kashmir—was completely driven out of the county in 2020 after the Modi government froze all of its bank accounts. The previous year the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Indian equivalent of the FBI, had raided its offices claiming it was receiving money from foreign sources without government authorization. In February 2021, the Directorate of Enforcement, a government intelligence agency focusing on financial crimes, seized Amnesty International’s property worth $2.5 million.

Critical journalists have been a frequent target since Modi and his BJP came to power in May 2014. Dozens have been charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), which is supposed to target terrorism, or colonial-era “sedition” laws and imprisoned for months, even years, without a court hearing.

One of the most prominent examples of this was the imprisonment of the Indian journalist Siddique Kappan, who had traveled to Uttar Pradesh to report on the gang rape of a Dalit woman by upper-caste men close to the BJP. He was subsequently charged with numerous criminal offenses and imprisoned by the BJP government in the state whose Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, is a close Modi ally and notorious fomenter of communal violence. Entirely innocent, Kappan only walked out of prison in early February having spent about two-and-a-half years under horrid conditions.

Another notable attack on the press occurred on March 6, 2020, when a Malayalam language TV station, The Media One, headquartered in the southwestern state of Kerala, was forced off the air for 48 hours by the order of the Modi government. Media One was targeted because it correctly reported on the murderous attack upon Muslims in Delhi in February 2020 by goons belonging to the BJP’s parent organization, the paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). In response to widespread protests against the BJP government’s discriminatory Citizens Amendment Act (CAA), local BJP politicians and RSS activists incited communal riots in which 53 people, most of them Muslims, were killed, and mosques and numerous Muslim properties set ablaze.

The Modi government did not hide the fact that it was using the Indian state apparatus to impose the BJP’s brand of Hindu supremacy. The order shutting down the station claimed it had aired “attacks on religions or communities, promoting communal attitudes.” In other words, it had exposed the violent attacks by goons and terrorists sponsored by the BJP and its Hindu right allies against innocent Muslims. The order then shamelessly went on to state that the “Channel’s reporting on Delhi violence ... seems to be biased as it is deliberately focusing on the vandalism of CAA supporters. It also questions RSS and alleges Delhi Police inaction. Channel seems to be critical towards Delhi Police and RSS.”

Subsequently in 2022, the Home Ministry headed by Modi’s chief henchman, Amit Shah, intervened and got the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to refuse the renewal of Media One’s license to operate. This egregious attack was later stayed by India’s Supreme Court

The western imperialist powers routinely tout India under Modi as the “world’s most populous democracy,” and turn a blind eye to an ever-expanding list of communal atrocities and authoritarian actions. This is because India as seen as a vital strategic counterweight to China. For its part, the BJP government, with the quasi-unanimous support of the political establishment and big business, has integrated India ever more completely into the US war drive against China, developing an ever-expanding web of bilateral, trilateral and quadrilateral military-security ties with the US and its chief Asia-Pacific allies, Japan and Australia.

The White House and State Department have studiously avoided comment on the both the initial controversy over the BBC documentary’s exposure of Modi as culpable in what was undoubtedly a crime against humanity and last week’s raids on BBC India. However, they have made sure to emphasize their confidence in Indian “democracy.”

As for the BBC, its reaction to the Modi government’s allegations and the mistreatment of its own staff has been muted, largely consisting of pleas that it is ready to cooperate with Indian authorities. No doubt this reflects the attitude of the British government, which rushed to distance itself from India: The Modi Question almost as soon as the first of its two parts was broadcast.

Intriguing discovery of ancient tools, butchery, and hominin teeth in Kenya

Frank Gaglioti

Stone tools, 2.6 million to 3 million years old, discovered recently in Kenya, along with teeth belonging to the hominin Paranthropus and signs of the butchering of an ancient hippopotamus, pose important questions for evolutionary science.

The tools, consisting of hammerstones and sharp stone flakes, may be the oldest Oldowan tools discovered so far, pushing back the known use of Oldowan tools by at least 600,000 years. These were simple tools that were made by one or a few flakes chipped off with another stone. Oldowan tools were named after the Olduvai Gorge where they were first discovered by the famed paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey in the 1930s. Most finds date to the late Palaeolithic period about 2.6 million years ago up until at least 1.7 million years ago. 

The current discovery was made on the Homa Peninsula on the western shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya. A local man, Peter Onyango, who was working with the fossil hunters, suggested that they investigate fossils and stone tools eroding out of a valley on the shores of the lake. This new site was named Nyayanga after the nearby beach, situated on a donkey track leading to the lake. 

(Back) Nyayanga site in July 2014 prior to excavation. Tan and reddish-brown sediments are late Pliocene deposits where Oldowan tools and fossils were later excavated. (Front, lower-right inset) Index map showing location of Nyayanga Oldowan site on the Homa Peninsula in southwestern Kenya. [Photo: (Back) T.W. Plummer, Homa Peninsula Paleoanthropology Project (Front, lower-right inset) J.S. Oliver, Homa Peninsula Paleoanthropology Project]

The first discoveries were made in 2015, including 330 artefacts and 1,776 animal bone fragments from several species typical of open savannah and open woodland environments. Forty-two Oldowan tools were discovered in total.

Analysis of the tools shows signs they were used to pound plant material such as tubers and seeds.

“Early hominins would have been limited by what they could tear with their hands and teeth. ... Stone tools “allowed them to work food outside of their mouths,” Thomas Plummer, a paleoanthropologist at Queens College, City University of New York, in Flushing, Queens, told Nature.

Along with the tools, a hippopotamus skeleton and two teeth, an intact molar and a partial tooth, were found. The teeth have been classified as belonging to the Paranthropus genus. Scientists also found samples of the extinct megafauna such as Eurygnathohippus, a horse species, Pelorvis, the giant buffalo, and Megantereon, the sabre-toothed cat.

Clockwise from top left: 1.) Paranthropus molars recovered from Nyayanga site. Left upper molar (top) was found on the surface at the site, and the left lower molar (bottom) was excavated: 2.) Saber-tooth cat (Megantereon) jaw and teeth fossil found at the Nyayanga site: 3.) Fossil monkey (Paracolobus) jaw and teeth found at the Nyayanga site; 4.) Fossil horse (Eurygnathohippus) upper molar found eroding from the Nyayanga site. [Photo: 1: S.E. Bailey, Homa Peninsula Paleoanthropology Project:2,3,4: J.S. Oliver, Homa Peninsula Paleoanthropology Project]

“When we found the molar, it got really, really exciting,” Emma Finestone of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History told Science.

The  genus is made up of three species that lived in Africa from 2.7 million to 1 million years ago. They are usually referred to as robustines. The first species, P. robustus, was found in South Africa in 1938. They are not thought to be a direct ancestor of modern humans. 

Clockwise from top left: 1.) Nyayanga site being excavated in July 2016. 2.) Members of the excavation team plotting and recording the position of fossils and artifacts in July 2017 at the Nyayanga site, including the Paranthropus molar and fossils from a hippo skeleton. 3.) A member of the research team, Blasto Onyango, preparing a hippo skeleton fossil at the Nyayanga site in July 2016 for transport to the National Museums of Kenya. 4.) Oldowan flake lying directly on a hippo shoulder-blade fossil at the Nyayanga site. 5.) Fossil hippo skeleton and associated Oldowan artifacts at the Nyayanga site in July 2016. [Photo: 1. J.S. Oliver, Homa Peninsula Paleoanthropology Project; 2,3,4,5: T.W. Plummer, Homa Peninsula Paleoanthropology Project]

They were distinguished by their robust heads with extremely large jaws and molar teeth. Paranthropus’ skull had a crest along the midline of its skull similar to gorillas. They walked on two feet and were about 130cm tall. They coexisted with Australopithecus africanus, Homo habilis and H. erectus.

The discovery of Oldowan tools with Paranthropus raises the question as to whether they were the species that used the tools. The researchers have not attributed the tools to the Paranthropus, as Oldowan tools are usually associated with H. habilis. 

“I have been skeptical of Paranthropus using stone tools. … But maybe we do have multiple hominins using the Oldowan,” Finestone says.

“I personally do not believe that Paranthropus made Oldowan tools … the hominin’s anatomy suggests that it was well adapted to eating coarse foods and might not have needed to master tool use,” Mohamed Sahnouni, a palaeolithic archaeologist at the National Research Centre on Human Evolution in Burgos, Spain, said to Nature.

Along with the Oldowan tools, the researchers found ancient hippopotamuses and antelopes that showed signs of being butchered. The bones had signs of being cut and scraped with stone tools. This is a considerable period before humans mastered the use of fire, indicating the meat was eaten raw.

“It predates the use of fire by two million years ... Our best guess is they were probably pounding it into a sort of hippo mash, to be able to eat it,” palaeontologist Julien Louys, an associate at Griffith University, told The Age.

The assumption that Oldowan tools are the work of the Homo species came under close scrutiny with the discovery in 2011 in northern Kenya of 3.3-million-year-old primitive flakes. This is well before true humans appeared and they may have been manufactured by a species such as Australopithecus afarensis.

Top left: Oldowan flake at the Nyayanga site in 2017; Bottom left: Oldowan core exposed from erosion at Nyayanga site in 2015; Right side: Examples of an Oldowan percussive tool, core and flakes from the Nyayanga site. (Top row) Percussive tool found in 2016. (Second row from top) Oldowan core found in 2017. (Bottom rows) Oldowan flakes found in 2016 and 2017. [Photo: 1,3: T.W. Plummer, Homa Peninsula Paleoanthropology Project; 2: T.W. Plummer, J.S. Oliver, and E. M. Finestone, Homa Peninsula Paleoanthropology Project]

Sonia Harmand, an archaeologist at Stony Brook University in New York, said, “The artifacts were clearly knapped and not the result of accidental fracture of rock.”

Knapping is the technology used by primitive humans using a rock to flake off pieces of another rock in order to shape it into tools such as axes and sharp blades. 

Harmond and her team discovered numerous tools, consisting of nearly 20 well-preserved flakes, cores, and anvils at the site Lomekwi 3, just west of Lake Turkana in Kenya, about 1,000 kilometers from Olduvai Gorge. The tools have been classified as Lomekwian technology to distinguish them from the more sophisticated Oldowan tools.

The finds are “very exciting,” says an anthropologist at George Washington University in Washington D.C. Alison Brooks told Science, “They could not have been created by natural forces … [and] the dating evidence is fairly solid.” She agrees that the tools are too early to have been made by Homo, suggesting that “technology played a major role in the emergence of our genus.”

A paleoanthropologist at Spain’s National Research Center for Human Evolution, Sileshi Semaw, explained the importance of the new discovery: “We know very little about the beginnings of stone tools and the emergence of early Homo.“ The scientist added, this is “why the Nyayanga discovery is important.”

Marx’s co-thinker Friedrich Engels, in his pamphlet “The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man,” written in 1876, explained the significance of the invention of tools for human evolution.

Friedrich Engels

Labour begins with the making of tools. And what are the most ancient tools that we find—the most ancient judging by the heirlooms of prehistoric man that have been discovered, and by the mode of life of the earliest historical peoples and of the rawest of contemporary savages? They are hunting and fishing implements, the former at the same time serving as weapons. But hunting and fishing presuppose the transition from an exclusively vegetable diet to the concomitant use of meat, and this is another important step in the process of transition from ape to man. A meat diet contained in an almost ready state the most essential ingredients required by the organism for its metabolism. By shortening the time required for digestion, it also shortened the other vegetative bodily processes that correspond to those of plant life, and thus gained further time, material and desire for the active manifestation of animal life proper. And the farther man in the making moved from the vegetable kingdom the higher he rose above the animal.

In a comment published in The Conversation on February 10, Louys and Plummer wrote, “There’s no evidence Paranthropus was actively hunting megafauna. But it would have been competing with sabre-toothed cats, hyenas and crocodiles for access to carcasses, at the very least.

“The Nyayanga deposits provide a glimpse into an ancestral world that’s possibly radically different from any we had pictured. In doing so, they’ve raised even more questions about hominin evolution.”