Floods cause death and destruction across Europe

Alejandro López

Widespread flooding in Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and Spain has left at least 25 people dead, dozens missing, many more injured and thousands displaced. The floods have destroyed whole bridges, washed away roads, burst dams and drifted cars into the sea.

Floodwaters and mud covers the town of Palamas, after the country's rainstorm record, in Karditsa, Thessaly region, central Greece, Friday, Sept. 8, 2023. Rescue crews in helicopters and boats are plucking people from houses in central Greece inundated by tons of water and mud after severe rainstorms caused widespread flooding. [AP Photo/Vaggelis Kousioras)]

The still unfolding catastrophe is yet another warning about the disastrous consequences of capitalist-induced climate change, coming just weeks after all the above countries suffered wildfires and amid a prolonged drought and record-high temperatures—forest fires continued in Greece this week.

In Greece, the death toll as of writing has risen to six since Storm Daniel hit early this week. Some regions received up to 800mm of rain in recent days—more than normally seen in a whole year. Greek daily Ekathimerini described how the storm had turned “the plain of Thessaly into a large lake.”

To put it in context, meteorologist George Tsatrafyllias said on X, formerly Twitter, that the volume of water that fell just in Pelion, Greece on Tuesday was equal to annual rainfall in London.

Athens saw flooded streets that turned part of a major avenue in the city centre into a river of mud.

In the coastal port city of Volos in Thessaly, a man died in his car and the local hospital was partly flooded. The floods partly destroyed a street, opening up a crater so large it swallowed a bus whole after the vehicle first collapsed on its side.

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Andreas Diakodimitris, owner of a small-plates restaurant in Volos, told The Guardian, “Just as we said that is over, we’ll put it behind us, now this has happened. We had 10 days of breathing in smoke, then the [ammo depot] explosion, the unbearable heat … It’s a given that this will keep happening, as long as people don’t respect the environment.”

In the space of two days, between September 5 and 6, the Greek Fire Service received 4,870 calls for assistance which included rescues, evacuations, pumping flooded homes and clearing fallen trees. In some cases, rescue efforts have been hampered by collapsed bridges and damaged roads. Nearly 1,800 people have had to be rescued, 100 of them airlifted, with many spending the whole day on their roofs.

In a press conference, the conservative New Democracy government’s Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias declared, “I know the word unprecedented has been used many times and it may not make an impression. But here even this word does not convey the severity of the phenomenon. We are talking about unimaginable amounts of water.”

But the floods have not come as a surprise to the authorities. Already in 2021, a team of 46 scientists warned of possible landslides and floods in Attica, the Peloponnese and Evia island—areas ravaged by summer wildfires.

According to the scientists, “The fires are expected to affect the hydro-geomorphological processes in the burned areas to a different degree, depending on local conditions and the intensity of the event”. The team’s report warned, “An increase in erosion and transport rates of sediments should be expected.” This in turn, it added, “will lead to an increase in the frequency of floods, material transport and landslides, for a period that cannot be clearly estimated but ranges from two to 15 years.”

Two years after these warnings, Greece has been struck by hundreds of wildfires this summer, with dozens of fires breaking out each day and leaving 28 dead.

In Turkey, thunderstorms, torrential rainfall and flash flooding also wreaked havoc, leaving at least 10 people dead. In Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, heavy rain of up to 130 litres per square meter fell over a few hours, flooding streets and homes in at least two districts, Basaksehir and Kucukcekmece, and inundating subway stations and hospitals. This volume of rainfall is equal to what Istanbul would typically expect in September as a whole.

The floods come barely three weeks after Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu urged the city’s 16 million residents to save “every precious water drop flowing from the tap” to reduce their water consumption as major cities across the country grappled with a drought crisis and high temperatures.

Scientists have long shown how drought leaves regions more exposed to intense flooding as soil loses its ability to absorb water effectively.

In Bulgaria, deadly floods swept along its southern coast leaving at least four dead. Most of the rivers in the region burst their banks. The bodies of three people were found in a submerged car that was washed away from a bridge into the sea when the river overflowed. Several bridges were destroyed, causing serious traffic problems, and leaving more than 1,000 people stranded.

Videos on social media emerged showing cars and camper vans being swept out to sea in Tsarevo, a resort town.

In response, Bulgaria's Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov announced a pittance in financial aid of up to 770 euros for damaged houses and premises. This contrasts sharply to the announced purchase of $1 billion of NATO weaponry, enabling the dispatch to Ukraine of 100 armoured vehicles, ammunition and Soviet S-300 anti-aircraft systems to assist in waging war against Russia on NATO’s behalf. This, despite 70 percent of Bulgarians being against sending military aid to Kyiv.

On the other side of the Mediterranean, record levels of rain fell in Spain, leaving at least five people dead and major infrastructure destroyed, and causing disruption to air, rail and road transport.

Three of the deceased belonged to the Toledo region, one of the areas where there were torrential rains due to DANA, the Spanish acronym for an isolated high-level weather depression. The other dead were found in Huesca.

One woman in Aldea de Fresno, Madrid, told Euronews, “We felt the water running and we went down to see how the river was coming and at that moment the bridge fell. We all ran. After a while the other bridge fell, a huge noise. It was a moment of panic.” The town saw three of its bridges collapse.

The Madrid regional government sent alert messages to millions of citizens to stay indoors, leading the local authorities to close train lines and cancel a La Liga football match (Atlético de Madrid-Sevilla).

Across Europe, floods are having an impact on supply chains. In Portugal, the Volkswagen Group was forced to stop production at its Autoeuropa plant in Setúbal (Portugal), which employs 5,000 autoworkers. This was due to the flooding of auto plants in Slovenia which provide car parts to the plant. Renault may stop production at its Valladolid plant in Spain for the same reasons.

The floods are part of the extreme weather patterns becoming more frequent and severe across the world. In recent months, floods have caused 62 deaths in northern China and wreaked havoc in Slovenia, Austria, South Korea, and the states of Vermont and New York in the US. At the same time, massive wildfires raged in Maui in Hawaii, Canada, Spain and Greece.

While climate change and global warming are drastically changing weather patterns, capitalist governments have refused to take any serious action to mitigate the devastating impact of these widely predicted catastrophes or to provide adequate relief.

Billions of euros are necessary to strengthen structural flood mitigation measures, such as building or modifying infrastructures like dams, levees, bridges and culverts. Existing creeks and stormwater drainage systems must be properly maintained. In houses, measures such as solid fences, raised windows, doors sealed with “stop boards” and reflux or backflow valves limiting sewage contamination must be installed. Roads should be improved to allow residents to escape floods and ensure emergency service access.

Non-structural measures are also necessary, like surveys of flood prone areas or strategic land use planning to identify the extent of flood-impacted land and limit construction. Populations of millions of people continent-wide must have access to early warning systems and emergency plans, particularly as many floods occur at night.

Instead, the European capitalist powers are plundering their treasuries to spend billions of euros on NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine, upgrading their armed forces, and investing in preparations for World War Three—while granting major tax incentives and other giveaways to big business and the financial aristocracy.

Study documents devastating effects of Long COVID two years after infection

Bill Shaw

A study recently published in Nature Medicine comprehensively assessed for the first time a broad range of impacts of COVID-19 up to two years after SARS-CoV-2 infection. It found that of 80 long-term consequences or sequelae of the disease, individuals with past infection remained at risk for 48 or 60 percent of them at two years post-infection. This compared to an elevated risk at one year post-infection for 69 or 86 percent of sequelae.

The implications of this fundamental result are staggering. It means that long past infection, people remain at risk for a broad array of serious, life-threatening health events impacting over half their body systems.

These events include hospitalization, stroke, chest pain, development of a variety of heart arrhythmias, heart failure, blood clots, dizziness, diarrhea, vomiting, kidney failure, loss of hearing, and loss of smell. They also include the onset of a variety of disorders including diabetes, inflammation of the pancreas, irritable bowel syndrome, liver abnormalities, mental disorders, opioid use disorder, joint pain, muscle pain, arthritis, headache disorders, memory disorders, and shortness of breath.

Relative risks by days after infection plotted for time periods of 30–90, 91–180, 181–360, 361–540 and 541–720 days after infection, labeled by the last day of the corresponding time period. Heatmaps include (top row) nonhospitalized for COVID-19 during the acute phase of the disease (n = 118,238) corresponding to each sequela and (bottom row) COVID-19 hospitalization during the acute phase of the disease (n = 20,580). Relative risks were estimated in comparison to a noninfected control (n = 5,985,227). Sequelae are grouped by organ system. ACD, acute coronary disease; AIM, abnormal involuntary movements; AKI, acute kidney injury; CKD, chronic kidney disease; DVT, deep vein thrombosis; ESKD, end-stage kidney disease; GAD, general anxiety disorder; GERD, gastroesophageal reflux disease; IBS, irritable bowel syndrome; ICM, ischemic cardiomyopathy; ILD, interstitial lung disease; MI, myocardial infarction; NCD, neurocognitive decline; NICM, nonischemic cardiomyopathy; PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder; PUD, peptic ulcer disease; TIA, transient ischemic attack; VTE, venous thromboembolism. NS, non-significant. [Photo by Bowe, B., Xie, Y. & Al-Aly, Z / CC BY 4.0]

If there is any good news in the study, it is that the risks nearly all declined over time, including a return to baseline risk relative to the control group for some of the most serious events such as heart attack, pericarditis and myocarditis, cardiac arrest and death.

However, the risk did increase over two years for some events such as the development of inflammation of the bile ducts, called cholangitis. Furthermore, for the 60 percent of sequelae where the risk remains elevated, the rate of reduction of risk is considerably flattened over time, suggesting these risks could remain elevated above normal for a long time to come.

The study, conducted by noted Long COVID researcher Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly and his team at the Washington University in St. Louis, examined the differential risks for COVID-19 patients who had been hospitalized with the disease vs. those who had not. It found that individuals who had been hospitalized with COVID-19 had significantly higher risks over time for all sequelae, including at two years post-infection, than those who had not been hospitalized.

Notably, hospitalized individuals remained at significantly increased risk of death at two years post-infection, whereas individuals not hospitalized for COVID-19 had a risk of death similar to the control group after two years. The hospitalized cohort remained at elevated risk for 65 percent of COVID-19 sequelae at two years versus 60 percent for the overall COVID-19 population.

Individuals infected but not hospitalized for COVID-19 remained at elevated risk for 31 percent of sequelae at two years, including cardiovascular, coagulation, endocrine, gastrointestinal, kidney, mental health, musculoskeletal and neurologic sequelae.

Looking at changes in risk over time, these non-hospitalized individuals’ risk of death returned to baseline after 6 months post-infection. Their risk of hospitalization only returned to baseline in the final three months of the two-year period, meaning they were at increased risk of hospitalization for approximately 1.75 years post-infection. This was also the case for another 20 sequelae for which non-hospitalized patients returned to a baseline risk at two years, meaning that non-hospitalized patients are at risk for 57 percent of sequelae for 1.75 years.

Another important finding of the study is that at two years, Long COVID sequelae among non-hospitalized patients generated 80.4 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for every 1,000 people. By this metric, a DALY represents a year of healthy life lost to illness. Among hospitalized patients, the figure rose to a staggering 642.8 DALYs per 1,000 people. These figures are far higher than the burden of disability caused by both heart disease and cancer, which cause roughly 52 and 50 DALYs for every 1,000 Americans, respectively.

Commenting on the elevated DALY figures associated with COVID-19 infection, Dr. Al-Aly told CNN, “When I looked at that initially, I was really shocked. That’s actually a huge number.” He added, “I think that we need to understand that infections lead to chronic disease and we need to take infection seriously.”

Lines present the cumulative disability adjusted life years (DALYs) due to COVID-19 per 1000 persons (y-axis) by days after infection (x-axis). Bands represent the 95% confidence intervals. Plots are ordered, from left to right and up to down, by cumulative burden at two years after infection. PASC, post-acute sequelae of COVID-19. [Photo by Bowe, B., Xie, Y. & Al-Aly, Z / CC BY 4.0]

The study had numerous strengths that increase the confidence in its results. It used a large electronic health record data set from the United States Veterans Affairs administration. This data set included large numbers of patients, with 138,818 COVID-19 patients and nearly 6 million control patients.

The researchers also conducted a number of sensitivity analyses to check for possible impacts of certain inclusion criteria for both the COVID-19 and control groups, as well for possible biases of the particular statistical methods used. These sensitivity analyses found that the results were not impacted. They included varying criteria related to vaccination status over time, re-infection with SARS-CoV-2, and the probability of healthcare utilization.

The study also used a “negative outcome control.” This means that they also studied outcomes that have not been reported in Long COVID patients, and thus they did not expect to see an elevated risk with COVID-19 at only two years post-infection. This was to ensure that there was as expected no differential risk between the COVID-19 and control groups. If they also found elevated risks of these kinds of outcomes, it would indicate potential problems with their statistical methodology.

For the negative outcome control, they looked at a number of cancers and confirmed that there was no differential risk in the development of cancer between the COVID-19 and control groups. Cancer is a particularly useful outcome to study at two years, because the development of cancer nearly always occurs over a longer timeframe. Thus, even if COVID-19 does end up being associated with increased risks of cancer at 5, 10, 15, etc., years post-infection, it would not be an issue at merely 2 years.

There are some limitations to the study. One limitation is that the researchers could not exclude from the control group individuals who developed COVID-19 but either were not tested at all, or self-tested or otherwise had a test outside the Veterans Affairs healthcare system. These tests would not be available in their data.

The net effect of this limitation, however, would be to improperly assign some risks of COVID-19 sequelae to the control group, and thus it would lower the differential magnitude of risks between the COVID-19 and control groups. So if anything, the study likely somewhat understates the risks of developing COVID-19 sequelae.

Another limitation is that being a US Veterans Affairs study, the population is not representative in two key respects. First it is an overwhelmingly male population and thus women are underrepresented. The researchers did not detect sex-specific differences in risk, but had too few women to detect anything but very large differences that one would not expect based on what is already known about Long COVID. Second, being a US-based study, the results are not representative of the entire world.

Of course the United States is an advanced industrialized nation, and as noted by leading worldwide COVID-19 experts in a recent Lancet editorial, its healthcare system has access to resources unavailable in most nations.

Even studying Long COVID sequelae in underdeveloped, resource poor nations is enormously challenging due to a lack of requisite infrastructure and resources, let alone their ability to manage tens of thousands and possibly millions of debilitated citizens. As the authors of the editorial note:

As we learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and better prepare for emerging threats, it is crucial to further investigate post-infection syndromes. These investigations will contribute to future pandemic preparedness and ensure that [low and middle income countries] are not once again marginalised in these efforts.

The pandemic has proven to be a global mass disabling event, as Long COVID advocates began to warn as early as 2020. As noted by the editorial, anywhere from 10 to 45 percent of those who suffer COVID-19 end up with Long COVID. Assuming conservatively that half of the 8.1 billion people alive worldwide have had at least one infection with SARS-CoV-2, that leads to a minimum of 405 million people now living with Long COVID globally, a monumental figure which exceeds the population of the United States.

A separate review article recently published in Nature detailing the specific biological mechanisms by which COVID-19 is thought to cause Long COVID notes that uncovering these mechanisms has been challenging because SARS-CoV-2 infection has an unprecedented array of effects on the body.

Despite the intensity and diversity of the research summarized, there is still much to learn and no theory about the causes of Long COVID is yet emerging as a leading one. The review article concludes:

The oncoming burden of long COVID faced by patients, health-care providers, governments and economies is so large as to be unfathomable, which is possibly why minimal high-level planning is currently allocated to it.

However, the authors are too charitable. The ruling class is not merely failing to plan for the oncoming burden of Long COVID because the burden is unfathomable. Rather, they are simply criminally indifferent to it and will not let any amount of human suffering come between them and their accumulation of wealth through the exploitation of the working class.

How people in Ukraine are declared traitors to the state: The mechanism of the repressive apparatus

Maxim Goldarb

Recently, almost every day, we have been reading in the Ukrainian news or hearing on TV about “state traitors” who were exposed by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) or the State Office of Investigation (GBR) and prosecutors, because they are suspected of anti-state activities and treason. As a rule, “traitors” include well-known public figures or politicians who disagree with the government’s policy, criticize it, speak out against the war and advocate peace, and reveal the corrupt motives and intentions of the current regime. More rarely, it is ordinary citizens who are exposed as “state traitors” for absolutely minor “offenses”: posts and likes on social media, public statements of their opinion, etc.

With this, the authorities pursue several goals:

1) Distracting the attention of Ukrainians from the government’s miscalculations, mistakes, crimes and failures;

2) The formation of the image of “enemies of the people”;

3) The criminal prosecution of political opponents and rivals;

4) The creation and cultivation of an all-encompassing atmosphere of fear, mutual distrust and hatred in Ukrainian society, based on the principle, “divide and rule.”

Points 1, 2, 4 are above all aimed at achieving psychological results: it is an attempt at mass deception of society, plunging it into an abyss of fear and distrust, while distracting attention from reality. Point 3 allows the government to deal with its opponents by removing them from the political scene, by throwing them into prisons, mutilating and even killing them, persecuting them, by taking away their property and business. 

For the uninitiated, the question undoubtedly arises: Why are opponents of the government and others often accused based on this particular article of the Criminal Code, this particular crime—treason? The answer is as follows: The definition of the crime of “state treason” in Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine is very vague and abstractly written. This gives the repressive apparatus the opportunity to charge anyone under it whom the president or his team decide to pick out. 

It should be remembered that the current version of this law was written and adopted by the deputies of President Zelensky’s ruling “Servant of the People” party. Thus, it is not surprising that it turned out to be just such a “multilateral” and vague law that can be interpreted in different ways, depending on the task at hand or the instructions received from above.

After all, you must agree that the concept of “an act committed to the detriment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability, defense capability, state, economic and information security of Ukraine” can be interpreted in almost any possible way. Anyone can be described with these words. The most important and basic issue is this: Who in Ukraine today has the right to apply, interpret and evaluate this law? It is definitely not the courts, but, rather, the special services and prosecutors, and both of them are completely dependent on the president or his structures who appoint and remove them. Having come to power, Zelensky did everything to influence the appointment of all heads of the law enforcement system, and to place his people there. Now, during the war, he has managed to concentrate all the power over the judicial system in Ukraine in his hands, even though this goes entirely against the provisions of the Ukrainian Constitution. 

The leadership of the investigative bodies—the state office of investigation (GBR), the Secret Service (SBU), the prosecutor’s office, the police, and the office of economic security (BEB)—and the judicial system are now fully controlled by and accountable to the office of the president. In fact, they are appointed and removed by it. 

US President Joe Biden and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev. [Photo: @POTUS Twitter]

Moreover, state treason is a particularly serious crime, and Article 111 provides for imprisonment of up to 15 years, while the criminal procedure law allows for the arrest of a suspect under this article without any right to bail or release.

Undoubtedly, any sensible lawyer from a democratic country would raise the concern: But to prove a person’s guilt in such a serious crime, there must be obvious and irrefutable evidence collected in an exclusively legal way, such as materials of operational activities (e.g., wiretapping, reading correspondence, surveillance, video and audio recordings of conversations, meetings, actions, physical evidence, qualitative agent’s reports, etc.). And only on the basis of the totality of all such evidence and its comprehensive evaluation in court would it be possible to have a fair and objective judicial decision on the guilt or innocence of the accused person. And such a lawyer would be absolutely right...

But with one correction. In the lawyer’s country, in their judicial system it may be necessary to thoroughly prove the guilt of a person before the judge to bring him to justice. In Ukraine, since the beginning of the war, there is no such need. None at all. All that is needed is to simply detain and place the opponent of the authorities, the victim, in custody and that’s it. Then, in the detention center the accused is confronted with unbearable conditions: He is subject to torture and ill-treatment, blackmail and abuse, and that for an indefinite period. The case is investigated, as it were, in a slow, very slow manner, and even if it goes to court, the arrested person continues to be held in custody. This is what is happening today. The whole world knows the terrible situation confronting left-wing activists and anti-fascists, such as the brothers Alexander and Mikhail Kononovich, the publicist and blogger Dmitry Skvortsov, the lawyer and human rights activist, Elena Berezhnaya, who is well known for her anti-fascist position, and many other public figure who have expressed oppositional views. 

But, the reader will ask: Is it not impossible to grab and throw a person behind bars, accusing him of one of the most serious crimes against the country, just as the Gestapo once did in Nazi Germany, without even the slightest legal justification? It is possible. Today in Ukraine it is possible. But in order to give the appearance of at least some legitimacy to the ongoing complete lawlessness, the prosecution authorities (the SBU, the state office of investigation, and the prosecutor’s office) have learned—attention!—to conduct “expert examinations” of a person’s words and statements, their comments and posts on social media.

For this purpose, employees of the prosecution bodies take the words of any opponent of the current government—whether it is a post on social media, a speech on TV, or an article in a newspaper—and appoint and conduct a special forensic linguistic examination, where the expert linguist answers the following questions posed to him by the investigation: 

1) Is there anything bad directed against Ukraine in these words? 

2) Is there anything in them that indicates that the person indirectly or directly supports the enemy?

3) Is there a causal relationship between these words and any following consequences?

And so on and so forth. As you will understand, any words, position, statement, can be called “bad,” simply because the forensic expert is operating based on highly relative and subjective evaluations and subjective perception. And the main question in such a case is to find the “right” expert, who will “correctly” evaluate the words of the victim of the regime and write the “necessary” expert report. 

Where does this expert come from? How is this expert report written? And here it becomes particularly interesting for those who have not yet encountered the machinations of the current system of persecution of dissent in Ukraine. Part of the expert review can be carried out in state institutes of forensic expertise, where the expert will be given an order by the director of the institute, will fulfill it, and write what is necessary. Because in Ukraine now experts do not bear responsibility for anything, they can write anything they want. 

In addition, there are also “appointed” experts whom the state system of persecution has helped to obtain the necessary license from the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, allowing them to conduct linguistic examinations. They are on the payroll of the state system of persecution and receive a very decent salary, for which they simply “clamp” the expertise needed by the system. If you want a bad expert report, they will write a bad one; if you want a good one, they will write a good one. Then the conclusions of this expert report are made the basis for bringing charges and for the initiation of the prosecution of a person: First he is charged, then he is put on a wanted list, he is detained, arrested, imprisoned, and so forth.

This is how Metropolitan Pavel, the vicar of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, the main Orthodox monastery in Ukraine, was treated and this is how many opposition members of parliament, public figures, politicians, leaders of political parties that have been banned by Zelensky’s government, and other “state traitors” were treated. This is how those are treated whom the current government considers its enemies but against whom the government has no evidence of guilt.  

Think about how frankly silly and delusional the accusation of state treason against a former MP who owns a TV channel that was closed by President Zelensky sounds: He created a TV channel where anti-state opinions were voiced? Is it possible to believe that a conscientious, intelligent, real expert has checked the entire terabyte array of information, has reviewed several years of footage from the TV channel with thousands of politicians, activists, public figures, journalists, experts, specialists, viewers, and has checked and weighed billions of words and sentences and speeches? And that, on this basis, the conscientious expert was able to come to the conclusion that this TV channel had an anti-state, treasonous policy? Of course not. It is absurd. And yet in Ukraine, they amicably prepared an absolutely unsubstantiated expert report. And on the basis of this report’s accusatory conclusions, a former people’s deputy was accused of state treason and put on the wanted list. 

In total, over the last year and a half, more than 1,500 criminal cases have been opened in Ukraine under the article of “high treason.” In other words, on average, two or three criminal cases are opened under this article every single day.

To repeat: The conclusions of the investigative body (in our country, this is, in fact, the prosecution) which are arrived at in accordance with the law mean nothing to the court and are not proof of a person’s guilt. Until the case is considered in court, no evidence plays any role at all. Only the evidence that is presented in court or investigated by the judge during the trial matters. But in order to accuse someone of a crime, the investigating or prosecuting authority must collect at least some data that would somehow testify to the correctness of the opinion of the investigating or prosecuting authority about the guilt of a person. This is where this inherently deceitful examination of a person’s allegedly anti-state views comes in.

This does not mean that the accused will necessarily be convicted and found guilty. Rather, on the contrary, a normal court will find them innocent and their guilt unproven. But obviously, this will not happen anytime soon, certainly not until the current regime changes. And which of the political prisoners will live to see this, is, unfortunately, an open question …

Is information that is distributed about peace and that advocates for peace anti-Ukrainian information? For the current government, the “party of war,” for those who want this war to continue, who make money off it, and for whom the war means a prolongation of their political life cycle, the answer is: yes.

Scholz’s “Germany Pact”: A war alliance against the population

Johannes Stern

“I no longer know any parties, I only know Germans,” declared Kaiser Wilhelm in his infamous speech to the Reichstag on August 4, 1914, when Germany began World War I and the Social Democrats (SPD) agreed to war credits. Chancellor Olaf Scholz's (SPD) call for a “Germany Pact” stands in this dark tradition. In order to impose its policies of austerity and war against the growing opposition, the ruling class is closing ranks.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks on the second day of the budget 2024 debate at the German parliament Bundestag in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023. [AP Photo/Markus Schreiber]

“We need a national effort. Let's join forces!” Scholz explained in his Bundestag (federal parliament) speech on Wednesday. “I would therefore like to propose a pact, let’s say: a Germany pact—a Germany pact that makes our country faster, more modern and safer. Speed instead of stagnation, action instead of sitting out, cooperation instead of quarrels.” This is “the order of the hour.”

His proposal is not only “explicitly” addressed to the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) as the largest opposition fraction in the Bundestag, but to all parties and organisations—the “federal government, the federal states, cities and municipalities, companies and authorities, associations and trade unions.” Only together will we “shake off the mildew of bureaucracy, risk aversion and despondency that has spread over our country for years and decades,” said Scholz. 

It is clear what the Chancellor means. The budget, which is currently being discussed in the Bundestag, is a declaration of war on the working population. It contains massive cuts and aims to launch the largest rearmament offensive since the end of World War II. According to the plans of the SPD/Green/Free Democrat (FDP) coalition government, €85.5 billion will flow into the military next year. This represents an increase of one third compared to the estimated figure for 2023 of €65 billion.

The new draft budget for 2024 shows only an increase of €1.7 billion to €51.8 billion (plus 1.68 percent) in military spending. But in addition, €19.17 billion will be spent from the €100 billion “Special Fund for the German army” (Bundeswehr), which the government decided on last year with the support of the opposition parties. And numerous other military expenditures are hidden in other budget areas. For the regime in Kiev alone, the government has estimated annual military aid of €5 billion. 

Scholz made clear in his speech that the rearmament orgy will be intensified in the coming years and decades. “We are now spending the €100 billion so that the Bundeswehr has the NATO quota of 2 percent (of GDP) available from next year.” He continued that “already today” it is “clear that we will have to finance an additional €25 billion, perhaps almost €30 billion for the Bundeswehr directly from the federal budget by 2028 at the latest.”

Scholz justified the permanent militarization of the budget with well-known propaganda. The “Russian war of aggression” represents a “turning point” and “threat” to the “security architecture in Europe” and will occupy Germany “not only in this, but many, many legislative periods” to come. In fact, the leading NATO powers provoked Putin’s reactionary invasion of Ukraine and are now escalating the war further and further. German imperialism, which invaded Ukraine twice in the 20th century and tried to subjugate Russia, is once again pursuing the goal of becoming the dominant European military power.

In order to finance the German war offensive, the ruling class is organizing historically unprecedented social spending cuts. “The seriousness of the situation” was “not served by rhetoric and populism,” Scholz warned, but “with everything we are doing now, we are helping to ensure that we will be able to raise this budget in the year ahead.'

The current draft budget already contains the deepest cuts in post-war history. The health budget alone is slashed by 33.7 percent from €24.48 billion to €16.22 billion, after it had already been cut by almost 40 billion euros the year before. There will also be far less money for education and numerous social benefits. For example, expenditure on the maternity convalescence centre and family holiday homes is reduced by 93 percent each, for youth education and youth meeting places by 77 percent, for free youth welfare by 19 percent, for student aid by 24 percent and for housing benefits by 16 percent.

And this is only the beginning. A campaign for even greater savings is already underway in the political establishment and the media. A column in Der Spiegel entitled “The rollback of the welfare state has begun” praises the German government for having “drastically curtailed” the original wishes of the Federal Minister for Family Affairs Lisa Paus “for new billions for children in need.”

Now, “there is already a demand for able-bodied recipients of citizens’ benefit to become volunteers, and the next target is likely to be the ‘pension at 63’.” For the ruling class, the current budget of €172 billion for the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs is simply unacceptable and will have to fall victim to the red pen in the future—with devastating consequences for millions of workers and their families.

The deliberate impoverishment of the population in the name of rearmament and war goes hand in hand with massive attacks on democratic rights and anti-refugee agitation in the style of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). In his speech, Scholz praised the government’s decision to “classify Georgia and Moldova as safe countries of origin” as “important progress in the fight against irregular migration.”

“I am very grateful to Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) that she has also made very concrete suggestions for improvement to the federal states concerning repatriation in connection with the expansion of deportation detention and in many other areas. This too must be part of the Germany Pact,” he stated.

Workers and young people must understand that the “Germany Pact” is a threat of war. Behind the official phrases of “security,” “digitization” and “reduction of bureaucracy,” it is about rearmament, war, social spending cuts and the establishment of a de facto dictatorship against the population. All parties and organisations of the ruling class are already working closely together. In eight federal states, the SPD, Greens, and FDP, which make up the so-called “traffic light” coalition at the federal level, rule with the CDU and in three with the Left Party. At the municipal level, all government parties have long been openly pacting with the far-right AfD, which is also integrated into political work at the state and federal level via the parliamentary committees.

The unions are part of this all-party conspiracy. Verdi, IG Metall and the entire DGB (German Trade Union Federation) already concluded a pact with the government last year, the so-called “Concerted Action.” They support the war policy and play a key role in enforcing the attacks. In the public service, the postal service and, most recently, the railways, in close cooperation with the government and companies, they enforced massive real wage reductions and a further deterioration in working conditions.

But the resistance to this is growing. This is demonstrated by the massive opposition across workplaces, which is increasingly reflected in the establishment of independent rank-and-file committees. The coalition government is despised just halfway through its legislative term. According to the current ARD Germany trend poll, only 19 percent of the population are satisfied with the government's work. Above all, Scholz's Germany Pact aims to conceal the fear of a social storm brewing beneath the surface. In their speeches in the Bundestag, the Chancellor and many other speakers repeatedly invoked “social cohesion.”

On Brazil’s Independence Day, Lula government seeks to strengthen armed forces

Guilherme Ferreira

In recent weeks, the political crisis in Brazil has reached a new stage as a series of investigations, stemming from corruption scandals to the plots for a coup d’état, are getting increasingly closer to the former fascistic president Jair Bolsonaro and his political and military circle. In response, the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers Party, PT) has redoubled its commitment to protect and politically rehabilitate the armed forces that conspired alongside Bolsonaro to overthrow democratic forms of rule in Brazil.

President Lula reviews troops on Brazil's Independence Day [Photo: Ricardo Stuckert/Twitter]

In the latest attempt in this direction, the PT decided to use the celebration of Brazil’s Independence Day on September 7 to link the armed forces to “democracy” and “national unity,” while seeking to “depoliticize” and “re-signify” the green and yellow of the Brazilian flag that in recent years became the symbol of the fascistic movement connected to Bolsonaro.

In the last two years, the Independence Day celebrations joined massive military parades with demonstrations of Bolsonaro’s fascistic supporters calling for a new military dictatorship. The armed forces, which fully promoted the president’s challenge to Brazil’s electronic voting system, were the co-organizers of last year’s political-military rallies of September 7.

This process unfolded amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in which a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry of the Brazilian Senate pointed out nine crimes committed by Bolsonaro. Today, he is being investigated in more than 20 cases before the Federal Supreme Court (STF), the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) and other judicial bodies.

The collaboration of the Brazilian armed forces with Bolsonaro has already led to 13 military officials being investigated, with the possibility of this number increasing in the coming period and reaching the senior army officers who participated in his government. One of them, Bolsonaro’s former personal assistant, Lt. Col. Mauro Cid, has been under arrest since the beginning of June for having falsified Bolsonaro’s vaccination card. He is also being investigated in seven other cases, including the January 8 coup attempt and the illegal sale in the US of jewelry received by Bolsonaro from foreign dignitaries.

On Cid’s cell phone, seized in May by the Federal Police, was found the so-called “coup draft,” which, according to the STF minister in charge of the investigation, Alexandre de Moraes, provided a “legal and juridical roadmap for the execution of a coup d’état.”

After remaining silent in a previous appearance before the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) of the Brazilian Congress investigating the January 8 coup, Cid only last week spoke for more than 22 hours in two sessions with the Federal Police. A plea bargain proposal was submitted to the Supreme Court on Wednesday. According to a source who spoke to GloboNews journalist Andrea Sadi, Mauro Cid’s statements focused on the “coup script” and were described as “broad, diverse and bad for Bolsonaro.”

She also reported that “military officials in the Bolsonaro government are ... concerned about what he can report about involvement and meetings with Heleno, Braga Netto, and new characters from the military nucleus.” Gen. Augusto Heleno was head of the Bolsonaro government’s Institutional Security Office (GSI), and Gen. Walter Braga Netto was Bolsonaro’s chief of staff and his vice-presidential running mate. Both may be summoned to give evidence before the CPI.

Among the high-ranking military personnel involved in corruption schemes and in the January 8 coup plots are Gen. Mauro César Lourena Cid, the father of Lt. Col. Mauro Cid, and Gen. Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, former minister of defense in the Bolsonaro government.

In this context, in which the top ranks of the armed forces are heavily implicated in Bolsonaro’s coup plot, the Lula government is doing everything it can to shield them. The daily Globo reported on August 28 that, as the investigations into the military progressed, Lula’s defense minister, José Múcio, and Army Commander Gen. Tomás Paiva “have launched an offensive in recent weeks to try to avoid damaging the image of the armed forces.” They are advancing the claim that it is necessary to “preserve the institution” and “individualize the conduct” of the military personnel involved in the January 8 attacks.

As part of this offensive, a meeting was held on August 23 between Gen. Paiva, Minister Múcio, and the president, and rapporteur of the CPI, Arthur Maia, and Eliziane Gama, who have been fraudulently reiterating that the armed forces not only did not take part in the January 8 coup but prevented it from happening.

More significantly, Minister Múcio, General Paiva, along with the heads of the Navy and Air Force, met with President Lula on August 19. Exposing the “extraordinary nature” of the meeting, veteran journalist Jânio de Freitas said in his weekly program on August 25 that “the government owes a clearer explanation of what happened there. ... The population has a right to know.” However, Lula remained silent about the meeting, with the website Terra reporting that a source present said the president “reiterated [his] confidence in the armed forces.”

The cowardly stance of the Lula government concerning the most significant attack on Brazilian democracy since the 1964 military coup has been widely criticized, including by members of the PT itself. Federal Deputy Carlos Zarattini said in an interview with Forum last Monday, “The government should withdraw its veto of the CPI through Múcio to prevent an investigation into the military who participated in coordinating the [January 8] coup.” Previously, the Lula government, which was supposed to be the most interested in shedding light on the events of January 8, had worked hard to prevent the CPI itself from being set up.

However, the belief that the cover-up of the military’s role is being carried out only by Minister Múcio is belied both by recent developments and by the record of previous PT governments to the military. Lula has kept Mucio in office even after he praised the pro-coup encampments in front of the Army General Barracks that prepared the attack on the headquarters of the three branches of government as “demonstrations of democracy.” The defense minister has repeatedly insisted that the page must be turned on the January 8 coup as quickly as possible.

In early August, the Lula government fulfilled its promise made immediately after the January 8 coup of an investment of 53 billion reais (US$10.6 billion) for numerous armed forces programs. In contrast, the announced budgets for health and education were 45 billion reais and 31 billion reais, respectively.

According to the government’s website, this investment aims to “generate employment and foster neo-industrialization,” strengthening the “national defense capacity” and the “Defense Industrial Base. ... Currently, the sector represents around 5 percent of the gross domestic product and generates 2.9 million direct and indirect jobs.”

In a harsh response, the Brazilian associations of Defense Studies, Social Sciences, and Political Science wrote in a joint note, “The budget allocated today to the armed forces is not compatible with the construction of a democratic society ... The government cannot continue to be held hostage by an institution marked by a coup tradition.”

If the Lula government is “held hostage,” this is not because of external pressure but because of its own policies. What has prevented the PT from drawing the fundamental lessons from the years of military dictatorship in Brazil between 1964 and 1985 and, more recently, from the coming to power of an ardent supporter of military dictatorship like Bolsonaro, is its nationalist and pro-corporate character. 

Today, this program is leading the PT to repeat and deepen, in a much more explosive international context marked by the war in Ukraine, the policy that its previous governments implemented between 2003 and 2016, paving the way for new defeats of the Brazilian and international working class.

During this period, the the PT governments of Lula and Dilma Rousseff strengthened and increased the autonomy of the Brazilian armed forces, which received the most significant investment in their history. As is being repeated today, they were considered by the PT governments of the time as part of their national economic development strategy, which led to the creation of specialized defense divisions in large Brazilian companies, such as the giant contractor Odebrecht, now involved in constructing Brazil’s nuclear submarine project.

As part of its “active” foreign policy, Brazil commanded the United Nations “peace operation” in Haiti, led by General Heleno. Domestically, they were used to suppress protests against the 2014 World Cup, the 2016 Olympic Games, oil privatization and countless other mass demonstrations. At the same time, when confronted by the military, the PT governments of Lula and Dilma Rousseff capitulated. In the most significant episode, the National Truth Commission, which ran from 2011 to 2014 and investigated military crimes under the Brazilian dictatorship (1964-1985), was ended without a single charge against the military.

The main military document of the PT government, the 2008 National Defense Strategy, summed up the PT’s program on the military: “the national project for the military forces [is a] means of uniting the nation above social class differences.”

As the history of Brazil and Latin America has shown over the last century, the policy of “national unity” of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalist governments has only paved the way for strengthening the extreme right and the threat of new military coups in the region.

Russia strengthens ties with African military juntas calling to expel French troops

Athiyan Silva & Alex Lantier

A week ago, a Russian delegation led by Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov visited Burkina Faso and met with the head of the military junta, Ibrahim Traoré. Russia has not had a formal diplomatic presence in Burkina Faso since 1992, when the Soviet embassy closed as the Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the Soviet Union.

After meeting with Traoré, Yevkurov told reporters they had discussed military aid, nuclear energy and economic ties. He said, “We will do our best to help you develop in all these spheres. I have already reminded your president of this. In the field of military cooperation, we will discuss the training format of your cadets and officers of different levels, including pilots, in our country.”

The Russian-Burkinabè military talks highlighted both the explosive international geopolitical tensions emerging amid the NATO war with Russia in Ukraine, and complex political issues raised by the growing mobilization of African workers and youth against imperialism.

In this photo released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Saturday, March 4, 2023, Russia's Deputy Defense Ministers Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, left, Viktor Goremykin, center and Valery Gerasimov attend Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu's meeting with military commanders in Russia. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service photo via AP) [AP Photo]

The junta in Burkina Faso, like those in nearby Mali and Niger, came to power amid deep popular opposition to French imperialism’s 2013-2022 war in Mali and across the Sahel. All three juntas have asked France, the former colonial power, to withdraw troops from their countries. While Paris has called for Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and other countries in the French-backed Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to invade and topple the three juntas, Moscow is offering these juntas support.

Denunciations of Russian operations in Africa by NATO imperialist powers such as France reek of hypocrisy. They are part of a thinly-disguised attempt to maintain these powers’ crumbling domination of the region, including, potentially, by plunging the entire Sahel into war.

Thus French President Emmanuel Macron’s dismissed the Nigerien, Burkinabè and Malian juntas’ ties with Moscow as anti-democratic and a “baroque alliance of self-proclaimed pan-Africanists with neo-imperialists.” Given France’s colonial past, and its wars against Algerian and Cameroonian independence that cost hundreds of thousands of lives, such remarks have no credibility. After a decade of bloody French operations in Mali and across the Sahel, masses of African workers and youth legitimately view them with contempt.

Nevertheless, bitter historical experience shows African workers cannot rely on military alliances with Moscow to oppose imperialism. The struggle against imperialism, which has deep ties with the African capitalist class, requires an African and international mobilization of the working class and oppressed masses on a revolutionary, socialist program, aiming to overthrow the economic power of the ruling elites. This is the lesson in particular of the French-backed ouster and murder of pro-Soviet Burkinabè President Thomas Sankara by Blaise Compaoré in 1987.

Neither the post-Soviet capitalist regime in Moscow, nor the military juntas in the Sahel aim to carry out such a struggle. The Kremlin views the Sahel primarily as a bargaining chip in its dealings with the NATO imperialist powers amid the war in Ukraine. It would readily abandon African workers, as it did in the 1990s, if it believed it could thereby reach a deal with NATO.

As for the junta, it sits atop the state machine of the old Compaoré regime. The junta now criticizes certain French imperialist interests, in response to mass popular sentiment in Burkina Faso and across the Sahel. However, the regime retains close ties to European and US capital, and especially the powerful international mining and energy conglomerates active in the Sahel.

Traoré, a 34-year-old officer, came to power through coups in January and September 2022, shortly after French troops left Mali at the demand of the junta there. Last year’s coups in Burkina Faso removed President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, a puppet of French imperialism and longstanding ally of Compaoré. During the coups, protesters in the capital, Ouagadougou, waved Russian flags.

The day after he took power, Traoré gave a televised speech which did not cut ties with Paris but declared he would seek an additional partnership with Moscow. Referring to the bloody war France had waged in the Sahel as a “partnership” with the Burkinabè military, Traoré said: “The French have long been our partners, but we could have other partners now to support us. We are in fact in a partnership with Russia. We need to strengthen it.”

Three months later, the Burkinabè junta ultimately requested that French troops leave the country.

Traoré then traveled to Russia for talks with President Vladimir Putin at the July Russian-Africa summit in Saint Petersburg. This came just after protests in Niger, the country in the Francophone Sahel with the largest population and the most strategic uranium and oil reserves, led to the installation of a military junta in Niger via a coup on July 26. After mass protests outside NATO’s main military base in Niger, the junta has now asked French troops to leave its territory.

Speaking to Putin in Saint Petersburg, Traoré again hailed cooperation with Russia but also stressed that he views French imperialism not as an oppressor of working people and youth in Burkina Faso, but as a “traditional partner.”

He said, “Let me assure you that our people support you and our government. You talked about the Russian Embassy, the Soviet Embassy that was closed in 1992, but we have already taken a number of steps to reopen it. I hope this will be done as soon as possible, whether it is an embassy or a Russian military mission. At present, our sub-region is going through difficult times. It has found itself in a zone of turbulence. We want to change our policy. Some of our traditional partners are turning their back on us, and we see who our true friend is.”

This is a more or less overt admission that, unlike workers and youth across the Sahel who want to expel imperialism from Africa, the Burkinabè junta is seeking to maneuver between the imperialist powers and the Kremlin. It is not leading, but rather blocking a struggle against imperialism.

This poses enormous dangers for the working class in the Sahel. Some of the issues raised by Putin’s alliance with regimes in the Sahel emerged this week, in reports that the Kremlin may provide security for the Niger junta. RIA Novosti cited a Russian intelligence report analyzing Washington’s plans to intervene against pro-Russian regimes in Africa and referring to CIA targeting of pro-Soviet African bourgeois nationalist figures in the 20th century:

“The White House is working on different options to ‘reinforce democracy’ in Niger. It does not support doing this via an intervention of ECOWAS, which has close ties with Paris. The Americans consider the physical elimination of ‘putschists’ who count upon the support of the majority of the population as a more ‘effective’ option. …
“Starting in the 1960s, the Americans have sought to ‘provide’ the African continent with strong national leaders. The CIA notably contributed to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, the toppling of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, and the arrest of Nelson Mandela in South Africa.”

Today, the imperialist powers are doubtless seeking allies and support inside the region’s ruling elites, to plot wars and the installation of new dictatorships to crush the anti-imperialist mobilization of workers and youth.

In the 20th century, they found anti-communist dictators like Mobutu Sese Seko, who led the ouster and murder of Lumumba in 1960, or Compaoré, who ousted Sankara. Ruling circles in Africa were terrified that the social promises to the population made by figures like Lumumba or Sankara cut across their privileges and ties to imperialism. This took place, moreover, at a time when the African bourgeois regimes were much further to the left. Figures like Lumumba or Sankara were popular internationally and made a far stronger social and political appeal than the leaders of today’s juntas in the Sahel.