Washington Has Been At War For 16 Years: Why?

Paul Craig Roberts

For sixteen years the US has been at war in the Middle East and North Africa, running up trillions of dollars in expenses, committing untold war crimes, and sending millions of war refugees to burden Europe, while simultaneously claiming that Washington cannot afford its Social Security and Medicare obligations or to fund a national health service like every civilized country has.

Considering the enormous social needs that cannot be met because of the massive cost of these orchestrated wars, one would think that the American people would be asking questions about the purpose of these wars. What is being achieved at such enormous costs? Domestic needs are neglected so that the military/security complex can grow fat on war profits.

The lack of curiousity on the part of the American people, the media, and Congress about the purpose of these wars, which have been proven to be based entirely on lies, is extraordinary.  What explains this conspiracy of silence, this amazing disinterest in the squandering of money and lives?

Most Americans seem to vaguely accept these orchestrated wars as the government’s response to 9/11.  This adds to the mystery as it is a fact that Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Iran (Iran not yet attacked except with threats and sanctions) had nothing to do with 9/11.  But these countries have Muslim populations, and the Bush regime and presstitute media succeeded in associating 9/11 with Muslims in general.

Perhaps if Americans and their “representatives” in Congress understood what the wars are about, they would rouse themselves to make objections. So, I will tell you what Washington’s war on Syria and Washington’s intended war on Iran are about.  Ready?

There are three reasons for Washington’s war, not America’s war as Washington is not America, on Syria.  The first reason has to do with the profits of the military/security complex.

The military/security complex is a combination of powerful private and governmental interests that need a threat to justify an annual budget that exceeds the GDP of many countries. War gives this combination of private and governmental interests a justification for its massive budget, a budget whose burden falls on American taxpayers whose real median family income has not risen for a couple of decades while their debt burden to support their living standard has risen.

The second reason has to do with the Neoconservative ideology of American world hegemony. According to the Neoconservatives, who most certainly are not conservative of any description, the collapse of communism and socialism means that History has chosen “Democratic Capitalism,” which is neither democratic nor capitalist, as the World’s Socio-Economic-Political system and it is Washington’s responsibility to impose Americanism on the entire world.  Countries such as Russia, China, Syria, and Iran, who reject American hegemony must be destabilized and destroyed as they stand in the way of American unilateralism.

The Third reason has to do with Israel’s need for the water resources of Southern Lebanon. Twice Israel has sent the vaunted Israeli Army to occupy Southern Lebanon, and twice the vaunted Israeli Army was driven out by Hezbollah, a militia supported by Syria and Iran.

To be frank, Israel is using America to eliminate the Syrian and Iranian governments that provide military and economic support to Hezbollah. If Hezbollah’s suppliers can be eliminated by the Americans, Israel’s army can steal Southern Lebanon, just as it has stolen Palestine and parts of Syria.

Here are the facts: For 16 years the insouciant American population has permitted a corrupt government in Washington to squander trillions of dollars needed domestically but instead allocated to the profits of the military/security complex, to the service of the Neoconservative ideology of US world hegemony, and to the service of Israel.

Clearly, American democracy is a fraud.  It serves everyone but Americans.

What is the likely consequence of the US government serving non-American interests?

The best positive outcome is poverty for the 99 percent. The worst outcome is nuclear Armageddon.

Washington’s service to the military/security complex, to the Neoconservative ideology, and to Israel completely neglects over-powering facts.

Israel’s interest to overthrow Syria and Iran is totally inconsistent with Russia’s interest to prevent the import of jihadism into the Russian Federation and Central Asia. Therefore, Israel has put the US into direct military conflict with Russia.

The US military/security complex’s financial interests to surround Russia with missile sites is inconsistent with Russian sovereignty as is the Neoconservatives’ emphasis on US world hegemony.

President Trump does not control Washington. Washington is controlled by the military/security complex (watch on youtube President Eisenhower’s description of the military/security complex as a threat to American democracy), by the Israel Lobby, and by the Neoconservatives. These three organized interest groups have pre-empted the American people, who are powerless and are uninvolved in the decisions about their future.

Every US Representative and US Senator who stood up to Israel was defeated by Israel in their re-election campaign.  This is the reason that when Israel wants something it passes both houses of Congress unanimously.  As Admiral Tom Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said publicly, “No American President can stand up to Israel.” Israel gets what it wants no matter what the consequences are for America.

Adm. Moorer was right. The US gives Israel every year enough money to purchase our government.  And Israel does purchase our government. The US government is far more accountable to Israel than to the American people. The votes of the House and Senate prove this.

Unable to stand up to tiny Israel, Washington thinks it can buffalo Russia and China. For Washington to continue to provoke Russia and China is a sign of insanity.  In the place of intelligence we see hubris and arrogance, the hallmarks of fools.

What Planet Earth, and the creatures thereon, need more than anything is leaders in the West who are intelligent, who have a moral conscience, who respect truth, and who are capable of understanding the limits to their power.

But the Western World has no such people.

Charity CEO’s Get Rich by Taking From the Poor

Sally Dugman

The greed and selfishness that the free market capitalist economy inspires seem to impact every area of social and commercial interaction in consenting societies. It’s not just Wall Street and government leaders caught in the trap. It’s the entire system that is set to keep moving ever more money to the top economic tier by siphoning it from the bottom and middle ones.

Money/wealth expands relatively slowly, so that when one sector of society appropriates more of it (as, for example, through the patterns of economic disaster schemes Naomi Klein describes), then the remaining sectors must make do with less. Ultimately, the country increasingly becomes a banana republic with a huge lower class, a hugely affluent upper class and not much in between.

Years ago, the founder of central Massachusetts’s food bank mentioned obscenely high salaries that directors of a major, well-known Massachusetts charity providing funds for hungry Americans received every year an amount purposefully made difficult for the public to access, since all the volunteers for this charity, which raises millions of dollars each year, would be greatly dismayed to learn that around a fourth of those revenues were enriching upper management.

In other words, approximately a quarter of the money raised went to salaries and much of the rest went into advertising so that, in the final reckoning, only a modest amount actually helped to provide food security. What a seamy racket! The unwary public, eager to work hard to uplift starving Americans, is duped in the process.

Granted, the concerned charity’s directors were talented in terms of advertising and promoting the aid organization. Yet it is difficult to imagine that competent executives and other upper-tier staff willing to work for much less out of devotion to the cause that they are advancing could not be found.

In the end, is it money only that’s a primary motivator for the people who plot, scheme, climb and claw their way into the top positions in organizations as an outright self-enrichment gambit? If so, what a sad state of affairs even if they have the skills to be adept in their jobs!

In addition, what does such a situation imply about the underlying social values, ethics and principles that guide all manner of social issues in countries whose public condones such a pattern? Perhaps the general situation is best summed up by John Berger:

“The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing.”

Do we really imagine that executives of businesses like the aforementioned Massachusetts charity and Boys & Girls Clubs (“Senators question $1 million pay for charity’s CEO”) will self-police to avoid blatant financial abuse when it is potentially so personally lucrative not to do so? Do government representatives want to regulate abusive executive compensation in either the profit or non-profit sectors, when they themselves indirectly benefit in myriad ways from lack of organizational governance and regulation?

Finally, does free market enterprise without tight controls really represent the best way to serve societies as a whole? Overall, does the prevailing model of capitalism benefit the majority of people and preserve an intact natural world when a small segment of people wielding economic and political power derive so much gain from taking advantage of their position? Can current patterns of economic growth and management be just to the eco-systems and working populations on which it depends?

Infighting re-erupts in Australian government

Mike Head

Less than a week after frantically cobbling together just enough votes to push a regressive school-funding bill through the Senate before a six-week winter recess, the Turnbull government’s self-proclaimed “victory” has turned to dust.

The government claimed that last week’s passage of the pro-private school “Gonski” bill proved it could push ahead with its agenda despite having only a one-seat majority in the House of Representatives and holding just 29 seats in the 76-member Senate. The events of the past week, however, underscore the instability of the government and the entire political establishment.

No sooner was the bill passed than renewed factional warfare broke out in the ruling Liberal Party between Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s supposed “moderate” wing and the more stridently right-wing conservative camp of Turnbull’s ousted predecessor Tony Abbott.

The infighting was triggered by the leaking of a speech by Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne boasting to members of Turnbull’s “left” faction that it was now the dominant force in the government. This was seized upon by conservatives, who demanded, and obtained, an apology from Pyne. Leading the pack was Abbott, who spent this week giving speeches and radio interviews making thinly-veiled criticisms of the government and issuing his own six-point manifesto to “Make Australia Work Again.”

These are symptoms of a deeper political crisis, which has seen governments, both Liberal-National and Labor, fall in rapid succession since 2007, beset by mounting domestic and global pressures.

No government has been able to suppress the seething opposition in the working class to the austerity offensive demanded by the corporate elite to slash wages and working conditions and social spending, particularly on education, health and welfare. These social tensions will escalate from July 1, when electricity and gas prices will soar, adding hundreds of dollars to annual household bills under conditions of falling wages.

At the same time, there have been intensifying demands from Washington for an unconditional involvement in US military operations, especially those directed against China, Australian capitalism’s largest export market.

Abbott himself was removed by his Liberal Party in September 2015 after it became clear that key measures in the government’s 2014 budget would remain blocked in the Senate, whose Labor, Greens and crossbench members feared electoral suicide if they voted for them. Last July, Turnbull tried to break the deadlock by calling a double-dissolution election of both houses of parliament, but the result was disastrous, making the government’s survival even more precarious.

Now the financial elite and its media mouthpieces are drawing the conclusion that Turnbull, who promised them he would produce an “economic narrative” to overcome the social and political disaffection, is no more capable than Abbott of delivering on his pledges.

These concerns were only aggravated by the deals that Turnbull struck with the right-wing populists in the Senate, including Pauline Hanson’s anti-immigrant One Nation, to scrape together the numbers for the school-funding bill. These deals included promising to spend $5 billion more than originally intended over the next six years.

Yesterday’s Australian Financial Review editorial provided a taste of the frustration in ruling circles. It fumed against the Gonski outcome and declared: “Turnbull’s ‘economic leadership’ was as hollow from the start as Mr Abbott’s. The day he snatched office he said the government needed a new economic narrative. He didn’t have one.”

Equally damning was a column by the Australian’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan, entitled “Modern Liberals are rotten to their core beliefs.” Ominously, he concluded: “Now, the Liberals’ basic policy is to do whatever Labor was going to do, but a billion or two less, thereby claiming a faux fiscal responsibility. Politically, this tactic will ultimately be disastrous.”

On top of that, the advent of the Trump presidency, combined with the increasing assertiveness of the US military and intelligence apparatus, has made it ever-more difficult for Turnbull to stall on escalating Australia’s frontline engagement in the Pentagon’s war drive against China.

After taking office, Turnbull was at pains to champion the US alliance, dropping his previous calls for Washington to make some accommodations to China’s economic rise. But he has not yet committed Australian forces to any confrontation with China, such as in the South China Sea, which would imperil the super-profits being made by Australian mining and other companies in China.

This position is becoming untenable. Two visiting US generals this week added their voices to the demands made by a parade of American political and “deep state” figures in recent weeks, including Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain and ex-CIA chief and general, David Petraeus.

Delivering a speech on Wednesday in Brisbane, US Pacific Command Admiral Harry Harris insisted that Australia had to play a leading role, with other “partners” in the Asia Pacific region, in military operations ostensibly directed against Islamic State. These interventions, such as that underway in the southern Philippine province of Mindanao, are actually focused on undermining anyone, like Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who seeks support from China for economic reasons.

Harris, a fervent advocate of dispatching warships and planes to challenge China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea via so-called freedom of navigation exercises, also reiterated his calls for action to stop China establishing “de facto sovereignty” over the strategic waterway.

US Marine General David Berger, in Australia for this year’s Talisman Sabre US-Australian military war games, went further, advocating the deployment of Australian “expeditionary forces” to Mindanao, where the Turnbull government last week sent surveillance planes to support operations by US Special Forces and the Philippine military.

Conducted in northern Australia, the Talisman Sabre exercises feature some 33,000 troops rehearsing aggressive military operations, including “Special Forces activities” and “amphibious landings.” These are themselves preparations for confrontations with China.

It was in this context that Abbott this week ramped-up his agitation against the Turnbull government. Evidently, he believes he could be called back into office when the government crumbles. According to the Sydney Daily Telegraph, he told colleagues he would be there to pick up the pieces when “things go badly under Malcolm.”

Abbott’s hopes may appear delusional, given his current lack of support in the Liberal Party. But his six “Make Australia Work Again” slogans, seemingly channeling Trump’s “Make America Great Again” rhetoric, set out a right-wing authoritarian blueprint. Abbott’s program features abolishing the powers of the Senate to block legislation, slashing public spending, cutting immigration, using the military for domestic repression and using the “shoot to kill” powers of the police to maintain order.

With an eye to Washington’s agenda, Abbott this week added military policy to his campaign against the government. He suggested acquiring US nuclear-power submarines that would offer “even closer interoperability and integration with American forces,” as well as meet the Trump administration’s calls for military “burden sharing.”

Abbott also conveyed his support for sending Australian forces into the 12-mile territorial zones around Chinese-controlled islets in the South China Sea. He noted that the Labor Party had been “stronger than the government on the assertion of freedom of navigation rights.”

These machinations indicate that political turmoil lies ahead, as well as great dangers of war and repression. Thus far, however, the immense discontent in the working class has not translated into a conscious movement against the entire economic and political order.

That requires the development of a new revolutionary socialist leadership in the working class, against all the efforts of Labor, the Greens and the trade unions to corrall the disaffection back behind the return of yet another pro-business and militarist Labor government.

Haitian apparel workers continue strike, defying threats and violence

John Marion

Haitian textile workers are courageously continuing a strike in Port-au-Prince to demand an increase in the minimum wage to 800 gourdes (approximately $12.70) per day, despite violence and threats by factory owners to take jobs out of the country. The current minimum wage is only 300 gourdes.

On Monday, several thousand workers marched peacefully through the streets of Port-au-Prince, blocking traffic. Alterpresse quoted one of the strikers: “We are in the streets to demand 800 gourdes as a salary. The bosses treat us badly while their dogs are treated well.”

The strike began on May 19 at the SANOPI industrial park in Port-au-Prince. The following Tuesday, tear gas was fired at striking workers by the Haitian National Police, and union leaders offered within days of the strike’s beginning to settle for only 400 gourdes plus a promise of old age benefits. More than a month later, a placard in Monday’s demonstration defied such treachery and demanded “better conditions of work in all the factories. We are determined.”

The workers’ demand for better wages arises as they try to stem the tide of increasing inflation, which has increased from 12.4 percent last August to more than 15 percent in May.

The striking workers are employed by subcontractors for some of the world’s largest clothing manufacturers. Among the companies being struck are Willbes Haitian, MGA Haïti, Astro Carton d’Haïti, Haïti Cheung Won, Textile Youm Kwang, and Pacific Sports Haïti, according to Le Nouvelliste .

In a letter to the Haitian Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant, these six companies wrote, “we are presenting an official demand to put an end to these problems … If, in the future, these demonstrations are not contained, we will find ourselves forced to look for other alternatives.”

Seeking to keep the prime minister in their pockets, they continued: “competitive costs, the quality of production and proximity to the United States are the reasons we chose Haiti … If these advantages cease to exist, we will need to proceed with other strategic arrangements and leave Haiti.”

On June 7, President Jovenel Moïse responded to the strike by appointing new members of the Superior Council on Salaries (CSS). This body includes three government members, three bosses, and three union leaders, including Dominique Saint-Éloi of the National Union of Haitian Workers (CNOHA). CNOHA was represented in Monday’s march.

According to AlterPresse, Saint-Éloi is refusing to take his seat on the council because another of the union representatives, Pierre Joseph Polycarpe, was willing to settle for a minimum wage of 250 gourdes in negotiations that took place in 2014.

The third union leader on the CSS, Fritz Charles, is on the governing body of the Respè political party. Its former presidential candidate, Charles Henry Baker, was a member of the Group of 184 that was instrumental in overthrowing Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004; André Apaid, a leader of the Group of 184, is one of the most ruthless and notorious textile bosses in Haiti.

Fignolé St-Cyr, Secretary General of Haitian Self-Employed Workers’ Union, has taken the tack of appealing to the Haitian president while giving lip service to the strike. On Monday he told Magik 9 radio that “it is the responsibility of the President of the Republic to convoke a meeting of unions, bosses, and economists.” While opposing the new members of the CSS, he didn’t say how his proposal would differ.

In November 2014, as Polycarpe was trying to sell out workers, the Toronto Globe and Mail published an article describing the conditions facing apparel workers in Port-au-Prince. The paper interviewed a worker named Jean-Robert Louis, who had been fired by the Gildan corporation because he participated in a protest demanding an increase in the minimum wage to 500 gourdes per day.

“Haitians are used to fighting against hunger,” Louis said, “we survive with only salt and water. But we are not healthy.”

Another worker, the mother of three sons, said, “we are not treated like humans, we are treated like animals. I am living a miserable life.”

Even the miserably low minimum wage mandated by the government is not honored. In 2013, the Workers Rights Consortium, an advocacy group that advises colleges on where to buy t-shirts and other clothing with logos, published a report documenting that Haitian workers “were seeing roughly one third of their legally-earned wages being effectively stolen every pay period” through employer practices that include paying below the minimum wage.

Iraqi government claims fall of ISIS as war goes on

Bill Van Auken

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi Thursday hailed the retaking by government security forces of the site of Mosul’s demolished al-Nuri mosque as a decisive victory in the battle to wrest control of Iraq’s second-largest city from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which swept across one-third of the country’s territory three years ago.

It was a pyrrhic victory at best for Baghdad and the US forces that have supported the nine-month siege of Mosul with devastating air strikes and barrages of artillery fire.

The bulk of the al-Nuri mosque, where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi first proclaimed his “caliphate” in 2014, was demolished a week before, with its iconic leaning Al-Hadba (hunchback) minaret toppled. ISIS claimed that the destruction was the work of US bombs, but it appears the Islamist militia itself blew up the structure to deny the government a symbolic triumph.

While the regime in Baghdad celebrated the retaking of the demolished mosque, Iraqi commanders on the ground in Mosul admitted that many weeks of fighting remain before they can claim control of all of Mosul. And, even as they advance on the last strongholds of ISIS in western Mosul, there have been repeated attacks by the Islamist fighters on positions supposedly secured by the army and the police months ago. In one, ISIS members disguised as police were reported to have wiped out an entire Federal Police unit, up to 90 men.

Iraqi security forces were reportedly only 150 feet away from the mosque when it was blown up on June 21. It has taken them a full week to advance that short distance in fighting that has left many civilians as well as many government troops and ISIS fighters dead.

“There are hundreds of bodies under the rubble,” an Iraqi special forces major, Dhia Thamir, deployed inside the Old City of western Mosul told the Guardian. “Of course there is collateral damage, it is always this way in war,” he said. “The houses are very old, so any bombardment causes them to collapse completely.”

The number of civilian victims since the siege of the northern Iraqi city began is no doubt in the tens of thousands of dead and wounded. Up to 860,000 people have been driven from their homes by the fighting, many of them forced into crowded refugee tent camps. Those who have returned have found their homes and neighborhoods either demolished or badly damaged.

Somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 civilians remain trapped in the last area still controlled by ISIS.

A similar slaughter has been inflicted upon the population of Raqqa, the so-called ISIS “capital” in Syria. US air strikes, artillery bombardment and close-air support from Apache attack helicopters have been used to further the advance of the Kurdish YPG militia, which serves as the Pentagon’s main proxy force in northern Syria.

The UN human rights chief issued a statement confirming the deaths of at least 173 civilians in Raqqa so far this month, while acknowledging that the figure was a very “conservative” estimate.

“Civilians must not be sacrificed for the sake of rapid military advances,” Zeid al-Hussein, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in the statement, which came out as activists in Syria reported another 15 civilians killed by US cluster bombs dropped on the village of Dablan in eastern Syria. The attack came only two days after a US air strike killed up to 70 people when bombs demolished an ISIS-run prison holding many civilians near the town of Mayadin.

The activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, formed originally to denounce ISIS abuses in the city, but focused now more directly on the mass killing inflicted by the US air war, reports that Raqqa is now facing some 200 air strikes a day. Both water and electricity supplies have been cut off by the bombing, and the group reported that many of the recent dead are being referred to as “water martyrs,” because their cars have been attacked from the air as they have tried to reach the Euphrates river to get drinking water for their families.

“It is certainly fair to say that we are seeing numbers of civilians reported killed and numbers of incidents comparable to the worst period of the Aleppo siege last year, when east Aleppo was under bombardment by both Russian and Syrian forces,” Chris Wood, the director of the monitoring group Airwars, told ABC News in Australia.

But, unlike Aleppo, when the US media churned out continuous reports denouncing alleged human rights abuses, the mass killing in Mosul and Iraq has been passed over in near total silence. The supposed moral outrage of the press and the television networks is highly selective, determined entirely by the propaganda needs of the Pentagon and the CIA.

Even once the US-backed forces complete their conquest of Mosul and Raqqa, the American intervention in both Iraq and Syria will only continue and escalate. Given the sectarian divisions stoked by more than 14 years of US wars in the region—and intensified by Washington’s reliance on sectarian militias in both countries—it is by no means clear how either city will be governed once ISIS is suppressed.

Speaking to CBS News Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the commander of the so-called anti-ISIS “coalition,” said that after the conquest of Mosul and Raqqa, US forces would be engaged in the suppression of a continuing insurgency in both countries. “We call that ISIS 2.0—an insurgency, rural,” he said. “So I think we’ll still be here dealing with that problem set for a while.”

Washington has no intention of abandoning either country. It intends to establish permanent bases in both Iraq and Syria and to engage in continuous warfare aimed at asserting US hegemony over the Middle East and confronting its principal rivals for control of the region, Iran and Russia.

Multi-billion fine for Google intensifies transatlantic tensions

Ulrich Rippert 

Just days before the G20 summit in Hamburg, the European Union (EU) Commission imposed a record fine on US internet giant Google, thereby significantly intensifying tensions with the United States.

The firm has been ordered to pay €2.42 billion because it has consistently breached EU competition rules. The EU penalty is more than twice as high as the previous record fine for matters related to competition law.

In 13 countries in the European economic area, Google used its dominant position in the search engine market to favour its own price comparison service, the EU Commission stated. Google’s price comparisons were placed at the top of the search results, resulting in the price comparison services of its competitors being demoted, the Commission added.

Investigations against Google have been ongoing for several years. The EU Commission has opened three probes since 2010, and in all of them Google faces heavy fines. EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has now announced the outcome of the first of these, imposing the harshest fine by far.

The EU Commission charged that Google had obtained an “unlawful advantage” by using its dominant position in the search engine market to direct customers to its own price comparison service, Google Shopping. In the Google search results, Google Shopping’s results were shown at or near the top, even if they did not offer the greatest selection or lowest prices. The best placed competitors were on average shown only on the fourth search page, the Commission alleged.

However, approximately 95 percent of user clicks were made on ads on the first page. This was even more pronounced when mobile devices were used because the displays are smaller, the Süddeutsche Zeitung noted in a background report. Google made use of this procedure in 13 European countries, including Germany, France, Britain, Spain and Italy, thereby violating EU law.

The US firm had denied other companies the opportunity to win customers in the competition process, Vestager said. “But above all it has prevented European consumers from having a genuine choice between different services and taking full advantage of the benefits of innovation.”

The EU Commission is demanding that Google pay the fine within 90 days. Otherwise, it will be threatened with fines of up to 5 percent of the global turnover of its parent company, Alphabet.

In an initial reaction, Google said it took a different view in the case and was considering an appeal. “When shopping online, you want to find the products you are looking for quickly and easily,” it added. If Google files an appeal against the Commission’s decision, which is expected, the case could drag on for several years.

Another EU Commission investigation is dealing with Google’s use of the smartphone operating system Android. The Commission is charging that producers of Android devices with the firm’s integrated systems had to pre-install Google Search and the browser Google Chrome.

The fine for Google is the latest in a chain of escalating economic and trade conflicts. At the same time, geopolitical tensions between the Transatlantic powers are deepening.

While the Trump administration is threatening Europe, and Germany in particular, with punitive measures because of its high trade surplus, the EU is turning against the market dominance of US corporations. The EU Commission imposed a €110 million fine on Facebook in May because it provided false information about data protection when it took over the messenger service WhatsApp.

A day prior to the announcement of the EU fine, US Trade Secretary Wilbur Ross surprisingly cancelled a long-planned meeting with German Economics Minister Brigitte Zypries (SPD). Growing tensions over steel imports played a role in this. The US has threatened to impose fines against European and German producers.

The US raised accusations of dumping in March. Ross still plans this month to present a report on whether steel imports from the EU could be classified as a national security threat. If the conclusion is that they pose such a threat, Trump could impose high tariffs.

The German government sharply rejected the claims. A spokeswoman for the Economy Ministry in Berlin stated Wednesday, “US tariffs would of course pose major problems for our steel companies.” They could therefore not remain without consequences, she added.

In a letter to Ross, Zypries objected to the US plans two weeks ago. She stated that there were “no indications that European or German steel imports could threaten or restrict US national security.” The problem of “overcapacity in the steel sector” was not caused by Germany or the EU, but more by China, and affects “European and American corporations to the same extent,” she wrote.

The Financial Times reported that high-ranking military personnel from Germany and the Netherlands, in “a highly unusual step,” had spoken to US Defence Secretary James Mattis to secure his support in influencing President Trump. Mattis is seen as being comparatively willing to cooperate. At the same time, EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström has threatened the US with countermeasures should the US impose punitive tariffs. “Of course we will practice retaliation,” she told the Financial Times.

The transatlantic conflict has assumed an increasingly explosive form since the coming to power of Trump. At the beginning of March, economics professor and former finance minister of the German state of Saxony Anhalt, Karl-Heinz Paqué, referred in a guest comment for the Süddeutsche Zeitung to the “enormous destructive potential” of the Trumpian “America first” policy. Europe had to be ready “to wage a trade war on Trump’s America if necessary.”

These developments threaten to culminate in a catastrophe, since trade wars are merely the prelude to war. But Washington, Berlin and Brussels are proceeding equally aggressively. German Chancellor Angela Merkel proclaimed just a few weeks ago in a government statement that Europe had to “firmly defend its interests, whenever and wherever it is necessary.”

Because the character of transatlantic relations is changing, Europe had “decided to assume more responsibility in the future as it has done in the past, in our own neighbourhood as well as beyond,” Merkel continued. Germany was “dependent not only on having access to the single market, but also to global markets.”

To enforce its economic and geostrategic interests against the United States, by military means if required, and to maintain control of the mounting conflicts within the EU, Berlin is striving to establish a core Europe under German leadership. In response to the sharpening transatlantic tensions, Germany and Europe have launched a major military buildup.

NATO expands military spending and sends thousands of troops to Afghanistan

Johannes Stern

The meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels on Thursday took place in the midst of a massive military build-up.

“This will be the third consecutive year of accelerating defence investment across European Allies and Canada,” declared NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg at a press conference. In total, spending has risen by close to $46 billion since 2015.

The figures were proof, according to Stoltenberg, that the NATO members were making good progress towards the commitment they made in 2014 of increasing defence spending to 2 percent of GDP in real terms within a decade. “In 2017, twenty-five Allies will increase defence spending in real terms. This year, we expect Romania to spend 2% of GDP on defence, joining the five countries already meeting this benchmark, and next year, Latvia and Lithuania will join them, spending 2% or more on defence,” said Stoltenberg.

German Defence Minister Ursula Von der Leyen (Christian Democrats, CDU) committed Germany to the 2 percent target the previous day in a meeting in Gartisch-Partenkirchen with her US counterpart James “Mad Dog” Mattis. Germany was willing to “strengthen” its forces “to demonstrate its reliability,” stated the Defence Minister.

This is not merely empty rhetoric. The German government presented a financial plan the same day that proposes a €1.6 billion increase in the military budget in 2018 to approximately €38.5 billion. Defence spending will increase to €42.4 billion by 2021. The full increase in the new financial plan amounts to around €9 billion. This would “continue to reverse the trend in personnel and procurement in the army.”

The major hikes in military spending are enabling the NATO states to expand their aggressive war policies. Stoltenberg announced that the alliance would increase its troop presence in Afghanistan, meeting the demands of its military planners. Fifteen states had already announced increased contributions and more would follow, he added. The goal, he said, is to enable the Afghan security forces “to end the stalemate and make progress on the battlefield.” There is “a close connection between developments on the battlefield and the possibility of reaching a political solution.”

In addition, Stoltenberg praised the NATO build-up in Eastern Europe, which increases the danger of a military clash with nuclear-armed Russia. The NATO soldiers in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were “fully operational” and the multinational headquarters in Poland and Romania had been “activated.” This sent “a clear message to any possible aggressor.”

Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Alexander Grushko, condemned the NATO build-up and warned of a new arms race. He stated in an interview with Die Welt, “The Europeans’ defence spending alone is four times higher than Russia’s budget.” There is “a very dangerous trend towards the militarisation of international relations.” This could “lead to a new arms race.”

Grushko sharply criticised the stationing of NATO troops in Eastern Europe and announced countermeasures. “With these military steps and build-ups on its Eastern flank, NATO is creating a new security environment which we cannot ignore and will respond to with our own military forces.”

Grushko’s remarks underscore that the government of President Vladimir Putin has no progressive answer to the NATO offensive. It defends the interests of a capitalist oligarchy that enriched itself through the theft of state property following the dissolution of the Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy. The Russian government responds to imperialist aggression with its own military countermeasures, thereby increasing the war danger.

The regime in Moscow opposes any step to unite the working class in Europe and around the world against the imperialist warmongers. Instead, it begs for a deal with the imperialist powers. “We have clearly said that we are willing to cooperate with anyone wanting to contribute to our joint struggle against terrorism,” Grushko noted. There was ultimately a “joint goal” of eliminating ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

The real goal of the imperialist powers is not to defeat ISIS, but to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad and establish a puppet regime in Damascus. Their military intervention in Syria and Iraq is moreover part of a much broader struggle for the redivision of the energy-rich Middle East and the entire world, which is also intensifying the conflicts between the imperialist powers.

Stoltenberg indicated that the European powers were not rearming in response to US demands, but were increasingly pursuing their own economic and geostrategic interests. “I welcome the strong focus from President Trump on defence spending and burden sharing,” said Stoltenberg. But it could not simply be about “doing the US a favour.” Instead, these efforts are bound up with the interests of the alliance partners, Stoltenberg continued.

In the lead-up to the G-20 summit, Germany in particular is working to pursue these “interests” increasingly in opposition to the United States. Yesterday’s government statement by German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) in parliament was a barely concealed attack on the US and was presented by the media as a “challenge to Donald Trump.”

“Whoever believes the world’s problems can be resolved with isolationism and protectionism is committing a grave error,” stated Merkel. “Since the decision by the United States to leave the Paris Agreement on climate change, we are more determined than ever to work for its success.” The Paris Agreement was “irreversible” and “non-negotiable,” and one had to “expect tough talks in Hamburg. The distance is obvious, and it would be disingenuous to conceal this.”

Merkel called into question the alliance with the US, which formed the basis for Germany’s post-war foreign policy, in a speech delivered in a Munich beer tent following the G-7 summit. “The times in which we could fully depend on others are to some extent over,” she said, and drew from this the conclusion, “We Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands” and “fight for our future ourselves.”

In the government statement, she welcomed the European military build-up agreed to at last week’s EU summit and insisted “that Europe [would] assume more responsibility in the fight against terrorism and in common security and defence policy, and cooperate more closely.” Germany in particular had “a natural interest in Europe staying together in the future.”

Berlin’s goal is the development of the EU into a great power under German leadership that is capable of advancing its interests against the United States. “We have to make Europe stronger again,” Social Democrat parliamentary group leader Thomas Oppermann told the deputies in his speech. A “result of the unpredictability of Donald Trump” was that “Europe has to take more care of its security.”

“A well-placed European defence union naturally requires a well-equipped German army,” stated Oppermann, before condemning the CDU-led Defence Ministry from the right. “The defence ministers of the past twelve years have allowed the army to be used as a means to consolidate the budget. They rushed through the army reform and the suspension of military service without any plan. Our armed forces continue to combat a lack of personnel and poor equipment.” His party would “ensure that this changes in the next parliamentary session.”

Together with the Left Party and Greens, the SPD is playing a critical role in transforming the widespread opposition to Trump into support for German imperialism with propaganda about “peace” and “climate protection.” The US president is dividing “the West” on “an existential issue,” stated Oppermann to applause from the Left Party and Greens. Therefore, it is “necessary to clearly position ourselves against Donald Trump … We have the clear expectation, Mrs. Merkel, that you will bring about a 19-1 alliance on climate protection in Hamburg.”

May government’s legislative agenda scrapes through UK parliament

Julie Hyland

The Conservative government’s legislative agenda, outlined in last week’s Queen’s Speech, made it through parliament Thursday night by 323 votes to 309—a majority of 14. This was primarily due to the support of the 10 MPs from the right-wing, sectarian Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland.

Prime Minister Theresa May had struck a “confidence and supply” deal with the DUP after June’s snap election slashed the government’s number of seats to 318. The agreement gives May a working majority of 13. In return for keeping her in power, the DUP will receive £1.5 billion in additional “public expenditure” for Northern Ireland.

This is despite the deal jeopardising the British government’s supposed “impartiality” as regards the power-sharing arrangements established in Northern Ireland under the Good Friday Agreement.

Northern Ireland’s Stormont Assembly collapsed in January over a scandal involving the DUP. Talks Thursday between Sinn Fein and the DUP failed to find a resolution. If no agreement is reached on Monday, Westminster could impose direct rule.

So desperate is May that the government was forced to make a last minute agreement to help Northern Irish women forced to pay privately in England for abortions. This was in order to stymie a proposed Labour amendment aimed at challenging Northern Ireland’s extremely restrictive abortion laws. If passed, it would have thrown the Tory agreement into danger as the DUP is anti-abortion.

May’s tawdry, anti-democratic arrangements with ultra-right loyalists enabled her government to press ahead with its attacks on the working class.

Two weeks after the Grenfell Tower inferno in West London, the authorities have still not bothered to try to establish the final death toll. Officially, the number of fatalities choked and/or burned to death in the fire stands at 80, but the Metropolitan Police said the true number will not be known until next year.

Every day brings further confirmation that the fire was no accident. Cheap cladding that was known to be combustible was installed across the building. It has since emerged that gas pipes were left exposed, despite instructions by a council fire safety consultant that they should be covered in “fire-rated” boxing.

Three months before the fire, Tunde Awoderu, vice-chair of Grenfell Tower Leaseholders’ Association, had complained to the council that the exposed pipes put residents’ “life in danger” and demanded that the building be made “secure by tonight before everybody goes to bed.” The letter was ignored.

Grenfell has become a national disaster with the government confirming that cladding from 120 high-rise blocks in 37 local authority areas tested do not meet fire safety standards—a 100 percent failure rate. Hundreds of schools, hospitals and other buildings are also high-risk.

Publicly, the ruling elite profess their sympathy for the victims and survivors of the blaze, while acting with utter contempt for them.

On Thursday, Grenfell survivors were banned from a meeting of senior councillors in Kensington and Chelsea council—which owns the tower—called to discuss the fire. The private session was open only to councillors and “invited guests” so as to avoid “disruption.”

Such is the Orwellian state of affairs in capitalist Britain that those who are culpable in mass murder can meet in comfort, without fear of challenge or censor, while those who have lost everything—including their loved ones—are treated as irritants at best, and have the door slammed in their faces.

This was also evident during the two-day parliamentary debate on the Queen’s speech.

On Wednesday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that the “tragedy of Grenfell Tower has exposed the disastrous effects of austerity,” which had resulted in local authority expenditure being cut by 40 percent and “11,000 fewer firefighters.”

He was speaking to a Labour amendment on Tory public spending cuts and their role in the Grenfell Tower fire. The “humble address” by “Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects”, “respectfully” called for a stop to cuts in the police and fire service and to end the public sector pay cap in force since 2010.

But his plea was rejected by May, who argued that the undermining of fire regulations had developed over decades, “under governments of both colours,” citing the Blair Labour government in particular.

In fact, the origins of the Grenfell Tower fire can be traced back four decades, starting with the Conservative Thatcher government in 1979. Under the banner of the free market, Thatcher declared there was no such thing as society and proceeded to smash up all the gains and conditions of the working class. It was under Thatcher that the compulsory use of fire-resistant cladding on buildings was jettisoned.

This sociopathic agenda was embraced by all the political parties, none more so than the Blair/Brown Labour governments (1997-2010). In addition to further watering down regulations, Labour massively expanded the Private Finance Initiative programme, enabling private contractors to make vast profits in housing by cutting corners. Five of the council blocks in Camden, London now declared unsafe were built under this scheme.

The dismantling of health and safety regulations was accelerated under the Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition (2010-2015) as part of its austerity measures.

Even after the terrible loss of life in West London, nothing has changed. In parliament, May claimed the public inquiry she has convened into the fire would “leave no stone unturned.”

This is just more lies. The retired judge appointed to head the inquiry, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, is nicknamed the “social cleansing” judge after he ruled in 2014 that Westminster council—Kensington & Chelsea’s equally wealthy neighbour—could rehouse a single mother of five more than 50 miles away in Milton Keynes. Even before the inquiry has met, Moore-Bick said its remit could be “limited to the cause, how it spread, and preventing a future blaze.”

Amidst cheering from Tory MPs, the Labour amendment was defeated by 323 votes to 309.

The real concern of the powers-that-be and their big business backers are securing favourable terms for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU).

May hoped the snap election would strengthen her push for the “hard-Brexit” favoured by much of her party; complete withdrawal from the Single Market and the customs union while insisting on protections for the City of London.

Instead, the election result has deepened tensions within the government, with a minority of the Tory party hoping to use May’s diminished authority to press for a “softer” exit involving, at least, staying in the customs union for an unspecified period of “transition.”

But for the time being, the Tory factions have united to keep May in place while Brexit negotiations proceed.

Labour’s right wing, however, have no such fealty to Corbyn. The party’s official amendment on Brexit upheld the vote to leave the EU while calling on the government to seek the “same benefits the UK has as a member of the single market and the customs union” and protecting the rights of EU nationals in Britain.

Through such ambiguity, Corbyn hoped to secure the support of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) that has sought twice to depose him as leader and who oppose withdrawal from the single market, in line with the majority position of big business.

This was not enough for the Blairite right wing. As an alternative, Blairite MP Chuka Umunna tabled an amendment calling on the government to explicitly “rule out withdrawal from the EU without a deal”, and “set out proposals to remain within the Customs Union and Single Market.”

Some 49 Labour MPs—one fifth of the PLP—defied Corbyn to back the Umunna amendment, which was defeated by a majority of 221. Labour’s official amendment also failed, by 323 votes to 297, a majority of 26. This meant that it was Corbyn, not May, who was forced to take action against his own MP’s, sacking three of his frontbench MPs—Andy Slaughter, Catherine West and Ruth Cadbury.

India-Russia: Navigating New Geopolitical Waters

P S Raghavan

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in New Delhi inherited some wrinkles in the traditionally smooth India-Russia strategic partnership.

Russia saw the enhanced nuclear and defence cooperation foreshadowed by the India-US nuclear deal as a re-orientation of India’s foreign policy. A slackening of India-Russia cooperation in nuclear energy and defence strengthened this assessment, though it was probably attributable more to an atrophy of government functioning. India’s support for a harsh West-sponsored resolution on Syria in the UN Security Council in July 2012 was seen as succumbing to US pressure. Rightly or wrongly, the Russians saw the previous government in India, the United Progressive Alliance-II, as pro-American.

Russia was also unsure about the incoming NDA government. Despite excellent relations during the BJP's Atal Behari Vajpayee led-government in the past, it suspected that the BJP did not give priority to the Russia relationship.

The new government immediately sought to address this concern. On the margins of the July 2014 BRICS Summit in Brazil, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi confirmed to Russian President Vladimir Putin his government’s commitment to expanding India-Russia cooperation. In an interview to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, he refused to criticise Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

The December 2014 India-Russia Summit imparted strong momentum to relations. Joint manufacturing in India of Russia’s Ka226 helicopters was announced as the first Make in India project in the defence sector. A “strategic vision” of nuclear energy cooperation was adopted, incorporating an ambitious target of over 13000 MW in two decades, with progressive indigenization and collaboration across the nuclear fuel cycle. The two leaders agreed to exploit synergies in the hydrocarbons sector and strengthen the economic pillar of the partnership.

The Ka226 project has progressed from an inter-governmental agreement to establishment of a joint venture. Innovative mechanisms were evolved for manufacturing naval frigates and major refits of submarines, with technologies to be progressively transferred to India. Long-pending acquisition proposals, as well as new ones – like the S-400 air defence system – were processed expeditiously.

 

Collaboration on sensitive technologies has gathered momentum. The perennial issues of spares and engineering support for Russian defence platforms are being addressed by transfer of technology (ToT) for component manufacture and maintenance workshops in India. 485 lines have been identified for ToT to support the Su-30MKI aircraft fleet. A high-level Science and Technology Commission will facilitate cooperation in cutting-edge technologies. 

Two 1000 MW units of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant are on-stream, two are under construction and agreements for a further two were signed in June 2017. Equally important is the progress on other tracks: localisation of technologies and the fuel cycle. 

Indian hydrocarbons companies invested approximately $6 billion in Russia’s oil fields in the last two years. A Russian consortium led by oil major Rosneft acquired Essar Oil’s refinery and port for an estimated INR 86,000 crores – the largest FDI inflow into India. In the first half of 2017, Russia exported over 1 million tons of crude oil to India – over 20 times the annual figure over the past several years.

Enhancing bilateral trade (approximately US$7-8 billion) has been in focus. Discussions on the International North-South transport corridor (INSTC) from India to Russia through Iran have intensified after the loosening of international sanctions against Iran. This could be a game-changer, since the corridor would cut freight and transit time each by about half. A Free Trade Agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union (comprising Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia) is under negotiation. There are other initiatives to reduce the transaction costs of trade, like a Customs “green corridor,” reconciling phytosanitary standards and arrangements for trade in local currencies.

Tata Power is contemplating an investment in coal in eastern Siberia. A fund of US$1 billion, shared by Russian sovereign fund RDIF and our National Investment and Infrastructure Fund, has been set up to promote technology and infrastructure investments. 

The full economic potential is still to be tapped. Progress has sometimes been slowed by government departments functioning in silos or at cross purposes. Information on economic opportunities has not percolated to our corporate sector, which is influenced by unflattering media images of Russia. It is not widely known that only a few countries have imposed sanctions against Russia. Western companies have found channels to circumvent them.

All the same, the achievements in the three years are significant. However, the public narrative is of a dilution of the strategic partnership. This is inspired by assessments of Russian actions in our neighbourhood.

Russia-Pakistan relations have improved, with arms sales and joint military exercises. Russia has not publicly criticised Pakistan for cross-border terrorism. It has stepped up contacts with the Taliban, indicating deviation from its support for the Afghan government’s national unification efforts. Russia’s strategic partnership with China, including transfers of advanced military technologies, has caused worry. 

These issues are discussed between the foreign ministries, national security advisers and the two leaders. Such discussions are necessarily confidential. We have to draw conclusions from official statements and other indications. The bonhomie between Prime Minister Modi and President Putin in St Petersburg after their tête-à-tête of over two hours indicated satisfactory discussions on matters of mutual concern. Prime Minister Modi asserted at their joint press conference that they share the same perspectives on Afghanistan, West Asia and the Asia Pacific. Officials affirm a strategic convergence between the two countries, though tactical approaches are different. 

President Putin has recently reiterated Russia’s support of the Afghan government’s reconciliation efforts. A senior Russian official confirmed last year that no further arms exports to Pakistan are contemplated. Russia recently reiterated its position that India-Pakistan differences should be settled bilaterally as per the Shimla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration.

Russia-China relations are shaped by economic complementarities and China’s support in Russia’s faceoff with the West. However, Russia also develops relations with Vietnam and Japan, which have troubled relations with China.

A strategic partnership does not mean identity of views and exclusivity of relations, particularly given India’s “multi-aligned” foreign policy and Russia’s global activism. The partners need to be sensitive to the core political, economic and security concerns of each other. 

Russia is India's principal arms supplier, providing about 70 per cent of our requirements. It supplies sensitive technologies, which India cannot get from anywhere else. Even if our import diversification and indigenisation proceed apace, our dependence on Russian equipment will continue for decades. 

The erstwhile USSR's vetos in the UN Security Council (UNSC) safeguarded our interests in Jammu & Kashmir and the 1971 India-Pakistan war. We may need such political support again until our aspiration of permanent membership of UNSC is fulfilled. 

There is, therefore, strong strategic, political and economic logic in the Modi government’s thrust to consolidate the relationship with Russia, even as it seeks to strengthen relatively newer strategic links. External relations are not a zero-sum game. 

Will There Finally be Peace With Justice in Colombia?

JACK LAUN

We have now reached the final days for the disarming of the FARC guerrillas, as established by the Peace Accord provisions agreed upon by the Santos Administration and the FARC leadership. What, we may reasonably ask, are the prospects for achieving a lasting peace? There are a number of considerations to take into account in assessing whether the FARC’s demobilization will bring peace with justice.

First, there is a serious question whether the Colombian government will be able (and willing!) to dismantle paramilitary forces which are active in many parts of the country. In some areas, such as in the municipality of Apartado in northern Antioquia, the presence of paramilitary forces has been a constant dating back to the time when General Rito Alejo del Rio told a Colombia Support Network (CSN) delegation to Apartado that he as commander of the Seventeenth Brigade of the Colombia Army could vouch for the safety for investors in the region based upon what we later learned was active collaboration of the Brigade with paramilitary forces. I met a few days ago with representatives of the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado, and they informed me that the paramilitary presence and threats to the Community continue and that Seventeenth Brigade troops on occasion accompany paramilitaries and convey threats to the community, which is our Wisconsin sister community. Without demobilization of these paramilitary forces, there is a real prospect that former FARC personnel will run a serious risk of a repetition of the genocide of the Union Patriotica party members in the 1980’s and 1990’s. 

Second, the failure of the Colombia government to provide basic public necessities to many rural communities, such as farm-to-market roads, subsidies for campesino crops, agricultural credit and extension services, and municipal water and sewerage services, leaves rural residents in many parts of Colombia without adequate resources. This in turn leads many campesinos to look to coca cultivation as the only practical means of earning the money which their family needs in order to survive. In the past the Colombian government has tried to introduce alternative economic pursuits, such as raising chickens or other farm animals, but as long as the basic rural infrastructure does not exist, these efforts will not succeed. Indeed, a CSN delegation to Puerto Asis and Santa Ana in Putumayo Department several years ago observed the failure of the Colombian government’s alternative economic program for nearby rural communities, precisely because the basic infrastructure was lacking. 

Third, and of fundamental importance, the Santos Administration and the Colombian Congress have adopted a model for rural development, the ZIDRES, or Zones of Interest for Rural Economic and Social Development, which is antithetical to the type of campesino agriculture practiced in most rural areas in Colombia. The ZIDRES model, similar to models in Honduras and other Latin American countries, allows for “baldios”, lands that have never been titled but are often used by campesinos, to be incorporated into large-scale agricultural units run by foreign businesses, which will result in many campesinos being converted from independent producers to day laborers on the extensive lands developed by multinational businesses. The operation of Minnesota-based Cargill, the richest agricultural company in the world, on lands it acquired in irregular fashion in the eastern plains area of Colombia, is instructive of what is likely to happen as the ZIDRES model is applied. The FARC suggested a different model, one which has been used in different areas of Colombia for several years, the Campesino Reserve Zone (Zona de Reserva Campesina, or ZRC), in which areas would be set aside as agricultural lands to be worked by campesinos organized for that purpose. Rather than advance this model, the Colombian government has held up applications for permits for new ZRC’s, including for one supported by CSN in southern Cauca Department in the vicinity of the Carol Chomsky memorial lands.

Fourth, the reliance on mining, which President Santos stated at the beginning of his first term should be the “locomotive” of growth in the economy, is misplaced. The open-pit or mountaintop removal model for taking gold, silver, coal and other minerals from the earth is very damaging to the environment, which is especially serious for Colombia, one of the most bio-diverse countries in the world. And development of infrastructure to support mining and other industrial operations, such as the construction of major roads through environmentally sensitive areas in the Amazon foothills, such as the highway construction in Putumayo Department from San Francisco in the Sibundoy Valley to Mocoa, should be avoided. 

Fifth, the Colombian government has not developed an adequate response to the extensive drug trade and illegal mining operations that have brought violence to many areas in Colombia. The use of coca crop spraying with glyphosate, as dictated by the U.S. Government, has not materially reduced coca production, nor has the manual eradication campaign conducted by the Colombian government succeeded in reducing coca production in the country. As Johann Hari has shown in his recent book, “Chasing the Scream”, the premise behind the so-called “War on Drugs” is erroneous. Treatment of addicts matched with legalization of drug use and management by the government is an effective way of taking the profit out of the drug trade and thereby reducing the terrible costs it inflicts upon society. As far as the illegal “wildcat” mining activities are concerned, the Colombian government needs to attack the corruption which leads to these activities and makes them profitable. 

Sixth, the Colombia Congress and the Santos Administration need to pay serious attention to popular mobilizations, and negotiate with representatives of these mobilizing organizations, rather that increasing the military budget and funding the anti-riot police (the “ESMAD”) to squelch legitimate protest by citizen groups. Failure to respond to the reasonable demands of these popular organizations will result in insufficient support for government measures and failure properly to implement changes necessary to achieve justice and peace.

Seventh, the Colombian government needs to keep its word in preparing communities for demobilized forces and in obtaining Congressional approval for agreed-upon measures to set up a functional system of Jurisprudence for Peace. As United Nations High Commissioner for Peace Todd Howland observed to a CSN delegation several months ago, the expense to the Colombian Government effectively to implement the Peace Accords will be very substantial and the Government has not requested all of the funds it might have from the United Nations Security Council. With the uncertainty of what contribution the Trump Administration will agree to make to help with implementation of the Peace Agreement, obtaining sufficient funds to carry out all of the agreed-upon actions may be a tremendous challenge. 

Still, even given the difficulties outlined above, Colombia has a chance to proceed to a more just society and one at peace. We must hope that the efforts of so many people in this direction will succeed, even against serious impediments in the road to peace.