Lawsuits allege Missouri cities run “debtors’ prisons”

Ed Hightower

The Missouri cities of Ferguson and Jennings operate what are essentially debtors’ prisons, throwing people in jail for extended periods of time for inability to pay fines for minor offenses, according to federal lawsuits filed this month.

The lawsuits were brought by several non-profit groups—Washington-based Equal Justice Under Law, Arch City Defenders of St. Louis and St. Louis University School of Law, on behalf of 11 plaintiffs.

The US Supreme Court has ruled that the constitution outlaws imprisonment “solely because the defendant is indigent and cannot forthwith pay the fine in full.”

Ferguson was the center of protests against police violence in the St. Louis area last year after the police shooting death of Michael Brown triggered the eruption of long-simmering opposition to abuse by the criminal justice system in the area.

The lawsuits allege that court fines became Ferguson’s second-largest source of municipal income in 2013, netting $2.6 million. The city of 21,000 people issued nearly 33,000 arrest warrants that year for unpaid tickets. The lawsuit said that those arrested “were threatened, abused, left to languish in confinement at the mercy of local officials until their frightened family members could produce enough cash to buy their freedom or until jail officials decided, days or weeks later, to let them out for free.”

The lawsuit describes horrible conditions for detainees, who are “subjected to the stench of excrement and refuse in their congested cells; they are surrounded by walls smeared with mucus, blood and feces.”

Furthermore, prison officials “routinely laugh at the inmates and humiliate them with discriminatory and degrading epithets about their poverty and their physical appearance.”

Arch City Defenders, a non-profit legal defense organization serving the poor and homeless, released a white paper last year on the Municipal Court system in St. Louis County. The paper describes a patchwork of municipal courts—81 in the space of a single county—which systematically denies poor and working class people their constitutional rights to have an attorney, to have a hearing that is open to the public, and to be free from imprisonment for inability to pay debts.

St. Louis municipalities may imprison individuals for traffic violations and other minor offenses and keep them incarcerated until the fine and costs of the suit against them are paid. Nonetheless, most municipalities provide no court-appointed lawyers for the indigent.

Municipal judges and prosecutors in Missouri work on a part time basis, usually spending the balance of their working hours in practice as private attorneys. Nothing prohibits an attorney from representing criminal defendants in one court, prosecuting them in another, and judging them in yet another municipal court. The municipal prosecutor and judge positions fall to the well-connected, and to those willing to extract the most money out of traffic and petty offenders.

Municipal courts routinely deny access to the general public, with bailiffs telling friends and family of the accused that only defendants and witnesses are allowed in the courtroom. Some courts do not allow defendants to bring in children, a constitutional violation that disproportionately harms workers and the poor, who cannot afford child care. At the same time, failing to appear in court is an offense that can lead to arrest.

Working class defendants with children thus face a Catch-22: leave their kids without supervision or risk being arrested. One defendant, Antonio Morgan, reported to Arch City Defenders that he was denied entry to the court with his children only to be jailed subsequently for child endangerment after leaving them in the court parking lot.

Arbitrariness is another component of the St. Louis municipal courts. One Ferguson court employee told Arch City Defenders that the judge starts hearing cases 30 minutes earlier than the time when defendants are told to arrive. The same judge locks the courthouse doors as early as five minutes after court begins. In both cases, this petty tyranny on the judge’s part can result in a defendant’s being charged and arrested for failure to appear.

Those arrested on a warrant for failure to appear can expect to sit in jail for an extended period. None of the 81 municipal courts are open on a daily basis, with some open only once per month. Defendants who cannot afford to pay bond can stay in lockup for up to three weeks before seeing a judge.

The paper also found that those St. Louis municipalities with the lowest per capita incomes were frequently those which relied most heavily on court and traffic fines for revenue. The city of Pine Lawn, with a per capita income of just $13,000 collected more than $1.7 million in fines and court costs in 2013. The city issued a number of arrest warrants for 2014 that exceeded its population, 5,333 and 3,275 respectively.

In similar fashion, the municipality of Bel-Ridge manages to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in municipal court fines, making the latter the number one source of revenue. The city collected an average of $450 in court revenue per household in 2014. In 2013 the city’s municipal court, on average, handled five cases and issued two arrest warrants per household.

In the same year, the Ferguson Municipal Court issued 24,532 warrants and 12,018 cases, or three warrants and 1.5 cases per household.

While the greater St. Louis area serves as a striking example of the conditions facing the working class, similar practices exist nationwide. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is helping Georgia resident Kevin Thompson sue DeKalb County for similar practices. Last year, Equal Justice Under Law and the Southern Poverty Law Center sued the city of Montgomery, Alabama for operating a similar “debtors’ prison” system.

Eleven-year-old Ohio girl charged with murder

Evan Blake

An eleven-year-old girl has been charged with murder in connection with the death of a two-month-old infant in suburban Wickliffe, outside Cleveland, Ohio. The child is currently being held at Lake County Juvenile Detention Center. In accordance with juvenile justice proceedings, the child’s name has not been made public.

At a hearing on February 9, Lake County Juvenile Court Judge Karen Lawson entered a “not true” plea—the juvenile equivalent of a not guilty plea—on behalf of the eleven-year-old. Lawson ordered that the child undergo a psychiatric evaluation before her next court appearance.

The deceased infant’s mother, Trina Whitehead, had allowed the baby to stay the night at the home of the accused girl and her mother. The latter had offered to care for the baby that night to give Whitehead some respite. It was Whitehead’s first night apart from the infant since its birth.

Wickliffe Police Chief Randy Ice summarized the night’s events at a press conference on Monday, February 9. He said that the accused girl, her mother and the infant were on a couch downstairs when the mother fell asleep at roughly 3 a.m. on the morning of Friday, February 6. According to the police narrative, the eleven-year-old took the infant upstairs, beat her severely, and later woke up her mother at around 3:30 a.m. with the unconscious baby, bleeding and her head badly swollen, in her arms.

The mother immediately called the police. The baby was flown to a children’s trauma center in Cleveland, where she died during surgery some six hours later. The Cuyahoga County Coroner’s office later ruled the death a homicide, the result of injuries to her brain, liver, spleen and kidney, and extensive internal bleeding.

Ice claimed that the girl did not express remorse over the death, saying, “I’m not sure she appreciated the gravity of what she did.” On the telephone call to the police from her mother, however, the girl can be heard crying in the background. She also cried during her initial hearing, hung her head throughout the proceeding, and is reportedly having emotional problems.

Media reports have largely parroted the police story of the night’s events.

Trina Whitehead has told reporters that she and the girl’s mother were best friends, that nothing in the girl’s previous behavior had given her cause for alarm, and that she seemed entirely normal. She told the Associated Pressthat she considered her friend’s daughter a “sweet girl,” and that “I definitely trusted her. I never thought my baby would be put in some type of harm.” Whitehead’s other two daughters, who are 7 and 8 years old, had in the past stayed overnight at her friend’s home without any problems.

That a prosecutor finds it appropriate to charge an eleven-year-old with murder—by definition a conscious and premeditated act—with only these facts is appalling, though by no means unusual.

The US incarcerates more children than any other country in the world, with nearly half a million children brought to juvenile detention centers each year.

According to a 2011 report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, “America’s heavy reliance on juvenile incarceration is unique among the world’s developed nations. Though juvenile violent crime arrest rates are only marginally higher in the United States than in many other nations, a recently published international comparison found that America’s youth custody rate was 336 of every 100,000 youth in 2002—nearly five times the rate of the next highest nation (69 per 100,000 in South Africa).”

In 2012, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 20 children age 12 and under in the US were accused of murder.

The US is the only country in the world that routinely jails minors for life, and remains the only nation to refuse to ratify the United Nations Convention of the Child, which prohibits, among other things, the death penalty and life sentences for children and the prosecution of children as adults.

According to a 2011 Human Rights Watch report, roughly 12 percent of youth held in juvenile facilities reported that they had been victims of sexual abuse while in detention.

While juvenile crime rates have steadily decreased since the early 1990s, legislation has moved in a generally draconian direction, leading to higher rates of juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) sentencing.

Youth given JLWOP sentences are condemned to life in prison while still in their formative years. According to the Juvenile Law Center, youth held in adult prisons are 36 times more likely to commit suicide.

Before the 2012 US Supreme Court case Miller v. Alabama, 29 states had statutes that allowed sentences of life without parole for juveniles.

The Miller case failed to ban JLWOP sentencing outright, and instead merely required judges to consider the individual circumstances of each case before condemning a youth to life imprisonment without parole.

There are roughly 2,600 prisoners in the US who were tried as juveniles and are serving their entire lives in prison, as could be the fate of 10-year-old Tristin Kurilla in Pennsylvania.

Following the reinstatement of the death penalty in the US in 1976, twenty-two executions for crimes committed as juveniles have been carried out.

CIA whistleblower calls for prosecution of officials responsible for torture

Tom Hall

John Kiriakou, the former CIA agent who helped reveal the agency’s use of waterboarding in a 2007 interview, was released from prison on February 3 after serving a two-year sentence.

Kiriakou was convicted in 2013 on trumped-up charges of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which he said was retaliation for “blowing the whistle on the CIA’s illegal torture program and for telling the public that torture was official US government policy.”

In an interview with Russia Today last week, Kiriakou called for the prosecution of those responsible for CIA torture, declaring, “no one went to jail but me.”

“But what really bothers me, is that there is no prosecution of CIA officers who obviously violated the law; those CIA officers who were conducting interrogations in which prisoners were killed.” Kiriakou said. “I have no idea why there is no outrage, and why those officers are not being prosecuted.”

Kiriakou said he was proud to have helped expose torture by the government, despite the great cost to him personally. “You know, I really do believe that it was worth it. I’m proud to have played a role, however small, in the outline of torture in the United States.”

He also recounted the subhuman conditions he faced while in federal prison, about which he is planning to write a book. “American prisoners aren’t even fed human-grade food,” he said. “And the medical care was even worse. There were almost a half a dozen deaths of prisoners when I was there in prison, and almost every one of those deaths was preventable.”

News reports from Kiriakou’s time in prison allege that he also faced harassment from the prison administration for posting on the liberal news site Firedoglake, in which he published an open letter to Edward Snowden urging him not to cooperate with the FBI and declaring that the FBI “is the enemy; it’s part of the problem, not the solution.”

Kiriakou’s 2007 interview with ABC News was the first time that the use of waterboarding by the CIA was publicly confirmed by a government agent, and earned him the enmity of the political establishment. With characteristic vindictiveness, the Obama administration indicted Kiriakou on trumped-up charges in 2012, including three counts of espionage under the WWI-era Espionage Act, which would have carried a maximum sentence of 45 years in prison.

Although the espionage charges were dropped, Kiriakou pled guilty to a lesser charge out of concern for the well-being of his family, who were reduced to subsisting on food stamps as a result of skyrocketing legal expenses. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison. He now faces a further three months of house arrest and another three years of probation.

Kiriakou was a 14-year veteran of the CIA and the head of counterterrorism in Pakistan at the time of the September 11 attacks. He oversaw the raid which captured Abu Zubaydah a few months later in March 2002, the first high-profile capture of an alleged Al Qaeda operative, who was then falsely described by the Bush administration as an Al Qaeda “mastermind” and the group’s third-highest ranking operative. Zubaydah was severely wounded in the operation, and at some point had his left eye removed by CIA agents.

It was Zubaydah’s case that Kiriakou’s 2007 interview centered on. Basing himself on an internal CIA cable, Kiriakou admitted that the agency had once waterboarded Zubaydah, describing the practice as official government policy. In fact, that cable turned out to be false, and it has since been revealed that Zubaydah was waterboarded a total of 81 times in CIA “black sites.”

Moreover, last fall’s Senate torture report, which mentioned Zubaydah a total of 1,001 times, revealed that the agency used him as a “guinea pig” for developing its “enhanced interrogation” techniques after 9/11. Zubaydah’s lawyer says that he is the only detainee known to have been subjected to all of them. One procedure, developed after it was discovered that Zubaydah had a fear of bugs, involved locking him in a tiny “confinement box” filled with insects. His lawyer says that Zubaydah has suffered permanent brain damage from his ordeal and can no longer even recognize his parents.

The Obama administration finally admitted in 2011 that Zubaydah was neither a top Al Qaeda leader, nor a member of Al Qaeda, nor even “formally” identified with the organization. Nevertheless, the administration refuses to release him from Guantanamo Bay, where is held to this day without charges. Zubaydah’s unimportance was practically admitted by Kiriakou in his 2007 interview, when he told ABC News that “we didn’t go after him because he was Abu Zubaydah. We went after him because he just happened to be in Pakistan and we thought there was a chance we could catch him.”

While Kiriakou struck an ambivalent tone during his 2007 interview, defending the effectiveness of waterboarding in obtaining information, he has since become a public opponent of the federal government’s torture program. In 2010 he wrote an autobiography, The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA’s War on Terror, which contained a damning exposure of the policies pursued by Washington under the guise of the “War on Terror.” The book release was delayed for two years by the CIA, and one of the charges tacked onto his 2012 trial was that he had allegedly lied to the CIA’s Publications Review Board while attempting to receive clearance for his book.

Last week, Reporters without Borders released its Press Freedom Index for 2014, in which the United States sunk to 49th place in the global ranking, directly below countries such as El Salvador and Burkina Faso. Reporters Without Borders justified their decision on the basis of the US government’s continued witch-hunting of whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden, the vindictive hounding of journalists such as James Risen and Julian Assange, and the wanton attacks on journalists by riot police during the violent crackdown of protests in Ferguson, Missouri last fall.

The Obama administration, which came into office on a wave of anti-war sentiment and promising the most transparent presidency in history, has not charged a single government official for war crimes stemming from the so-called “War on Terror.” Meanwhile, Obama has indicted seven whistleblowers on espionage charges, more than twice as many as all previous administrations combined.

Last month a federal court convicted former CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling on six counts of unauthorized disclosure of state secrets for revealing details of the government’s campaign of sabotage and assassination against Iran’s nuclear program to New York Times reporter James Risen. Risen, a respected Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who himself was threatened with a lengthy prison sentence for refusing to disclose his sources as part of the investigation, denounced Obama last August as the “greatest enemy to press freedom in a generation.”

Report documents attacks on press freedom in US and Europe

Nick Barrickman

Reporters Without Borders released its 2015 World Press Freedom Index last week, documenting a global rise in censorship, repression and attacks on freedom of the press. The report, which ranks over 180 countries based upon their adherence to international press freedom standards, declares “media freedom is in retreat on all five continents.”

The report ranked the United States at number 49 on press freedom, behind nations such as Burkina Faso, Niger and El Salvador. The US fell three spots from last year, and is down 27 spots from its ranking of 20 in 2015.

The report quotes New York Times investigative reporter James Risen, who has resisted US attempts to get him to reveal journalistic sources, as saying that the US government is “an Orwellian state claiming to be the most transparent.”

While hypocritically raising the flag of “human rights” in pursuit of its foreign policy aims, the United States has moved toward openly dictatorial forms of rule at home. The report references the Obama administration’s continuing “war on information,” stemming from its persecution of a record number of reporters and government whistleblowers, including Pvt. Bradley (Chelsea) Manning, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and the whistleblowing group WikiLeaks.

The report notes that “No fewer that eight whistleblowers … have been charged under the Espionage Act during Barack Obama’s two presidential terms, compared with just three under all the other administrations since its adoption in 1917.”

Similarly, the report notes US law enforcement’s arrest of over a dozen news reporters during peaceful demonstrations late last year against police violence in Ferguson, Missouri.

Meanwhile, regions that the US has bombed or invaded, ostensibly in the name of protecting democracy and freedom, have seen a disastrous decline in press freedom. Reporting is considered to be an “act of heroism” in places such as Libya, where Islamist militias have overrun the state after the NATO-backed ouster of Col. Muammar Gadhafi. Similarly, the slaughter of journalists captured by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq have plunged both nations to the bottom of the list.

Out of all global regions that the report uses to break down its findings, Europe had by far the largest relative increase in attacks on press freedoms between 2014 and 2015. France (38th), the United Kingdom (34th), and several other close US allies in the “war on terror” have had their rankings plunge in recent years.

In the section titled the “European Model’s Erosion,” the report notes, “The EU appears to be swamped by a certain desire on the part of some member states to compromise on freedom of information.

The report also documents the growth of the extreme right throughout Europe. In France, the neo-fascistic National Front of Marine Le Pen, which has been increasingly embraced by the political establishment, has adopted a media strategy intended to “attack journalists,” and is known for physically targeting journalists at its demonstrations.

The report refers to a number of information “black holes,” or areas in which “independent information simply does not exist.” Unsurprisingly, many of US imperialism’s key client regimes can be located in or near this bottom-tier category. Both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (163rd and 164th), major US allies in the Middle East, are located within this category of informational black holes.

Despite making damning admissions about the attack on press freedoms in the US, the report in large part pulls its punches on the US, while it reserves disproportionate condemnation of governments that America is seeking to overthrow or destabilize in the name of “human rights.” It denounces “Russian propaganda” in the Ukraine conflict, and seeks to make a clear demarcation between the US and “authoritarian regimes.”

But regardless of its deficiencies, the report presents a scathing indictment of the hypocritical claims of the US and other imperialist powers to be bombing, occupying and destabilizing other countries in the name of “human rights,” even as they lock up, brutalize and intimidate whistleblowers and journalists at home.

US-NATO war games prepare massive military escalation in West Africa

Thomas Gaist

US and NATO forces launched massive war games Monday in West Africa, in tandem with a slate of African militaries.

The exercises, known as Operation Flintlock 2015, are to serve as the spearhead for a comprehensive military escalation by the US and European powers and their client regimes throughout the resource-rich Lake Chad Basin. The war simulations will focus on “interoperability and capacity-building among African, Western and US counterterrorism forces,” according to a Pentagon press release.

Flintlock is being overseen by the Pentagon’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) and US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) Africa. It will be centered on military bases in Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Tunisia, according toStars and Stripes.

More than 1,000 elite troops affiliated with the Joint-Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara, including some 670 African, 365 NATO and 255 US commandos will simulate a spectrum of possible military operations, according to the Pentagon. The US plans to outfit African forces with new military equipment as part of the elaborate drills and maneuvers.

Participating militaries include Mauritania, the Netherlands, Burkina Faso, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Senegal, Spain, Great Britain, Mali, Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania and the US.

Statements from US and African military leaders make clear that the war simulations could transition to actual fighting against Boko Haram and other forces at any time. Asked about possible clashes between participating forces and Boko Haram, Special Operations Command Africa representative Bardha Azari said, “Our troops are fully prepared to handle everything.”

“Nothing is being ruled out or ruled in. These discussions are really just starting,” US Rear Admiral Kirby similarly commented Friday in response to questions about new US troop deployments to Nigeria and surrounding countries.

The launch of massive US-led war games in West Africa comes just days after Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan called for US troop deployments to Nigeria, home to the second largest proven oil reserves in all of Africa, after Libya.

Jonathan said the US should send forces to aid his government in its campaign against militant group Boko Haram, which Jonathan claimed has received weapons and aid from ISIS.

“Are they not fighting ISIS? Why can’t they come to Nigeria?” Jonathan said. “If Nigeria has a problem, then I expect the US to come and assist us.”

Jonathan’s administration recently postponed national elections, also citing the threat posed by Boko Haram, which has launched new attacks on Nigerian cities and initiated raids into Niger, Chad and Cameroon in recent weeks. The group currently controls territory the size of Belgium in Nigeria’s northeastern provinces.

The main opposition candidate campaigning against Jonathan for the presidency, Nigerian general and former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari, enjoys support from the Chicago-based AKPD political consulting firm, which is headed by Obama administration insider David Axelrod. The Obama administration has likely green-lighted support for Buhari in an effort to apply strategic pressure against the Jonathan administration, which has supported measures opening the way for new Chinese investment in Nigeria.

Flintlock’s pre-positioning of forces throughout Western Africa is bound up with broader efforts by the US and NATO to effect a sweeping reorganization and integration of imperialist-aligned military forces throughout the continent.

In coordination with the imperialist powers, the African Union (AU) is preparing to deploy a Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) of some 8,700 troops to countries in and around the Lake Chad basin, under the pretext of fighting Boko Haram and other unnamed extremist groups. Leaders of Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon met in the Cameroonian capital at Yaounde Monday to make arrangements for initial deployments of the MNJTF.

The Obama administration’s National Security Strategy 2015 cites the AU as the main US-friendly institution in Africa, and calls for the US to “strengthen the operational capacity of regional organizations like the African Union (AU) and broaden the ranks of capable troop-contributing countries.”

The document adds, “Ongoing conflicts in Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic, as well as violent extremists fighting governments in Somalia, Nigeria, and across the Sahel, all pose threats to innocent civilians, regional stability, and our national security.”

These moves mark a major escalation of the already substantial US military presence in West and Central Africa and the Sahel.

US AFRICOM established a secret air base near the capital of Burkina Faso at Ouagadougou as early as 2012, which has served as the launching pad for regular air missions over Mali, Mauratania and other Saharan and sub-Saharan countries.

US and Britain deployed counterterrorism units to Nigeria in May 2014, supposedly to aid in the search for victims of a mass abduction by Boko Haram. The US Marine Corps acknowledged in late 2014 that it has constructed new “staging outposts” and “cooperative security locations” in Ghana, Senegal and Gabon.

As part of a propaganda campaign to justify a panoply of new US military interventions globally, the most recent moves in West Africa are presented as a struggle against “Islamic extremism.”

“Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, its largest economy. It’s the motor of a continent that we acknowledge is increasingly important strategically and economically for the world,” said J. Peter Pham, Africa head at the Atlantic Council.

“And it’s held hostage by a murderous gang of violent extremists, who are growing increasingly more and more virulent,” Pham said.

In reality, the militarization of West Africa is aimed at securing US control over the vast energy and other natural resources of the region and countering the growth of Chinese influence on the continent. China has major economic interests in mining and petroleum sectors throughout Central and West Africa and the Sahel.

The strategists and think tanks of the American ruling class have predicted for years that West Africa would become the most crucial source of petroleum outside of the top OPEC producers. Already at the time of AFRICOM’s founding in 2008, the US imported some 1 million barrels of oil per day from Nigeria. US corporations account for largest share of foreign direct investment in Nigeria, mostly in petroleum and mining. Nigeria’s National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) works closely with US and European transnationals, including Chevron, Total, Agip, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil.

The Chad Basin area has some 2.3 billion barrels of oil and more than 14 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to statistics compiled by the US Geological Survey.

Studies by the US Department of Energy (DoE) project that oil production across the continent will continue to rise sharply in the coming decade, achieving a nearly 100 percent increase in production during the first three decades of the twenty-first century. The US was already receiving some 24 percent of its oil imports from the continent as whole as of 2009.

The US ruling class has long envisioned the possibility of a large-scale US invasion of Nigeria, home to some 180 million people and the most important oil pipelines regionally. A US Army report on future occupations of global “megacities” specifically singled out Nigeria’s Lagos, home to some 20 million, for one of its two main case studies.

Citing government threats, Teamsters suppress Canadian Pacific rail strike

Carl Bronski

Union officials from the Teamsters Canada Railway Conference (TCRC) capitulated to the Conservative government’s threat of imminent strikebreaking legislation and ordered an end to a strike by 3,300 Canadian Pacific (CP) Railway locomotive engineers, conductors and yardmen Monday afternoon, little more than 36 hours after it began.

Under a deal sanctioned by Labour Minister Kellie Leitch, who had vehemently denounced the strike the day before, the Teamsters and CP Rail have agreed to “mediated arbitration” over all outstanding issues in the lapsed railway contract, removing any further threat of worker job action. The crucial issues of scheduling, rail safety, and rest management and all other unresolved contractual items will now be subject to mediated negotiations and ultimately, should no agreement be reached, binding arbitration.

On Sunday, TCRC President Douglas Finnison had responded to the government’s announcement that it would be introducing legislation on Monday to criminalize the strike with the bluster that is the stock and trade of the union officialdom the world over. He declared “The pre-emptive actions by the government to minimize the workers’ voices, minimize the workers’ right to collectively bargain their own working conditions, and to clearly favour the employer … are a crucial wake up call for Canadian workers.” Finnison then vowed, “Not fighting is simply not an option the Teamsters are willing to accept. If that means it gets uncomfortable for the Government or their corporate friends, too bad!”

But by Monday the union was openly doing the Conservatives’ bidding and shutting down the strike without their even having to table a back-to-work bill in Parliament.

The Teamsters had absolutely no intention of fighting the government’s anti-democratic attack, let alone the gruelling, unsafe work schedules that CP has demanded to further boost profits and shareholder value.

From the outset it was obvious that the CP Rail workers faced a battle not only with their employer, Canada’s second largest rail company, but also with Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, which has criminalized one strike after another. Yet the union did everything to demobilize the workers and confine their struggle within the most narrow collective-bargaining framework.

In 2012, the Harper government had rushed to CP Rail’s support and illegalized a strike by the engineers and conductors. The Teamsters responded then by ordering immediate compliance.

Three years on, the same issues of forced overtime and lack of rest days remain on the table, CP Rail having had its way over the three-year life of the just lapsed concessionary contract.

Over the weekend, The TCR had already come to an agreement with Canadian National (CN), the other major Canadian railway, thereby precluding any common struggle against Canada’s two rail giants. So as to further divide the two groups of workers, the Teamsters have colluded with management to delay release of the full terms of their deal with CN and the contract ratification vote until mid-April.

Union officials with Unifor, which represents 1,800 track maintenance workers at CP, also worked to isolate the CP Rail engineers and conductors. Although they were in a legal position to strike alongside the train drivers and yardmen, Unifor ordered their membership to remain on the job after negotiating a separate contract deal with CP late Saturday night.

As for the Canadian Labour Congress, ostensibly the country’s principal labor organization, it didn’t even issue a press release denouncing the government’s moves to illegalize a strike by one of its affiliates.

The trade union-backed New Democratic Party (NDP), for its part, issued a statement Monday afternoon that stated the obvious—the government’s penchant for outlawing strikes bolsters the hand of stonewalling management negotiators. But the NDP let it be known that nothing could be done in the face of a Conservative majority government.

The reality is both the pro-capitalist unions and social democratic politicians are adamantly opposed to any worker defiance of the battery of Conservative anti-union laws, for they rightly fear it could serve as the catalyst for a working class offensive against the corporate assault on wages, working conditions and public services and threaten the profitability and “competitiveness” of Canadian big business.

Yesterday’s sorry events are only the latest in a long line of cases where the unions have used either the passage or imminent threat of strikebreaking legislation to justify their suppressing a militant struggle.

In addition to the long list of strikes the Harper government has criminalized or threatened to criminalize over the past four years—including walkouts at Canada Post, Air Canada, and CN Rail—various provincial governments have repeatedly illegalized job action. Quebec’s Parti Quebecois government, with the full support of the then Liberal official opposition, illegalized a strike by 80,000 construction workers in the summer of 2013 and Ontario’s Liberal government (which was then being propped up by the NDP) outlawed job action by public school teachers and imposed wage-cutting contracts earlier that same year.

The Harper government has also stripped tens of thousands of federal public employees of the right to strike under new essential services legislation.

On every occasion, the unions and the NDP have quickly moved back to business-as-usual with the employers and governments involved.

In a speech to parliament Monday, Labour Minister Kellie Leitch insisted that the strike had to be immediately halted in order to prevent dire economic consequences for companies dependent on rail freight transport. But even as she spoke, a CN train carrying crude oil from Alberta was still burning in Northern Ontario, two days after it had derailed, blocking the tracks and stopping all east-west train traffic for both major Canadian railroads.

Ever frequent rail accidents only highlight the unsafe and precarious nature of the rail industry as it pushes more and more precarious cargo in ever longer, heavier trains manned by over-worked crews.

Canadian Pacific management clearly banked on the Harper government’s support in the current negotiations. The company is well known for its rabid cost-cutting measures. A recent study showed a 39 percent increase in personal injuries on the job and a 25 percent spike in train accidents since the government forced an end to the 2012 strike.

Earlier that year the railway was taken over by an activist hedge fund, Pershing Square Capitol Management. Run by Bill Ackman, Pershing ousted the CEO and replaced him with E. Hunter Harrison, a railroad manager notorious for enforcing cuts and “efficiencies” to quickly boost shareholder prices. Shortly after Harrison took over, the layoff of 1,700 workers was announced, with a total of 4,500 jobs to be cut by 2016. On the news of the layoffs, CP’s stock price immediately rose to all-time highs.

Harrison previously headed Canadian National. There he was known for running longer and heavier trains to cut the amount of crews that were needed, as well as several derailments of long trains that spilled chemicals into waterways in British Colombia and elsewhere. At CP, Harrison is pursuing a similar strategy. Trains have been cut or made longer to reduce the amount of crews needed. Staff at yards and terminals have been cut and some yards closed. Capital spending—improving track, signalling, and equipment—has been curtailed.

While the government and its ostensible parliamentary “opponents” preside over the decimation of jobs, living standards and working conditions to boost the profits of predatory corporations, they have been aided and abetted all down the line by the trade unions. For them, no lie to their memberships is too big, no tactical maneuver to divide workers too difficult and no sell-out too outrageous.

Workers must draw a lesson from this most recent betrayal. The trade unions today are pro-company organizations dedicated to keeping the wheels of capitalist commerce running at the expense of their members’ livelihoods.

Workers must take the fight to defend themselves out of the hands of the trade unions and form independent, rank-and-file committees to pursue their demands. Above all, what is required is an understanding of the fundamentalpolitical questions at stake—that to secure their interests, workers must embark on a path aimed at taking political power and reorganizing society internationally on the basis of socialist principles.

Two detained on charges of aiding Copenhagen terror attack

Chris Marsden

Two men were detained on Sunday, charged with aiding Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, the suspect in the Copenhagen terrorist shooting attacks.

El-Hussein, 22, killed two people in separate attacks Saturday and was shot dead by police Sunday. The two men were ordered to remain in custody for 10 days after being arraigned at a four-hour closed hearing Monday. Defence lawyer Michael Juul Eriksen said that both deny the allegations.

The two detained were among four arrests made in the aftermath of the attack during a raid on the PowerPlay Internet café in the Norrebrogade area.

El-Hussein allegedly murdered film director Finn Norgaard, 55, while firing at a meeting attended by Lars Vilks, his supposed target, the Swedish cartoonist who previously depicted the prophet Muhammad as a stray dog. While on the run, El-Hussein later shot volunteer security guard Dan Uzan at a nearby synagogue.

More details have emerged regarding Hussein’s biography, confirming how well-known the gunman was to police. The head of Denmark’s secret service, PET, Jens Madsen, said that El-Hussein may have been “inspired by Islamist propaganda issued by Islamic State and other terror organisations.” Madsen did not offer evidence substantiating this allegation, however.

What is known is that Hussein was only recently released from prison after serving a sentence for knife crime.

The Daily Mail reported that El-Hussein “descended into a life of crime in his teenage years, joining notorious gang The Brothas and roaming the streets with a knife or a gun.” His criminal record included assault and possession of dangerous weapons.

In November 2013, he was captured on CCTV pulling a knife out in a train in Copenhagen. He knifed a 19-year-old man in the thigh and buttock before departing. He was jailed for aggravated assault.

In an extended biographical report, the Guardian notes that El-Hussein “was a smart student but reportedly had a short fuse and was prone to violence. He was a talented kick-boxer and yet appeared to have suffered from anxiety and used cannabis.”

Of Palestinian origin, his parents left a refugee camp in Jordan to come to Denmark, and he “was always quick to debate the Palestinian issue.”

El-Hussein was in prison at the time of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, with the Guardian reporting that Michael Gjorup, head of the country’s prison and probation service, “told Danish media that authorities had noticed changes in his behaviour in prison and had alerted the intelligence services.”

Engaged in petty crime, El-Hussein lived an impoverished existence—failing to graduate and becoming homeless.

According to the same report, “Emilie Hansson, 26, who is half Swedish, said she knew El-Hussein and had seen him at the estate last week. She said: ‘For me he’s not a terrorist. He’s someone who felt finished with life and decided to go out with a big bang’.”

The Telegraph reported that friends of El-Hussein laid floral tributes to him on the corner of the street where he died, which were later removed. It cited someone named “Mohamed,” who said, “We’ve put flowers here because we must remember him…. He was a good guy. We don’t believe he did anything wrong. It wasn’t like the police say.”

Another friend, a local thug named “Benny”, insisted that El-Hussein could not have carried out the shootings: “I know he didn’t have the money to buy an automatic gun. Here it costs 50,000 kroner.”

No account has been made of the police statement that the flat to which El-Hussein was returning, adjacent to the Norrebro metro station, where he was gunned down, was already under surveillance as part of an unspecified “ongoing investigation.” The PET baldly declared that, though El-Hussein was well-known to them, it was not possible to keep a round-the-clock watch on all suspects.

Nor has any explanation been offered for the police raid on the Internet café.

In a reportedly unrelated incident, German police in the northern city of Braunschweig took the extraordinary decision to cancel an annual carnival procession Sunday, citing fears of a terrorist attack.

Police claimed that information from “reliable state security sources” pointed to “a concrete danger” of attack from persons with an “Islamist background.” Police chief Michael Pientka said there had been no arrests, and no explosives or weapons had been found.

The carnival in Germany was cancelled just hours before it was due to start, leaving an estimated 250,000 attendees disappointed and 4,500 participants stranded with their floats.

Haaretz reported that Pientka told German public radio NDR there was “no connection to the terror attacks in Copenhagen.” Carnivals elsewhere in Germany went ahead on Sunday and Monday.

The police added to the murky picture by stating afterwards that “we do not have any concrete indications of attack plans in Germany…. The situation is unchanged.”

No agreement reached between EU finance ministers and Greece

Robert Stevens & Barry Grey

A meeting of euro zone finance ministers in Brussels to discuss the debt crisis of the Syriza-led Greek government broke up in acrimony Monday.

With Germany taking the lead, the finance ministers, headed by Jeroen Dijsselbloem of the Netherlands, presented Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis with a statement to sign that unambiguously upheld the existing debt-repayment scheme, demanded further austerity measures, and reiterated the full subordination of the Greek government to the dictates of the European Union (EU), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the banks.

German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble appeared to go out of his way to humiliate Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) and its leader, the new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras. In a German radio interview Monday in advance of the Brussels meeting, Schäuble said he was “very sceptical” about the prospects for a deal being reached at the gathering and accused the recently elected Greek government of acting “pretty irresponsibly.”

Schäuble accused Tsipras of “insulting those who have helped Greece in the past few years.”

Varoufakis refused to sign the statement, complaining that the European Commission’s economic chief, Pierre Moscovici, had offered him an earlier plan that he was prepared to sign. The meeting quickly collapsed, and the different parties held separate press conferences.

Varoufakis objected in particular to language in the EU draft stipulating Syriza’s adherence to the “current programme” of debt repayment. His opposition, and that of Syriza as a whole, amounts to pleading for terminological window dressing to obscure the capitulation of the Syriza-led government in substance to the current “bailout” programme and the brutal austerity agenda that has already reduced millions of Greek workers and youth to poverty.

Syriza desperately needs such a fig leaf, having campaigned on a pledge to end the current debt-repayment regime, which is hated by the vast majority of Greeks. Syriza’s election was the result of growing opposition to more than five years of savage cuts. This sentiment has been expressed in numerous anti-austerity protests held in Greece since the new government took office on January 25. On February 11, at least 13 demonstrations took place in Greece, with tens of thousands protesting in Athens and Thessaloniki. On Sunday, further large demonstrations were held.

However, EU governments fear that even the appearance of a concession to Greece will fuel popular opposition to austerity throughout Europe. To this point, they have coalesced behind the hard-line position of Berlin.

Varoufakis and Tsipras have bent over backwards to reassure the EU, the IMF, the European Central Bank and the international financial markets that they fully intend to meet Greece’s debt obligations and are committed to the “structural reforms”—i.e., further attacks on pensions, jobs and working class living standards—demanded by global capital.

In an op-ed piece posted by the New York Times Monday, Varoufakis denied that he was pursuing “some radical-left agenda,” declaring: “Our government is not asking our partners for a way out of repaying our debts. We are asking for a few months of financial stability that will allow us to embark upon the task of reforms that the broad Greek population can own and support, so we can bring back growth and end our inability to pay our dues ” (emphasis added).

Last week, he begged for a compromise in a Guardian interview, pleading, “We are a party of the left, but what we are putting on the table is essentially the agenda of a reformist bankruptcy lawyer from the City of London.”

Syriza, in fact, speaks for privileged sections of the Greek upper-middle class that want a better deal within the framework of Greek and European capitalism and the EU. It advances policies favoured by sections of the Greek and international bourgeoisie to confront a deepening breakdown of the capitalist system—at the expense of the working class. It has formed a bourgeois government in coalition with the ultra-right, rabidly nationalist Independent Greeks.

The Financial Times reported Monday that after the short-lived EU finance ministers’ meeting, Varoufakis for the first time said publicly that he had been prepared to agree to an extension of the existing debt repayment programme on the basis of conditions agreed to by Moscovici, which, he claimed, differed from those incorporated into the draft statement presented by Dijsselbloem.Financial Times journalist Peter Spiegel reported he was told by euro zone officials that, in fact, there was no difference in substance between the Moscovici and Dijsselbloem texts. According to Der Spiegel, the euro group meeting broke up before the finance ministers even had a chance to discuss the draft statement prepared by the Greek side.

Nevertheless, Varoufakis declared after the meeting, “I have no doubt there is going to be an agreement in the end.”

The draft statement, leaked to the press and published by the Financial Times and other newspapers, stated, in part: “The Greek authorities gave their firm commitment to refrain from unilateral action and will work in close agreement with their European and international partners, especially in the field of tax policy, privatisation, labour market reforms, financial sector, and pensions.”

The EU part of the loan programme for Greece is set to expire February 28, raising the possibility of a collapse of Greece’s banking system, a default on the country’s €320 billion sovereign debt, and a forced exit of Greece from the euro currency bloc. Monday had been described as a deadline for an agreement between Greece and the euro group because several national parliaments needed time to vote on a deal before the end of the month.

A study by JP Morgan released as the euro group talks got under way concluded that Greece’s financial reserves could be exhausted in several months. Estimating that Greek banks were losing €2 billion of deposits a week, JP Morgan said if such outflows continued, the country’s banks would run out of collateral for new loans in just 14 weeks.

At a press conference after the meeting, Dijsselbloem said the euro group had told Greece that the “best way forward would be for the Greek government to seek an extension of the programme,” and that in any agreement going forward Greece could not “roll back any measures” except with the agreement of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF.

Greece, he said, had to present proposals for an extension of the debt repayment programme by Friday, and warned, “We can use this week, but that’s about it.”

Asked if an extension or, in the words of the Greek government, a “bridging” agreement, would be very different from the existing programme, Dijsselbloem said, “I don’t think so.”

He added that “the ESM [European Stability Mechanism] treaty and rules and regulations talk about strict conditionalities. It would still be about fiscal sustainability and therefore also debt sustainability. It would still be about economic competitiveness…and a stable financial sector and all of the above requires next steps, more measures and reforms, some popular and some obviously not so popular.”

Speaking alongside Dijsselbloem was Moscovici, until 2014 the French finance minister, and Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF.

Moscovici said no alternative to an extension of the current programme would be considered. Lagarde said the IMF’s programme with Greece would end in March 2016. She warned that only if Greece accepted an extension of the current austerity package could further IMF funds be disbursed.

US imperialism and the catastrophe in Libya

Joseph Kishore

This weekend, the Islamic State (ISIS) released a video of the horrific beheadings of 21 Coptic Christian workers seized in the town of Sirte in eastern Libya. This barbaric act was the latest in a series of such killings, including the beheading or immolation of hostages from the US, Britain, Japan and Jordan.

The latest ISIS atrocity has triggered predictable expressions of shock and anger by news anchors and editorialists in the United States, along with further massacres. Within hours of the release of the video, Egypt, led by US-backed dictator General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, launched a wave of air strikes killing 64 people, including seven civilians.

Washington and its political allies are politically and morally responsible for these atrocities. The Islamist beheadings in Libya are the product of a monumental crime: the 2011 NATO war in Libya to oust the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Prior to the intervention of NATO, there were no sectarian murders of Christians in Libya and Islamist militias tied to Al Qaeda were small groups with no broader influence. These forces were armed and promoted when, in 2011, the Obama administration and its allies in Europe, led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, took the decision to topple Gaddafi.

The imperialist powers funneled massive amounts of money and weaponry to Islamist militias and Al Qaeda operatives, providing them with air support through a mass bombing campaign that killed tens of thousands of Libyans.

As the World Socialist Web Site wrote at the time: “Far from a ‘revolution’ or struggle for ‘liberation,’ what the world is witnessing is the rape of Libya by a syndicate of imperialist powers determined to lay hold of its oil wealth and turn its territory into a neo-colonial base of operations for further interventions throughout the Middle East and North Africa.”

The disastrous consequences of the rape of Libya are now all too clear to see.

The war culminated in the carpet bombing of Sirte and the torture and murder of Gaddafi, after which then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gloated, “We came, we saw, he died.” Since then, Libya has collapsed into an ever-bloodier civil war between various Islamist factions and rival militias vying for state power. The country has also served as a training ground for CIA-backed Islamist forces preparing to fight the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Less than four years after the war, the American media report on ISIS atrocities in Libya as if US imperialism had nothing to do with them. No one reading the editorial produced Sunday by the New York Times (“What Libya’s Unraveling Means”) would have any inkling of Washington’s role in producing this catastrophe, or the US media’s role in supporting the operation. One of the key figures in the war, the late US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, who was killed in an Islamist raid in Benghazi after the war, was himself a friend of many Times journalists.

The Times worries that “this oil-rich nation [is veering] towards complete chaos,” and that “the growth and radicalization of Islamist groups raise the possibility that large parts of Libya could become a satellite of the Islamic State.” It manages to describe the conflict that led to Gaddafi’s ouster simply as a “civil war,” without even mentioning NATO’s six-month bombing of Libya.

ISIS is now strongest precisely where Washington has intervened most aggressively. Another article published in the Times over the weekend warns, “The Islamic State is expanding beyond its base in Syria and Iraq to establish military affiliates in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt and Libya.” The Times does not mention that the US has invaded or financed Islamist proxy wars in four of the six countries mentioned: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

The world is now witnessing the consequences of the recklessness, brutality, greed and limitless stupidity of Washington and its NATO allies.

Responsibility for the disaster in Libya lies squarely with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the initial champion of a NATO war in Libya; President Obama, whose administration provided the bulk of the firepower that shattered Libya’s armed forces and its major cities; and the NATO allied powers that joined in this murderous adventure.

What is unfolding across the Middle East today is an indictment of imperialism, its ruling elites, its political servants and its lying media.

Rise in value of Swiss franc threatens workers in Eastern Europe with ruin

Markus Salzmann

The sharp rise in the value of the Swiss franc against the euro is driving thousands of people in Eastern Europe into ruin.

In mid-January, the Swiss National Bank announced without warning that it would no longer continue to maintain the exchange rate of the franc below 1.20 francs to the euro. As a result, the franc increased in value rapidly. For a time, it was worth more than the euro. Currently, a euro is worth just 1.06 francs.

The sharp rise in the franc has been accompanied by a corresponding rise in the debt burden of hundreds of thousands of people throughout Eastern Europe. Prior to the 2008 financial crisis, loans denominated in Swiss francs were common in these countries. In Poland, around 550,000 mortgages are denominated in Swiss francs. The repayments rose by 15 percent overnight due to the exchange rate rise. Some 150,000 loans are affected in Romania, 60,000 in Croatia and and 22,000 in Serbia. The Swiss National Bank estimates that loans totalling 220 billion francs are currently outstanding in Eastern Europe.

The banks made loans in francs at interest rates far lower than was available in each of the local currencies, while deliberately concealing the exchange rate risk. This is shown by figures from Austria, where loans in francs comprised roughly a third of all private loans prior to 2008. After a warning and a ban from the country’s financial supervisor, the number of loans in francs was cut in half.

Many are exposed even if they obtained insurance against currency rises. In order to be protected against severe losses, debtors established so-called stop-loss limits—i.e., if the exchange rate fell below 1.20 to the euro, the loan would automatically be transferred into euros. But the exchange rate change occurred so quickly that the banks could not react fast enough, or did not want to. Many loans were only switched when the exchange rate was 1 franc to the euro. This dubious practice has been covered up by the state.

Many of those affected face disaster. Deutsche Welle related the situation of Marko Vasic, who bought a small apartment in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, in 2008 with the help of a loan denominated in Swiss francs. He was able to manage the monthly repayment rate of €350. But now Vasic has to pay €560 per month. “We customers are not gamblers, and despite that we are being buried alive. I don’t know any more if I should be angry at the banks or the state. That’s why I’m mad at them both,” said the electronics technician from Belgrade.

Euronews reported on the situation of a married couple who purchased a three-room apartment in the Romanian capital Bucharest with a loan denominated in francs. Now, with a monthly income of 1,000 lei, they have to pay a monthly rate of 3,700 lei (roughly €830).

The website swissinfo.ch related the story of Agnieszka Gagala, who took on a loan in Swiss francs in Poland in 2009. At that time, her debt amounted to 260,000 zloty (64,000 Swiss francs). After the Swiss National Bank’s decision, she now has to repay 500,000 zloty. The monthly repayment rate for the 32-year-old now stands at 2,000 zloty, leaving her with 600 zloty to live. “I cannot explain how disturbed and angry I am,” she complained. “Many people who decided to take on loans in Swiss francs were not aware of the risks, and it wasn’t explained to them. No one can expect customers to have the same knowledge as economists.”

Robery Grausam-Onyszkiewicz from Krakow told TVN24 that for a loan worth 150,000 zloty that he had taken out in 2008, he must now repay 500,000 zloty. His health had been severely affected due to the pressure he is under.

Municipalities have also been hit hard by an explosion in debt. The debt of the Austrian capital Vienna rose overnight by €300 million. Last month, the city’s total debt surpassed €5 billion. Other Austrian cities, among them Salzburg and Linz, are similarly affected.

Municipalities in Germany are also affected by the “new plague,” as theSüddeutsche Zeitung termed the rapid exchange rate shift. Due to low interest rates, many German municipalities have kept their debts in Swiss francs. In North Rhein-Westphalia alone, according to figures from the interior ministry, 26 municipalities took on loans in foreign currency with a total value of €1.9 billion.

It goes without saying that the additional debt will be used to insist on deeper cuts to public budgets. Social infrastructure, which in many areas is already in an extremely bad state, will deteriorate further. Swimming pools, libraries, youth centres and other social institutions will have to deal with cuts or be forced to close down.

Problems first emerged with foreign currency loans following the 2008 crisis. Such loans had been granted by the banks on a massive scale in the 1990s and early 2000s, bringing in huge profits. In Hungary in 2009, 97 percent of the awarded property loans were in Swiss francs.

While the governments at the time cooperated closely with the banks and fostered the conditions for these loans, they are now leaving individuals holding the loans to fend for themselves.

In Croatia, where parliamentary elections are set to follow the presidential election this year, the government has fixed the exchange rate of the kuna to the franc. The exchange rate difference will have to be borne by the banks. A similar approach is being discussed in Poland, where elections are also due, and in Romania. In Hungary, the Fidesz government limited individuals’ losses to some extent three years ago by adopting a similar measure. In the process they drew sharp criticism from the finance markets and the European Union’s institutions.

In Croatia, approximately 75,000 households took on loans in Swiss francs. According to analysts, the currency peg could cost the government 30 percent of its foreign currency reserves. There is a high risk that exports to Germany, France and Italy will become too expensive and fall sharply. But in the face of economic and social instability, the deeply discredited government in Zagreb feared unrest.

Swissinfo stated, “While the shock of the increased value of the franc probably won’t ‘threaten’ the bankruptcy of the countries or banks… the actual risk for instability for some of the countries is social unrest. Poland and Romania witnessed demonstrations at which the governments were called upon to help the people.”

France sells 24 Rafale fighter jets to Sisi dictatorship in Egypt

Antoine Lerougetel

On February 12, returning from talks in Minsk over the civil war in east Ukraine, French President François Hollande announced the sale of 24 Rafale fighter jets to the bloody regime of Egyptian dictator General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Along with other prospective sales, it will make the Egyptian dictatorship France’s biggest arms client in 2015.

The purchase agreement is to be signed in Cairo on Monday, financed by loans coming from a pool of French banks and guaranteed by the French state. The deal, first broached during French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian’s visit to Cairo in September, includes the sale of a navy frigate and missiles.

Hollande said, “Egypt wanted a quality aircraft, taking into account the threats existing around the country.” According to an expert quoted by Le Monde, one of the selling points for French as opposed to American weapons is that France does not impose restrictions on whom they are used against. Egypt has recently launched military operations both against Islamist forces in Libya and insurgents in Egypt’s own Sinai peninsula.

The announcement of the deal, the first time the French government has succeeded in selling the Rafale overseas, was greeted with euphoria by the French media and political establishment. Le Monde enthused, “Let’s not deny our delight.”

The arms deal constitutes a public endorsement by Hollande of the Sisi regime’s military operations and its bloody suppression of political opposition after the revolutionary working class uprising that toppled Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Since Sisi’s coup in July 2013, his regime has massacred at least 3,000 people, including at least 1,000 members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) of deposed President Mohamed Mursi, who was toppled by the coup. It has imposed sweeping bans against public demonstrations and arrested tens of thousands of people who are now detained in secret prisons and torture centers. Sisi is also slashing subsidies on basic goods such as fuel and bread, further impoverishing the working class.

The Sisi regime’s support for imperialist interventions in the Middle East and its violent hostility to the working class have won it broad support in the French ruling class. At Hollande’s invitation, Sisi’s representatives joined the officially-sponsored “I am Charlie ” demonstrations in Paris after the shooting of journalists of the Charlie Hebdo weekly by Islamist gunmen.

The deal with Al-Sisi is part of developing alliances with African governments including Algeria by French and Western imperialism against the Islamic State (IS) group to maintain and enlarge their control of the geo-strategic mineral ressources of North Africa and the Sahel. Last August, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) participated in air strikes against Islamist militias in oil-rich Libya which threaten the Western-backed government and the entire region.

The US government supplies half the warplanes used by the UAE air force, with France providing the balance.

Al-Sisi also participates in Israel’s strangling of Gaza, destroying and blocking tunnels from Egypt into the Palestinian enclave that enables it to access vital supplies.

The deal is predicated on the understanding that the Sisi regime will continue to suppress the working class and align itself on the foreign policy of Hollande’s Socialist Party (PS) government. A Reuters news dispatch noted, “Diplomats say the deal suits both Cairo and Paris geopolitically, with both particularly invested in the fight against jihadist groups in North Africa. Sisi has been looking to upgrade Egypt’s military hardware over fears Islamist militias in neighboring Libya could take control and directly threaten Egypt.”

“Egypt needs planes quickly,” said Patricia Adam, president of the French parliament’s defense committee. “You just need to take a look at what’s happening at its border. They are especially worried by what’s happening in Libya.” Islamist militias based in Libya provide forces for the destabilization of Mali, where thousands of French troops are deployed to ensure France’s control of its former colonial sphere in the uranium-rich Sahel.

As it markets the Rafale, France’s defense industry is also trying to profit from the fighter’s increasing long combat record, as France fights wars across Africa and the Middle East. The Rafale, which first went into service in the French air force in 2004, has been deployed in Afghanistan (2007-2012), Libya (2011), in Mali (since 2013) and in Iraq against IS (since last September).

Negotiations on potential Rafale sales are underway with several governments, including India, Qatar and Malaysia. Before the Egyptian deal, however, the French army had been the Rafale’s only customer, having been beaten to contracts by the US, the UK and Sweden.

After failing to clinch sales deals with several potential foreign buyers and facing military budget cuts in France, Paris faced a possible collapse of production of the Rafale, currently the French armed forces’ main fighter-bomber.

The French armed forces’ planned purchase of 320 Rafales shrank to 225 in 2013 and the minimum of 11 planes a year required to maintain the production line was threatened. The Egyptian sale was no doubt pushed aggressively by aerospace firm Dassault, but also defense electronics firm Thales and aircraft motor manufacturer Safran. The Rafale’s 40-year development program has cost the state €49.5 billion.