Europe: Old Friendships, Hesitant Alliances

Gaither Stewart

Rome: In the late 1950s many signs of the carpet bombing of Germany were still evident. Though the factories had been at work since soon after war’s end, the first wave of post-war, cheap and hurried housing construction was the rule. Germans were still rebuilding train stations, several of which I followed like an urban planner, including the Frankfurt/Main and Munich stations. The restoration of the great gothic cathedrals of Cologne and Ulm proceeded at snail’s pace.

Most urban areas of the cityscape still had gaping holes where important buildings had once stood. While one spoke widely of denazification, the general atmosphere in the country still smelled of war, unjustifiably accompanied by what seemed to be fervent positive hopes for the future. I think now that only foreigners perceived a certain bitter sweet romanticism in the general destruction; Germans were too busy rebuilding to romanticize their situation.

Germans examine the rubble in one of their cities after heavy nighttime bombardment. (1944)

Americans in Europe tended to lump together all European countries under the name “Europe”, which irritated Germans and other Europeans in those times when only a few European dreamers bandied about the idea of a united Europe. I soon learned to distinguish carefully one country from the other: Germany was Germany, France was France and Italy was Italy … the latter geographically and culturally separated from all.

Since that time an adulterated form of a United Europe has emerged: the economic European Union, today capitalism’s arm for the subjugation of the “continent”, a tainted union, however, far, far from the original European idea of its earliest founders—Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman, Altiero Spinelli—whose ideals for a united Europe were peace, unity and prosperity. Gradually borders and some old divisions fell, while the founders’ original ideals mutated into excessive bureaucracy and exaggerated forms of EU-controlled capitalism run by a clique of unelected capitalist leaders who have created little more than the political wing of US-controlled NATO. An economic union policed by the so-called troika consisting of the European Union (EU) in Brussels, the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington. The troika has ruined the economy of more than one country with its rules and their subsequent enforcement. Greece is now engaged in a life or death struggle against those regulations and directives and guidelines. The troika’s blind adherence to German-dictated austerity economics and to the US neocon program for Europe is generating growing resistance especially in southern EU member states.

Always luring, sometimes mysterious, Europe, Europa, Evropa, Auropa is the ancestral home of many Americans and still the first travel destination of American college students and Japanese and Chinese wealthy. Like seventy years ago or in the post-WW I era, something about contemporary Europe still attracts foreign youth, artists and scholars. Today’s Europe encompasses an area of 4,000,000 square miles with a population of over 500,000,000—depending on how far east your Europe reaches. As traditionally understood Europe is the second smallest continent, after Australia, only about one-fifteenth of the world’s total land area. The Europe considered here reaches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains, as in the post-WWII era former French President Charles de Gaulle preferred. According to Nietzsche, the Europe of his time was powered by two great narcotics: alcohol and Christianity (neither of which hold water today). Or, as Milan Kundera prefers, war and culture are the two great inseparable poles of Europe, both her glory and her shame. Not to be outdone in the spinning of quotations, the great Leo Tolstoy allegedly once said after a long and pensive study of the world map: “Evropy niet.” Europe does not exist.” A true observation in the sense that French are still very French, Germans are German and Italians are Italian. Surveys however show that today’s young people of university age might identify themselves as first Europeans and secondly according to their ethnic belonging. Today, in Italy, a silent emigration abroad of college graduates is occurring, however, for the wrong reason: lack of employment at home.

However, I assume Tolstoy had in mind the geographic fact that Europe in reality is a large peninsula attached to the Eurasian land mass, separated from the continent of Asia by the Ural Mountains and the Ural River in the east, the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus Mountains in the southeast, and the Black Sea, the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmora, and the Dardanelles in the south. The Mediterranean Sea and the Straits of Gibraltar separate Europe from the continent of Africa. On the north Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean, on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south and east by the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. It is quite common today to hear the expression: “Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals.”

Those Eurasian borderlands are precisely the lands that neocon-led America wants to get its hands on because of an infantile fascination with the historical claim that, “he who controls Eurasia controls the world.” In reference to the grandiose convictions of America’s neocons, I keep in mind Tolstoy’s words in War and Peace: “Those whom God wishes to destroy he drives mad,” which he borrowed from the Greeks, probably Euripides.

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ABOVE: The actual cost of war. Have Western Europeans forgotten so easily? Why are they so inebriated with Washington’s indecent lies? Is American propaganda that effective?

You can’t ignore the reality that perhaps never before has a fine knowledge of geography been more important than today. It is a geographical fact that Eurasia exists. However any gung ho American neocon policy that aims at American control over that vast area rings like an Earth power claiming control, or aspiring to the control of, say, the planet Uranus. Fortunately, Europe understands the idiocy of neocon belief in America’s invincibility and Exceptionalism … or perhaps Europe is finally beginning to understand. But not necessarily for the right reasons. Old competitions, old rancors, old misunderstandings have a way of repeating themselves.

According to journalist Viktor Tolochko, as reported by Russia’s RIA News, German analysts have come to believe that the American game in Ukraine (or, in THE Ukraine, as Tolochko writes) is aimed less at Russia than at the European Union (EU) itself. The writer says his German contacts confirm that Germany opposes Ukrainian membership in the EU because that country faces default. Furthermore, according to German analysts, the sanctions against Russia pressed on the EU by Washington have cost the EU over one trillion euros, making each German 25% poorer than before the sanctions. And while the very nature of the EU, its spirit and long-time goals, degenerate, causing dissension in its member states, ecco Greece bursts on the scene and demands no less than reparations from Germany for the damage inflicted on Greece in WWII, thus threatening to undermine that original spirit of United Europe: peace, and the existence of the EU itself. (Hypocritical Europe likes to speak of seventy years of peace, simply ignoring the wars against ex-Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the bombing of another European capital, Belgrade, and the recognition of Kosovo, annexed by the USA and the small country converted to one great military base.)

It is no secret that some European leaders fear what are still unclear American adventurous plans for their small continent. Already de facto vassals, what will the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) treaty mean for European nations? Among many matters it would force the EU and its member states to follow instructions of multinational corporations, depriving governments and parliaments of the right to regulate standards. TTIP regulated cooperation will limit consumers’ freedom of choice and force upon them products they do not want, like genetically modified food. The TTIP as conceived will be a trade barrier between the North and the emerging countries of the South. It will reduce Europe to insignificance on the world stage.

Germany thus far has been a prime example of the kind of ally America prefers. There are already so many American military bases in Germany (including Ramstein Air Base in the southwestern part of the country which serves as headquarters for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and is also a North Atlantic Treaty Organization installation and where some 50,000 Americans live) and so many American military personnel that Russians speak quite readily of Germany as an occupied country. The fact is Germany has never achieved true independence after its debacle in WWII.

However, HOWEVER, a certain resistance is hatching in Europe. Also in Germany. American intervention in Ukraine might be the last straw for European patience with their drunkenly staggering giant partner on the other side of the Atlantic. Seventeen of the EU’s 28 member nations have apparently sided with Russia and will NOT deliver weapons to the Ukrainian government as the USA has ordered. The downside is that 11 EU nations side with the USA in its aim to exterminate ethnic Russian residents of the Donbass. German Economic News has identified the following EU states strongly opposed to supplying weapons to Ukraine: Spain, Germany, Greece, Cyprus, Hungary, Italy, France and Slovakia. Furthermore, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi recently visited President Putin in Moscow and is increasing cooperation with Russia. In general, the silence of some EU nations and a slow-down in cooperation with the USA show EU efforts to also lift the sanctions against Russia.

As strange as it might ring to the ears of Westerners, also to many Europeans and most Americans, Europe’s future is inextricably linked to Russia, not to the USA. In the context as laid out here Tolstoy’s words in War and Peace do not ring strange: “Russia alone is to be the savior of Europe.”

rus-leotolstoy_18Tolstoy continued: “The means are… the balance of power in Europe and the rights of the people….It is only necessary for one powerful nation like Russia—barbaric as she is said to be—to place herself disinterestedly at the head of an alliance having for its object the maintenance of the balance of power of Europe, and it would save the world!” Save the world from America’s mad aspirations for world hegemony one can add.

Westerners do not realize the mutual attraction linking Germany (Europe’s major country as it has always been) and Russia, a relationship only partially interrupted by the Bolshevik era in Russia, the ferocious German Nazi invasion of Russia and the no less ferocity of the Russian reaction: at the cost of more or less 25,000,000 lives Russia defeated Nazi Germany and in fact “saved the world”. The mutual attraction has been arguably chiefly cultural, perhaps the proper field to express the love-hate relationship linking them. Yet intermarriage among the former royalty of the two countries contributed to a special feeling one for the other. Peter the Great’s reforms were based also on German influences: his capital city was named St. Petersburg. Many German words have been incorporated into the Russian language with very similar pronunciation: Schachmatt-chess, Kartoffel-potato, Buterbrod-sandwich, Perückenmacher- barber or hairdresser, Schlagbaum-barrier, Rucksack-backpack. Then after the 1917 revolution so many Russians fleeing Russia settled in Berlin’s Charlottenburg district that it was called Charlottengrad.

Perhaps the mysterious attraction of apparent opposites is more mutual admiration than friendship: the German mind and the Russian soul. It’s something metaphysical, even epistemological, a feeling, an emotion, a sensitivity common to the two peoples. Recently one of my Russian Facebook “friends” posed the question: Do you prefer Wagner or Verdi? Those who know Russia would not be surprised by the Russians’ overwhelming preference for Wagner.

Russia Under Attack

Paul Craig Roberts

While Washington works assiduously to undermine the Minsk agreement that German chancellor Merkel and French president Hollande achieved in order to halt the military conflict in Ukraine, Washington has sent Victoria Nuland to Armenia to organize a “color revolution” or coup there, has sent Richard Miles as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan to do the same there, and has sent Pamela Spratlen as ambassador to Uzbekistan to purchase that government’s allegiance away from Russia. The result would be to break up the Collective Security Treaty Organization and present Russia and China with destabilization where they can least afford it. For details go here: http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/03/18/4656

Thus, Russia faces the renewal of conflict in Ukraine simultaneously with three more Ukraine-type situations along its Asian border.

And this is only the beginning of the pressure that Washington is mounting on Russia.

On March 18 the Secretary General of NATO denounced the peace settlement between Russia and Georgia that ended Georgia’s military assault on South Ossetia. The NATO Secretary General said that NATO rejects the settlement because it “hampers ongoing efforts by the international community to strengthen security and stability in the region.” Look closely at this statement. It defines the “international community” as Washington’s NATO puppet states, and it defines strengthening security and stability as removing buffers between Russia and Georgia so that Washington can position military bases in Georgia directly on Russia’s border.

In Poland and the Baltic states Washington and NATO lies about a pending Russian invasion are being used to justify provocative war games on Russia’s borders and to build up US forces in NATO military bases on Russia’s borders.

We have crazed US generals on national television calling for “killing Russians.”

The EU leadership has agreed to launch a propaganda war against Russia, broadcasting Washington’s lies inside Russia in an effort to undermine the Russian people’s support of their government.

All of this is being done in order to coerce Russia into handing over Crimea and its Black Sea naval base to Washington and accepting vassalage under Washington’s suzerainty.

If Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Assad, and the Taliban would not fold to Washington’s threats, why do the fools in Washington think Putin, who holds in his hands the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, will fold?

European governments, apparently, are incapable of any thought. Washington has set London and the capitals of every European country, as well as every American city, for destruction by Russian nuclear weapons. The stupid Europeans rush to destroy themselves in service to their Washington master.

Human intelligence has gone missing if after 14 years of US military aggression against eight countries the world does not understand that Washington is lost in arrogance and hubris and imagines itself the ruler of the universe who will tolerate no dissent from its will.

We know that the American, British, and European media are whores well paid to lie for their master. We know that the NATO commander and secretary general, if not the member countries, are lusting for war. We know that the American Dr. Strangeloves in the Pentagon and armaments industry cannot wait to test their ABMs and new weapons systems in which they always place excessive confidence. We know that the prime minister of Britain is a total cipher. But are the chancellor of Germany and the president of France ready for the destruction of their countries and of Europe? If the EU is of such value, why is the very existence of its populations put at risk in order to bow down and accept leadership from an insane Washington whose megalomania will destroy life on earth?

Sri Lankan police arrest estate workers following strike against quota increase

M. Devarajah

Police from Maskeliya, in Sri Lanka’s central hill district, last week arrested eight young tea estate workers, including a Socialist Equality Party (SEP) supporter, on fabricated charges. The arrests at the Glenuige estate’s Deeside division are part of a witch-hunt against those who held a three-day strike on the estate last month over a unilateral increase in their daily picking quotas.

As part of the crackdown, the management of the Glenugie estate, which belongs to the Maskeliya Plantation Company, has initiated an internal inquiry against G. Wilfred and the other seven. The inquiry was scheduled for today but without explanation has been postponed to March 26. Eight charges have been laid, including verbally abusing and physically assaulting a field officer and disturbing the work of a field division. In the charge sheet, management has hinted that if the charges are proven, the workers could be sacked.

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) condemns this blatant witch-hunt which is not only aimed at those workers but at intimidating all Glenugie workers and plantation workers. The company and police have attempted to enlist some workers as witnesses. We call on workers not to fall into this trap, to defend their persecuted workmates and to unite to defend the rights of all.

SEP supporter G. Wilfred was in the forefront of the strike, campaigning among workers to form an action committee to fight the betrayal of the struggle by the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) and other trade unions. The other workers arrested are M. Nesturiyan, S. Duglusnuman, F. Franklin, F. Anton Julian, J. Jackson Joy, S. Benedict, and T. Jayaram. They were imprisoned overnight in Hatton before being bailed out in return for 50,000-rupee ($US375) personal guarantees.

A Deeside worker told WSWS reporters: “After the strike last month, the Glenuige estate management began putting more burdens on workers, to take revenge, with the support of the CWC branch leadership. These arrests were based on false stories, created by the management to victimise and intimidate workers.”

The fraudulent police allegations include the throwing of stones at a wasp nest to provoke wasp attacks, and a supposed physical assault on an estate supervisor. In reality, the wasp attack occurred accidently, not due to the throwing of stones. Wasp attacks have been commonplace for several years on many estates, affecting hundreds of workers, many critically, because the managements have not properly cleared the wasps off estates.

As for the supervisor, the CWC prompted him to report to police that he was assaulted. Wilfred and other workers, hearing about the strike, went to the location to find out what was happening. They simply argued with the supervisor, condemning him for sending female workers to the area.

Workers have denounced the media for promoting the bogus reports about the wasp attack in order to support the plantation management. One worker told the WSWS: “Sakthi TV broadcast this false story. Its reporter, who lives in the Deeside estate, is also the vice president of CWC branch here and works closely with management. This channel did not report our three-day strike last month.”

Deeside estate workers struck for three days from February 10 against the management’s decision to increase their tea leaf plucking quotas by 2 kilos a day to 18 kilos without any extra pay. They walked off the job independently of all the estate trade unions. Most of workers on the estate were CWC members before the strike. However, more than 100 sent resignation letters to the union branch during the strike because it opposed their fight.

There are also local branches of two other unions, the Upcountry People’s Front and the National Union of Workers (NUW). NUW leader P. Digambaram is a cabinet minister in the government of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. The NUW branch initially supported the strike, but its area leader, Naguleswaran, later intervened to sabotage the strike. He claimed that the management had agreed to reduce the target and that additional payment for extra work could be won through court action.

When the police declared that they wanted to arrest the eight workers, NUW leaders collaborated with the Glenuige estate management and the Maskeliya police chief. After discussions between the union, the company and the police, they asked the eight workers to voluntarily go to the courts, saying they would be bailed out. Instead, the workers were arrested and only bailed the following day. Their case is to be heard in April.

These developments at Deeside are part of a wider pattern. The estate trade unions are working with the plantation companies, the government and the police. In essence, they are functioning as industrial police in the plantations to increase the rate of exploitation of workers. The unions regularly make wretched deals with the plantation owners at the expense of workers’ conditions. Police harassment routinely occurs to enforce the repressive conditions and the unions take the side of the police. Many workers have left the unions because their filthy role.

Last month, workers at the Great Western estate near Talawakelle, also in the central hills area, faced police violence and harassment after protesting against the suspicious death of a local youth in police custody. He drowned in a tank (irrigation dam) after supposedly escaping from police. Police attacked protesting workers and 20 workers were later arrested on charges of unlawful assembly and obstructing a magisterial inquiry.

Police attacks and harassment are worsening amid developing unrest among plantation workers. The current two-year collective agreement is due to expire in April and the plantation unions are getting ready to try to impose another sellout based on a pitiful pay rise.

Workers in all the estates and other workers across Sri Lanka and internationally must oppose the witch-hunt against the Deeside workers and come to their defence.

Top South African police officials targeted in ANC faction fight

Thabo Seseane

On March 13, Robert McBride, head of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), sought an urgent interdict to prevent his suspension by Police Minister Nathi Nhleko in an ongoing faction fight in the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The minister had two days before notified McBride of his intention to place him on “cautionary suspension.”

The minister's counsel, William Mokhari SC, argued in the High Court that McBride was litigating over something that had not even happened yet. McBride's counsel, Steven Budlender SC, said that the process to suspend his client was already in progress and unlawful. The fact that the minister required McBride to go "cap in hand" to him to justify why he should not be suspended was harmful, he said. Even if the minister ended up not suspending him, Budlender held, it was harmful that McBride should be reminded that he is "beholden" to the minister for his job.

McBride did not get the verdict he wanted. "The facts do not support the relief sought, nor the applicable legal considerations. It is accordingly struck off the roll," Judge Hans Fabricius ruled in a judgment in the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday.

McBride's interdict application came on the heels of the suspension of Lt. Gen. Anwa Dramat, the national head of the Hawks, an elite crime-fighting unit, and that of Hawks’ Gauteng head, Shadrack Sibiya. Both suspensions--on the grounds that the two were implicated in the illegal rendition of four Zimbabwean nationals in 2010--were set aside as unlawful by the courts.

The minister now wants to punish McBride as the bureaucrat with ultimate responsibility for a report that cleared Dramat and Sibiya of wrongdoing. This followed an earlier IPID report recommending that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) pursue legal action against the two.

In an interview with TV station eNCA, IPID spokesman Moses Dlamini said only the latter report has legal standing. “The other reports that have been leaked to the media are, in fact, progress reports that were issued to prosecutors who were advising on the investigation,” he said.

On the same day as McBride's court application, the police ministry appeared to quash rumours of Dramat's resignation. Musa Zondi, the minister's spokesman, said, “In a letter in December, [Dramat] indicated that he would want a meeting [with Nhleko] to discuss his possible resignation.” He added that Dramat's lawyers and the minister “are still discussing the matter.”

Dramat was suspended on December 23 last year. On January 23, Judge Bill Prinsloo ordered in the Pretoria High Court that Dramat be allowed to resume work. The judge reaffirmed this order on February 6, irrespective, he stressed, of any other appeal that might be brought. He ruled Nhleko's appointment of Maj. Gen. Berning Ntlemeza as acting national Hawks head unlawful and invalid.

Opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) MP and Shadow Police Minister Diane Kohler Barnard said the DA believed Dramat's suspension was linked to the ANC's efforts to clear President Jacob Zuma of any culpability for unlawful government spending on construction at his private compound at Nkandla, in KwaZulu-Natal. "The suspension of Gen. Dramat came the day after he focused on the Nkandla files," she said. "[National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega] has demanded that Gen Dramat hand over the files..."

The Mail & Guardian reported: “Kohler Barnard said she had heard allegations that Phiyega had asked for files on a number of other high-profile investigations, including one into alleged fraud involving Northern Cape ANC Chairperson John Block, and another into alleged corruption between members of the provincial cabinet and businessperson Toshen Panday in KwaZulu-Natal.”

Also on March 13, Director of Public Prosecutions Mxolisi Nxasana announced the reinstatement of charges against the former head of the police crime intelligence unit, Richard Mdluli, and his junior, Col. Heine Barnard. The two have reportedly been informed that they are to appear in the Pretoria Commercial Crimes Court on April 1 to face initial charges of fraud, corruption and money laundering.

The charges, withdrawn in December 2011 with no reason given at the time, relate to Mdluli and Barnard's alleged misuse of a crime intelligence fund. According to reports about the charge sheet on Netwerk24, the fraud totaled R1.28 million ($102,570).

Last June, Nxasana said in a letter to rights group Freedom Under Law, “The state will not proceed with the murder and attempted murder charges [against Mdluli] at this stage due to a lack of evidence.”

In an inquest finalised in November 2012 at the Boksburg Magistrates' Court, Mdluli was implicated in the murder of Oupa Ramogibe. According to City Press, “Ramogibe's family testified at the inquest about the love triangle Oupa had apparently become part of because of his involvement with a woman named Tshidi Buthelezi, who was at one stage Mdluli's lover.

“Buthelezi and Ramogibe subsequently ran away to be married, terrified of Mdluli.”

In response, he launched a vindictive campaign against people linked to the couple: “[W]ith the help of other police officers, [Mdluli] had allegedly threatened, kidnapped and assaulted [their] friends and family in an attempt to find out where Buthelezi was.”

Ramogibe was shot dead on February 17, 1999. Mdluli handed himself over to the Boksburg Magistrates' Court on March 31 of that year. He and three others were charged with intimidation, three counts of kidnapping, three counts of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder, while Mdluli faced an additional charge of obstructing the ends of justice.

While McBride and Dramat are currently out of favour with the clique surrounding Zuma, Mdluli was briefly reinstated as crime intelligence boss when both sets of charges against him were dropped. Following an outcry, he was moved in May 2010 by then-Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa to the office of the deputy national police commissioner for operations, Fannie Masemola. Mdluli fought his subsequent suspension from that job, but the suspension was upheld when the inquest revealed new information about the Ramogibe killing.

ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe indicated he did not understand what the fuss over Mdluli, who hired at least seven relatives in crime intelligence, was about. “Why should the case of a civil servant who is in trouble with his department become a national matter?” he demanded. Mantashe added, “Civil servants will run into court from time to time. It's not a train smash.”

Early Andalucía elections mark growing political volatility in Spain

Vicky Short & Alejandro Lopez

The holding of early elections on March 22, a year earlier than planned, in the southern region of Andalucía is another indication of the highly volatile political situation in Spain. The country has seen the collapse of the two-party system of the social democratic Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) and conservative Popular Party (PP) that has dominated Spanish politics since the transition from fascism to bourgeois democracy after the death of dictator General Francisco Franco in 1975.

The combined vote of the PSOE and PP has fallen to less than 40 percent compared to 80 percent in 2009. According to the latest Metroscopia poll, support for the PP has plummeted from 44.6 percent in 2011 to 18.6 percent. For the PSOE it is 19.1 percent, down from 28.5 percent in 2011. Polling for the pseudo-left party Podemos (We Can), created early last year, stands around 25 percent while support for the right-wing Ciudadanos (Citizens) party has risen dramatically, from four percent in January to 18.4 percent.

Created in 2006 in the north-eastern region of Catalonia on an explicit anti-nationalist programme, Ciudadanos has now spread to other regions. Its main base of support is among the urban middle class—disenchanted voters from the PP (40 percent); the UPyD, a right-wing, centrist and anti-nationalist split from the PSOE (15 percent); and people who never vote, 21 percent.

The Andalucía elections are the first of several this year—municipal elections in May, regional elections in 13 other Spanish regions in May and in Catalonia in September, and a general election in October or November.

Andalucía, Spain’s most populous region, has been ruled by the PSOE since 1982, but in the 2012 regional elections the PP won more seats as a result of the PSOE’s austerity measures and corruption scandals. Andalucía has Europe’s highest regional unemployment rate, standing at 34.2 percent, 10 points higher than Spain’s national average. In April, three former PSOE prime ministers of Andalucía will appear in Spain’s Supreme Court as suspects in a billion euro fraud trial that siphoned money from public funds meant to provide severance pay to laid-off workers.

Of the 109 seats in the regional Congress, in 2012 the PP won 50, the PSOE 47 and the United Left (Izquierda Unida—IU) 12. To prevent the PP taking power, the PSOE formed a coalition with the IU comprised of middle-class parties led by the Communist Party of Spain (PCE).

The latest polls suggest all three parties will lose seats, with the PP ending up with around 35, the PSOE a possible 42, and the IU six or less. Podemos could win up to 22 seats and Ciudadanos up to 13.

In percentage terms, the PP is polling 24.6 (down from 40.7 in 2012), the PSOE 33.4 (39.6 in 2012) and the IU 6.4 (11.3 in 2012). Neither Podemos nor Ciudadanos stood for election in 2012, but are now polling 18.3 percent and 10.4 percent respectively. The situation is even more uncertain, as almost half of respondents told pollsters that they had not yet decided which party they will vote for.

The holding of early elections was announced by PSOE regional premier, Susana Díaz, in January claiming there was too much “instability” in the regional coalition. The government nearly collapsed in April 2104, following an IU publicity stunt related to evictions. The IU was planning to hold a referendum among its members later in the year on whether to leave the coalition if the PSOE continued to refuse to carry out social reforms promised in the post-election “Agreement for Andalucía.”

A major consideration for Díaz in calling early elections was a desperate attempt to shore up the PSOE, which polls higher in Andalucía than nationally, and to take advantage of the lower poll results obtained by Podemos in the region and the fact that it has no structure there as yet. Díaz told IU leader Antonio Maíllo of her decision to end the coalition and sack the IU’s three ministers on January 27, just as the election of Podemos’ ally, Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left), was confirmed in Greece.

Ciudadanos has been heavily promoted by the media recently, with El Paíscalling for a PSOE-Ciudadanos coalition to prevent a Podemos government. Other voices, such as former PSOE Prime Minister Felipe González, have pressured the PSOE and the PP to form a Grand Coalition to neutralise Podemos.

In a television interview, PP Secretary General María Dolores de Cospedal stated that her party would “contemplate” a German-style “grand coalition” with the PSOE if it failed to secure an absolute majority at the next general election. Although PSOE leaders have not commented openly about a coalition with the PP, they have made it clear they will not consider one with Podemos.

The collapse of the IU’s support exposes all those pseudo-left organizations, including the Pabloite Izquierda Anticapitalista (re-named Anticapitalistas since they entered Podemos) and the state-capitalist En Lucha (In Struggle) ,which hailed the IU as the real left alternative to the PSOE when the PCE launched it in 1986. They liquidated themselves into IU, only to split again once it lost credibility and proved itself a loyal defender of the ruling elite.

En Lucha and Anticapitalistas are now repeating the same mantras for the pro-capitalist Podemos, which uses vague anti-austerity rhetoric to dupe workers—including calls for a regional wealth tax, a law guaranteeing access to water, electricity and gas supplies, and the temporary suspension of evictions in the region. It is clear that, like its counterpart Syriza, which capitulated to the troika in less than a month, even these meagre proposals will be forgotten should Podemos help form the next government in Spain.

The fraudulent character of Podemos was exposed in the statement made by Luis Alegre, the party’s candidate for the Madrid region. He announced a possible pact with the PSOE in Andalucía if the latter accepts a “ruthless struggle against corruption”—a demand placed on the same party that is embroiled in mass corruption in the region and has been regularly castigated by Podemos as being part and parcel of the “caste.”

The candidate for Podemos in the region is Teresa Rodriguez, current member of the European Parliament and leading member of Anticapitalistas. In a recent interview, she was already warning: “The budget of the regions, especially in Andalucía, does not depend on Andalucía. Our revenue capacity is quite limited. In this case we propose a project that is at state level and that has to do with a series of measures related to debt. One is related to a restructuring of debt with a cut and a [debt] audit.”

In reality, Podemos has already rejected such steps. Last October, the two leading economists that wrote its economic programme stated that the objective is “negotiating with the markets flexible payments of debt”, “grace periods” and “partial ‘haircuts’.”

Canadian military intelligence seeks greater integration with domestic security agencies

Dylan Lubao

Canada’s military has formulated plans to become a “main player” in the security-intelligence apparatus of the Canadian government and its international allies, according to a planning document obtained and published by the Toronto Star through the Access to Information Act.

Pledging to “maximize” the intelligence capabilities of the Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC) intelligence branch, the document presents a five-year plan to harness “all of [the] strengths and capabilities” of the larger intelligence community. This would entail closer integration between CJOC intelligence, Canada’s two premier spy agencies—the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE)—and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, with a view to ultimately making CJOC Intelligence the government’s intelligence nexus.

CJOC serves as the Canadian Armed Forces’ (CAF) central command and control hub, directing both foreign and domestic missions. It is also involved in “space operations” and “cyber support” for all three branches of the military.

The document is directed at guiding “CJOC relationships with ... organizations within and beyond the Department of National Defense (DND).” As part of this mandate, CJOC is already tasked with providing “aid to Civil Power” (i.e. the government) and “assistance to LEA” (law enforcement agencies).

The document emphasizes CJOC’s importance in supporting the CAF Command in fulfilling its six “Canada First Defence Strategy” core missions. Among these are “domestic and continental operations, including in the Arctic and throughout NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command).”

The document also highlights CJOC Intelligence’s role in supporting “civilian authorities during a crisis in Canada such as a natural disaster.”

Although worded in such a way as to imply that the intelligence branch conducts routine logistical operations during emergencies such as floods or blizzards, both the government’s expansive definitions of “crisis” and “national security” and CJOC’s recent conduct make clear that it is being equipped to track and suppress political opposition to the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and more generally opposition to the Canadian ruling class and its state.

CJOC is known to have monitored political dissent on at least three separate occasions in recent years. It was involved in security operations during the G8 and G20 meetings in 2010 in Huntsville and Toronto, as well as the Vancouver Winter Olympics earlier that year. All three events witnessed significant demonstrations from left-wing, aboriginal, and environmentalist groups.

CJOC Intelligence is moving to arm itself with all of the electronic espionage and mass spying tools of the government’s better-known spy agencies, CSE and CSIS. These spy agencies continue to carry out mass surveillance operations which violate the constitutional rights of millions of Canadians and others around the world, and are implicated in carrying out espionage activities against foreign countries and their leaders, in concert with their fellow spy agencies in the US National Security Agency-led Five Eyes intelligence alliance.

This process of inter-agency integration is clearly spelled out across several sections in the document. It calls for CJOC Intelligence to be “integrated with joint, interagency, multinational and public partners at all levels,” ultimately becoming “recognized as a leader for operational intelligence.”

Commenting on the document, Christopher Parsons, an intelligence and security researcher at Citizen Lab in Toronto, said that the plan could make CJOC Intelligence a “clearing house” for the intelligence agencies.

In response to the Star ’s inquiries, CJOC has released a statement claiming that the plan outlined in the document has yet to be approved and “does not reflect current intelligence planning or operations.” But as the Star noted, CJOC failed to provide any detail as to how current CJOC practice differs from the plan outlined in the document.

CJOC spokesman Lt. Kirk Sullivan further attempted to downplay the significance of the document by claiming that his department did not have a mandate to conduct defence intelligence operations domestically. Nevertheless, he subsequently refuted his own claims by noting that CJOC can contribute to domestic operations when a formal request is made through the Department of National Defence.

Any official declarations to the effect that CJOC Intelligence does not spy on the Canadian population should be regarded with the deepest skepticism. When its sister agency CSE was exposed in 2013 as having conducted mass surveillance on the Canadian population, the Conservative government denied the allegations for months before finally admitting, in February 2014 and under a mountain of evidence, that it had lied. It then went on to justify its mass collection of telecommunications “metadata” by advancing a fraudulent pseudo-legal argument. (See: CSEC and Harper government assert right to spy on Canadians)

The activities and very existence of CJOC Intelligence remain shrouded in mystery. It is monitored by the chief of defence staff and top military brass, and its operations are subject to review by the auditor general and the privacy commissioner (government oversight bodies that have vast other responsibilities). However, like CSE and CSIS, its operations are not subject to parliamentary oversight, let alone genuine public scrutiny, allowing it to function as part of a shadowy state-within-the-state involved in imperialist wars and conspiracies abroad and spying and preparations to quell dissent at home.

According to military officials, the CJOC Intelligence document was spurred into being by the recognition that it had failed to remain “relevant” to current intelligence requirements, and thus needed to catch up to an agency like CSE.

All of Canada’s spy agencies, including CSE, have used this ploy, portraying their organizations as woefully lacking in the powers and funds needed to wage the phony “war on terror.” These same agencies have gone on to use their new surveillance powers to spy upon the entire population, while failing to prevent attacks from individuals whom they had been monitoring, such as the perpetrators of the recent attacks in Ottawa and St-Jean-sur-Richelieu. CJOC Intelligence is now making similar arguments.

Preventing embarrassing intelligence leaks has served as an additional pretext for CJOC Intelligence to press for an expansion of its role and reach. In 2012, former Navy Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Delisle pleaded guilty to selling secret information to the Russian military. The Department of National Defence and CSIS framed Delisle’s crime as “exceptionally grave” and “irreparable.”

Since 2001, the powers and budgets of Canada’s military-intelligence apparatus have been vastly expanded. This is being sold to the public as a means of protecting “national security” and “the lives of Canadians” from “terrorism” and “aggressive” rival nations such as Russia or China. In reality, the greatest threat to Canadian workers and their democratic rights is their own government and the big business interests it serves.

German Social Democrat leader backs mass data retention by telecommunication companies

Denis Krasnin

Sigmar Gabriel, chairman of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), spoke out in favour of adopting a data storage law in an interview with radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk last Sunday.

“We need it, but I know that it is extremely controversial,” said Gabriel, who is also deputy chancellor and economics minister in the German government. “We are currently experiencing that the world has become quite dangerous,” he said. “And I believe, with constitutionally acceptable limits, we have to be in the technical position to respond.”

The data storage law would see telecommunications companies store all communications data for several months or years, forwarding data to the police and intelligence agencies at their request. In this way, these agencies can determine after the fact who telephoned or exchanged SMS messages or emails with whom, where this was done and for how long, and what web sites were visited. They would be able to construct a full picture of the movements of any chosen individual, including innocent citizens, and follow their social and political activities.

In November 2007, the previous grand coalition government of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and SPD implemented a data storage law with the votes of both parties. But in March 2010, Germany’s constitutional court declared the law to be invalid and ordered the immediate deletion of the collected data. The storage of telecommunications data for no reason was designed to “produce a general, threatening feeling of being watched, which can restrict the uninhibited realisation of constitutional rights in many areas,” the decision stated.

However, the constitutional court left the door ajar. It did not declare the data storage law to be in breach of the constitution, but allowed it if data protection, data security, transparency and the right of accessing information were clearly regulated.

As a result, in their coalition agreement in December 2013, the CDU, Christian Social Union (CSU) and SPD agreed to introduce data storage in a slightly modified form. The basis for the new law is supposed to be provided by EU guidelines. But in April 2014, the European Court of Justice overturned these guidelines. The judges found that they were in breach of the fundamental right to privacy and the right to have personal data protected.

The German plans have now also been put on hold. The government intends to wait until the EU commission presents new guidelines. Then at the beginning of this month, the commission reported that a new proposal was not planned, and that the formulation of laws on data storage remained a matter for national governments to decide.

Gabriel is now seeking to seize the moment with his recent statement. Since the attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo at the beginning of the year, the German government has been pressing for a rapid reintroduction of data storage under the pretext of combatting terrorism. Already shortly after the Paris attacks, Chancellor Angela Merkel called on the EU commission in a government statement to finally present new guidelines.

In the Deutschlandfunk interview, Gabriel called for Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU) and Justice Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) to jointly develop a draft law on data storage. He was thereby challenging his own justice minister, who has spoken out against new regulations, while de Maizière is pushing for it. There are also objections to a new law in other sections of the SPD.

However, an SPD party conference in December 2011 already spoke out in favour of data storage in principle, if certain preconditions were fulfilled. The SPD took a similar stance in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, when they were in government in coalition with the Greens. While Peter Hartz launched an assault on the jobs and living standards of workers with his social welfare reforms, Interior Minister Otto Schily undermined basic democratic rights with his anti-terror legislation.

Investigations into data storage have come to the conclusion that it is of little help in the pursuit of criminals and investigation of terrorist attacks. A study by the scientific service of parliament concluded that no proof could be found of an improvement in combatting criminality through the storage of communications data. According to researchers at the Max Plank institute, there was no evidence that data storage had prevented terrorist attacks.

However, combatting criminality and fighting terrorism are not the real goals of the data storage law. Above all, it is an instrument to politically spy on the great majority of the population. What the Nazis achieved with an army of spies, and the GDR (East Germany) with tens of thousands of informal informants, the comprehensive surveillance of the population can be achieved today much more easily and cheaply by storing all telecommunications data.

It is no accident that the SPD has taken over the leading role in promoting this. The party has seen its goal for many years as defending capitalist rule against social resistance. In the post-war period the party dampened class contradictions with social concessions and compromises, Today, as social achievements are being eliminated, the SPD is preparing to violently suppress social protests by strengthening the state’s apparatus of surveillance and suppression.

The fact that the SPD is consciously building up the surveillance and security apparatus in a planned manner, rather than simply responding to events like the September 11 or Charlie Hebdo attacks, is proved by the coalition agreement of the current government. It states, “We are expanding the capacities of the federal office for security in information technology (BSI) and the cyber defence centre. We are improving the IT capabilities of Germany’s security authorities.”

The build-up of the state is backed by the parliamentary opposition Greens and Left Party. At most, their differences concern the means to be used. The leader of the Green parliamentary fraction, Katrin Göring-Eckardt, concentrated not on technology, but personnel. The requirement was for “more police to find the needle, rather than more technology to make the haystack bigger,” she told news magazine Der Spiegel. She also had a ready formula: for every “needle,” every evil actor, at least 30 police were required to keep up surveillance around the clock.

In all previous state elections, the Left Party had raised the demand for an increase in the number of police officers.

A study produced by academics at the Free University of Berlin, based on statistics from a representative survey by Infratest Dimap, confirms that the strengthening of the state is directed against growing social opposition among the population.

According to the survey, 60 percent believe that there is no genuine democracy in Germany, because big business interests have more influence over politics than voters. One in three is convinced that capitalism leads inevitably to poverty and hunger. Thirty-seven percent of those in western Germany and 59 percent in eastern Germany think socialist and communist forms of society are a good idea, but that to date have been poorly carried out. And one in five called for a revolution, because reforms could not improve living conditions.

Gabriel’s pressing for “total surveillance,” as Zeit Online put it, is aimed at controlling and suppressing a mass movement that gives social and political expression to these sentiments.

Strike by Lufthansa pilots continues

Philipp Frisch & Ulrich Rippert

The strike of Lufthansa pilots has intensified since the beginning of the week. On Wednesday, the pilots' union Cockpit decided to continue the strike on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. This is the twelfth series of strike actions that have taken place since the industrial dispute began.

On Wednesday, short- and medium-haul pilots took action. On Thursday, the strike then hit long-haul flights and Lufthansa Cargo. On Friday, short- and medium-haul planes were again affected. Pilots working for the two large Lufthansa subsidiaries, German Wings and the long-haul budget airline EuroWings founded last autumn, were not included in the strike.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled at major hubs. In Frankfurt, 480 flights were cancelled on Wednesday; in Munich, 129 takeoffs and 143 landings did not take place. At many other airports domestic flights to Frankfurt and Munich were cancelled, as well as about 50 flights at Berlin Tegel Airport. Overall on Wednesday some 750 flights, just over half the usual 1,400 daily flights, were cancelled.

Lufthansa had previously cancelled a negotiating meeting scheduled for Tuesday, tabled to discuss a collective agreement covering approximately 5,400 pilots. For months, the pilots have met with intransigence on the part of Lufthansa. The management want to force the pilots to submit and make an example of them in order to push through worse conditions for the other 110,000 staff.

A year ago, on March 20, 2014, pilots had voted in a ballot by 99.1 percent for strike action to defend their incomes and pensions against radical cuts. Since then, management has refused to negotiate seriously and is attempting to isolate the pilots and put them under massive pressure.

Politicians and the media are conducting a systematic campaign against the pilots’ collective struggle, accusing them of defending “privileges”. It is necessary once again to make clear that the pilots’ demands are fully justified.

The current strike concerns transitional early retirement rules. These have been systematically eroded over the last decades. Originally, it was possible for a pilot who reached the age of 55 to take early retirement or work part-time. In 2013, however, the threshold for the rules to apply had increased to 59 years old, although the 2012 contract meant it was not possible to work beyond age 60. The transitional rules would not apply to newly hired pilots.

However, the pilots’ anger is aimed primarily against the cuts plans by Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr. Some months ago, Spohr justified his plan to restructure the company and to reduce the personnel costs through transferring out permanent staff in order to deal with increased price competition in international air travel. The crash in oil prices during the past few months has increased the pressure on Lufthansa.

Lower oil prices should mean lower air fuel costs. However, Lufthansa used complicated financial transactions to hedge against rising costs for kerosene, which are now proving to be expensive. Given the large proportion fuel costs account for in the overall balance sheet of an airline, airlines based in the oil-rich regions, such as the Arab Emirates, industry giants enjoy significant advantages, aggravating the competition.

For example, when Spohr presented the preliminary annual report in February, he had to admit that despite Lufthansa making an operating profit of €954 million, according to German accountancy practice this was in fact a €732 million loss. When Spohr said this meant the shareholders would not receive a dividend, the value of Lufthansa shares fell by 5.4 percent.

The subsidiaries GermanWings and EuroWings are to be built up in the price war with the low-cost airlines, such as Irish company Ryanair, and with the state-subsidised airlines of the Arab peninsula, and supplemented by a long-haul company. Lufthansa plans to purchase seven Airbus A330 for this purpose. Via a holding company, these three companies would then be taxed outside Germany to fight off the international competition. The price war is being conducted on the backs of the employees.

The existing company-wide contract is being eroded. Old-age care for newly hired pilots is to be abolished. In future, they will have to save for their early retirement, which equates to a massive wage cut. The extension of a two-class system among the pilots means those paid under the existing company contract will become fewer and fewer. Today, there are some 5,400 Lufthansa pilots out of more than 9,000 paid under the company contract.

But the plans for cuts go even further. Up to 14 leased aircraft will be used by Lufthansa under the “Jump” brand to serve destinations to which the company would otherwise not fly. The leased aircraft would be flown by pilots employed by the lessor, at lower rates of pay. There will also be fewer cabin staff. Moreover, the company has put the EuroWings pilots under massive pressure to accept even worse conditions.

It is to be expected that Spohr intends to push down all pilots’ wages to the level of their EuroWings colleagues, or even lower. In February, Lufthansa directors Karl Ulrich Garnadt and Bettina Volkens wrote to the workforce explaining the wage level the management was aiming for. They complain that the wage level of employees paid under the company contract is more than 40 percent above those working at EasyJet and Turkish Airlines. “Of course, our personnel costs cannot remain permanently and considerably above the level of the competition,” their letter says.

Cockpit complains about this blackmail, but has done nothing to oppose it. According to spokesman Jörg Handwerg, the sector union is not trying to “hinder strategic business decisions.”

“Those who regard every contract as a restriction on entrepreneurial freedom are labouring under a misconception that makes the conclusion of new agreements de facto impossible,” he added.

Again and again, the pilots’ union has offered to collaborate with the management. For example, Cockpit helped Lufthansa cement the low wages at EuroWings. Under the collective agreement, a young EuroWings captain earns €77,000 a year, almost €60,000 less than a colleague at Lufthansa. Overall, wages at EuroWings are about 40 percent lower than at Lufthansa.

Cockpit supports the capital market orientation of management, but is demanding a “collective bargaining partnership.” This nationally limited and business oriented outlook of Cockpit means the union does not dare call things by their name and say openly that the attacks by Lufthansa on the pilots are part of the international attacks by the airlines on their employees at the behest of the financial markets.

Throughout Europe and the world, similar struggles are taking place. At present, air traffic controllers in Italy are also undertaking strike measures. Last year, pilots in France conducted a bitter dispute that was broken off by the union at precisely the point it had developed into a struggle against the Hollande government.

Instead of mobilising employees at all the European and international airlines in a common struggle, Cockpit is trying push the Lufthansa management into closer cooperation and a “collective bargaining partnership” through limited pinprick tactics and selective strikes.

Two of its functionaries sit on the Lufthansa supervisory board. Last year, Ilona Ritter, chair of the union’s contract policy department, and Stefan Ziegler received over €100,000 for their duties on the supervisory board.

The ten so-called employee representatives on the supervisory board play a key role in agreeing and implementing Spohr’s cuts plans. Deputy head of the supervisory board Christine Behle (Social Democratic Party) is a member of the federal executive of the service union Verdi, replacing Verdi boss Frank Bsirske (Green Party) 18 months ago on the Lufthansa Supervisory Board. Bsirske had supported all the cuts.

A year after the pilots began their industrial dispute, and following 12 limited strike actions, it is time to take stock. The nationally limited politics of Cockpit based on collaboration with management (social partnership) prevent the necessary European-wide and international struggle by pilots alongside all airline workers.

Australian government in crisis over budget strategy

Peter Symonds

Less than two months after a backbench revolt in the Liberal Party threatened his leadership, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his government are mired in crisis. Big business leaders, financial commentators and political pundits have not only lambasted, but openly ridiculed Abbott and his ministers for their lack of a budget strategy and their failure to press ahead measures to slash wages and working conditions.

Abbott survived what he described as “a near death experience” on February 9 when about 40 percent of Liberal Party room voted for a spill motion that would have declared all leadership positions vacant. The vote expressed deep concerns in the collapse of public support for the Liberal-National Coalition government amid widespread opposition to the austerity measures contained in last May’s budget, including lifting the pension age to 70, deep cutbacks to welfare payments, a co-payment for doctors’ visits and the deregulation of university fees.

Over the past six weeks, Abbott and Treasurer Joe Hockey have attempted to placate Liberal backbenchers by seeking to defuse the most contentious budget measures, while at the same time reassuring the financial and corporate elite that budget spending would be reined in. A fortnight ago, Hockey tabled an Intergenerational Report in a fraudulent attempt to justify the need for spending cuts in the upcoming May budget by claiming that to do otherwise would be robbing future generations.

In business circles, deep dissatisfaction with the government has continued to mount, amid a deteriorating outlook for the Australian economy fuelled by a continuing slowdown in China and falling commodity prices. In its budget submission this month, the Business Council of Australia (BCA), representing Australia’s 100 leading corporations, insisted there had to be a 10-year plan for a “fundamental reset of fiscal strategy and the budget process” and declared that this approach was “a bipartisan imperative.”

Frustration with Abbott boiled over this week after he signalled on Wednesday that the upcoming budget would not contain the austerity measures demanded by big business, but would be “pretty dull, pretty routine.” Even more disturbing for the financial elite, he seized on projections from the Intergeneration Report to declare that there was “no cause for alarm because we have got the budget under control.” Abbott suggested that “a ratio of debt to GDP at about 50 to 60 percent is a pretty good result looking around the world” at countries like Greece.

The comments provoked an outpouring of caustic and cutting remarks. In Murdoch’s Australian today, which has steadfastly backed Abbott, commentator David Crowe declared that the government was “losing the battle over the budget.” Abbott was changing his message on budget cuts, he wrote, “in a way the stuns backbench colleagues, dismays business leaders and defies the warnings on future deficits from his own government’s forecasts.”

Treasury official Nigel Ray, who was responsible for preparing the Intergenerational Report, confirmed that it projected budget deficits for the next 40 years unless further cutbacks were made. The Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens warned yesterday that “we’re not on the correct path for the long run and we need to get on a better path.” Former BCA chairman and head of the government’s own audit commission Tony Shepherd urged Abbott and Hockey to make the necessary budget adjustments now “rather than wait for Armageddon.”

The editorial in yesterday’s Australian Financial Review (AFR) ridiculed Abbott’s assertion that the budget was “under control” and pointed out that a recent financial system inquiry report had warned that a public debt to GDP ratio of 30 percent would endanger Australia’s AAA credit rating. It concluded by warning that “the budget will be the policy area that determines the fate of the Abbott government—and now this fate is likely sealed.”

The opposition Labor Party seized on Abbott’s comments to move a censure motion in parliament on Thursday. Like Abbott, Labor leader Bill Shorten is utterly two-faced. He has branded last year’s budget as “unfair” and blocked some measures in a bid to capitalise on widespread public opposition, even while the Labor Party along with the Greens voted in favour of the budget appropriation bills slashing $80 billion in health and education spending to the states over the next decade.

At the same time, Shorten and shadow treasurer Chris Bowen pledge to rein in government spending if Labor returns to office. Many of the Abbott government’s measures were set in train by the previous Labor government. Shorten used the censure motion to again prove his bona fides to big business attacking the Abbott government for “putting Australia’s AAA credit rating at risk through his own incompetence and mismanagement.” He lambasted Abbott as the “Captain Chaos” of Australian politics: “He is captain of a team who has no economic plan for Australia’s future. They have no budget plan.”

The duplicity of Abbott and Shorten, leaders of two big business parties, underscores the deep crisis of bourgeois rule. Neither party is able to garner public support for policies that are antithetical to the interests and needs of the vast majority of the population.

The exasperation in ruling circles with both parties and the parliamentary system as a whole was expressed in AFR columnist Laura Tingle’s comment entitled “We are being governed by fools and it’s not funny.” After declaring that Abbott had “dropped his bundle” and the government had lost its way and its authority, she continued: “At issue is not just whether Tony Abbott loses his leadership, or whether the budget bottom line deteriorates even further, but signs that our political system really is in deep trouble.”

Earlier in the week, the government let it be known that it had discussed calling a double dissolution—a full election of the lower and upper houses—in a desperate bid to end the parliamentary deadlock. Such is the public alienation from the entire political establishment that a new poll would likely lead to a further fracturing of the parliamentary system that has produced a succession of political upheavals and leadership changes over the past five years.

The crisis over the budget is further compounded by the worsening global economic breakdown and sharpening geo-political tensions. The latter has surfaced over the past week following the decision by the British government to defy US opposition and join the Chinese-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Having initially proposed Australian involvement then reversing itself in November under strong pressure from Washington, the Abbott government this week indicated that it will do another back flip and join the AIIB.

The indecision over the AIIB highlights the deep dilemma facing the Australian ruling class, which depends heavily on China economically, but has long relied on the United States as the chief guarantor of its strategic interests. Behind the backs of the Australian population, both the Coalition and the Labor Party have fully backed the US “pivot to Asia” and integrated the Australian armed forces in the US military build-up against China. At the same time, big business has been reluctant to pass up the prospect of lucrative financial rewards from involvement in the AIIB. The latest decision will only further fuel divisions in ruling circles and add to the political crisis in Canberra.

Israeli settlers, soldiers attack Palestinians in East Jerusalem and Nablus

Patrick Martin

Armed Israeli settlers staged attacks on Palestinians Wednesday in East Jerusalem and on Thursday in the West Bank city of Nablus. The actions signal a new offensive by settlers and other ultra-rightists encouraged by the election victory March 17 of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition.

Little information has yet been made public about the Nablus incident. The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that dozens of settlers stormed the monument of Sheikh Yousef Dweikat, a local Muslim religious figure, which the settlers claim is where the biblical patriarch Joseph is buried. The settlers came in buses escorted by Israeli troops, who fired tear gas at local Palestinians when they offered resistance to the settler rampage.

Far more has been published in both the Israeli and Palestinian media about the seizure of a residential building in the Wadi Hilweh neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem, just south of the Old City, but the US and international media have been virtually silent on the events there.

Settlers affiliated with the right-wing Elad-City of David Foundation entered a small four-unit apartment building and seized three apartments belonging to an extended Palestinian family. The takeover came while several of the adult residents were at the local police station responding to a summons to report for questioning. WAFA reported that they were not actually questioned, but during the time they were in the station the settlers invaded the apartment building, removed furniture and belongings from three of the four units and changed the locks. The whole operation was evidently coordinated between the settlers’ organization and the police.

The Palestinian residents of the apartment building, known as the al-Malhi building for the extended family that lived in all four apartments, assembled inside and outside the fourth apartment unit, which remained under their control, and a running battle ensued with police and settlers.

Police opened fire with teargas grenades and rubber-coated metal bullets. They also seized several Palestinian youth and took them away, one as young as 11, but later released them. Eventually the Israeli attackers took over the entire building.

The al-Malhi family have been fighting the theft of their homes for nearly two decades, as settler groups have steadily invaded the Silwan neighborhood. The area lies just outside the southern wall of the Old City and only a few yards from the Al Aqsa mosque, one of the principal religious sites in Islam.

The “sale” of the apartment building was apparently engineered as a scam by the Israeli group, using a forged document deeding the property to Yad Yafah, a nonprofit organization associated with the settlers. Israeli courts have repeatedly held up this document as genuine.

A member of the family has reportedly been induced by the Zionists to act as their agent, and he came to the building Wednesday backed by police, security guards and armed settlers, to give a fig leaf of legitimacy to the mass eviction.

At the same time, other Israeli settlers seized control of two open pieces of land elsewhere in Wadi Hilweh: 500 square meters used by Palestinian children as a playground and 1,200 square meters belonging to the al-Abbasi family. The settlers placed mobile homes on both properties as the first stage in establishing another Jewish outpost in the overwhelmingly Palestinian neighborhood.

Separately, Israeli police tried unsuccessfully to enforce an eviction order, issued Monday against the Sab Laban family, residents of the Old City, who have been renting a property as “protected tenants” under a law that gives them certain rights. The Ateret Cohanim Settlement Organization, a well-funded Zionist group promoting Judaization of the entire Old City, claims the family home is vacant.

Eight members of the family have locked themselves inside the house, defying the court order. They have lived the house since 1953, when they first rented it from the Jordanian authorities, who then ruled East Jerusalem.

Israeli police arrested seven Palestinian teenagers Wednesday night in Jerusalem, as tensions mounted in the city’s Arab neighborhoods.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, Israeli troops raided the city of Jenin and its adjacent refugee camp in the northern West Bank, and homes in Ya‘bad and al-Zababda towns and in Sinjil, northeast of Ramallah. A total of three men were arrested in the raid.

Other repressive measures were taken in the northern Jordan Valley villages of Makhoul and al-Hadidiya, where Israeli military bulldozers demolished dozens of homes and livestock barns, and in Palestinian olive farms outside Nablus, where military bulldozers uprooted 300 olive trees and razed 5,000 meters of stone walls, clearing an area adjacent to an Israeli settlement. No warning was given to the residents or the farmers before their homes and property were destroyed.

The settlers and other Zionist fanatics are undoubtedly encouraged by the reelection victory of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is allied with the settler and ultra-right parties in forming a new government. But these attacks represent less an escalation than a continuation of the Zionist settler rampage against Palestinians in East Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank.

Another right-wing fanatic attacked Israeli author Yehonatan Gefen at his home in Beit Yitzhak, near Netanya on the central Mediterranean coast. The assailant knocked on the writer’s front door, and when he answered, punched him in the face and threw eggs, screaming that he was a “leftist traitor.” Gefen, a poet and songwriter, appeared at a Tel Aviv theater after Netanyahu’s victory and declared, “The nation has once again chosen someone whose rule is based on frightening the people. It chose a racist who on Election Day said that Arabs were descending on the voting booths. What would you say if in Germany there were people who say that Jews are streaming toward the voting booths?”

Joining the settlers and semi-fascist fanatics in celebration of the Netanyahu victory were several leaders of US-backed Syrian “rebel” groups, who sent congratulatory messages through an Israeli Druse official who has acted as their conduit to the Israeli government. The messages were reported by the right-wing Jerusalem Post, a fervent supporter of the prime minister, which evidently regarded them as a feather in Netanyahu’s cap.

One Syrian “rebel”, identified as Musa Al-Nabhan, wrote, “We hope that your government will continue to provide the necessary support to the Syrian people, which are fond of you and looking to build the best of relations on all levels.” A letter from the Revolutionary Assembly for the Future of Syria, addressed to Netanyahu, said, “We received with great hope and joy the news of your victory...and hope that you will continue … to support the Syrian revolution.”

The Post reported that similar messages were received from several high-ranking officers in the Free Syrian Army, a group which has more supporters in Washington DC—and apparently in Jerusalem—than in Syria.