Lack of global leadership spurs instability in the Middle East

James M. Dorsey

With multiple Middle Eastern disputes threatening to spill out of control, United Arab Emirates minister of state for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash acknowledged what many in the Middle East have long said privately: the UAE’s recently-found assertiveness and determination to punch above its weight stems from its inability to rely on traditional allies like the United States.

What is true for the UAE is equally true for Saudi Arabia and Israel. It also shapes responses of those on the US’s list of bad guys, including Iran, the Palestinians, and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Perceptions of US unreliability were initially sparked by former US president Obama Barak’s Middle East policies, including his declared pivot to Asia, support of the 2011 Arab popular revolts, criticism of Israel, and willingness to engage with Iran.

President Donald J. Trump has proven to be more partisan than Mr. Obama in his backing of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel and his confrontational approach of Iran. Yet, his mercurial unpredictability has made him no less unreliable in the perception of US allies even if he appears to have granted Middle Eastern partners near carte-blanche.

“We are ready to take up more of the burden of security in our own neighbourhood. We know that we can no longer rely on the United States, or the United Kingdom, to lead such military operations,” Mr. Gargash said in a speech in London.

Mr. Trump’s partisan approach as well as his refusal to reign in US allies has led to potential escalation of multiple conflicts, including the war in Yemen, mounting tension in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, a race for control of ports and military facilities in the Horn of Africa, Israeli challenging of Iran’s presence in Syria, and confrontation with Iran.

To be sure, the UAE, driven by a quest to control ports in the Horn of Africa and create a string of military bases, together with Saudi Arabia, played a key role in reconciling Ethiopia and Eritrea after more than two decades of cold war.

More often however, US allies appear to be increasingly locked into pathways that threaten mounting violence, if not outright military confrontation. Bad guys help fuel escalation.

The escalatory policies of US allies as well as their opponents are frequently designed to either suck the United States and/or the international community into stepped-up support, including military intervention, or favourable mediation as a means of achieving their goals through negotiation.

Arguably, and perhaps in a twist of irony, escalatory policies often constitute a conscious or unconscious clamour for US leadership in the absence of other powers such as China, Russia and Europe, able or willing to shoulder responsibility.

This week’s escalation of the Yemen war that threatens the free flow of oil with Saudi Arabia halting oil shipments through the Bab el Mandeb strait and an unverified claim by Houthi rebels to have targeted Abu Dhabi’s international airport constitutes the latest fallout of US failure.

Analysts see the halt in oil shipments as an effort to get major military powers, including the United States, Europe, and Muslim allies like Pakistan and Egypt who have shied away from sending troops to Yemen, to intervene to defeat the Houthis.

Many of those powers depend on oil shipments through Bab el Mandeb. The bid to suck them into the Yemen war is an effort to secure a victory that neither Saudi Arabia or the UAE have been able to achieve in more than three years of fighting that has devastated Yemen.

By the same token, Houthi rebels have sought to gain leverage in stalled United Nations peace efforts by targeting Saudi cities with ballistic missiles and making claims of attacks like on the Abu Dhabi airport that they have so far failed to back up with evidence.

“The real impact (of the halt) would be felt if other countries followed suit and halted shipments,” said Wael Mahdi, an energy reporter and columnist for Saudi newspaper Arab News, referring to Kuwait, Iraq and the UAE that also ship through Bab el Mandeb.

Mr. Mahdi argued that without a total halt of the flow of oil through Bab el Mandeb “things appear under control for the (oil) market,” but, he warned, “how can the world’s oil community be sure that the waterway is safe?”

In what amounted to a call for foreign intervention, Mr. Mahdi went on to caution that “countries might react too late. Will the world’s powers wait longer…before they ensure the safety of this vital waterway?”

Badr al-Khashti, chairman of Kuwait Oil Tanker Company (KOTC) disclosed that Kuwait was studying whether to halt oil exports through the strait.

Mr. Al-Khashti’s statement was notable given that Kuwait has sought to steer a middle ground in Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s disputes with Iran and Qatar. Similarly, Iraq, despite warming relations with Saudi Arabia, may not want to irritate Iran, with whom it maintains close ties.

External powers responded cautiously to the Saudi halt of oil shipments. US and EU spokespeople said they were aware of the Saudi move.

Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman for US Central Command said: “We remain vigilant and ready to work with our partners to preserve the free flow of commerce throughout the region.” An EU spokesman noted that attacks on vessels in the strait were “a threat to international trade movements and heighten regional tensions.”

US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as well as unqualified support for Israel’s hardhanded efforts aided by Egypt and the Palestine Authority to squeeze Hamas and suppress sustained protests along the Gaza-Israel border have emboldened Israeli hardliners, prompted Palestinians to refuse US mediation and, together with Hamas moves to capitalize on the mounting tension, threaten to spark renewed military confrontation that neither side wants.

The United States and Iran are locked into an escalating war of words threatening further interruptions of the flow of oil as well as doom and gloom against a backdrop of the imposition of harsh US sanctions and the US and Saudi Arabia toying with attempting to spur ethnic unrest in Iran in an effort to topple the regime in Tehran.

Said political scientist Ian Bremmer: “The lack of clear, uncontested international leadership is everywhere we look these days… Yet nowhere is the destabilizing impact of this trend more obvious, and pressing, than in the Middle East… The result…will be more uncertainty, more assertive behaviour, more lines crossed and rising fears that no one has the power to contain the risk of new forms of Middle East conflict.”

A Radically New Government In Pakistan?

Arshad M Khan

Pakistan has a new prime minister.  A remarkable  man:  a remarkable history-making career in cricket leading to numerous awards and records; a remarkable politician, mocked when he started, who after a 22-year struggle has reached the pinnacle of power.

Bringing home the 1992 World Cup as captain of the Pakistan cricket team made him a national hero.  His achievements in the sport have led to him being called one of the best all-rounders in the sport and the finest fast bowler cricket has ever seen.  He is one of only eight to have achieved the all-rounder’s triple, meaning over 3000 runs and 300 wickets in Test matches.

Still, he will need all the skill and tenacity he has displayed in his dual career to cope with Pakistan’s current political and fiscal problems.  Although his PTI (Tehreek-e-Insaf) Justice Party did not secure an absolute majority, it has more seats than the previous two major dynastic parties run by the Sharif and Bhutto families.  If he is able to diminish the influence of enormously wealthy landowners and corrupt industrialists and make a significant dent in the feudal society outside of urban areas, that itself would be a signal achievement.  He has already made woeful inequality a cornerstone of his platform.

Whether his gradual shift over the years towards a more religious discourse (as when addressing the plight of the poor) takes the form of a Taliban-like anti-feminism is difficult to imagine despite the exaggerated fears of certain commentators whose bread and butter is feminism.

Were it true, his former wife and mother of his two sons, Jemima Goldsmith, who is a Contributing Editor of the established left-leaning New Statesman, would not be congratulating him publicly.  They have cordial relations and mutual respect, and he often stays at her mother’s house when in England.

Campaign rhetoric as a guide to subsequent policy is notoriously unreliable.  No matter, we will know soon enough.  He has noted often that Pakistan has failed militarily with the Taliban, thus leaving dialogue and compromise to end the impasse.  It also explains his attitude towards the US and its heavy-handed behavior with Pakistan.  His call for self-sufficiency resonated in a country tired of repeated humiliation.

His stance on Kashmir is different for he chooses to focus not on the territorial issue but on human rights and better conditions for the population.  Such pragmatism should find a sympathetic ear in Delhi and lead to better relations in the near term, with always the hope for a final solution based on some form of autonomy.  His frequent mention of increased trade if implemented would form  economic links and a meshing of interests to the benefit of the subcontinent as a whole — confidence building measures essential to trust and long-term peace.

Much of all this can become inconsequential very quickly if the Hindu nationalist movement takes greater hold in India, or religious extremism in Pakistan.  Despite Imran Khan’s rhetoric, it is difficult to imagine him permitting the latter and its dire economic consequences.

In fact, the economy is the first job.  Pakistan faces an economic crisis but not of the proportions of 2008 and 2013.  There is a current account deficit and foreign exchange reserves depleting at over a billion dollars a month.  Back to the IMF and an austerity plan to build up reserves …

Esso Australia steps up offensive against offshore workers

Terry Cook

Media reports this week indicated that Esso Australia may renew an application to the Fair Work Commission (FWC), the federal industrial tribunal, to terminate enterprise agreements covering 250 workers in its off-shore Bass Strait gas operations in southeastern Victoria. The company is the Australian arm of ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil and gas corporation.

If Esso proceeds with the application, the workers could be forced onto industrial awards with inferior working conditions, including a two-thirds reduction in pay. They are covered by the Australian Workers Union (AWU) the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) and the Electrical Trades Union (ETU).

Numerous companies have used similar applications to impose retrograde enterprise agreements negotiated with trade unions that workers had previously rejected, such as at Glencore’s Oaky North mine in Queensland and Griffin Coal in Western Australia.

Esso’s move is its latest provocation in a protracted dispute over new enterprise bargaining agreements. The company is seeking to tear up longstanding working conditions and drastically intensify work processes to slash costs.

The company is demanding a 14-day-on, 14-day-off roster, scrapping the week-on, week-off roster, and the removal of a 75 hours per year cap on overtime. The roster change would mean longer periods away from home, seriously impacting on the quality of life of workers and their families.

Esso also wants to cut wages. It has offered annual pay increases of just 3 percent, barely covering the rise in the cost of living. The previous work agreement expired in 2014 but Esso will not backdate any pay increase, effectively imposing a four-year pay freeze.

The company has been able to push ahead with its offensive because the unions and the Labor Party have worked to divide, contain and undermine all attempts by the workers to resist.

In 2016, the unions called off a threatened combined indefinite strike by 600 offshore and onshore workers across Esso’s Bass Strait operations after the Victorian state Labor government successfully applied to the FWC to terminate the industrial action and pushed the dispute into FWC arbitration.

The state government’s application said the strike would “cause significant damage to the Australian economy or an important part of it.” This is one of many provisions in the Fair Work industrial legislation, drafted by the previous federal Labor government with the support of all the trade unions, to allow industrial action to be banned.

In 2016, the unions welcomed the government intervention, saying arbitration by “the independent umpire” was the “only way to resolve the outstanding issues.” The FWC, however, is not a neutral body. It is part of the capitalist state apparatus that has been used in dispute after dispute to suppress workers’ struggles.

The real purpose of the commission’s 2016 ruling was to straightjacket the workers and allow production to continue uninterrupted, a plan that the unions accepted and facilitated.

Moreover, the FWC intervention paved the way for a High Court ruling that work bans maintained by AWU members had breached an FWC order, thereby rendering any further industrial action illegal. The AWU enforced this ruling.

With the phony arbitration process now at an end, the unions have signalled they will not mount any serious challenge to Esso’s renewed attacks, but instead seek new closed-door negotiations to broker a deal acceptable to the company.

This week, AWU state secretary Ben Davis cynically told the media he had expected the FWC arbitration to resolve the dispute and complained the union now had to negotiate with “our arms tied behind our back.”

ETU organiser Peter Mooney said “we’d be happy to consider 14:14 rosters” if Esso “improve conditions of work” on the offshore platforms, such as providing better meals and single-room accommodation. Currently up to four workers can be required to share a room.

Esso, however, has rejected any such concessions. Far from providing better meals, for example, the company is currently seeking to scrap catering staff manning levels, having already sacked 110 cooking staff in September 2016 after contracting out catering operations.

Esso’s offensive is part of a ruthless global restructuring by parent company ExxonMobil. Esso last year awarded a five-year maintenance contract to engineering and logistics firm UGL covering the Longford gas processing site in Victoria.

UGL, which is owned by Spanish transnational CIMIC, immediately sacked 230 maintenance workers, demanding they reapply for their jobs as casuals with substantial cuts to their wages and conditions. The unions have isolated these workers, opposing any industrial action by other Esso workers and conducting an ineffectual protest outside the Longford plant.

In April, Exxon announced a quarterly rise in profits to $4.65 billion, 16 percent higher than a year ago. The outcome was partly the result of rising oil and commodity prices but also what the company termed a “focus on operating efficiently.”

As the record shows, the trade unions are enforcing endless industry-wide restructuring, as they have done for the past four decades. At the same time, they are campaigning to divert the widespread hostility among workers behind the election of yet another Labor government that will only serve the interests of the capitalist ruling class.

Ontario government repudiates resettlement agreement, scapegoats refugees

Laurent Lafrance

Ontario's new Conservative government, led by the right-wing populist Doug Ford, is mounting a reactionary anti-immigrant campaign. Since taking power last month, Ford and other leading government officials have been accusing desperate refugees fleeing the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant witch hunt of taxing provincial services and imperiling Ontarians' access to them. 

Shortly before his first official meeting with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on July 5, Ford announced his government was withdrawing its support for a “resettlement” agreement signed last year between the Ontario and federal governments that provided minimal support to the asylum-seekers who have fled the United States for Canada out of fear of persecution and deportation. 

Ontario will no longer provide any support for the refugee-claimants. All costs must now be borne by Ottawa and its assistance to refugees must be provided without access to provincial facilities or expertise.

The Progressive Conservatives' xenophobic campaign is aimed at diverting attention away from their right-wing, pro-big business agenda and whipping up racism and chauvinism to divide the working class. Since coming to power on June 29, the Ford government has vowed to drastically cut social spending, slash taxes for big business and the rich, and pursue a “tough on crime” agenda.

The Trudeau government’s attempt to pose as a friend of the refugees and a principled opponent to Ford is hypocritical and fraudulent. Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale regularly boast about Canada's intimate and expanding collaboration with the US Department of Homeland Security and American immigration authorities, which are currently mounting nationwide raids on workplaces to seize undocumented immigrants and refusing to reunite families they cruelly separated at the border.

The Liberals’ “pro-refugee” and “humanitarian” rhetoric is all the more cynical given the fact that they and the Canadian ruling class are directly responsible for the growing number of refugees fleeing war, persecution, and economic dislocation. The Liberal Party has always been a fierce defender of Canadian imperialism. From the Chrétien government in the 1990s through the current Trudeau government, the Liberals have supported Canada assuming a leading role in virtually every US-led war and military-security offensive, including those that have ravaged North Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan, and are staunch supporters of IMF structural adjustments programs that have caused social dislocation across Africa and Latin America.

Trudeau responded to Ford’s harsh criticisms of the Liberals for having created a “mess” at the border by appointing Bill Blair, as part of a cabinet shuffle, to a newly created post of minister of border security and organized crime. Toronto's chief of police from 2005 to 2015, Blair presided over the vicious crackdown on protests against the 2010 Toronto G20 summit.

The refugee resettlement agreement between Ontario and Ottawa was signed by the previous provincial Liberal government following a spike in the number of refugees coming to Canada via the US. Numbers increased following Trump’s announcement that his administration would end “Temporary Protected Status” for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and Honduras. The deal, while underfunded and inadequate, provided some aid to refugees and helped relocate some of the refugees—who were mainly crossing into Canada through Roxham road in St-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec—to Ontario. 

In announcing and defending his government's scrapping of the resettlement deal, Ford and Community and Social Services Minister Lisa Macleod have used the chauvinist tropes of Trump, France's National Front, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), and other European far-right forces. They have denounced refugee claimants as “illegal” immigrants and accused them of undermining Ontarians’ access to social services.

Ford’s press secretary, Simon Jefferies, complained, “The federal government encouraged illegal border-crossers to come into our country, and the federal government continues to usher people across the US-Quebec border into Ontario.” He added, “this has resulted in a housing crisis, and threats to the services that Ontario families depend on.”

The claim that there is no money to help migrants is a lie. In fact, there are resources aplenty, but they are monopolized by big business and the super rich. The social and housing crises in Ontario are the result not of desperate refugees, but decades of social spending budget cuts carried out by successive NDP, Conservative, and Liberal governments, at both the federal and provincial level.

Ford merely expresses more bluntly what an important section of the ruling class believes: that any government spending dedicated to refugees is an intolerable drain on their bank accounts and stock portfolios. Their attempts to scapegoat refugees go hand in hand with calls for the accelerated destruction of public services for the working class and tax cuts for the rich. For the ruling elite, the only acceptable immigration system is one entirely controlled by the state and tied to big business' labor market needs.

Organizations that assist refugee claimants say they fear the impact of the Ford government’s anti-refugee rhetoric. Debbie Douglas, executive director of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, said, "We know from experience that whenever any population is demonized or belittled, it affects public opinion." Debbie Hill-Corrigan, executive director of Sojourn House in Toronto, told the Chronicle Journal that Ford’s policies and the idea that migrants drain social resources "pits (Canadians) against refugees." 

Ford’s attack on asylum-seekers has the full support of the federal Conservatives and a significant section of the corporate media. In a statement, the federal Conservatives declared Ford was protecting “the interests of taxpayers and the integrity of our asylum system.” 

The Conservatives are pressing the Trudeau government to expand application of the reactionary Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement, under which refugee claimants who cross into Canada from the US at an official entry point are immediately returned to the US. To prevent asylum-seekers from exercising their right under international law to apply for refugee status when they cross the border outside an official checkpoint, the Conservatives are urging the government to declare the entire Canada-US border an official entry point. Ottawa, they contend, would then be able to circumvent international law and immediately apprehend and return to the US all refugee claimants.

Thus far the Liberals have insisted that this is not necessary, because under Canada's reactionary immigration laws the vast majority of asylum-seekers will soon be expelled.

Ford’s racist diatribe is not unique. In Quebec, the political establishment has been whipping up anti-immigrant sentiment for some time. The leader of the pro-independence Parti Québécois, Jean-François Lysee, has denounced the asylum seekers as “Trudeau's guests,” complained about the supposedly large sums being spent on assisting them, and called for a border fence and the deployment of more police at the border. The Coalition Avenir Quebec, a right-wing populist party that is leading the polls in the run-up to the October 1 Quebec election, is proposing to deny citizenship rights and ultimately expel immigrants who fail a French-language test.

Trudeau’s response to Trump’s anti-immigrant measures is two-faced. While posturing as pro-refugee, his government has let only a tiny number of carefully selected and vetted Syrian refugees come to Canada and is deporting the vast majority of asylum-seekers who are crossing into Canada from the US. According to Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, of the Haitian asylum-seekers whose claims have been processed, 90 percent have been sent back to what is the Western hemisphere’s poorest country.

The social and political background to the forest fire disaster in Greece

Katerina Selin

The number of deaths in the Greek town of Mati has risen hour by hour since the outbreak of the wildfire on Monday. At least 83 people—among them countless families with small children—have died in the forest fires in East Attica, just a few kilometres east of Athens. Many are still missing. Day and night, volunteers and search teams from the fire brigade have been combing the ruins of the former seaside resort of Mati and the coast looking for those still missing.

Although some small fires have broken out again in the Attica region, these could be extinguished. In the days after the inferno, the full extent of the fires, which had swept over an area of about 4,500 hectares at breakneck speed, was visible. Even though Greece has previously experienced many devastating wildfires, such a high number of casualties in such a short time and in such a small area has never happened in the country’s recent history, not even in the forest fires of 2007.

At a press conference on Thursday night, the deputy Citizens Protection minister Nikos Toskas said that there was “serious evidence” that the fires were triggered by “criminal activity.” This included testimony about one or more suspects, as well as evidence of some fires near a road, which could have been the starting point of the fire. The investigation is still in progress.

While no statements have been made about the motives and causes of arson, many observers suspect land speculation. In Greek regions that promise lucrative profits through the sale of real estate, fires are started time and again, to later build illegally on the burnt-out former forestland. This criminal practice has been possible for years because politicians and the authorities take no action against it, but, on the contrary, retrospectively legalize the repurposing of forestland as building land. The fact that Greece has no national forestry register and the ownership of the land is often not clear plays into the hands of the real estate mafia. The Syriza government has also not changed these conditions. The business with fire makes room for the many private investors—which Syriza woos at every opportunity.

As in other Greek resorts, Mati has been subject to an opaque real estate policy for decades. Many houses—of which a large number have now burned down—are in a legal grey area and do not comply with the safety and fire regulations. Politicians have been promoting these construction practices for years by imposing minimal fines on the owners of illegal properties to then make possible the legalisation of those properties, which are then generally resold at exorbitant prices.

So it is no coincidence that the municipality of Marathonas, where Mati is located, has called on the government not to reforest the burnt region. Otherwise, the burnt-down houses, some of which have no legal status, could not be rebuilt. That is why local leaders are pushing for the region to be legally zoned as a settlement.

The chaotic urban structure in Mati was one of the main causes of people not being able to escape in time. This is the conclusion of an initial analysis by geologists from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The narrow roads, with many dead ends and housing blocks without any turning possibility, prevented escape. Rocky slopes and houses built on the coast blocked access to the sea and safety. People burned like “mice in a trap,” survivors said.

The government of the pseudo-left Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) vehemently rejects any criticism or even a silent supposition that the extent of the catastrophe could have its roots in the social conditions in Greece, and demands that questions about the guilty be postponed to the distant future out of “respect for the dead.” The tragedy, according to the official mantra, could not be stopped because of the devastating speed of the fire. The state authorities had done their best to prevent an even greater catastrophe, it is claimed.

The depiction of forest fires as an inevitable natural phenomenon serves to cover up the political and social background of the events.

Ten years of austerity ordered by the European Union have led to the total collapse of basic public services throughout Greece. All Greek governments have implemented the brutal austerity measures demanded by their creditors—the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Mass layoffs, wage cuts and the deterioration of working conditions and facilities have particularly affected the public sector. From local authorities to fire stations to hospitals—all areas that are vital in the event of a fire disaster have faced cuts for years.

This also affects the fire department. Before the onset of the economic crisis in 2009, the Greek fire service had an annual budget of 452 million euros. By 2017, this had been cut by more than 20 percent to 354 million. The media report a lack of protective clothing, faulty breathing apparatus and outdated and often unusable fire trucks and fire fighting planes.

In 2014, the Minister of National Defence reduced the staff of the state fire brigade by 30 percent under the right-wing conservative Nea Dimokratia government. In the same year, an amendment that drastically limits the use of volunteer fire brigades was passed.

This was reported by Nikos Sachinidis, the head of the Association of Volunteer Fire Departments (Esepa), to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “Since then, we are no longer able to extinguish fires—this is now reserved for the professional fire departments.” In an emergency, they can decide if they want to request the support of the voluntary fire service. In Sachinidis’s opinion, the amendment delays the ability to react in the event of a fire, as the professional fire brigade has only about 270 stations across the country, while his volunteer association has more local groups. If Esepa’s strength had not been limited, it would have been able to respond much faster to forest fires, Sachinidis said. “I know the area where the fires raged. We used to have volunteers there. They could have extinguished the fire immediately.” However, the equipment and membership of Esepa has been drastically reduced in recent years due to the legal situation.

Modern warning systems and technologies were also not used, said Costas Synolakis, professor of natural disasters at the Institute of Environmental Engineering at the Technical University of Crete. In a comment in Ekathimerini, he described the lack of civil defence planning: “Greece has carried out civil defence exercises in only a few areas. There are neither maps showing the high-risk regions and possible escape routes, nor any public campaign to educate people about the risks in their neighbourhood.

“The recent events have shown that neither the Civil Protection Agency’s command centre nor the municipalities in the regions have any knowledge of the possibilities afforded by modern technology to plan the evacuation of densely populated forest areas. There would have been fewer casualties if a few simulations had been carried out in the region, because then, the authorities would have had a better idea of the evacuation challenges and might also have informed the inhabitants about this as well.”

The fact that the electricity and water supply collapsed immediately and could not be restored is also related to austerity. The electricity pylons are not only made of wood (and the burnt-down ones have since been replaced with wood), but the entire power grid is above ground. Konstantinos Maniatis, chairman of the DEI engineering association, has had to concede to the ERT healthcare company that the cost of underground power lines is too high, due to the “memoranda and serious economic problems.”

The cynical attempts of the government and the opposition to cover up their responsibility for the disaster, and to invoke the heroic commitment of the numerous volunteer helpers, do not convince many people. In the local population, grief and despair are turning more and more into anger, as expressed in numerous commentaries on social media and in reports from east Attica.

When Panos Kammenos, Minister of Defence and head of the ultra-right-wing coalition partner ANEL (Independent Greeks), visited Mati yesterday together with the mayor of the port city of Rafina and some soldiers, he was met by a wave of anger from the local residents. A crying, angry woman confronted Kammenos, saying, “Why did nobody warn us? Why didn’t the fire department come? Nothing. You just left us to our fate. We saw the fire and only had two seconds to save ourselves. People died in vain.”

Elsewhere, Kammenos engaged in a verbal battle with an angry man who declared that it was not just Syriza’s and ANEL’s responsibility, but the policies of the last decades. The minister reacted harshly to the desperate people and talked down to them. At the end of his visit, he made a brief statement to the BBC, pointing to the many illegally built houses in Mati, seeking to blame residents for the disaster.

In fact, it is the EU, Syriza and all the former governing parties, as well as the large corporations and banks, which have plundered and ruined Greek society in recent years, and which are the culprits that belong in the dock.

Swedish student protest halts deportation of Afghan man

Paul Bond

A video of a student in Sweden halting the deportation of an Afghan man has gone viral, having been viewed by more than two million people. It reveals a broad wave of revulsion at the treatment of refugees.

Elin Ersson, a 21-year-old social work student at the University of Gothenburg, has been volunteering with refugee groups for around a year. A group of activists heard that a young Afghan man was going to be deported on Monday and bought a ticket for his flight from Gothenburg to Istanbul. Ersson went with the young man’s family to the airport, where they spoke to passengers explaining what was happening.

It was not until Ersson boarded that she realised the young man was not on the flight. However, “there were rumours going around” that immigration officials were moving other people for deportation, including an older Afghan man. Ersson realised that the 52-year-old was at the back of the plane. She approached him, speaking to him briefly before his security detail pushed her away.

Ersson began filming on her phone and livestreaming the footage to Facebook “in case something happened to me, and … to make sure that other people knew what was going on.” It was only thanks to her footage that the family of the young man whose deportation she had gone to halt learned he was not on that flight.

With a great deal of personal courage, Ersson then refused to take her seat and switch off her phone, thus preventing the plane’s departure. Cabin crew described her as “unruly” and asked her repeatedly to sit down or leave the flight. She remained on her feet, telling crew and other passengers, “I’m not going to sit down until this person is off the plane.”

Filming only her own face, as other passengers did not want to be filmed, she explained her opposition to Swedish deportation policy saying, “I’m doing what I can to save a person’s life.” There was some hostility to her. A British man took her phone and said, “You’re upsetting all the people down there. I don’t care what you think.” A flight attendant returned her phone to her.

Another passenger said, “You’re preventing all these passengers going to their destination.” Ersson responded, “But they’re not going to die, he’s going to die.”

Despite some initial frustration and hostility, however, there was a broader wave of support. Ersson has spoken of the encouragement she felt when a Turkish passenger “started talking to me and making sure that I knew I wasn’t alone … He was saying what I was doing was right.” She was applauded by other passengers. A man three rows away stood up with her, as did an entire football team.

Ersson and the young man’s family had discussed the question of deportations with the footballers in the airport. She said afterwards that knowing they were supportive and knowing “I had people supporting the idea of me standing up” had strengthened her resolve. As the video shows, their support on the plane was an emotional moment for Ersson.

After 15 minutes, the Afghan man was removed from the plane by the rear exit, although Ersson could not see this for the other people standing to watch. She was then removed at the front of the plane. She was still unable to see the Afghan man, but heard crew saying he was on the tarmac. “I heard them speaking with each other and it really sounded like his deportation was cancelled,” she said. “It felt good.”

The Swedish Social-Democratic-Green coalition government has been pursuing an increasingly right-wing, anti-immigrant course on asylum policy and border controls over the last three years. Two years ago, it announced plans to deport 80,000 refugees whose asylum applications had been rejected.

In 2015, 163,000 people, including 35,000 unaccompanied minors, sought refuge in Sweden. Afghans are particularly hard hit by the deportation policy. They make up more than half of refugees, but because Sweden classifies Afghanistan as “safe,” only 28 percent have been granted asylum. As Ersson explained, “It was only one person on this flight today, but there will be more.”

Humanitarian groups have pointed to the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan. In 2017 more than 3,000 civilians were killed, and 7,000 wounded. Ersson, who has been dealing with Afghan asylum seekers over the last year, spoke of the uncertainties in the country, saying that “no one should be deported to Afghanistan because it’s not a safe place.” Afghans, she said, “[D]on’t know if they’re going to live another day.”

The rightward shift of Swedish bourgeois politics has seen an embrace of the far-right anti-immigration party Sweden Democrats (SD), which has links to neo-Nazi groups across Europe, and which has been gaining in recent polls. SD have been an increasingly hostile presence on the streets of Stockholm, marching through mixed suburbs like Bagarmossen and assaulting migrants in the city centre. Ersson told the media, “I’m meeting Nazis on the street every month or so.” She thought they were gaining in strength ahead of the general election in September.

Such has been the right-wing climate created within the Swedish political system that the Sweden Democrats are expected to poll highly or even win the election. A recent poll saw the ultra-right party at over 20 percent, with some polls suggesting it could potentially double its 2014 vote share of 13 percent and 49 seats—after which it became the third largest parliamentary party.

Ersson’s action exposed the realities of Swedish deportation policy. The young man whose deportation she had originally aimed to halt had been taken to Stockholm and put on a flight there. The following day Ersson texted, “This is how deportations in Sweden work. The people involved know nothing and they are not allowed to reach out to their lawyers or family.”

The young man’s family were also unaware of what was happening, as they had gone to Gothenburg airport. It is probable, too, that the man whose deportation Ersson halted was simply moved to another departure. Ersson herself may yet face legal action, with the possibility of a fine or up to six months in jail.

Sweden’s increasingly aggressive policy against refugees and migrants is going hand-in-hand with similar moves across Europe. Earlier this month, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer greeted the largest mass deportation of refugees to Afghanistan with the words, “Precisely on my 69th birthday, 69 people—I didn’t plan it that way—were returned to Afghanistan. This is far above the usual number.”

One of that group, a 23-year-old man, committed suicide in a shelter shortly after his deportation to Kabul.

Ersson said that she hopes people viewing her video “start questioning how their country treats refugees.” Her actions are not just the courageous actions of one person. The reason Ersson’s actions struck a chord is because her sentiments, hostile to the nationalist anti-immigrant climate being fostered by the existing political set-up, are broadly supported by a leftward-shifting population.

Neither is this an individual question, but requires a mobilisation of workers internationally to organise protests and strikes against police attacks on immigrants and refugees. Workers must organise independent action committees and defence squads as part of a movement of the international working class to abolish the capitalist nation-state system.

Julian Assange and the betrayal of Latin America’s “left”

Bill Van Auken

Lenín Moreno, the president of Ecuador, made it clear on Friday that his government is actively negotiating the handover of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the British authorities, whose police are waiting outside the Ecuadorian embassy to grab him the moment he sets foot on the London sidewalk.

If he were to fall into the clutches of the British authorities, he would be subjected to lengthy imprisonment pending extradition to the US, where he could face life imprisonment or even the death penalty on espionage and conspiracy charges.

Moreno, who is conducting a European tour seeking to ingratiate himself and his government with the major imperialist powers, went out of his way on Friday to vilify Assange.

“I’ve never agreed with the activity Mr. Assange performs,” Moreno said. “I’ve never agreed with the intervention in people’s emails to obtain information despite how valuable it is to shed light on some undesirable acts by governments and people… There are correct and legal ways to it.”

Previously, Moreno called Assange a “hacker,” an “inherited problem” and a “stone in our shoe.”

There is no evidence whatsoever that Assange or WikiLeaks hacked into anyone’s emails or violated any law, for that matter. Assange has carried out invaluable work as a courageous and resourceful journalist, making available to the people of the world information kept secret from them about imperialist war crimes, mass surveillance and anti-democratic machinations and conspiracies carried out by Washington and other governments and transnational corporations.

Assange was granted asylum by the previous Ecuadorian government of President Rafael Correa in 2012 because of the clear evidence that he faced political persecution for exposing these crimes.

Announcing Quito’s decision to grant Assange asylum, Ecuador’s foreign affairs minister, Ricardo Patino, had declared that Washington’s retaliation for Assange’s exposures “could endanger his safety, integrity and even his life.” Patino added, “The evidence shows that if Mr. Assange is extradited to the United States, he wouldn't have a fair trial. It is not at all improbable he could be subjected to cruel and degrading treatment and sentenced to life imprisonment or even capital punishment.”

What has changed since then? Assange has spent the past six years trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy. The Trump administration has only made US intentions more explicit, with former CIA Director and current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declaring WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,” and proclaiming that its reporting is not protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has insisted that bringing Assange to the US in chains to face a rigged prosecution is a “priority” for the US Justice Department.

In his statement on Friday, Ecuadorian President Moreno said: “The only thing we want is a guarantee that his life will not be in danger. We have spoken to, and, of course, we are dealing with this with Mr. Assange’s legal team and with the British government.”

It would appear that the only condition being laid down by the Ecuadorian government in return for withdrawing Assange’s asylum and handing him over to his persecutors is a worthless promise from the British and US authorities that Assange will not be executed. The other threats to Assange cited by the Ecuadorian authorities in 2012, including “cruel and degrading treatment” and “life imprisonment,” are apparently now acceptable.

In addition to his talks with the British government, Moreno has visited Spain, signing a security agreement with the right-wing Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) minority government led by Pedro Sánchez, while guaranteeing Spanish capitalists unfettered access to Ecuador’s markets, resources and cheap labor.

It was reportedly Spain’s protests over Assange’s condemnation of Madrid for the arrest of former Catalonian regional President Carles Puigdemont that led the Moreno government to cut off Assange’s access to the Internet and prevent him from receiving phone calls or visitors, reducing him to a state of incommunicado detention with fewer rights than a prisoner.

What is involved here is a sharp turn to the right, not only by the government of Lenín Moreno, but by all of the governments of Latin America’s so-called Pink Tide and their pseudo-left satellites.

Moreno is the hand-picked successor to former president Rafael Correa, who proclaimed himself a partisan of the “Bolivarian Revolution” of Venezuela’s late Hugo Chávez. While Moreno and Correa have had a bitter falling out, the right-wing policies of rapprochement with imperialism and escalating attacks on the working class were initiated under Correa, whose government was the first to cut off Assange’s Internet access in retaliation for WikiLeaks’ publication of emails exposing the Democratic Party’s rigging of the 2016 primary campaign to assure the victory of Hillary Clinton and defeat of Bernie Sanders.

Meanwhile, other governments identified with the so-called “turn to the left” in Latin America have been thoroughly discredited. Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, has placed the full burden of Venezuela’s desperate economic crisis onto the backs of the working class, while assuring the wealth and privileges of the country’s oligarchs and military commanders, as well as the debt payments to the international banks.

Nicaragua’s Sandinista President Daniel Ortega has unleashed a bloodbath to crush popular protests against austerity measures, resulting in over 400 deaths. And in Brazil, Lula, the former president of the

Workers’ Party (PT), is in jail, while the PT has been thoroughly discredited by its own antidemocratic measures and attacks on workers’ rights, opening the path to the most right-wing government since the military dictatorship and to the openly fascistic candidate Jair Bolsonaro.

The Latin American pseudo-left—dominated by petty-bourgeois nationalism and oriented to the national labor bureaucracies, the pursuit of parliamentary posts and adaptation to identity politics—has largely ignored the attacks on Assange, refusing to lift a finger in his defense and failing to inform Latin American workers of the decisive democratic and social interests that are bound up with his fate.

Typical is the reaction—or, more accurately, lack of reaction—of the main pseudo-left parties in Argentina, the PTS (Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas) and the PO (Partido Obrero), which, whatever their differences, are united in an unprincipled electoral “Front of the Left and the Workers” (FIT).

The last major article on Assange posted on the PTS’s website, Izquierda Diario, was on April 3, 2017. It proclaimed in its headline: “With the victory of Lenín Moreno, Julian Assange has avoided his expulsion from the Ecuadorian embassy.” Sowing illusions in the right-wing bourgeois politician Moreno and complacency about the dangers posed to Assange, the PTS actually undermined the defense of the WikiLeaks editor.

As for the PO, it has completely ignored the question of Assange, writing nothing about his case for more than five years. This party, oriented toward an alliance with the Peronist union bureaucracy at home and the extreme right-wing forces of Russian Stalinism abroad, exemplifies the reactionary outlook of Latin American petty-bourgeois nationalism, which in the Assange case, as on every other major political question, serves as conduit for imperialist pressure upon the working class.

The task of defending Julian Assange—and more broadly the defense of the social and democratic rights of working people, together with the liberation of Latin America from imperialist oppression, social inequality and poverty—can be achieved only through the political mobilization of the working class independently of all of the supposedly “left” bourgeois parties and the petty-bourgeois pseudo-left groups that support them.

The working class constitutes the only genuine constituency for the defense of democratic rights, which can be secured only as part of the fight to unite workers internationally to put an end to the capitalist system, which threatens humanity with world war and dictatorship.

Latin American workers must join ranks with workers all over the world in coming to the defense of Assange, demanding that the government of Ecuador halt its reactionary bid to rescind his asylum, fighting for his immediate freedom from persecution by US and British authorities and preparing mass protests and strikes against any attempt to arrest or extradite him.

Japan passes phony “work-style reform” bills

Kurt Brown

The Japanese Diet last month passed a set of bills to allegedly improve working conditions. The measures, promoted by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and backed by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito and the conservative Nippon Ishin no Kai, will change little for the vast majority of workers.

The three “work-style reform” laws relate to Japan’s notoriously long working hours, as well as the conditions of temporary and irregular workers who earn considerably less in wages than their regular counterparts. The first bill places a mandatory cap on overtime hours, the second requires equal pay for equal work, and the third removes a work-hour limit for highly paid professionals, earning more than 10.75 million yen ($98,000) annually.

While the first bill caps overtime at 360 hours per year, this can be increased to 720 hours, depending on the type of work and how busy the company is. This essentially voids the concept of a cap. Employees could also be forced to work up to 100 hours overtime per month, as long as they do not exceed 720 hours for the year.

The second bill requiring equal pay for temporary labour is supposedly meant to eliminate this type of work altogether. In reality, the law will be used to slash the wages of permanent employees and bring their earnings into line with temporary workers.

Similarly, the removal of overtime pay for more highly-paid workers is meant to force employees to work longer for less money, regardless of the serious health concerns connected to overtime work.

While Abe claimed that the measures were designed to promote the “dynamic engagement of all citizens,” the new laws seek to drive up labour exploitation.

Big business enthusiastically backed the laws. Sadayuki Sakakibara, head of Keidanren, Japan’s largest business lobby, declared that the measures would “increase the productivity of Japanese companies overall”—i.e., boost profits at the expense of the working class.

Referring to equal pay measures, Sadayuki added: “We must consider Japan’s own pay system and job practice, rather than just promising the same pay for the same job.” In other words, employers intend to work around these laws and demand changes where they see fit.

Oversight and enforcement of Japanese workplace laws is already poor, with only 0.57 labour standards inspectors per 10,000 workers, compared to 1.89 in Germany. Regular inspections cover just 3 percent of Japan’s business establishments.

Labour inspectors have noted that “[n]o matter how long workers are compelled to work, there may be cases where we cannot point out a violation of the Labor Standards Act.” Employers who violate the news laws, moreover, can be fined only 300,000 yen ($2,700) or sentenced to up to six months’ imprisonment.

The laws were presented as a part of the “third arrow” of Abenomics. This aspect of the prime minister’s signature economic agenda comprises a series of plans to deregulate the economy, lower corporate taxes, make it easier for companies to fire workers and otherwise increase big business’ profitability by removing employee protections.

Japanese business leaders, however, have been impatient with the pace of reform and the failure to directly tackle the remaining limited protections afforded to regular workers, largely involving employment dismissal rules.

Yoshihiko Miyauchi, Orix ex-CEO and former head of a key panel advising the government on deregulation, declared that that “[s]tructural reform has hardly progressed.” He told the Japan Times late last year: “I’m not saying (work-style reforms) are a bad thing. But unless productivity increases, you can’t conduct work-style reforms.”

The Japanese labour market is comprised of two sectors, regular and non-regular employees. While the former generally work full-time, the latter are typically part-time, temporary or rehired regular workers who reached the mandatory retirement age. These workers are paid only 60 percent of the rate of regular workers, with substantially reduced benefits, while doing the same work.

Non-regular workers comprise 37 percent of the workforce, up from 20 percent since the early 1990s when Japan’s property bubble burst. This method of dividing the working class, which is supported by the unions, has intensified over the past three decades as big business shored up profits and sacked workers while the economy remained stagnant.

In general, overwork dominates the lives of workers. In the most severe cases, it can lead to deaths, a phenomenon called karōshi. A similar term, karōjisatsu refers to workers who commit suicide from the stress of long hours. Working 80 hours of overtime a month—that is 20 less than stipulated in the new 100 overtime hours per hours—has been linked to karōshi.

Recent Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare statistics detail approximately 300 karōshi legal claims per year and approximately 150 to 200 karōjisatsu claims per year. In 2015, there were approximately 1,450 karōshi-related cases. National Defense Counsel for Victims of Karōshi secretary general Hiroshi Kawahito noted that the problem could be ten times higher than the official rates. In total, as many as one in five workers could be at risk of karōshi, according to the government’s first white paper on the issue in 2016.

The official opposition parties, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Democratic Party for the People, postured as opponents of the bills, but only directed their criticism toward the removal of overtime limits on the more highly-paid office workers.

Likewise, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) and the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren), which work hand in glove with the government and the major businesses, postured as opponents of the overtime exemptions. Zenroren vice chairman Yuji Iwahashi declared that the system was “modern slavery.” Neither union federation proposed any political or industrial campaign to challenge the new laws.

Rather than addressing the attack on workers as a whole, the opposition parties and the unions continue to claim that Abe alone is responsible for the exploitative working conditions and deflect attention from their own role in creating them.

Australian by-elections threaten to deepen political instability

Oscar Grenfell

Five federal by-elections across the country this Saturday look set to intensify the instability wracking the Australian parliament. A poor showing for either the Liberal-National Coalition government or the Labor Party opposition could trigger leadership challenges in the lead-up to a federal election due to be held before next May.

Four of the five polls were sparked by the forced resignation of sitting MPs resulting from the ongoing purge of federal parliamentarians entitled to dual citizenship.

In a reactionary nationalist campaign, the corporate press and all the parliamentary parties have demanded that parliamentarians demonstrate “unqualified allegiance” to Australia, including by providing detailed genealogical records. This is aimed at whipping up an atmosphere of jingoism and militarism.

The elections are part of a deepening crisis of the official political establishment. Virtually every election over the past decade, at the state and federal level, has been characterised by swings against the major parties.

The breakup of the two-party set-up, through which the Australian capitalist class has ruled for over a century, is the product of immense popular disaffection with declining or stagnating wages, a rapidly rising cost of living, and the dismantling of public healthcare, education and welfare by successive governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike.

Fears that the by-elections will feature unpredictable swings have been exacerbated by the fact that they are taking place across four states, encompassing up to half a million voters in total.

The Liberal-Nationals are not contesting the Western Australian seats of Fremantle and Perth, so they will almost certainly be retained by Labor.

In the semi-rural electorate of Mayo, near South Australia’s capital Adelaide, Rebekha Sharkie is seeking to regain a seat she won from the Liberal-Nationals in 2016 as a representative of the right-wing populist Nick Xenophon Team, since renamed the “Centre Alliance.” Senior Liberal-National figures have campaigned heavily for her government opponent, Georgina Downer.

In the seats of Braddon, in northwest Tasmania, and Longman, north of Queensland’s capital, Brisbane, Labor is seeking to head off Liberal-National challengers. Both electorates are among the most impoverished in the country. They are microcosms of the social crisis confronting broad sections of the population, encompassing suburbs and rural areas with high rates of poverty, unemployment and distress.

In their campaigns, Labor and the Coalition have competed to establish themselves as the “toughest” on immigration and immigrants. This is aimed at diverting attention from their own responsibility for the social conditions and scapegoating the most vulnerable sections of the working class.

Liberal-National Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has touted his government’s role in reducing Australia’s migration intake to its lowest level in a decade by cracking down on “visa rorts.” Other government figures have called for even more stringent visa restrictions.

The government has helped stoke a racist campaign alleging, without any evidence, that Melbourne, the country’s second largest city, is in the grip of a violent crime wave perpetrated by “African gangs.”

Last week, Turnbull declared there was “real anxiety about crime” perpetrated by African immigrants. On Wednesday, former Coalition Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the country had “stirred up trouble for ourselves by letting people in who are difficult to integrate.”

For his part, federal Labor leader Bill Shorten has denounced foreign workers as responsible for growing unemployment, and called for a crackdown on temporary work visas.

Both the major parties are seeking support from right-wing populist outfits and individuals, who have played an increasingly prominent role amid the worsening breakdown of the two-party system over the past decade.

In Longman, the Liberal-Nationals will receive the second vote preferences of the xenophobic Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party that, according to some surveys, is polling at over 10 percent. Since the last federal election in 2016, One Nation has provided crucial support for the Coalition, voting with the government in parliament 83 percent of the time this year.

In another indication of the increasingly dysfunctional character of official politics, One Nation’s campaign in the seat has been bolstered by the support of former Labor Party leader Mark Latham. He has participated, alongside Hanson, in “robocalls” to Longman voters denouncing Shorten as “dishonest.”

Labor, which was a beneficiary of One Nation preferences when it won Longman in the 2016 federal election, is also courting unpredictable populists.

In Braddon, Labor will receive the preferences of Craig Garland, an “anti-politician” independent who has demagogically denounced both the major parties. If Garland replicates his result in the March Tasmanian state election, where he won 2,000 votes, his preferences could secure the seat for Labor.

Labor and the Coalition have resorted to blatant pork-barrelling in a desperate attempt to win votes. According to an analysis by the Guardian, the two parties combined have made promises worth more than $450 million in the three contested electorates of Mayo, Longman and Braddon. The empty promises, which will inevitably be shelved after the discovery of budgetary “black holes,” have only heightened the popular contempt for the political establishment.

In campaign appearances Shorten has pledged that Labor will increase funding to healthcare, education and ensure the provision of jobs, accusing the government of only serving the interests of the corporate elite.

Shorten’s tepid rhetoric has done nothing to overcome widespread disaffection over the role played by the previous Rudd and Gillard Labor governments in propping up the banks and imposing on the working class the burden of the 2008–2009 global financial crisis.

Shorten is, at the same time, attempting to assure the financial elite that a Labor government would best serve the “national interest,” i.e., the interests of big business and the banks.

A significant swing against Labor, or the Liberal-Nationals, in any of the contested seats could intensify moves against Turnbull and Shorten.

Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese is widely tipped to be preparing a leadership challenge. He has sought to capitalise on anxiety in corporate circles over Shorten’s bogus populist posturing.

Delivering the Whitlam Oration late last month, Albanese called on Labor to “engage with business” and don the mantle of the Hawke and Keating Labor governments, which spearheaded the deregulation of the economy and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Turnbull’s leadership has been wracked by rumours of prospective challenges from Abbott and other figures in the most conservative sections of the Coalition. The government’s fragility has been exacerbated by ongoing frustration in corporate circles at its failure to impose the full-extent of the austerity measures demanded by the financial markets.

For all the mud-slinging and infighting, the campaigns have underscored the unanimity of the political establishment behind an assault on the democratic rights of the population and an alignment with Washington’s militarism.

In the lead-up to the by-elections, Labor joined forces with the government to push through sweeping “foreign interference” laws that constitute the most significant attack on civil liberties since World War II. The legislation seeks to criminalise alleged links with China and opposition to US-led plans for war against Beijing.

Australia’s role in those preparations was underscored this week when Australia’s defence and foreign ministers met with their US counterparts to commit to even deeper military ties aimed at shoring up Washington’s dominance in the Indo-Pacific. Previous Labor governments played a central role in integrating Australia into the US military build-up in the region.