Only one UK soldier to be prosecuted for Bloody Sunday 47 years on

Steve James 

Nearly five decades have passed since soldiers of the British Army’s Parachute Regiment shot 28 peaceful civil rights demonstrators. The Bloody Sunday atrocity killed 13 people on January 30, 1972, in Derry, Northern Ireland. Another victim died later.

Last week, the director of Northern Ireland’s Public Prosecution Service (PPS), Stephen Herron, concluded there is only “sufficient evidence to prosecute one former solder, Soldier F, for the murder of James Wray and William McKinney, and for the attempted murders of Joseph Friel, Michael Quinn, Joe Mahon and Patrick O’Donnell.”

Soldier F remains anonymous and will receive the full backing of the British government. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson offered “full legal and pastoral support to the individual affected by today’s decision.”

Soldier F, a former lance corporal, is one of 21 members of the Parachute Regiment who fired their weapons on the day. No one else, of any rank, has ever been prosecuted.

The PPS decision shocked relatives and supporters of those killed, who were anticipating that three or four soldiers would be charged. Four soldiers, only known by the letters E, F, G and H, by their own evidence are responsible for at least seven deaths.

John Kelly, whose brother Michael was killed, told the Belfast Telegraph,“When I heard that no one was to be charged with my brother’s murder I was totally devastated. I couldn’t take it in. It was as if I wasn’t there and it was a dream.

“I looked around at my family—my eight sisters and my brother—all sitting around the table listening to this and they were all devastated.”

Bloody Sunday is one of the most notorious crimes of British imperialism. The massacre took place three years into Operation Banner, the deployment of tens of thousands of British troops to Northern Ireland to prop up the Unionist government by violently suppressing a powerful movement calling for civil and democratic rights, jobs and better housing.

An estimated 10,000–15,000 people attended the Derry march, demanding an end to anti-Catholic discrimination in the North. Most worrying for the ruling class, the demand for civil rights was accompanied by calls for greater social and political equality in all areas. What was posed was the overcoming of the sectarian divisions that had been fostered by British imperialism over centuries in its oldest colony. The movement developed at a time of an escalation in the class struggle internationally between 1968 and 1975, during which a revolutionary upsurge of the working class shook bourgeois rule to its foundations.

In the early 1970s, as tensions in Northern Ireland rapidly escalated, the Parachute Regiment was repeatedly unleashed against demonstrations and working-class areas deemed sympathetic to the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

In August 1971, the regiment murdered nine of ten people killed in the working-class Catholic estate of Ballymurphy in Belfast during Operation Demetrius—the internment without trial of hundreds of people accused of supporting the republicans.

An inquest into the Ballymurphy Massacre only opened last year and is still hearing evidence. Eighteen people were interned from Ballymurphy, while others were shot down during two days of protests and shootings. One woman, Joan Connolly, a 45-year-old mother of eight, was shot repeatedly in the head.

Outrage at internment and army violence triggered mass opposition resulting in demonstrations, rent and labour strikes. Sectarian violence escalated to the extent that 7,000 people, Catholic and Protestant, were forced from their homes. Thousands of Catholics fled to refugee camps in the Republic of Ireland. Hundreds of people interned suffered months of brutality and torture at the hands of British forces.

The protest march of January 30, 1972 was an expression of powerful opposition to the repressive savagery of British and Ulster governments and was targeted for repression by the Conservatives under Prime Minister Edward Heath. The PPS decision to allow only one prosecution is consistent with the approach taken ever since by the British and Northern Ireland authorities. Those directing the most egregious acts of state orchestrated violence, murder, torture, brutality, spying, entrapment and infiltration have gone unpunished because they have been following the policy of successive British governments.

Immediately after Bloody Sunday the Widgery Tribunal, which reported in April 1972, defended the soldiers, accusing them only of recklessness while falsely insisting that some of those shot had been “firing weapons or handling bombs.” The report was finally conceded to be a whitewash in 1998, when the British government agreed to another inquiry as part of discussions around the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

The subsequent Saville Inquiry, which heard evidence for five years and took another five to report, only continued the cover-up in a different form. Lord Saville accumulated a great deal of evidence, including from Heath himself, but the inquiry concluded that soldiers “losing their self-control and firing themselves, forgetting or ignoring their instructions and training” lay at the heart of the killings. Saville once again exonerated the army top brass and British government. Heath conveniently suffered memory failures when asked to comment on any discussion in a 1971 cabinet committee on the use of guns against unarmed demonstrators.

The belated prosecution of Soldier F, who must now be at least in his sixties, follows this pattern. The Tory government aims to close down any prospect of further trials over partially completed or paralysed investigations into atrocities of the Britain’s “dirty war.”

Besides the Bloody Sunday and Ballymurphy killings carried out by uniformed soldiers, there are other ongoing “historical enquiries”—particularly into British agents operating in both loyalist and republican paramilitary outfits. The most notorious and potentially damaging of these is Freddie Scappaticci, known as “Stakeknife,” who is alleged to have run the IRA’s internal security operation for many years and carried out large numbers of murders, including those of IRA members falsely accused of being British spies. “Stakeknife’s” activities are the subject of a police investigation, Operation Kenova, whose primary concern is to hide the role of Scappaticci’s controllers and political masters.

Earlier this month, the government’s Northern Ireland secretary, Karen Bradley, insisted to the House of Commons that the 10 percent of Northern Ireland killings directly attributed to “the hands of the military and police were not crimes.”

Bradley’s comments were calculated to mollify the ultra-right Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland, on whose votes Theresa May’s government depends in order to pass through British Parliament the Withdrawal Agreement she has agreed with the European Union to exit the bloc. She was quickly forced to apologise for the “tone” of her comments following complaints from Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney that her “timing couldn’t be worse,” but the content was not retracted.

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson agreed, bemoaning the fact that proposed changes to retrospectively protect soldiers from “spurious” criminal charges would not be ready in time to cover those accused of Bloody Sunday.

During a visit to BAE’s warship yard in Barrow in Furness, England, Williamson made clear that he opposed any prosecutions for Bloody Sunday and for other past and future war crimes. “It’s not just about Northern Ireland, but about Iraq and Afghanistan, conflicts before that and in the future,” he said.

In conditions of immense class tensions, with advanced preparations for civil unrest particularly in the event of a “no deal” Brexit, British imperialism is preparing new Bloody Sundays, internationally and in the UK itself.

Turkish economy falls into recession, amid fears of further US economic reprisals

Baris Demir 

The Turkish lira depreciated by more than 5 percent in US dollars terms last Friday, just nine days before nationwide local elections in which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) are expected to suffer significant losses.

The lira (TL) did recoup more than half of Friday’s losses yesterday, after Turkey’s central bank sharply raised overnight borrowing costs for financial institutions. Nevertheless, Friday’s sell-off points to the vulnerability and mounting crisis of the Turkish economy, which fell into recession late last year.

The principal, if not the overriding, factor in Friday’s lira depreciation was investor fears of a further deterioration in US-Turkish relations, after Erdogan sharply criticized US President Trump’s March 21 announcement that Washington was formally endorsing Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights.

According to press reports, figures showing a sharp drop in Turkey’s foreign reserves in the first two weeks of March and an IMF spokesman’s call Thursday for Ankara to address “key imbalances” in the economy also contributed to Friday’s lira sell-off.

US-Turkish relations have been in freefall since Washington made the YPG—the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdish nationalist PKK, against which Ankara has been waging a bloody war in southeast Turkey for the past 35 years—its principal proxy army in its regime-change war in Syria; then backed an unsuccessful military coup against Erdogan in July 2016.

In recent weeks, Trump administration and Pentagon officials have been making ever more explicit threats of retaliatory action against Turkey, a NATO member since 1952, if it proceeds with the purchase of Russia’s S-400 air defence system.

Last August’s doubling of US tariffs on Turkish aluminum and steel—purportedly in retaliation for Turkey’s jailing of a US pastor that it claimed was involved in the failed 2016 coup—triggered a crash in the value of the lira that continues to roil Turkey’s economy.

Prices have risen sharply, with inflation surpassing 20 percent in January. So too have borrowing charges on the many US dollar and euro-dominated loans Turkish corporations took out in recent years to take advantage of lower interest rates offshore.

Turkey fell into recession for the first time in a decade when its economy contracted 3 percent in the last three months of 2018. Analysts are predicting a further 2.4 percent slide in the first quarter of this year.

The working class is bearing the brunt of the economic crisis. Turkey’s official unemployment rate jumped to 13.5 percent in December 2018, its highest level since the 2008-2009 financial meltdown and global slump. The youth jobless rate is 24.5 percent. In January almost 3.8 million people were registered with the Employment Agency of Turkey (ISKUR), up from 2.4 million in the first month of 2018.

Workers are also being squeezed by food price rises. At 30.97 percent on a year-on-year basis, Turkey’s food-price inflation in January was the second worst in OECD counties, trailing only Argentina, and the seventh worst in the world.

Almost half of Turkish workers are paid the minimum wage, whose value in US dollar terms has tumbled—despite a recent 26 percent increase—from 1,603 (TL) or $424 per month at the beginning of 2018, to 2020 TL, or only about $350 today.

The Erdogan government is acutely aware of mounting popular anger over the deteriorating economic situation and the threat it could speak a social explosion. Its response has been to put off further austerity measures until after the March 31 elections and announce a handful of populist programs aimed at mitigating popular anger, while intensifying its turn toward authoritarian forms of rule and using nationalist and militarist rhetoric to try to divert social anger along reactionary lines.

The AKP government has set up markets in Istanbul and Ankara, respectively Turkey’s largest and second largest cities, to sell vegetables and fruits at half the market price. In both cities, AKP-led administrations are facing a strong opposition challenge in next Sunday’s municipal elections. The government has also announced a “new employment campaign,” under which it is promising to pay wages, taxes and social charges for new hires for their first three months on the job.

Erdogan is posturing as the defender of the people against price-gouging. He has accused the supermarkets of “usury” and “exploitation” and said their actions are akin to “treason,” even terrorism.” In February, the government even made a show of ordering raids on wholesale food markets.

In reality, the AKP has relentlessly pursued neo-liberal policies, including wholesale privatizations, since coming to power in 2002, Many of its pro-investor policies, including subsidy cuts, have adversely impacted small farmers and strengthened domestic and foreign agribusiness, directly contributing to the food price rises.

Erdogan has also tried to shift attention from his own government’s responsibility for the economic crisis with demagogic denunciations of US and European bullying, and bellicose attacks on the PKK and YPG.

In a speech at an election rally in the central city of Sivas, Erdogan accused the population of whining about food prices, when they should instead be concerned with the price of bullets and soldiers’ uniforms for the battle against the PKK. “All this talk about tomatoes, eggplants and green peppers,” fumed Erdogan. “Do you have any idea how much a bullet costs? Think about the cost of getting our soldiers ready to fight terrorists. And here you are talking about tomatoes and potatoes.”

“Some people are complicit,” he continued, “while George and Hans,” a reference to the US and Germany, “are trying to hit us.”

Tuncay Ozilhan, a billionaire and leader of Turkey’s most powerful business organization, the Turkish Industry and Business Association, recently criticized Erdogan’s economic policies, saying Turkey is now experiencing “the consequences of past mistakes in many areas from food inflation to unemployment.”

“We,” continued Ozilhan, “do not think that” the steps the government has taken “against rising food prices … can solve the problem. The number of farmers who are responsible for feeding an 80 million population has fallen from 10 percent to 3 percent. In a situation where production decreases, farming collapses and consumption increases rapidly, food price control cannot be a remedy.”

Behind these criticisms lie deeper concerns within the ruling class over the growing rift between Ankara and the western imperialist powers and the ability of the Islamist AKP—whose string of electoral successes over the past 17 years has been bound up with its ability to muster support from sections of the rural and urban poor—to contain mounting social anger as the economic situation goes from bad to worse.

Above all, the ruling class fears rampant social inequality, soaring prices, mass unemployment and the proliferation of precarious contract jobs will cause Turkish workers to join the global working class upsurge that has already convulsed France, Mexico’s low-wage maquiladora region, and has now engulfed Algeria in a revolutionary crisis—to name just a few of the most prominent examples.

The principal difference between the AKP and the opposition parties is the latter’s more pronounced orientation to the Turkish bourgeoisie’s traditional North American and European imperialist allies.

Both the Republican People’s Party (CHP)—the historic party of the Kemalist elite that dominated the military and other state institutions of the Turkish Republic in the last century—and the Kurdish nationalist, pseudo-left supported, People’s Democratic Party (HDP) are cynically seeking to exploit the popular anger over the mounting economic crisis, while advancing unabashedly pro-capitalist programs.

CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu deplores that Turks have been reduced to scrounging for food in trash bins, but in the very next breathe says Ankara should be focusing on boosting exports, i.e., on boosting the competitive positions Turkish capital, not borrowing funds to sustain a “social state.”

The HDP is supporting the CHP in the major cities of western Turkey and promoting it as a defender of “democracy” against AKP “fascism,” although the CHP has connived in repeated military coups that resulted in savage repression of the working class and has played a pivotal role in supporting the savage decades-long war against Turkey’s Kurdish minority.

The reality is all these parties stand as one against the working class. How they will respond to the inevitable eruption of mass working class discontent was indicated last September, when thousands of construction workers at the site of a new airport in Istanbul carried out protests against workplace accidents, precarious and oppressive working conditions and the violation of their basic rights. The government answered the mass protest and the workers’ just demands with a brutal police attack and the jailing of more than 30 militant workers.

US stages another provocation in the Taiwan Strait

Ben McGrath

The United States sent two warships through the Taiwan Strait on Sunday, only days before the opening of trade talks with China in Beijing. This deliberate provocation over Taiwan, China’s most sensitive diplomatic issue, is a clear threat aimed at forcing the Chinese to accept a US-dictates trade deal.

The USS Curtis Wilbur, a naval destroyer, and the Bertholf, a US Coast Guard (USCG) cutter entered the strait dividing Taiwan from the Chinese mainland from the south. The US incursion was the third in as many months, as the Trump administration ramps up measures to bring further military pressure to bear on Beijing. Washington also sent warships through the strait last year in July, October and November.

“The ships’ transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” declared Commander Clayton Doss, a spokesman for the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet. He added, in an implicit threat to Beijing, “The US will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows.”

China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang urged the US to “cautiously and appropriately handle the Taiwan issue to avoid harming Sino-US relations and peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.” He also stated that “China has lodged stern representations with the US.”

The presence of a US Coast Guard vessel raised some eyebrows in the media, summed up by the headline of a Navy Times article, “Why did a Coast Guard cutter take a jab at China?” The idea of using the Coast Guard for so-called “freedom of navigation” operations, i.e., provocations against China, has been discussed in US ruling circles since at least January 2017, the same month Trump came to office.

That year, Admiral Paul Zukunft, then head of the Coast Guard, called for “a permanent USCG presence in the South China Sea and related areas. This would allow us to expand our working relationship with Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan. We can spearhead work with allies on freedom of navigation exercises as well.” Proponents claimed Coast Guard vessels would be less provocative, in an attempt to justify the further US military buildup in the South China Sea and throughout the region in preparation for war with China.

Trump has continually stoked tensions with China over Taiwan, which Beijing views as a renegade province. While Taiwan and Beijing both adhere to the 1992 Consensus recognizing the “One China” policy, the current government in Taipei of Tsai Ing-wen and the Democratic Progressive Party has cautiously leaned towards Taiwanese independence, though not making any formal declarations.

Beijing has maintained that it will use military force to retake Taiwan should it ever declare independence. In this regard, the US navy’s moves are not routine, but purposely risk a clash to further US geopolitical interests and measure how far China can be pushed. Beijing, however, has no intention of allowing an independent, US-aligned Taiwan to become a military base for Washington.

Chief Hu Xijin, editor of China’s state-owned Global Times, said in a statement on Monday, “[US] warships must pass through the Taiwan Strait in an orderly way. They shouldn’t make dangerous moves such as interacting with Taiwan’s military or docking at a Taiwan port. Or else, the Chinese mainland is bound to retaliate.”

China has previously threatened to attack Taiwan if a US warship docks at a Taiwanese port, a red-line the Trump administration came close to breaching last October when an American naval scientific research vessel docked at the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung during heightened tensions.

Washington, however, is already moving to build up its relations with Taiwan’s military. According to a March 22 Bloomberg article, sources within the White House stated that advisors to Trump have urged Taiwan to submit a request for the sale of sixty-six F-16 fighter jets, produced by Lockheed Martin.

The approval of the deal would be the first since 1992, when the US sold Taiwan 150 F-16 jets. The Obama administration rejected a similar request in 2011, instead agreeing to upgrade Taiwan’s existing fleet as part of a larger arms deal. Overall, the US has sold more than $15 billion in weaponry to Taiwan since 2010.

In addition, the Trump administration approved the Taiwan Travel Act last March, allowing increased visits between US and Taiwanese officials. The massive US military spending bill passed last year called for further arms deals and increased cooperation with Taiwan’s military, including “opportunities for practical training and military exercises with Taiwan” and “exchanges between senior defense officials and general officers of the United States and Taiwan consistent with the Taiwan Travel Act.”

In this regard, the sale of the F-16s to Taiwan is not simply a bargaining chip in trade talks. The build-up of Taiwan’s military is part of an overall strategy, backed by the Republicans and the Democrats, to militarily encircle China and force Beijing to acquiesce to US demands.

“There is a consensus that’s almost bipartisan in Washington that it’s time to be a bit more assertive against China,” noted Richard Aboulafia, an analyst from the Teal Group. “This is the part where fighters are geopolitics with wings.”

The trade war instigated by Trump is part of this strategy. It centers on demands for “structural reforms” in China that would give US corporations access to cheap labor and resources while eliminating an economic competitor.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin will be in Beijing for trade talks on March 28. China’s Vice Premier Liu He will lead a delegation to Washington on April 3.

On the negotiations, Wei Zongyou, an expert on China-US relations at Fudan University in Shanghai, stated that “the US has constantly emphasized the verification mechanism and use of punitive tariffs as a counterweight.” Washington has threatened to more than double the current ten percent tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods while imposing new tariffs.

In essence, Washington is demanding Beijing relinquish sovereignty over its economy and return to a period of semi-colonial status. Naturally, Beijing will be unable to meet such conditions, leaving the US to further inflame tensions, risking the outbreak of a catastrophic war.

Thousands of young Moroccan teachers assaulted by anti-riot police

Nancy Hanover

Moroccan anti-riot police assaulted striking teachers with batons and water cannon in the capital of Rabat over the weekend. An estimated 10,000-15,000 education workers, on strike since March 3, had gathered to press their demands for permanent jobs, pensions, additional salaries and good healthcare.

The teachers and other education workers, mainly in the 20s and 30s, chanted “liberty, dignity, social justice” and held candles or illuminated cell phones. On Saturday night, they decided to camp out in front of the parliament on the main Mohammed V Avenue. They have been holding rallies for the past three weeks to demand permanent jobs, including sit-ins at regional academies across the kingdom.

Some shouted political slogans such as “This is a corrupt country” and “We are ruled by a mafia,” demanding the resignations of Prime Minister Saad Eddine El Othmani and Education Minister Said Amzazi.

The education ministry has threatened mass firings in retaliation for the strike with the pretext that teachers knew the terms of the contracts before signing them. “We are not intimidated by the threats of the education ministry because we came to claim our right to be integrated in the civil service and defend the public school,” Abdelilah Taloua, a young teacher, told Reuters.

Describing themselves as “forcibly contracted educators,” approximately 55,000 of Morocco’s teachers have received only annual renewable contracts since 2016. At that time, the education ministry instituted austerity policies, which removed them officially from the public sector. They are now demanding equal rights across the profession including full pension rights. Presently the teachers receive only 40 percent of their monthly salary after retirement.

Striker Oussama Hamdouch, 27, speaking with Moroccan World News, said the Ministry of Education has now proposed to hire teachers through regional academies. This was “unacceptable,” he emphasized, because the regional academies do not have the resources to offer employment to everyone.

“The academies will be able to fire teachers if they don’t have financial resources whenever they want to. School principals will also have a certain authority over us. We want to work with dignity like the other teachers in the public sector,” Hamdouch said.

Explaining that young teachers had no alternative but to sign the substandard contracts, Hamdouch added, “We had no choice. The job market is disappointing.” Teachers are particularly angry over the contract’s stipulation that they cannot take a full-employment position, even if one is offered, for the duration of the agreement.

The new round of protests follow those on February 20, when thousands gathered to press these demands and were met with similar violence by government forces. The February demonstration was called as part of a national general strike commemorating the revolutionary struggles dubbed the “Arab spring” in 2011.

With an escalating national debt, estimated at 82.5 percent of GDP, Prime Minister Saad Eddine El Othmani has continued to press the public sector in order to ensure payments to the state and international banks. Nearly 19 percent of the rural population lives in poverty, and about 15 percent of Moroccans eke out survival on about $3 a day, according to the World Bank. The official unemployment rate in the kingdom continues at just under 10 percent, but among the urban youth recent statistics show it close to 40 percent.

In June 2004, the United States designated Morocco a major ally in the “war on terror.” And, yesterday, March 25, the US State Department announced its approval of the sale of 25 F-16 fighter jets and assorted other military equipment to the Moroccan government at a cost of $3.8 billion. The news release explains that the upgrade will enable Morocco to expand its “ability to undertake [NATO] coalition operations, as it has done in the past in flying sorties against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.”

While attacking teachers, the Kingdom of Morocco, together with Tunisia, has also been the recipient of a special €55 million European Union fund to detain migrants attempting to enter Europe through Spain’s northern African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and across the Mediterranean.

The protests in Morocco coincide with the popular upheaval in neighboring Algeria. Tens of thousands of teachers joined the general strike earlier this month demanding the end of the figurehead regime of President Abdelaziz and the largest protests in 30 years continue to gain momentum.

New Zealand government bans fascist terrorist Brenton Tarrant’s manifesto

Tom Peters

The manifesto by Australian fascist Brenton Tarrant, who killed 50 people and injured the same number in shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, has been officially suppressed in New Zealand.

On March 23 the country’s chief censor David Shanks announced that the 74-page document titled “The Great Replacement” has been deemed “objectionable” under the Films, Video and Publications Classification Act. Shanks instructed anyone in New Zealand who downloaded or printed off the manifesto, which Tarrant posted online just before the March 15 attack, to destroy it. Possession of the manifesto carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and anyone who shares it can be jailed for 14 years. For now, the document can still be accessed and read legally in other countries, including Australia, but the New Zealand decision sets a dangerous precedent.

The suppression of the document is a major attack on democratic rights. The ban is a highly political decision: it is part of the efforts by the government and the ruling elite to suppress public discussion about the roots of the terrorist attack, and especially to cover up the role of the state and political parties, in New Zealand and internationally, in creating the conditions for the development of fascism.

It is not the internet and the social media that have created an audience for fascist ideology and spurred acts of violence, but the systematic whipping up of anti-immigrant xenophobia by governments for decades, in particular the vilification of Muslims as part of the bogus US-led war on terror.

The ban is intended to prevent discussion of the fact that many of Tarrant’s views are not very different from those held in governments and parliaments throughout the world. The manifesto contains anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric strikingly similar to that used by US President Donald Trump, who Tarrant hails as a “symbol of white renewal.” Tarrant repeatedly describes immigrants as “invaders,” the same word Trump used to incite violence against refugees. Tarrant’s anti-Islamic rant also resembles the political rhetoric of far-right parties across Europe, as well as Australia’s One Nation and the New Zealand First Party, which is part of the Labour-led government in Wellington.

Like Tarrant, NZ First leader Winston Peters has sought to whip up anxiety about the “replacement” of New Zealanders by immigrants, especially Muslims and Asians.

The ban will pave the way for the New Zealand state to suppress other political publications, especially left-wing and Marxist publications, which were heavily censored in World War I and World War II. As the world economic crisis accelerates and New Zealand aligns ever more closely with US threats against Russia and China, the Christchurch massacre has been seized on to justify censorship.

Following the terrorist attack, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern denounced “extremism of every kind,” while Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for a crackdown on “extremism of the right and of the left.” Demands are being made for “extreme” content to be removed from Facebook, which has already censored the World Socialist Web Site and many left-wing sites.

Far from stopping the manifesto’s circulation among its intended audience, the ban will only increase its appeal in white supremacist circles internationally. Shanks admitted to TVNZ that his decision would give the document “cachet and attraction” among such layers.

The legality of the ban is not at all clear. New Zealand has no specific law against “hate speech” and books such as Hitler’s Mein Kampf can be distributed. The Bill of Rights Act (1990) states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.” These rights are “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”

According to the Classification Act, a publication can be classified as objectionable and effectively banned “if it… deals with matters such as sex, horror, crime, cruelty, or violence in such a manner that the availability of the publication is likely to be injurious to the public good.” The decision is at the discretion of the Chief Censor and his staff.

Justifying his ban, Shanks said that in addition to espousing hateful ideology Tarrant’s manifesto was “terrorist promotional material” that exhorted others to acts of violence against specific groups and individuals. Speaking to TVNZ, Shanks dismissed arguments that the public should have the right to access the manifesto to help understand New Zealand’s worst terrorist atrocity. “This is a very poor place to go to try and understand what happened,” he said.

Journalists and researchers who want to study the document must apply to the Classifications Office for an “exemption” to access it for a limited time, determined by the censor. In a threatening press release, Shanks said the “use of excerpts in media reports may not in itself amount to a breach of the [Act], but ethical considerations will certainly apply. Real care needs to be taken around reporting on this publication, given that widespread media reporting… was clearly what the author was banking on, in order to spread their message.” This statement is meant to intimidate anyone wishing to report on the contents of the manifesto and to smear them as assisting the far-right terrorist.

A spokesman for New Zealand’s Free Speech Coalition, lawyer Stephen Franks, denounced the ban as “a completely improper use of the censorship powers.” It called for “each citizen” to be allowed “to engage, hear, read, and reject evil for themselves.” A few journalists have also objected to the ban. The Green Party, which is part of the coalition government, has remained silent, as have the pseudo-left organisations.

Most media commentators praised Shanks’ decision. An editorial in the Christchurch Press rejected the argument that the ban “stifles debate about the gunman, his motives and how future bad actors can be stopped.” It declared: “The debate is not worse because we can no longer possess or distribute the document. Its contents are well enough understood by the public.”

This is completely false. In fact, the media has played a major role in covering up the significance of the manifesto. The document, for example, makes clear that Tarrant is a highly-conscious fascist, sympathetic to certain far-right politicians and with international connections to many nationalist groups. He is not a “lone wolf,” as is asserted by the government and much of the media.

The manifesto also reveals Tarrant’s sympathy for the military and police and states that hundreds of thousands of people in the European armed forces are in nationalist groups. This passage, which raises extremely serious questions about whether Tarrant had any assistance from members of these state agencies, has received no attention in the New Zealand or Australian media. Fascist groups have been allowed to flourish in both countries unhindered by police and intelligence agencies, which ignored repeated warnings of neo-Nazi violence in the years leading up to Tarrant’s attack.

There has been complete silence in the media about Tarrant’s threats against Marxists and communists, which underscore that fascism is a tool used by the bourgeoisie to crush the working class, especially its most conscious, socialist elements. The suppression of the manifesto is intended to cover up the fact that, although fascism is not yet a mass movement, as workers and young people come into struggle against austerity and war, the capitalist class will increasingly turn to fascist forces in an attempt to defend its rule.

Trump recognizes Israeli annexation of Golan Heights: Green light for global war

Bill Van Auken

The hastily completed White House ceremony in which President Donald Trump signed a decree granting official US recognition to Israel’s illegal annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights is an act which, on its surface, appears to change few facts on the ground in the Middle East. No one should underestimate, however, its far-reaching global implications.

In a brief proclamation, witnessed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump declared that “the United States recognizes that the Golan Heights are part of the State of Israel.”

He argued that Israel’s illegal seizure of the Golan Heights in 1967, its unilateral annexation of the territory 14 years later and its continued assertion of control along with the aggressive buildup of Jewish settlements and Israeli capitalist exploitation in the territory were all justified by “Israel’s need to protect itself from Syria and other regional threats,” including Iran.

What nonsense. Trump turns reality on its head. Israel has used the Golan Heights as a launching pad for its own relentless attacks on Syria, which have included the Israeli arming and support for Islamist militias, including ISIS, in the war for regime change against the government of Bashar al-Assad, as well as the thousands of air strikes which Israel’s own military chief of staff acknowledged earlier this year.

Washington’s recognition of “Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights” comes amid reports that the US military is consolidating its permanent occupation of eastern Syria, including the country’s main oil and gas-producing areas, even after Trump’s abortive announcement at the end of last year that he was going to “bring the troops home” from Syria. In recent weeks, there have been reports that some 1,000 troops—backed by larger numbers across the border in Iraq—will remain on Syrian soil, while the US military has been spotted trucking large quantities of arms and materiel into the US-occupied zone.

In other words, Trump is recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, even as Washington is occupying and effectively annexing Syrian territory east of the Euphrates River.

In short-range political terms, Trump’s action was unquestionably aimed at propping up his right-wing ally Netanyahu, who faces a raft of corruption charges and potential defeat at the polls on April 9 at the hands of a slate of generals assembled by the so-called Blue and White coalition headed by former chief of staff Benny Gantz.

Netanyahu, who is both Israel’s prime minister and defense minister, cut short his visit to Washington to return to Israel in order to be seen leading the vengeful onslaught against Gaza for the firing of a single missile that killed no one and for which both Hamas, which administers the occupied territory, and Islamic Jihad, its other major armed faction, have denied responsibility.

Israeli warplanes carried out bombing raids across the Gaza Strip, including in the densely populated Gaza City. In other acts of collective punishment, the Israeli occupation forces blocked the sole two existing crossing points into the impoverished territory, an effective open-air prison for 2 million Palestinians, and forcibly turned back Palestinian fishermen attempting to fish off the territory’s coast.

Hamas officials announced Monday night that they had reached a cease-fire agreement brokered by Egypt, but Tel Aviv remained silent on the matter. Netanyahu’s electoral opponents are all attacking him from the right, accusing him of failing to take sufficiently bloody measures to quell resistance in Gaza. The leader of the Labor Party, what passes for Israel’s bourgeois “left,” denounced Netanyahu as a man “of talk and not actions.” The Israel Defense Forces, meanwhile, have beefed up their Gaza division with another 1,000 troops, an additional infantry and armored brigade, as top officials warn that “all options are on the table.”

Trump’s recognition of Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights will serve in the first instance to fuel Israeli military aggression in the occupied territories and throughout the region. It will also push the already rightward lurching trajectory of Israel’s capitalist political setup ever further toward outright fascism.

The present election cycle has seen Netanyahu ally himself with the fascist Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, which is an offshoot of the Kach Party of Meir Kahane, which was defined by the US State Department as a terrorist organization. Together with the religious Zionists of the Jewish Home party, Netanyahu’s coalition stands for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population from Israel and the occupied territories in pursuit of the goal of a “Greater Israel,” an imperialist and colonialist project that is bound up with the subjugation of the Middle East to US imperialist interests and the preparation for war with Iran.

The turn toward openly fascistic politics, bound up with the growth of militarism in Israel as it is internationally, is unmistakable in the current Israeli elections. Campaign propaganda has included one television ad featuring the country’s extreme right-wing Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked spraying herself with a bottle of perfume labeled “Fascism” and turning to the camera to declare, “To me, it smells like democracy.” Another has the right-wing Knesset member, Oren Hazan, in a parody of a Clint Eastwood movie, shooting to death Jamal Zahalka, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and leading member of the Balad party in the Knesset.

For the Golan Heights, Trump’s edict will doubtless spur on Israel’s drive to eradicate what remains of the territory’s original population. Some 130,000 Syrians fled for their lives when the Israeli military invaded the Golan in 1967. The remaining 25,000 Druze Arabs in their overwhelming majority have rejected Tel Aviv’s attempts to force them to accept Israeli citizenship and insist that they are Syrians.

On Saturday, hundreds marched in the Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams in protest over Trump’s impending decree. One told the media, “From here we say that the Golan [Heights] is Arab and Syrian and neither Trump nor any other person can decide its fate.” Another said, “He wants to give Israel land, he can give them one or two of his states in America.”

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, during a tour of the Middle East that brought him to both Israel and Lebanon last week, was asked by a reporter if the US was pursuing a “double-standard policy” in recognizing Israeli sovereignty over territories seized from Syria, while indicting Russia for annexing Crimea, the pretext for the imposition of sanctions and an aggressive escalation of military threats from NATO. Never mind that the population of the Golan Heights has rejected Israeli occupation for over 50 years, while that of the Crimea overwhelmingly welcomed Russian citizenship.

“No, not at all,” Pompeo responded idiotically. “What the president did with the Golan Heights is recognize the reality on the ground and the security situation necessary for the protection of the Israeli state. It’s that—it’s that simple.”

Recognizing the “reality on the ground” and what was necessary for the “security situation” of states was precisely the rationale given for the annexations that led to the deaths of hundreds of millions in the course of the first half of the 20th century.

The Austro-Hungarian empire’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1909 is viewed by historians as the prelude to the First World War, while the series of annexations carried out by the Nazi regime in Germany set the stage for the Second World War.

It was in recognition of these historical “realities” that, in the aftermath of the Second World War, the major powers amended the Geneva Conventions and adopted a founding charter of the United Nations with the aim of outlawing such annexations and rejecting threats to the territorial integrity of existing states.

In the preparation for a third world war, these principles formally accepted in the aftermath of the second have been thrown onto the scrap heap. The Trump administration’s sanctification of Israel’s land grab in the Golan sets the stage for new and far bloodier invasions, annexations and the revival of outright 21st century colonialism.

US imperialism is attempting to legitimize this half-century-old crime in order to pave the way for far larger wars in the Middle East. Its action, however, takes place amid a steady escalation of the class struggle throughout the region, from the mass protests and strikes that have shaken Algeria, to the struggle of teachers and other workers challenging the monarchical regime in Morocco, to workers struggles in Iran, protests against the abysmal social conditions in Gaza and strikes by rail workers in Israel itself in defiance of deals worked out between the state and the official union, Histadrut.

The only answer to the threat of war and fascism lies in the independent political mobilization of the working class. In response to the right-wing turn of Washington and Tel Aviv, this poses the urgent necessity of uniting Jewish and Arab workers in the struggle for a Socialist Federation of the Middle East as part of the struggle to put an end to capitalism across the planet.

After fascist terror attack, New Zealand and Australia stoke tensions with Turkey

Tom Peters 

Last week the Australian and New Zealand governments furiously attacked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over his response to the March 15 Christchurch mass shooting, in which Australian fascist terrorist Brenton Tarrant killed 50 people in two mosques.

Addressing a political rally on March 18, Erdogan likened Tarrant’s white supremacist ideology to the anti-Muslim views of Allied soldiers sent to fight the Ottoman Empire in World War I. His comments prompted immediate, belligerent denunciations from the Australian and New Zealand political establishment and media, which glorifies the role of the Anzacs (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) in WWI, especially the disastrous attempted invasion of Turkey via the Gallipoli Peninsula in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

The Anzac “legend” is a central ideological tool used by Australia and New Zealand’s ruling elite to promote patriotism and militarism particularly amid acute social tensions over poverty and inequality. It has helped create the environment that fuelled the growth of fascist groups and led to the Christchurch massacre.

Speaking to a crowd near the Gallipoli battle site, Erdogan declared that Tarrant’s shooting “wasn’t an individual attack, this is organised,” contradicting claims by New Zealand police that Tarrant acted alone. Turkish authorities believe he was backed by a well-resourced organisation and may have been planning terror attacks in Turkey, which he visited twice in 2016.

Referring to the defeat of the Allies at Gallipoli, Erdogan said anyone travelling to Turkey with views like Tarrant’s would face the same fate. “Your grandparents came, some of them returned in coffins,” he declared. “If you come again like your grandfathers, be sure that you will be gone like your grandfathers.”

At several campaign rallies, Erdogan has shown excerpts of Tarrant’s video of his horrific attack, in which three Turkish nationals were injured. He demanded that New Zealand bring back the death penalty for Tarrant, otherwise Turkey would “make [him] pay one way or another.”

Erdogan’s statements are aimed at whipping up Turkish nationalism in order to divert growing working-class anger over social inequality in the lead-up to the March 31 local elections. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is desperately trying to cling to power amid an economic crisis and worsening tensions with the US, which backed a failed coup against Erdogan in 2016.

The outraged response to Erdogan from Canberra and Wellington, however, is just as reactionary. Neither government condemned or sought to differentiate themselves from Tarrant’s call in his manifesto for Christians to reconquer Istanbul and slaughter Turks, or his threat to “kill Erdogan.” Instead, they sought to whip up nationalist sentiment against Turkey and defend the Anzacs’ World War I campaign.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, in a bellicose rant, called Erdogan’s speech “highly offensive to Australians and highly reckless in this very sensitive environment,” and an “insult [to] the memory of our Anzacs.”

After speaking with the Turkish ambassador, Morrison told the media he was not satisfied with the “excuse” that Erdogan was engaged in a heated political campaign. He declared that “all options are now on the table,” including expelling Turkish diplomats.

In a highly provocative move, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern sent Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters to Turkey to “confront” Erdogan. Peters told journalists that Erdogan’s speech “imperils the safety of the New Zealand people,” even though the Turkish president did not threaten peaceful tourists, only violent anti-Muslim extremists like Tarrant.

Peters leads the right-wing nationalist New Zealand First Party, which has a major role in the Labour Party-led coalition government. It has repeatedly scapegoated immigrants for social inequality, low wages and unemployment and demonised Muslims as potential terrorists. Before departing, Peters told journalists he would not retract his previous anti-Muslim statements.

By Thursday Australia and New Zealand had received an “assurance” from Ankara that travellers would be welcome at Gallipoli on Anzac Day. Morrison said he was pleased Erdogan has “moderated” his rhetoric. The Australian, however, reported that some in the government “feared [Erdogan’s remarks] could... unleash a wave of jihadist attacks on Australians at home and abroad.”

Anzac Day, the April 25 holiday in Australia and New Zealand, marks the landing of soldiers at Gallipoli in 1915. The ruling class in both countries encourages citizens to make patriotic “pilgrimages” to Gallipoli on the day.

The Gallipoli campaign was a disastrous attempt by the Allies to seize control of the strategic Dardanelles shipping lanes. The battle cost the lives of 8,700 Australians, 2,700 New Zealanders, more than 21,000 British, 10,000 French, 1,300 Indians and more than 86,000 Ottoman soldiers. A further 262,014 people were wounded on all sides. After the war the defeated Ottoman Empire was broken up and its Middle Eastern territories divided between Britain and France.

The slaughter at Gallipoli was part of an imperialist war aimed at re-dividing the world between the major imperialist countries. Australia and New Zealand joined the war as part of the British Empire and as minor imperialist powers in their own right seeking a share of the plunder, especially of colonies in the Pacific region.

The battle is promoted by the Australian and New Zealand ruling class as a pivotal moment in the forging of national identity and militarist values. During the 2014-2018 centenary of World War I, governments in both countries poured hundreds of millions of dollars into museums, monuments, films, books and events glorifying the Anzacs, in order to inculcate respect for the military and prepare young people, in particular, for future imperialist wars.

Anzac Day ceremonies promote not only WWI and WWII, but all wars Australia and New Zealand have joined, including the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the US-led wars aimed at controlling resource-rich Iraq and Afghanistan, fought on the pretext of defeating terrorism.

Anzac mythology has always falsely justified the imperialist war as the defence of democracy and “our way of life.” Now, however, it is increasingly portrayed as a fight against Islamic “extremism” and a precursor to today’s wars. John King, chairman of the Returned Services League (RSL), told the Australian on Thursday that Erdogan’s speeches were “the sort of hate and extremism” Australian soldiers had fought against.

Damien Fenton, who wrote a state-funded book praising New Zealand’s World War I campaign, has described the war against the Ottoman Empire as “New Zealand’s first taste of jihad.” A Southland Times article in October 2014 reported: “Fenton says it is ‘chilling’ to reflect that Gallipoli was the cradle for the jihad the world is experiencing right now.”

The Australian far-right group United Patriots Front, which was a major influence on Tarrant, heavily promotes Anzac Day and portrays the Gallipoli campaign as part of an ongoing fight against Islam.

The fascist who carried out the March 15 attacks did not develop his views in a vacuum. He grew up during a quarter century of constant wars in the Middle East, accompanied by anti-Muslim racism and militarist propaganda, including the historical lies surrounding the Anzac legend.

French “yellow vest” protests defy threat of army repression

Anthony Torres 

Despite “yellow vest” protesters’ anger at French officials’ threats to have the army fire on them, their marches on Saturday overall unfolded peacefully and without violent incidents. On Friday morning, the military governor of the Paris area, General Bruno Le Ray, had said that soldiers deployed to confront the “yellow vests” would have “different means for action faced with all types of threats. That can go as far as opening fire.”

Ultimately, there were no confrontations between the army and the “yellow vests” this weekend, or soldiers opening fire on protesters. It was the police forces that committed the only major act of violence that marred the weekend. In Nice, they violently charged and beat over the head a 73-year-old woman who was not threatening the police forces, as footage from several video surveillance cameras has confirmed. She has been hospitalized with subdural hematomas and was reportedly for a time in a coma.

“The police prefect has given the hospital very firm instructions not to communicate with the exterior, including with the family, who finds it very difficult to obtain information,” said Arié Alimi, the lawyer for the victim’s family. The family intends to bring a lawsuit against police for “voluntary violence by individuals disposing of state authority on vulnerable persons.” The daughter of the victim raised the question of the president’s responsibility, stressing that police are under no obligation to “obey the orders of a little king.”

The “Yellow Number” Facebook page announced that there had been 123,000 “yellow vest” protesters in many cities across France. The Interior Ministry announced the absurd figure of 8,100 protesters across France, before changing its estimate to over 40,000.

The largely peaceful unfolding of the “yellow vest” demonstrations raises again serious questions on the role of the security forces in the violence on March 16. Hundreds of unidentified violent protesters pillaged dozens of shops or stores on the Champs Elysées avenue. The media and parties of the political establishment immediately reacted hysterically. The Macron government claimed that the violence of March 16 was carried out by hardened, far-left violent protesters who were unidentified but enjoyed the complicity of the “yellow vests.”

The government had announced the mobilization of the army as well as numerous measures including bans on protesting, raising fines for illegal protests from €38 to €115, mobilizing “anti-hooligan brigades” and the use of drones. Bans on protests hit Paris neighborhoods like the Champs Elysées, where the fighting had taken place on March 16, Capitole Square in Toulouse, where the protests have been strong, as well as neighbourhoods in Bordeaux. Nice and Marseille were also hit by protest bans.

The hardened violent protesters the government blamed for the violence, without identifying or arresting them, did not appear at all this weekend. This strongly raises again the question of the identity of the elements that carried out the pillage on March 16, particularly given that elements of the riot police were videoed participating in the pillage. The suspicion still remains that forces inside the state could have given their agreement, at least tacitly, to a provocation.

The threats of deadly violence that Macron and Le Ray were effectively making against the “yellow vests” come after four months of protests in France but only two weekends after mass protests began by Algerian workers and youth to bring down the Algerian government. The emergence of an international movement with revolutionary aspirations terrifies the French ruling class. Fearing the overthrow of General Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s regime, they are willing to turn to anyone to strangle the protests against the Macron regime in France.

WSWS reporters spoke to “yellow vests” at Saturday’s protests in Paris. Asked about the advisability of the presence of army units around the Paris protests, one “yellow vest” explained to the WSWS: “As far as I see, I don’t think the media and the military will come together to practice shooting civilians. It’s impossible, unimaginable. But given the orders that exist today, coming from the Interior Ministry and the current government, it is possible that the soldiers could in fact shoot civilians at point blank range if there are problems.”

About the violent criminals, he said that they “show up to try to blend in ‘yellow vest’ protests. That everybody knows and sees, including the police. But we can’t stop them because they come in large numbers, usually. We speak to them and they say: ‘We have a right to protest and to do what we want, so there, people should not be left by themselves to decide how to handle this problem.’”

About General Le Ray’s threat to fire, another “yellow vest” told the WSWS: “It’s really extremely shocking. It had not happened in France since 1947 that the army was called in against protests. There, it is getting into a quagmire. … They are there just to protect buildings, but they do not realize this has a terrible impact. It’s really an admission of impotence to call in the army against the population while continuing to claim one is a patriot supporting law and order. This is clearly a new attack on democratic rights. The army is supposed to be there to shoot at enemies, not at the people.”

Asked about events in Algeria, this “yellow vest” applauded the demonstration: “It is extremely beautiful what they are doing. They have succeeded much more than we have from early on, to expand the movement while remaining totally peaceful. And I think that for the time being they have better chances than us. Bouteflika has already given in once, I think that the masses are still mobilized and that they will succeed in forcing the government to turn around.”

David, an IT professional, stressed his hostility to Macron’s anti-democratic measures: “I am here first of all because everything that is happening with France today is attacking liberty with anti-violent protester laws, given what is happening with the soldiers. They are trying to frighten us and today the people are hungry. There are people who cannot make it to the end of the month, who are having real trouble. … Today the only response we have had from Mr. Macron is repression, it is to send more and more police against us. Now he is sending military men against us, he is issuing threats via the media and television.”

There was similar opposition from a “yellow vest” and student, who cited police brutality to explain why he had decided to come to the Paris protest: “We are rather often told that this movement is running out of steam. But it is not the army’s role to preserve law and order and to fire on the people. We have already had enough of riot police who hit people, who live difficult lives. I think the issue of people firing live ammunition now, it’s just talk to frighten us. … But then why send in the army? This movement has really scared those at the top. It’s just to scare people, try to shift public opinion, but now public opinion is really behind us.”

Asked about workers’ struggles in Algeria and beyond, he compared that struggle with that of the “yellow vest” movement: “I have full solidarity with them on everything. … We know very well whatever happens in other countries.”

Forced Labour and the Impact of History on Japan-South Korea Relations

Sourina Bej & Prakash Pannerselvam

The issue of forced labour has long been a major source of tension between Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK). On 30 October 2018, the ROK Supreme Court upheld the lower court verdict that “the right to compensation for forced labour is not subject to the treaty,” and that the plaintiffs hold the right to compensation. The apex court ordered Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation and Mitsubishi Industries - both Japanese companies - to pay compensations to the complainants. This verdict has initiated a new diplomatic spat. What elements have contributed to a further deterioration in the bilateral relationship? What is the political and economic fallout?

Legal vs. Public Reconciliation

While there exists a strong legal foundation for the resolution of historic bilateral issues, domestic audience pressures in both countries have stymied the relationship.

Japan views the ROK Supreme Court ruling as undermining the legal basis of its bilateral relationship which is bound by the San Francisco Peace Treaty. Japan has historically emphasised Article II of the 1965 treaty to argue “that every bilateral problem of the colonial past has already been settled by virtue of the treaty.” The ROK government formed an inter-agency task force on 4 December to look into the Supreme Court rulings on Japanese wartime forced labour issues. The task force, comprising of the foreign, justice and interior ministries, will examine legal issues relating to the verdict while also taking into account domestic public opinion. The setting up of the task force has also been interpreted by Japan as undermining the sanctity of the 1965 treaty.  

At the core of the treaty is the 1965 Agreement on settlement of problems concerning property and claims and economic cooperation. As per the Agreement, Japan provided the ROK government with US$ 300 million in grants, and loans of up to US$ 200 million. The ROK government was thereafter to be responsible for every individual claim from Korean nationals. For Japan, the Agreement settled the issue of claims between the two countries completely and finally.

In 2005, ROK in fact reconfirmed that the issue of claims was covered by the Agreement. Essentially, the disagreement lies in the interpretation of the formula of a “once-and-for-all” settlement, an element of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. Japan maintains that the Agreement is binding on ROK's judiciary as well. Thus for Japan, the verdict is a violation of the Agreement, which in turn is the bedrock of its relationship with ROK.  

Tokyo has suggested the possibility of raising the issue at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in case of a diplomatic deadlock. Citing the ICJ ruling on Germany vs. Italy over state immunity as a precedent for wartime forced labour lawsuits, Japan has sought protection from being sued in the courts of other states. However, state immunity is not applicable to cases involving individuals and corporations. Since the plaintiffs in this case are Korean people and not the government, Japan may not be able to appeal to the ICJ, whose jurisdiction extends to dealing with legal disputes between states.

Following the 1965 treaty, Japan publicly apologised as another step towards reconciliation. In effect, a public reconciliation was attempted in the aftermath of the legal resolution. Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi's apology to ROK President Kim Dae-jung for Japan's occupation of Korea was seen as a major breakthrough, particularly as it was included in the 1998 Japan-ROK Joint Declaration.

Despite this development, public opinion in both countries remain contrarian. In fact, elderly victims of forced labour have pursued their own claims through the courts for years, and ROK President Moon Jae has supported their right to compensation since taking office in 2017. Public opinion has thus impacted the course of the bilateral relationship despite the existence of a solid legal foundation.

Political and Economic Setbacks

According to a report, as many as 80 Japanese companies are facing similar damage suits in South Korean courts. Japan fears that the Supreme Court ruling will adversely affect the economic future of these companies in South Korea. Japanese media coverage suggests heightened political rhetoric, with companies threatening to pull out of ROK if their business interests are jeopardised. The rising tensions have led the Japanese and ROK Chambers of Commerce to postpone their annual meeting. In fact, the Japanese decision to file a complaint against ROK in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over the shipbuilding subsidy issue is being seen as a result of Seoul’s decision on forced labour.  The response in ROK has been equally vehement. Hong Ihk-pyo, a spokesman for the ruling Democratic Party, has called for an apology and compensation from both companies as well as the Japanese government.

The political fallout was visible at the 26th Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leadership Meeting, with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and ROK President Moon Jae-in skipping bilateral talks. The leaders also did not met on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Argentina. ROK's decision to close down the “Reconciliation and Healing Foundation” established as part of the 2015 Japan-ROK agreement to offer support to former comfort women is another diplomatic setback, and a result of the escalating tensions. Yet another recent example of the deteriorating relationship is video footage released by Japan on December 20 a South Korean warship locking its fire-control radar on a Japanese patrol plane.

This political fracture has had a debilitating impact on ROK's economy. For example, the number of newly hired workers in July 2018 was only 5,000, the lowest on record over the past eight years. Negative domestic economic indicators have certainly contributed to Moon's pursuit of better relations with Japan as a way to sustain foreign investment in the country. However, other external circumstances are also playing spoiler. Given that the Trump-Kim Summit did not result in the relaxation of sanctions that ROK was hoping for, the proposed joint economic zone between the two Koreas has come to a standstill.

Historical issues continue to be a major challenge towards meaningful rapprochement between ROK and Japan. While Japan's stand is clear, ROK perhaps faces more obstacles resulting from the economic fall-out of escalating tensions, and domestic audience pressures to extract concessions from Japanese companies. Ultimately, any new policy or attempt at reconciliation would be a direct comment on how the government approaches past issues, which puts it in an unenviable position.