Sixth Friday mass protest in Algeria demands fall of the regime

Alex Lantier 

Millions poured into the streets of Algeria’s major cities yesterday, for a sixth Friday protest demanding the fall of the military-backed National Liberation Front (FLN) regime.

It came after General Ahmed Gaïd Salah, the head of the Algerian armed forces, called on March 26 to apply Article 102 of Algeria’s constitution to remove the regime’s hated figurehead, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, on health grounds. Protesters rejected Salah’s sudden intervention to remove Bouteflika, who has been incapacitated since suffering a stroke in 2013. Instead, they demanded the bringing down of both the FLN and the army.

Banners carried at the protests read “Rest in Peace Gaïd Salah, leave power for the love of God,” “Gaïd Salah the people want democracy not a military regime,” and “Shame on you Gaïd Salah.” Another popular slogan was to demand the application of Article 7 of the constitution, which stipulates that power should come from the people.

Over a million people marched in Algiers, according to police reports, and thousands or tens of thousands marched in other major Algerian cities including Oran, Constantine, Annaba, Béjaïa, Tizi Ouzou, Sétif, Tlemcen and Sidi Bel Abbès. In Oran, protesters chanted “The transition must be led by the sovereign people and not the regime.” In Tlemcen, protesters chanted “Out, Out Saïd,” referring to Abdelmajid Sidi Saïd, the leader of the corrupt, FLN-linked General Union of Algerian Labor (UGTA) union.

In Algiers, huge throngs of people marched through the city’s major centers including Maurice Audin Square and outside the Main Post Office. Protesters also clashed during the afternoon with riot police, who fired tear gas and water cannon to block off major avenues and keep marchers from reaching the presidential palace. Protesters chanted slogans including “You are the past we are the future” and “The people orders the army to arrest the gang.”

Algeria’s public oil and gas companies have earned over $1 trillion in revenue, and broad layers of Algerian workers and youth despise the FLN leadership and their cronies as little more than a criminal gang that has plundered the country’s energy wealth.

The way forward for the movement against the FLN is the building of independent organizations of the working class, against the UGTA and its allies, and a fight to unify the movement with growing political opposition internationally among workers in Africa as well as in Europe and France.

Significant strike movements and protests at key industrial facilities have already taken place in Algeria. Port workers are on strike at Oran and Béjaïa, there have been strikes and sit-ins in protest by workers at subsidiaries of the Sonatrach natural gas monopoly, as well as by teachers and public sector workers. Many small businessmen and shopkeepers in Algerian cities have closed their businesses as a sign of support.

This comes amid an upsurge of protests by workers and youth internationally. Nearby Algeria in Africa, bread riots are demanding the ouster of the Sudanese government, while neighboring Morocco is threatening to dismiss striking teachers, who have organized a four-week strike that is exposing the unpopularity of the Moroccan monarchy. And across Europe, there is a rising wave of strikes against European Union (EU) austerity and growing political opposition, like the “yellow vest” movement against French President Emmanuel Macron.

As a revolutionary movement against the FLN and the Algerian army develops, it is critical to draw the political lessons of the revolutionary struggles of 2011 against Egypt’s military dictatorship.

The key role in ensuring the victory of the counterrevolution and the coming to power of General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s bloody junta was played by petty-bourgeois, pseudo-left parties. At each step in the struggle, they promoted illusions that the army, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, or Sisi’s supporters themselves would carry out a democratic revolution. They thus blocked a struggle of the working class to take state power, and handed over the initiative to the ruling class.

The way forward is to link up the struggles of the Algerian working class with growing workers’ struggles internationally, and to build a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) in Algeria to fight for a revolutionary and socialist perspective against the forces trying to tie the workers to the old regime and its imperialist backers.

From the foreign ministry in Paris to the UGTA bureaucracy and the headquarters of various “opposition” parties with decades-long records of working with the FLN, a common line is emerging. Whether by Salah’s initiative or by the convening of constituent assemblies representing the entire political establishment, Algerian capitalism is to undergo a nationally-based democratic reform. This is a political mirage, designed to block a struggle of the working class for power.

Yesterday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian hailed the “remarkable civic spirit” of the Algerian protesters, effectively endorsing Salah’s initiative: “Now it is critical for the process that will now get underway, the transition that is now necessary, be able to unfold in the best possible conditions.”

Earlier this week, the UGTA issued a similar statement endorsing Salah and Algeria’s army brass: “The UGTA salutes and takes note of the call made by Mr Ahmed Gaïd Salah … Change has become necessary, it must manifestly be constructed through dialog that is marked by wisdom that allows the edification of a new Republic to emerge, alongside the aspirations of our people and youth, and to firmly ground the future and preserve our country, Algeria.”

There were no fundamental differences with this line in the statements made by the Front of Socialist Forces (FFS) and the Workers Party (PT). Both of them are terrified by the rebellion of the working class against the FLN regime and so abstained from calling for participation in yesterday’s protest.

The FFS, affiliated to France’s discredited, big-business Socialist Party (PS), issued a statement critizing Salah’s initiative and warning of the danger of revolutionary upheavals in Algeria. “To frustrate the people means provoking very serious uncertainty, inevitable chaos,” it said, adding: “Change must be an emanation of the popular will via the election of a sovereign constituent assembly and the building of a Second Republic, that is the consecration of a democratic and social alternative.”

As for Louisa Hanoune’s Workers Party (PT), it echoed the FFS’s position, calling for a “sovereign constituent assembly” while criticizing Salah’s maneuver as a “forcible coup.”

At the same time, terrified by growing popular opposition to the FLN, the PT withdrew its legislators from the national parliament, issuing a statement calling for “the departure of the parliamentary majority because they do not enjoy any popular legitimacy.” In fact, the PT itself, with its longstanding ties to the FLN and the UGTA, has no more legitimacy than they do.

None of these forces have either the ability or the intention of building a democratic regime that satisfies the mounting social demands of Algerian workers and youth.

Even in the countries where it was long ago established, capitalist democracy is rotting on its feet. Across the Mediterranean, the Macron government—terrified that the revolutionary movement against Bouteflika could spark a broader movement of the working class than the “yellow vest” protest—has issued an authorization to the army to gun down the “yellow vests.”

The problems facing workers in Algeria, France and beyond are rooted in the capitalist system. These can only be solved through the construction of sections of the ICFI to provide revolutionary leadership to the working class now in struggle against the profit system.

“No deal” Brexit threatened after May’s EU withdrawal agreement rejected for third time

Robert Stevens

Needing the support of 318 MPs, British Prime Minister Theresa May secured just 286 votes on her proposed European Union withdrawal agreement on Friday.

With 344 MPs against, a majority of 58, the margin of defeat was narrower than the two previous defeats—230 votes in January and 149 earlier in March. But the defeat triggered an EU stipulation that moves forward the new exit date from May 22 to April 12.

With parliament’s speaker, the pro-Remain Tory John Bercow, ruling that May could not bring her deal back a third time unaltered, Friday’s vote was on whether to accept only the Withdrawal Agreement and not the Political Declaration that goes with it. The Political Declaration is a shorter, 26-page document setting out the UK’s aspirations for future relations with the EU.

The opposition Labour Party rejected this manoeuvre, with Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer telling BBC Radio’s “Today” program, “Take the political declaration off and it is completely blind—you have no idea what you are really voting for.”

May was able to win the support of 277 Tory MPs, including 41 additional “hard-Brexit” Tories. The latter were convinced that voting to set a date on a deal they opposed was better than risking a prolonged delay or even a possible overturn of the 2016 referendum decision.

However, 34 members of the European Research Group voted against, along with 10 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MPs.

With Labour MPs whipped to oppose May’s deal, just five—Kevin Barron, Rosie Cooper, Jim Fitzpatrick, Caroline Flint and John Mann—and two Blairites who now sit as Independents—Ian Austin and Frank Field—backed May.

The vote was held on the day the UK had initially been scheduled to leave the EU. Although May reached agreement with the EU months ago, sections of the deal related to a proposed “backstop” that could keep Northern Ireland in the European Union indefinitely are anathema to the DUP and dozens in the Conservatives’ hard-Brexit wing.

Earlier this week, May committed to resigning as Tory Party leader (and therefore as prime minister) and triggering a leadership contest if MPs in her deeply divided party agreed to pass the deal. By means of this pledge, she obtained the votes of Boris Johnson and his backer in any leadership battle, Jacob-Rees Mogg. But even this was not sufficient to pass the measure.

Theresa May [Credit: Number 10 Downing Street]

The BBC’s flagship current affairs programme “Newsnight” reported Thursday night that a cabinet minister, asked why May was still going ahead with a third vote on the same deal, replied, “F**k knows, I am past caring. It’s like the living dead in here.”

Friday’s developments only deepened the crisis of British imperialism, with any number of scenarios now unfolding.

A chaotic “no deal” departure from the EU is a real possibility. In a statement immediately following the vote in parliament, the European Commission warned, “The EU has been preparing for this since December 2017 and is now fully prepared for a ‘no deal’ scenario at midnight on 12 April.”

EU Commission head Donald Tusk called an emergency summit to address the Brexit crisis for April 10, just two days before the new scheduled exit date. According to the Guardian, “Sources suggested Downing Street would need to advise Brussels of the way forward by 8 April to allow member states to prepare for the summit.”

The British military is preparing to deploy 50,000 soldiers on UK streets in the event of a “no deal” Brexit, anticipating a massive disruption of basic social functions and civil unrest. These preparations are directed squarely against the working class.

Also possible is a further extension of the Article 50 legislation governing Brexit, forcing the UK to participate in May’s European elections.

Speaking to MPs after her deal fell, May declared, “I fear we are reaching the limits of this process in this House. This House has rejected no deal. It has rejected no Brexit. On Wednesday it rejected all the variations of the deal on the table. And today it has rejected approving the withdrawal agreement alone and continuing a process on the future.”

An “alternative way forward" would have to be found, May said, threatening hard-Brexit MPs that anything other than her agreement reached with the EU was “almost certain” to involve British participation in the European elections.

May’s oblique reference to the “limits of this process” is widely reported as a threat to her rebel MPs to take the “nuclear option”--triggering a second snap general election if her deal is rejected once again. Given the state of political relations in the Tory Party, that threat could become a political reality.

May is to hold further discussions with her cabinet over the weekend, amid reports that an immediate meeting held in Downing Street after the defeat was dominated by ministers insisting that May oppose a soft Brexit and prepare for a no-deal Brexit outcome.

One “hard Brexiteer” who supported May in Friday’s vote said, “I had to swallow everything I believe in and vote. Now we’ve lost that vote, there’s only one thing the prime minister can do. Get us out on the 12th of April. Get our country back and deliver what we promised. Because if we don’t, God help us.”

The next stage in the crisis will unfold on Monday, when MPs return to parliament for a second round of “indicative votes.” Last Wednesday, MPs held indicative votes on eight separate Brexit policies, but none commanded majority support.

The speaker will reportedly select from the most popular options from last week so that MPs can whittle these down to a single policy, which would likely be for a Brexit based on retaining access to a form of customs union with the EU.

However, according to Sky News, May is prepared to bring her deal back for a fourth time next Wednesday for a run-off with whatever indicative vote comes out on top.

With the prime minister one of the walking dead identified by her anonymous cabinet member, Labour’s nominally “left” leader Jeremy Corbyn is working assiduously to ensure that the gravest crisis facing British imperialism in its peacetime history is resolved through the worm-eaten parliamentary system and its rotten parties, which represent warring pro- and anti-EU factions of the ruling elite, with the working class left as spectators.

In his contribution to Friday’s debate, Corbyn told the House that it had to “compromise to get this resolved.” Labour would work with MPs across party lines around a number of soft Brexit options, he said. He declared that Labour’s favoured soft Brexit plan was “based around the certainty of a permanent customs union” with the EU, adding that “close alignment with the Single Market” provided the “best compromise” for a “deeply divided country and…deeply divided House.”

Such an outcome “is backed in large part by major organisations in industry and business and by trade unions,” he stressed.

To placate Labour’s Blairite wing, he said he would not rule out backing a second referendum on EU membership, before concluding, “If we cannot do that [agree a deal in parliament] on Monday, then I ultimately see no alternative to a general election.”

Corbyn raised this possibility knowing that most Labour MPs are resolutely opposed to him becoming prime minister. The Blairites fear that his election could fuel demands by workers and youth for him to make good on his rhetoric in opposition to austerity and war.

Eight of the Blairites, who split off in order to set up The Independent Group (TIG) with three ex-Tories last month, calculate that if events lead to a general election, a much larger split in the Labour Party could materialise over Brexit policy. TIG is essentially a holding operation in readiness for this scenario. Yesterday it applied to the Electoral Commission to become a political party, Change UK-The Independent Group, in time for participation in possible European elections and a possible UK general election.

Mounting warnings of a global recession

Nick Beams 

The world economy is showing signs of significantly lower growth, if not an outright recession, with the warning lights flashing in both financial markets and the real economy.

In the past week the yield on US 10-year Treasury bonds has fallen sharply and on some occasions has dropped below the rate on shorter-term Treasuries. This is significant because under “normal” circumstances rates on longer-term bonds are higher than those obtained on short-term debt. The “inversion of the yield curve” points to rising financial uncertainty as investors seek greater security and is regarded as an indicator of recession.

Other interest rates, most notably on German bonds that like US Treasuries are regarded as a safe haven, have also fallen and in some cases are in negative territory. On Wednesday the German government issued €2.4 billion of 10-year bonds with an interest rate of minus 0.05 percent. The issue was oversubscribed 2.6 times meaning they could have raised €6.3 trillion.

The growing nervousness in financial markets is also indicated in a report from Bloomberg earlier this week which said the amount of global bonds with a negative yield had gone over $10 trillion.

Negative yield occurs when the price of the bond rises so high due to investors seeking security that if it were held to maturity it would produce a loss on the investment.

The immediate starting point of this shift was the indication from the US Federal Reserve following the meeting of its Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) earlier this month that it was contemplating no interest rate increases this year—a sharp reversal from the position at the end of last year when at least two interest rates were anticipated for 2019.

The switch by the Fed started in January with the issuing of a “dovish” statement in interest rates in response to a sharp downturn in US stock markets for December when they experienced the worst outcome for that month December 1931.

The statement following this month’s FOMC meeting made clear the Fed was not simply engaged in a temporary reversal of its previous agenda. It was a virtual admission there was not going to be any winding back of its massive asset purchases under the program of quantitative easing which saw its balance sheet expand from around $800 billion before the financial crisis to $4.5 trillion.

The Fed had started winding back its holdings by $50 billion a month and Fed chairman Jerome Powell indicated at the end of last year this policy would proceed into the future as if on “auto pilot.” This brought furious opposition from key sections of the financial markets which maintained the Fed’s policy was adversely affecting their operations.

At last week’s meeting the wind-down was effectively shelved. Powell said the Fed would slow the reduction of Treasury holdings to $15 billion a month starting in May and expected to conclude the wind-down at the end of September. This meant that Fed’s balance sheet would be around $3.5 trillion, or 17 percent of GDP compared to around 6 percent before the 2008 meltdown.

The most significant feature of the Fed’s decision is what it indicates about the future of the US and global economy. It underscores the fact that more than 10 years after the global financial crash any return to what was once considered “normal” monetary policy is further away than ever and the global economy and financial system is completely dependent on the provision of ultra-cheap money from the major central banks.

Commenting on the latest move by the FOMC, Wall Street Journal writer Greg Ip noted that the US economy was expected to grow this year and that official unemployment remains low. “What’s worrying is than maintaining these conditions requires such expansive monetary policy. It suggests that powerful underlying forces such as slow-growing populations and diminished investment opportunities continue to weigh on economic growth and inflation around the world.”

He pointed out that if the US economy stumbled again, the Fed would not have much ammunition to respond because at most it could cut interest rates a little more than two percentage points “less than half what’s required in most recessions.”

Recent reports suggest that the next Fed move on rates could be down rather than up.

Shortly after the Fed’s decision, another shock came in the form of data from Europe on the underlying state of the euro zone economy. The purchasing managers’ index for euro zone manufacturing fell to 47.7 in March from 49.4 in February, with a level under 50 indicating a contraction. In Germany, the euro zone’s key economy, the index for the factory sector slumped to 44.7 in March, down from 47.6 in February, to hit its lowest reading in 79 months.

On Wednesday at a conference in Frankfurt, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi provided an update on the state of the euro zone economy following the decision by the ECB earlier this month to reverse its policy of slight monetary tightening and undertake new stimulus measures.

He said last year saw a “loss of growth momentum” that had extended into 2019. The main factor at work is the slowing demand from external markets, indicating a slowing of the global economy. Weakness in world trade had continued and “global goods import growth in January reached its lowest level since the Great Recession, on the back of rising uncertainty about trade disputes and a slowdown in emerging market economies, especially China.”

Industrial production fell by 4.2 percent in December before recovering somewhat in January but indicators, such as new export orders, that have historically been closely associated with industrial production remained in “negative territory.”

Draghi noted that both extra- and intra-euro area slowed steeply last year and that such a simultaneous downturn “has not occurred since the start of the global financial crisis.”

Draghi tried to put the best face on an increasingly worsening situation saying that so far the decline in external demand had not spilled over into domestic demand but the risks had risen in the past few months.

He concluded his remarks with the assurance that the ECB was ready to respond to future risks and “we are not short of instruments to deliver on our mandate.”

This claim was the subject of a scathing response by Ashoka Mody, a former deputy-director of the International Monetary Fund’s Research and European Departments and now a professor at Princeton University, which was reported in the UK-based Telegraph.

“What instruments?” he asked. “Aside from its jumble of words the ECB has nothing else to offer.”

Mody said the ECB was riven by “national conflicts,” always acted too late, with delays and half-measures which were the antithesis of risk management.

So far the official position in the US is that the economy will continue to grow this year. The Fed has revised down its forecast from 2.3 percent last December to 2.1 percent but, according to Powell, it still remains in a ”good place” although growth had slowed from “solid rate” in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Earlier this month, New York Times columnist David Leonhardt provided some insights into the longer-term situation pointing out the strength of US economic expansion was exaggerated.

“Here’s the truth: There is no boom. The economy has been mired in an extended funk since the financial crisis ended in 2010. GDP growth still has not reached 3 percent in any year, and 3 percent isn’t a very high bar.”

He wrote that if experts’ predictions on the growth of the US economy had actually eventuated then it would be 6 percent larger than it is today producing $1.3 trillion more in goods and services.

One of the reasons he noted was that major companies, despite all the money that was available were holding back. A report released earlier this week pointed to one of the reasons why. Companies in the S&P 500 spent a record $806 billion buying back their own shares in 2018, beating the figure for 2017 by almost 56 percent and shattering the previous record of $589 billion set in 2007.

These figures underscore the fact that the chief effect of the various stimulus measures introduced by central banks and governments—the program of quantitative easing and the Trump corporate tax cuts—has been to further fuel parasitism and speculation, while signs of recession indicate that a new crisis is in the making.

Xi signs strategic EU-China deals amid growing EU-US tensions

Alex Lantier 

On Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping ended a six-day tour of Europe in which the major euro zone powers made business deals with China and signaled support for its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for infrastructure across Eurasia. As Washington threatens both China and its nominal European Union (EU) allies with trade war sanctions, deep divergences are emerging between Washington and the EU over relations with China.

As part of its “pivot to Asia” to diplomatically isolate and militarily threaten China, Washington has opposed the BRI, which US Vice President Mike Pence mocked last year as a “constricting belt and one-way road” allowing China to trap the world in debt. In 2015, the EU powers defied US calls to boycott the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the BRI’s funding arm. Now, they are again ignoring Washington.

On March 5, the Financial Times reported that Italy would sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) backing the BRI, making it the first major EU power to do so. The FT said this “would undercut US pressure on China over trade and would undermine Brussels’ efforts to overcome divisions within the EU over the best approach to deal with Chinese investments.” The White House told the FT endorsing the BRI would “end up harming Italy’s global reputation.”

The US National Security Council Tweeted that by endorsing BRI, Italy would legitimize China’s “predatory approach to investment and will bring no benefits to the Italian people.”

Nonetheless, Xi was greeted in Rome with full honors, including a cavalry guard for his car, state dinners, and a concert by tenor Andrea Bocelli. Rome then signed the MOU endorsing the BRI, together with deals worth €2.5 billion for building oil pipelines and steel plants, and promoting Italian agricultural exports. Italy will also be allowed to finance its massive €2.3 trillion sovereign debt by issuing so-called “panda bonds” directly to Chinese citizens.

At last Friday’s EU summit, French President Emmanuel Macron criticized Rome’s unilateral deal with Beijing, insisting that on China, “The period of European naivety is over.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, however, that she was satisfied with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s assurances that Rome’s BRI deals complied with EU law: “As far as he explained it, I have nothing to criticize for now, but have already discussed that it is even better if we act together.”

Italian Undersecretary of State Michele Geraci dismissed Macron’s comments, telling the South China Morning Post: “All the other (European) countries will follow Italy and sign an MOU, and I can give you two names but I won’t—they are in the pipeline. In reality, all European countries want to be part of the belt and road.” He dismissed criticism of Rome’s initiatives in Europe: “If Italy wants to be the terminal of China’s Silk Road, of course this affects Hamburg, Rotterdam, Marseille. … It’s a competition, so I understand their jealousy.”

Geraci admitted that “the US was not very happy” about Italy’s decision. But he rejected US warnings that Italy will fall into a Chinese “debt trap,” pointing to the $1.13 trillion of US debt held by China: “The US should worry about having debt in Chinese hands. They are in a situation where they need to be concerned, that’s why maybe they worry.”

After Xi promoted agricultural exports to China while in Sicily and toured Monaco, which will set up 5G Internet service using products from Chinese firm Huawei—defying US calls for a boycott of Huawei’s products as threatening NATO security—Xi went on to Paris. There, Macron dropped his criticisms of Xi and of Italy for breaking supposed European unity on China and, extending Xi full state honors, signed his own raft of deals with Xi.

In Paris, Chinese state-owned enterprises signed multi-billion-euro contracts for container shipping, wind energy, and construction projects with French firms. Macron and Xi signed a €30 billion deal between Franco-German firm Airbus and China Aviation Supplies Holding for 10 A350 and 290 medium-range A320neo jetliners.

Airbus appears to have done this deal at Boeing’s expense, after the recent grounding of its 737 max jets after two major accidents cost hundreds of lives. France’s Le Point wrote: “There was regular discussion of ordering a total of 180 jetliners since President Macron’s last visit, a bit more than a year ago, in Beijing. Now there are 120 more A320neo’s. Should we take this as a consequnece of the B737MAX and the rejection of Boeing’s medium-range jetliner after two accidents with Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines? That would be a very rapid reaction.”

Finally, Macron invited Merkel and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to Paris for talks with Xi. Macron and Xi issued a joint statement calling for a “swift conclusion of an ambitious global investment agreement between the EU and China,” and Merkel said she saw “nothing to criticize” in Italy’s deal with Xi.

“The Belt and Road, or Silk Road, is an important project, and we Europeans want to play an important role here,” Merkel added, while demanding “reciprocity” and concessions to European firms in China.

This points to deep contradictions in world capitalism and a breakdown of longstanding alliances that point to a rising danger of war.

On the one hand, the European imperialist powers remain with Washington in the NATO alliance, as US imperialism imposes trade war tariffs and carries out a global military build-up targeting both Russia and China. After years of proxy war with Russia in Syria and of naval stand-offs in the South China Sea, Washington even repudiated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) treaty, allowing it to station nuclear missiles in Europe and the Pacific, targeting Russia and China.

On the other, as China’s economy grows, and as the European powers’ relations with Washington grow increasingly tense, they are orienting to closer economic relations with Beijing. The Guardian called Xi’s Paris meeting “a show of unity in the face of Trump’s tariffs aimed across both the Atlantic and the Pacific.”

In this situation, every capitalist power or bloc of powers is steeling itself for conflict against all potential adversaries. Last year, French President Macron publicly announced that Europe had to be prepared to militarily confront Russia, China or the United States.

This year, even as the European powers ignored US denunciations of the BRI, they are at the same time adopting resolutions branding China as a potential enemy. At a recent summit on China, the EU decided to stop calling it a “strategic partner” and identified it instead as a “systemic rival promoting alterntive models of governance” and “an economic competitor in the pursuit of technological leadership.”

UK Conservatives’ rampant Islamophobia and racism covered up by party tops, downplayed by media

Margot Miller 

Ever since Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Labour Party leader in 2015, a hysterical witch-hunt against him and the wider left has been led by the Blairites, the media and the ruling Conservative Party equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

No allegation has been too fantastical and contrived to avoid being heavily cited amid banner headlines, with the necessary comments solicited from pro-Zionist MPs and groups.

These smears and lies, designed to rewrite political history to associate the left with anti-Semitism, have been conducted by newspapers all but blind to the naked Islamophobia and racism within the Conservative Party.

This month an anonymous Twitter account, @matesjacob, sent damning material to the Guardian which it was obliged to report. On March 5, the Guardian reported that 14 Conservative members had been suspended for allegedly making Islamophobic comments on social media that could have been easily unearthed by any major newspaper. In total, the party suspended more than 40 members over allegations of anti-Muslim behaviour.

On March 18, the BuzzFeed news site reported that another 25 self-proclaimed Tories had posted similar offensive material on Facebook. Buzzfeed noted that the Tories “refused to say how many of the 25 had been suspended.”

Within days, on March 24, the Guardian reported that 15 of the suspended Tory members, who served as elected councillors, had been quietly reinstated. The Guardian noted that its research “suggested that in the majority of cases where a councillor was reprimanded for retweeting or sharing offensive content, they were later readmitted to the party.”

Conservative councillor Martyn York, in Wellingborough, a moderator for the Facebook page “Boris Johnson: Supporters’ Group,” was recently suspended for Islamophobic comments, including some inciting violence, that were allowed on the site with 4,800 members.

Dorinda Bailey, a former Conservative council candidate and member of the group, replied to a user saying of mosques, “Bomb the f****** lot”: “I agree, but any chance you could edit your comment please. No swearing policy.”

Group members referred to Muslims as “ragheads” and described immigrants as “cockroaches.” One told a black soldier to “p*** off back to Africa” and for black former Labour MP Fiona Onasanya to be “put on a banana boat back home.”

Two Conservative councillors from East Staffordshire resigned following criticism for liking and sharing a post which showed the queen beheading London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

On the same day as it reported the reinstatement of the councillors, the Guardian published evidence of five more Islamophobic social media postings by Tory party members.

One said, “Muslims are cavemen” who should be “rounded up,” alongside offensive remarks about Muslim women on a Facebook page, the “Jacob Rees-Mogg Supporters Group.”

A filthy social media posting, uncovered by matesjacob, and written just days before the fascist gunman Brenton Tarrant murdered 50 people in a massacre at two mosques in New Zealand, declared, “I was going through a few magazines the other day down the local mosque. I was really enjoying myself. Then the rifle jammed.” The Guardian reported that the author of these lines "photographed himself with Boris Johnson in 2015." Johnson is a leader of the Tory’s hard-Brexit wing, former foreign secretary and expected future leadership contender.

Other comments included, “turf all Muslims out of public office.” Another wanted to “get rid of all mosques,” agreeing that “no Pakistani should become prime minister.” Another read, “A practicing Muslim should not be allowed to work in any of the emergency professions.” “No Muslim will get my vote,” read one post and another, “stand against the Islamification of our country.” A vote cast for Home Secretary Sajid Javid would be a vote for “Islam to lead this country,” wrote another.

Most sinister of all, one post in the group showed a map where all mosques are situated in the UK, eliciting several racist responses including, “[W]e’re just letting the takeover happen.”

Brenton’s Tarrant’s massacre in Christchurch was followed by a number of attacks on mosques in the UK. In 2017, the fascist Darren Osborne drove a van into Muslim worshippers outside London’s Finsbury Park Mosque that left one dead and 10 injured.

Racist views pervade the highest echelons of the party. Conservative MP for Harrow East, Bob Blackman, posted an article on Facebook last year with the inflammatory header “Muslim Somali sex gang say raping white British children ‘part of their culture.’” He invited Indian anti-Muslim Hindu politician Tapan Ghosh to Parliament last year. While in Britain, Ghosh met with Tommy Robinson, the far-right ex-leader of the English Defence League (EDL).

The leader of Swale Borough Council, Andrew Bowles, found himself suspended after sharing a post defending Robinson as a patriot. He was fully reinstated after just 13 days. Solihull Borough Councillor Jeff Potts was also readmitted after his suspension last September for tweeting that all Muslims should face deportation, otherwise they would “kill innocent people for generations to come.”

Another reinstated councillor is Mike Payne from Calderdale, who posted, “France slashed benefits to Muslim parasites.”

A Conservative candidate for Hounslow council, Peter Lamb, was forced to resign, though his initial suspension was lifted, after tweeting in 2015, “Islam is like alcoholism. The first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem.”

The Muslim Council of Britain has been calling since 2016 for the Conservatives to hold an inquiry into Islamophobia in the party, the scale of which they describe as “astonishing.” The Council told VICE that “racists clearly feel emboldened by Boris Johnson’s Islamophobic comments.”

Last Summer, Johnson was denounced for “dog-whistle” Islamophobia by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a former Conservative chair and the UK’s first Muslim cabinet minister, after he compared Muslim women in burqas to “letterboxes” and “bank robbers.”

Warsi has accused her party of “institutional” anti-Muslim behaviour and “turning a blind eye” to prejudice. She has demanded an inquiry into Islamophobia in the party for three years.

While trying to downplay evidence of widespread racism within the party, ConservativeHome editor Paul Goodman was forced to acknowledge that it “has a Tommy Robinson tendency.” However, the site, owned by former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party Lord Ashcroft, is itself littered with Islamophobic comments.

The VICE website reported that one posting on the site likened the burqa to “SS uniforms” and raised the need “to eradicate the cancer of Islam” and “Middle Eastern cultures.” Another wrote, “People like the EDL want to protect English communities from the very apparent depredations of Muslim grooming gangs and other predatory behaviour.” Another asked, “Do we English wish to be integrated with the foreign populations colonising, displacing and replacing Us?”

The Conservative Party has a long history of whipping up racism in a divide-and-conquer strategy to legitimise its policies of austerity, militarism and war.

Since 2002, 63 people belonging to the “Windrush generation” of West Indian migrants residing legally in the UK have been snatched from their homes and deported illegally.

For a month in mid-2013, the Home Office sent vans into six London boroughs with high immigrant populations plastered with the slogans: “In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest.” May launched this policy as home secretary in the Cameron-led Tory government.

In January 1978, Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made the infamous statement that “people are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture.” In 2014, then Conservative Defence Secretary Michael Fallon repeated Thatcher’s words, declaring that towns in Britain are being “swamped” by immigrants. They were “under siege [with] large numbers of migrant workers and people claiming benefits.”

The postings uncovered from only a small number of the many pro-Conservative social media pages must be taken together with the innumerable comments posted in pro-Tory newspapers as proof that Britain’s ruling party is a hotbed of fascist reaction. While fascism does not yet have a mass social base, a rabid, fascistic layer is being deliberately nurtured and encouraged by the Conservatives, as with other bourgeois parties internationally, as they move to more authoritarian forms of rule and make ready the forces who will be used to combat a resurgent movement of the working class.

After fascist attack, New Zealand government enacts gun control measures

John Braddock & Tom Peters

Just six days after the March 15 Christchurch mosque shootings in which a fascist killed 50 people, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern last week announced a ban on military style, semi-automatic guns and assault rifles.

Ardern declared: “On 15 March our history changed forever. Now, our laws will too. We are announcing action today on behalf of all New Zealanders to strengthen our gun laws and make our country a safer place.” Changes to the law in the aftermath of the 1990 Aramoana massacre, when a local resident shot and killed 13 people, did not go far enough, Ardern said.

The Labour Party-led government’s legislation, which has full cross-party support, will be introduced under urgency procedures when parliament sits next week. Under an Order in Council, the ban on trading and use of such weapons came into force immediately.

The population remains shocked by the horrific events that unfolded in Christchurch. On March 22, people observed an official call for two minutes’ silence. Some 20,000 gathered in Christchurch and 15,000 in Dunedin to attend vigils in memory of the victims. The widespread anger over the shooting, and sympathy for its victims, is being channeled toward gun control for definite political purposes.

International media coverage seized on the initiative, as well as moves to restrict freedom of expression on social media platforms, to praise Ardern’s “inspirational leadership.” A glowing March 21 editorial in the New York Times,entitled “America Deserves a Leader as Good as Jacinda Ardern,” proclaimed that “the world should learn from the way Jacinda Ardern… has responded to the horror.”

Democratic Party members who are falsely presented as “lefts” also applauded her. Presidential aspirant Bernie Sanders posted on Twitter: “This is what real action to stop gun violence looks like. We must follow New Zealand’s lead, take on the NRA [National Rifle Association] and ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons in the United States.”

This campaign seeks to cover up the responsibility of the political establishment and the state in New Zealand, as well as in US, Europe and Australia, for fanning the growth of the far-right by stirring up anti-immigrant xenophobia and racism.

To present “gun control” as a solution to the type of far-right extremist violence unleashed in Christchurch is a fraud on many levels. As Brenton Tarrant’s manifesto makes clear, he planned his attack over a two-year period in a highly-disciplined and determined manner and was not wedded to using guns. Little has been said about the fact that two explosive devices were discovered on a car following Tarrant’s arrest.

Moreover, Tarrant had a long history of connections with known far-right groups and made his plans known online before the massacre, raising disturbing questions about why police and intelligence agencies did not prevent the attack.

Alongside the gun control measures, New Zealand’s chief censor banned Tarrant’s manifesto. This is an anti-democratic move aimed at preventing ordinary people from seeing the striking similarity of Tarrant’s racist and anti-Muslim rhetoric and that of the establishment political parties, most obviously NZ First, which is a coalition partner in the Labour-led government, alongside the Greens.

The focus on guns goes hand-in-hand with censorship. It aims to obscure the fact that successive Labour and National-led governments have overseen a social crisis since the 1980s and a quarter century of criminal US-led wars that has helped create the conditions for the re-emergence of fascism as an international phenomenon.

As Tarrant’s manifesto boasts, there is widespread sympathy for fascism in governments, the military, police and intelligence agencies. Yet the mass shooting is being exploited to bolster the powers and resources of the state apparatus.

The ruling elite views gun control as one way to expand police powers and prepare to suppress the growing struggles against deteriorating living standards and the drive to war. The law change coincides with a push to arm police with guns. New Zealand is one of a handful of countries where front-line officers do not routinely carry firearms, but in recent years this has begun to change. Killings by armed police have become more common.

Officially, Tarrant is the sole suspect in the Christchurch attack. Yet despite him being in custody, the country remains on a “high” threat alert, meaning a “terrorist attack is assessed as very likely.” It is the first time New Zealand has had a high threat level, and it has been used to deploy police on the streets with semi-automatic weapons.

Under the new restrictions, weapons similar to those used in the terrorist attack will be outlawed. Related parts capable of converting guns into semi-automatics (MSSAs) also will be banned, along with high-capacity magazines. A buyback scheme will allow gun owners to return weapons. After a “reasonable time” those who continue to possess the guns could be prosecuted. Current gun law penalties are up to $4,000 and/or three years in prison, but the new law would increase these.

On Monday, Police Minister Stuart Nash told TVNZ the immediate bans would be followed with laws to tighten vetting procedures, licensing and storage of weapons. Yet questions remain unanswered about why the police granted the Christchurch shooter a gun license, despite his many public statements on social media in support of fascists, and threats to kill “Marxists and globalists.”

Ardern claimed Tarrant had exploited “loopholes” in the law. Police, however, said he obtained his license after being vetted. In late 2017, police interviewed him and also spoke to two referees who reportedly vouched for his character. Police have not revealed what they discussed with Tarrant, nor the identity of his referees. A former police firearms control officer, Joe Green, told the media that the referees were a father and son whom the far-right extremist had met in an online forum.

All the parliamentary parties—government and opposition—have vowed to prevent a repeat of the atrocity, but for decades they have created the reactionary political climate that enable the rise of fascist groups. All of them have supported the bogus “war on terror,” including the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, which have fuelled anti-Muslim xenophobia. The entire political establishment has backed immigration restrictions, suggesting that immigrants and refugees are to blame for the social crisis created by the austerity measures of successive governments.

Workers should oppose the strengthening of the state apparatus, which will inevitably be used against the struggles of the working class, as will the gangs of fascist thugs. The only way to end the threat of fascism is to abolish its root cause—the bankrupt and decaying capitalist system.

Outrage grows over leaked government database targeting journalists, activists at US-Mexico border

Kevin Martinez 

According to leaked documents provided to local San Diego news station NBC 7, a government database has been targeting journalists and activists at the southern US border. As news has spread of the operation many other groups and organizations have also spoken of increased surveillance and harassment by the Border Patrol, ICE, and other government agencies for covering immigration in Mexico.

The database was part of Operation Secure Line, the Trump administration’s military operation to block immigrants who were travelling in last year’s Central American caravan. Images of the 59 persons targeted were included along with personal information and descriptive tags like “journalist” and “organizer” along with a large green “X” over some of the faces.

These markers would indicate that an alert had been placed on the person’s passport and if they were stopped would be forced into secondary inspection. Many activists and journalists would be detained for hours or had their passports held in limbo without being offered a credible explanation by the border authorities.

While many have long suspected that the government was tracking their whereabouts at the southern border, the documents obtained by NBC 7 prove the Trump administration is expanding its war on immigrants to attack the democratic rights of the entire population.

ACLU staff attorney Esha Bhandari told the Guardian, “I have not seen this kind of systematic targeting of journalists and advocates in this way,” adding, “I think it is very troubling, very disturbing.”

Bhandari said, “It means that the debate about immigrants’ rights, about the treatment of immigrants, about the treatment of asylum seekers, is going to be suppressed or censored because the people who are speaking out with a voice that’s critical of the government are going to be singled out for harsher treatment or punished.”

New York City activist Ravi Ragbir, director of the New Sanctuary Coalition, lived in the US for 23 years before he was arrested after a routine meeting with ICE. He was set to be deported to his native Trinidad before he was eventually released by a judge after public protests.

Ragbir told the media how his arrest was in retaliation for his campaign to free Gambian immigrant Baba Sillah, who also arrested after a routine check-in with ICE. “It’s just very uncertain and very traumatizing to know the government is watching you,” Ravi told the Guardian. “But I can’t allow that to debilitate me … If they’re going to move me, I might as well fight as hard as I can.”

Other groups pro-immigrant groups have also faced increasing surveillance by the state. Last October, three activist groups in Washington sued the government for retaliating against their members.

In November, the Vermont-based group Migrant Justice filed a lawsuit alleging the government had been spying on its members for years, including using an informant. One of the organizers, Will Lambek, told the Guardian how CBP detained and arrested at least 20 of its members between 2016 and 2018.

This month Nation magazine obtained a spreadsheet used by ICE to monitor protests planned in New York City, including the New Sanctuary Coalition. The revelation prompted the House Committee on Homeland Security to write a letter to the acting director of ICE to obtain more information about the spreadsheet.

The same committee, led by Democrat Bennie G. Thompson, sent a letter to CBP commissioner Kevin McAleenan expressing “great concern” about the agency’s spying. It stated, the CBP’s “targeting (of) journalists, lawyers, and advocates… raises question about possible misuse of CBP’s border search authority and requires oversight to ensure the protection of Americans’ legal and constitutional rights.”

The panel’s Subcommittee on Border Security set a March 14 deadline for the CBP to provide a full list of individuals under surveillance, as well as “dossiers” on targeted individuals, a list of how many times they had been stopped by CBP, and other information. As of this writing, the CBP has failed to provide any of these documents.

In an effort at damage control, the CBP did release a statement saying the program was a necessary response to the so-called “assaults” on the border patrol in November of last year, when federal agents along with the US military fired tear gas at immigrants approaching the San Ysidro crossing on the Mexican border.

The CBP stated, “efforts to gather this type of information are a standard law enforcement practice,” and said the agency, “does not target journalists for inspection based on their occupation or their reporting.”

An internal review had been started by the CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility and the Office of Inspector General in the Department of Homeland Security to ostensibly check for any wrongdoing. However this had only been started after NBC 7 had contacted the government agencies on February 27.

Alex Mensing, an activist with Pueblo Sin Fronteras whose name appeared in the database, told NBC 7, “What is especially concerning is the number of human rights defenders and journalists who are being interrogated and added to this list, which is only designed to intimidate them and discourage them from speaking out.”

He added, “It’s upsetting to know the U.S. government is using its resources to monitor human rights defenders and journalists who are doing their work.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom and local Democratic congressmen also criticized the program while the government of Mexico denied any involvement in the program. The foreign secretary said, “The Mexican government does not conduct illegal surveillance on anyone, for any type or category of activity.”

Xi Jinping tours Europe amid growing divisions between America and EU

Alex Lantier

On Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up a six-day tour of Europe that took him to Rome, Sicily, Monaco and Paris. This trip and the signing of multiple business and strategic agreements between China and the European powers have exposed the deep conflicts that exist between the United States and its nominal European allies.

Before Xi’s trip, the press had leaked news that Italy planned to endorse China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for transport, energy and industrial infrastructure across Eurasia.

This provoked bitter opposition from Washington. After launching a “pivot to Asia” to militarily isolate China in 2011, the US has now repudiated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty to allow it to deploy large numbers of nuclear missiles targeting China and Russia. On Twitter, the US National Security Council warned Italy it was legitimizing China’s “predatory approach to investment and will bring no benefits to the Italian people.”

The European Union (EU) powers thrust aside US objections, however. After the EU powers all signed on in 2015 to the BRI’s funding arm, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, this weekend Rome signed a Memorandum of Understanding endorsing the BRI.

Paris bitterly complained that Rome had sidelined its EU partners in its talks with China. However, when Xi arrived, it proceeded to sign its own multi-billion-euro deals with him. The biggest, a €30 billion deal for Franco-German firm Airbus to sell jetliners to China, included a large new order as China abandons the Boeing 737 MAX for Airbus A320s after two horrific crashes. French President Emmanuel Macron then met Xi together with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said she saw “nothing to criticize” in Italy’s deal with Xi endorsing the BRI.

These meetings unfolded amid explosive tensions with the United States over policy towards China and Russia. This month, after Merkel rejected US calls to boycott Chinese tech firm Huawei’s products, US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell threatened to suspend US intelligence cooperation with Germany. At the same time, Washington is threatening Berlin with sanctions if it does not abandon its Nordstream 2 pipeline bringing Russian gas to Germany.

Despite their remarkable clashes with Washington, the policy of the European imperialist powers is not fundamentally different, or less predatory and reactionary. They plan to plunge hundreds of billions of euros into their military machines, financed by austerity targeting the working class, to give them the military might to better confront Washington.

London’s Financial Times laid out the militarist implications of attempts to pursue an independent European policy in its editorial yesterday. “The EU fears being squeezed between the US and China as the Trump administration takes an ever-harder line towards Beijing. European leaders do not want to be forced into a choice between the two,” it wrote, adding that EU member states either “take China’s direct investment or put a premium on exporting to China.”

In Europe, the FT continued, “Some argue for building an autonomous foreign and defence capacity. But for years to come, Europe will be unable to stand alone.” It euphemistically called on the major EU powers to “think more strategically” and “take the lead.” In plain English, this means Europe should hurry to rearm.

The European heads of state themselves do not know whether the weapons they are building would serve to join a US onslaught against China, a Chinese war against America, or some other conflict. However, two years since US President Donald Trump speculated about an end of the NATO alliance and threatened trade war against German car exports, longstanding international arrangements underpinning the affairs of world capitalism are rapidly disintegrating.

The contradictions of capitalism that the great Marxists of the 20th century identified as leading to the outbreak of world war and the October 1917 Revolution in Russia—between world economy and the nation-state system, and social production and private appropriation of profit—are reasserting themselves.

The BRI is a multi-trillion-dollar plan, laid out in 2013, placing China at the hub of a vast web of rail and road networks, ports, energy pipelines and industrial facilities ranging from China across the Eurasian landmass to Europe, going as far as East Africa and Indonesia. Hundreds of billions have already been spent on initiatives like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, regular Chinese freight train service to Iran and Germany via Russia, and Indian Ocean ports. Chinese state-owned enterprises are coordinating enormous international operations as much of Eurasia industrializes.

This brings Beijing into headlong conflict with Washington. It also creates the conditions for a potential conflict with the European powers if they align themselves with the BRI. On Xi’s Europe tour, the Washington Post quoted analyst Jacob Shapiro, who warned that pan-Eurasian plans lay “the groundwork for precisely the type of power the US has been obsessed with thwarting for over two centuries. As overly ambitious as China’s larger strategic goal may be, it is precisely that strategic aim that so irks the United States. While it doesn’t particularly care if China builds a port in Italy or high-speed rail in Poland, it does care about the potential emergence of a dominant power in Eurasia.”

Washington’s main strategy, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 threw open Central Asia to imperialist intervention, was to dominate this region as the key to controlling the Eurasian land mass. It launched a series of wars in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and beyond. Despite growing commercial rivalries with the United States, the European imperialist powers largely joined these wars. They cost millions of lives, shattered entire societies and discredited the ruling classes of the imperialist countries among workers internationally.

But the debacle of these neo-colonial interventions has only led Washington to up the ante, preparing new, even bloodier wars and provocations targeting Russia and China directly.

The European imperialist powers’ attempts to formulate an independent imperialist policy do not offer a peaceful alternative to Washington’s wars. Their rearmament, financed by austerity, goes hand in hand with a relentless march to the far right and towards police state rule. While right-wing extremist professors legitimize Hitler’s crimes to justify German remilitarization, French President Emmanuel Macron has hailed fascist dictator Philippe Pétain and given authorization to shoot down “yellow vest” protesters opposed to social inequality and war.

Ultimately, the deepening global antagonisms rending the global geopolitical order carry with them the immense danger of a new world war, this time fought with nuclear weapons. The working class is the only social force capable of opposing the imperialist war drive.

The most urgent political task is the building of an international anti-war movement in the working class amid an upsurge of the class struggle. The eruption of mass protests for the downfall of Algeria’s military regime, the “yellow vest” movement and strikes against EU wage freezes across Europe, reports of growing social protest in China, and strikes by US teachers and Mexican autoworkers against both the unions and the companies point to an enormous radicalization of workers. The critical issue is to orient them to the great tasks posed by the objective situation.

The only way to rationally organize the international productive forces created by modern society and prevent a new relapse into horrific wars is the expropriation of the capitalist classes by the working class, fighting on a program of world socialist revolution.

Sri Lankans driven to suicide by exorbitant debt repayments

Saman Gunadasa

According to a March 17 report in Sri Lanka’s Observer newspaper, at least 170 debt-ridden rural residents, mainly women, committed suicide last year. Most of those who took their lives were from the island’s war-devastated North and East.

The suicides are another indication of the deep-going social and economic problems facing the rural poor who are being hit by rising living costs and government cuts to subsidies and social welfare programs.

Citing information from the Progressive Peasants’ Congress, the newspaper reported that the latest suicide victim was from Elahara village in the Polonnaruwa district. The 38-year-old father took out an initial loan of 80,000 rupees ($US450) but was unable to service it, then borrowed another 30,000 rupees to pay back part of the original loan.

Desperate to settle the debt he moved to Colombo, over 170 kilometres away, in an attempt to secure masonry work. He was unsuccessful and returned to the village where he took his life. His suicide is one of many such tragedies reported in the media over recent years.

The loan taken out by the poverty-stricken Elahara villager is typical of those being provided by so-called micro-finance lenders.

According to the government’s National Economic Council, there are around 10,000 such lenders in the country, the majority of them not subject to any regulations. The development finance department of the finance ministry estimates that about 2.9 million people—84 percent of them women—obtained loans from these companies in 2017.

Official bank interest rates on loans in Sri Lanka are generally between 15 and 20 percent. While the Central Bank has imposed a maximum rate of 35 percent for microfinance loans, some lenders charge unbearable rates ranging as high as 220 percent.

Most of those who committed suicide in response to exorbitant loan repayments last year were from the Vavuniya and Jaffna districts in the island’s north and Batticalao in the east.

Colombo’s devastating three-decade war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam killed nearly 200,000 people and destroyed the homes and livelihoods of tens of thousands more in these areas. Currently there are about 90,000 war widows in the North and East provinces attempting to maintain their families without any real income.

Since the war ended in 2009, successive Sri Lankan governments have refused to provide economic and social support for these war survivors, opening the way for predatory lenders to profit from the suffering.

A protest in Kilinochchi last June against the micro-finance system

A report to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) by Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky in January noted that various institutions “generate huge profits by putting enormous pressure on poor borrowers, and on women in particular.”

While some loans were for small businesses, others were to cover everyday living expenses or to reduce or pay off previous loans, Bohoslavsky reported. He noted that “collectors visit the houses of these women, sometimes on a daily basis, and that the women are [often] exposed to psychological and physical violence by collectors.” Debt collectors sometimes pressurised women for “sexual favours,” he said, and that some female borrowers had even offered to sell their kidneys to repay loans.

K. Selvadi, 45 and a mother of four children, is from Kayts in Jaffna. She told World Socialist Web Site reporters that she and two other women jointly applied for a 75,000-rupee loan for a fishing net. Their husbands had to sign as guarantors and the repayments are 2,000 rupees per month.

Selvadi said that she faced an uphill battle to pay the interest and settle the loan because the income from fishing was insufficient.

“I am looking for odd jobs in vegetable gardens. This is very difficult work because it is in the hot sun and they only pay 700 rupees for a whole day. One of my daughters works in a crab meat company for just 15,000 rupees per month,” she explained.

M. Sivaranjani, 36, from Velanai, obtained three loans totalling 300,000 rupees in order to develop the family’s fishing business. She pays about 10,000 rupees per month on loan repayments.

“If we don’t pay these installments the debt collectors come to our home. We have to borrow from friends or relatives in order keep up the payments. Our lives have been transformed into a debt-ridden existence,” she said.

Kirubalini, 44, from Velanai, spends her entire earnings on interest repayments. “The government has said that it will write off microfinance loans but it’s done nothing. It also promised to provide low interest loans but these will still be loans. I can’t sleep properly because of these debts,” she said.

While rural farmers are borrowing from the banks in order to pay for farm inputs, they are also taking out additional loans from microfinance companies for basic living expenses. They frequently confront crop failure due to drought or floods. Currently, 14 districts in Sri Lanka are experiencing severe drought.

Radhika Gunarathna, director of the Nelumyaya Foundation, a non-governmental organisation, told the media that she recently learnt that a 45-year-old mother of two was on the brink of a family suicide because their bakery had gone bankrupt. They had borrowed 800,000 rupees to sustain the small business. Her husband suggested that they close all the doors and windows of their home and that all four members of the family gas themselves to death.

Farming communities are burdened by the rising cost of seed, pesticides and fertilisers whose prices are controlled by profiting-gouging multinational corporations. Protests by farmers demanding guaranteed prices for their produce and improved subsidies, including for fertiliser, are increasing across the island.

Plantation workers are also heavily burdened by exorbitant loans because they do not receive a living wage. In recent months estate workers have held militant protests and a six-day national strike to demand a doubling of their 500-rupee daily basic wage. This struggle was betrayed by the plantation unions who settled on a paltry pay rise tied to increased productivity rates.

Sri Lankan Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera last month visited northern Jaffna in a desperate attempt to deflect mounting anger over microfinance loans. He declared that the government would write-off nearly 1,400 million rupees in capital and interest costs to more than 45,000 female borrowers.

Blaming “loan sharks” for the high interest rates, Samaraweera, admitted that the government’s debt write-off “is a short-term solution to a much larger problem” but declared “it is not feasible to have multiple debt write offs of this nature.” He proclaimed the government would introduce new laws and regulations to control the so-called microfinance industry.

Samaraweera’s claims are bogus. His recent International Monetary Fund-endorsed budget, which will force the working masses into further debt, provided generous concessions to big business and finance capital.

Suicides caused by rural debt, including microfinance borrowings, are a rampant problem in so-called developing countries. In India, for example, 5,650 debt-ridden farmers and 6,710 agricultural workers committed suicide in 2014. The following year 8,007 farmers and 4,595 agricultural workers took their own lives. The Indian government responded to these catastrophic and increasing figures by stopping its recording of the number of suicides.