Massive photo databases secretly gathered in US and Europe to develop facial recognition

Kevin Reed

A report in the New York Times on Sunday revealed that millions of facial photos have been scraped from online sources and taken by hidden surveillance cameras and then shared in databases for artificial intelligence (AI) research and development purposes for more than a decade. Created in secret by universities and tech companies, the photo data sets have been mined for the R&D of facial recognition and biometric technologies that are now used ubiquitously by police and state intelligence agencies around the world.

The large digital face and “selfie” photo databases—copied without authorization from websites, social media, photo sharing and online dating platforms and also taken by digital cameras in public places—have been used by state agencies, software engineers and researchers involved in perfecting AI algorithms and image pattern analyses in the quest for leading-edge facial recognition technology.

A collection of approximately 1600 student and pedestrian images in the Duke MTMC database

According to the Times report—based largely on information available on the website MegaPixels.cc published by Adam Harvey and Jules LaPlace—at least 30 facial image datasets were accumulated going back to at least 2007. The Times report says that Megapixels “pinpointed repositories that were built by Microsoft, Stanford University and others, with one holding over 10 million images while another had more than two million.”

Summarizing the MegaPixels exposures published online in 2017, the Times report went on, “companies and universities have widely shared their image troves with researchers, governments and private enterprises in Australia, China, India, Singapore and Switzerland for training artificial intelligence ...” Although the Times does not mention it, this also includes access to these datasets for testing and development purposes by US government and military agencies through their connections with both the private companies and university research institutions.

For example, a project called Brainwash was launched jointly by Stanford University and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Germany in 2014 and deployed a hidden webcam in the Brainwash Café in downtown San Francisco. Stanford University is well known for its connections to US military-intelligence. For example, Google was developed at Stanford with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and other state intelligence agencies in the early 1990s. Although not mentioned by the Times, the Max Planck Institute has long standing and direct ties to German imperialism.

Over a three-day period, 11,917 video streams of 100 seconds each were captured without the consent of those in the Brainwash Café. According to MegaPixels, “No ordinary café customer could ever suspect that their image would end up in dataset used for surveillance research and development, but that is exactly what happened to customers at Brainwash Cafe in San Francisco.”

MegaPixels also said that the videos were published online using AngelCam, a web streaming service that is sold for home security purposes for as little as $6 per month. The Brainwash database was subsequently used for AI research purposes in China, Switzerland, Netherlands, the US, India and Canada.

In another case, the Times reported that Duke University researchers started a facial image database in 2014 called Duke MTMC using eight cameras on campus. The cameras had signs posted below them with a phone number and email address for people who wanted to opt out of the study. Two million synchronized video frames were gathered of approximately 2,700 individuals over 14 hours, most of them students.

However, the Times chose to conceal important details regarding US government use of the Duke MTMC dataset. While MegaPixels reports that the Chinese government used the Duke photos—with over 90 research projects in 2018 alone—for surveillance purposes, Harvey and LaPlace also explain that the original creation of the dataset was “supported in part by the United States Army Research Laboratory” and was for “automated analysis of crowds and social gatherings for surveillance and security applications.”

Furthermore, the MegaPixels report says, “Citations from the United States and Europe show a similar trend to that in China, including publicly acknowledged and verified usage of the Duke MTMC dataset supported or carried out by the United States Department of Homeland Security, IARPA, IBM, Microsoft (who has provided surveillance to ICE), and Vision Semantics (who has worked with the UK Ministry of Defence).”

The Times also reviewed the Microsoft dataset created in 2016 called MS Celeb that contained 10 million images of 100,000 people gathered from websites that was “ostensibly a database of celebrities.” However, many others had their names and pictures included in the database. Also not mentioned by the Times, is the fact that MegaPixels published a list of 24 names in the MS Celeb database who are authors, journalists, filmmakers, bloggers and digital rights activists.

Among them is Jeremy Scahill, a journalist and editor with the Intercept that has written extensively on US war crimes and defended WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange against imprisonment and rendition to the US. The MS Celeb dataset contains 200 facial photos of Scahill.

The MS Celeb data set had a goal of targeting 1 million people and included an additional 900,000 names that had no images attached. The 100,000-person dataset has been accessed internationally by more than a dozen countries. The MegaPixels web site shows that the MS Celeb data set was cited in 124 research projects that took place around the world in 2018, the majority of which were in China (47) and the US (42).

Two more image databases on the MegaPixels website were not reported by the Times, one from Oxford University and the other from University of Colorado. The Oxford Town Centre dataset contains video of 2,200 people captured in 2007 from a surveillance camera mounted at the corner of Cornmarket Street and Market Street in Oxford, England. The surveillance project was commissioned by Oxford University under the auspices of an EU artificial intelligence program called Project HERMES. MegaPixels reports that the image dataset has been shared extensively, with 80 research citations from all over the world.

The final dataset is from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs campus in which 1,700 students and other pedestrians were “photographed using a long-range high-resolution surveillance camera without their knowledge,” according to MegaPixels. The photos were taken during the spring semester of the 2012-2013 academic year on the West Lawn of the Colorado campus and during the interval that students were walking between classes. MegaPixels reported that the Unconstrained College Student dataset was “providing the researchers with realistic surveillance images to help build face recognition systems for real world applications for defense, intelligence, and commercial partners.”

In total, MegaPixels located 24 million “non-cooperative, non-consensual photos in 30 publicly available face recognition and face analysis datasets” that “were collected without any explicit consent, a type of face image that researchers call ‘in the wild.’ Every image contains at least one face and many photos contain multiple faces. There are approximately 1 million unique identities across all 24 million images.”

Finally, the Times reported that a face database was gathered by the software company Clarifai with images from OKCupid, a dating site. Matthew Zeiler, the CEO of Clarifai, told the Times that he had access to the OKCupid images because “some of the dating site’s founders invested in his company.” Zeiler also said that he signed an agreement with a large unnamed social media company “to use its images in training face recognition models.”

Clarifai used the OKCupid photos to develop facial recognition software that can identify the age, sex and race of analyzed faces. When questioned about his intentions by the Times, Zeiler said, “Clarifai would sell its facial recognition technology to foreign governments, military operations and police departments provided the circumstances were right.”

The revelation that European- and US-based universities as well as Silicon Valley tech corporations have been involved in gathering “non-cooperative, non-consensual photos” for research purposes for more than ten years shows that the practical implementation of facial recognition and biometrics for state surveillance is well advanced. That these organizations secretly created and shared facial images for AI development also exposes the willingness of significant layers of academia and corporate America to participate overtly in attacking basic democratic rights.

Although the information published in the “independent art and research project” MegaPixels by Adam Harvey and Jules LaPlace—with support from the open source community at Mozilla—has been available since November 2017, the corporate media including the Times never saw fit to write about it until now. This is because there is growing public awareness and outrage in the US over facial recognition and biometrics surveillance of the entire population by local, state and federal police agencies.

Additionally, the Times story places emphasis on the use of facial image datasets by the Chinese government while deliberately leaving out significant details regarding the role of US, British and German military-intelligence in similar research. This position corresponds to the political and military strategy of ruling factions within these imperialist powers for a more aggressive posture toward China over strategic global interests.

The response of both Democrats and Republicans at every level of government is to push for legislation that will establish a legal framework for using facial recognition and AI tools to spy on the people. It is to this objective that the latest reports from the Times are directed and this is why certain key facts—especially those regarding the role of US military-intelligence—have been excluded from their coverage.

Deutsche Bank to eliminate one in five jobs

Gustav Kemper & Peter Schwarz

On July 7 the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank gave its blessing to the “most far-reaching restructuring in decades,” according to Chief Executive Christian Sewing. Around one in five jobs worldwide, that is, 18,000 posts, will fall victim to the jobs massacre.

Employees are paying the price for the bank’s criminal activities over the last thirty years. Deutsche Bank entered investment banking in 1989 with the purchase of the British bank Morgan Grenfell. This became its main activity 10 years later with the takeover of US investment house Bankers Trust. By 2000, Deutsche Bank was the largest financial institution in the world, with CEO Josef Ackermann promising a return on equity of 25 percent.

The financial crisis of 2008 then brought to light the shady transactions upon which this bonanza was based—and not only at Deutsche Bank. For bankers, “every means was OK in order to make a profit,” the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung now writes in retrospect. “With dubious bets on the US mortgage market, bankers pushed the world economy to the brink of collapse. Worthless assets were lavishly packaged into new securities and sold on a large scale.”

In the following years, Deutsche Bank was forced to pay $15 billion in fines for various illegal activities. Nevertheless, the orgy of enrichment continued. Between 2012 and 2018 alone, traders and managers received bonuses totalling around €17 billion, while the bank lost €6 billion over the same period. Last year, the bank still poured out €1.9 billion in bonuses under the new chief executive Sewing.

The share price is now 92 percent below its peak in 2007. An internal “Bad Bank,” founded as part of the company restructuring, is to handle balance sheet items amounting to €74 billion—a risk that threatens to push the whole bank into the abyss and trigger a rescue operation at public expense.

Nevertheless, executives continue to pocket a small fortune. The outgoing head of the money-losing investment arm, Garth Ritchie, will receive compensation of €11 million. In 2018, he pocketed €8.6 million euros for his “successes.” According to finance daily Handelsblatt, the three board members leaving the company at the end of the month—Ritchie, Chief Regulatory Officer Sylvie Matherat and head of private customers Frank Strauß—will together receive around €26 million.

The many thousands of ordinary bank employees set to lose their jobs will receive no such rewards. When their contracts are terminated, they will be told to gather their personal belongings from their desks before they are escorted from the bank premises by security staff—as already witnessed in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, London and New York. And there is no one to look after their interests.

The unions are full of praise for the dismissal plans. Service union Verdi’s chairman, Frank Bsirske, welcomed “the significant downsizing of investment banking” as part of a “radical reorientation of Deutsche Bank.” He merely added the hope that the bank would not impose “compulsory layoffs”—the usual formulation employed by the trade unions when they agree to job cuts. The effects “on the infrastructure sectors in Germany” could not be quantified at the moment, Bsirske told the press.

Bsirske personally participated in the restructuring plans. He has sat on the Deutsche Bank supervisory board for six years and collects an annual basic remuneration (various expenses and extras not included) of €250,000 for his services.

The national leader of the DBV union, Stephan Szukalski, sings from the same hymn sheet: “I believe that the measures adopted go in the right direction. It could be a real new beginning for Deutsche Bank.”

In the media, the restructuring plan is portrayed as an exit from investment banking that mainly hits the highly paid traders and investment bankers in New York and London. The new head of the bank, Sewing, who himself worked for Deutsche Bank for years in Singapore, Toronto, Tokyo and London, is portrayed as a down-to-earth banker from Westphalia, who is taking the bank back to its roots as a financial services provider.

All this is hot air. In fact, it is about removing the bank from its international dependencies and turning it into a national weapon of the German economy in the global trade war. In that sense, it actually is returning to its “roots.” When it was founded in 1870, it set the goal of “finally conquering a position for Germany in the field of financial operations. ...” In the following decades, it financially supported the imperialist expansion of Germany in Asia, Africa and South America.

In a detailed interview with Handelsblatt, Sewing has made it clear that the bank in no way intends to withdraw from its international business. “Although we are reducing the trading business by 40 percent, this it to make it more powerful,” he said. “Overall, we will be a little smaller, but also much more efficient and profitable.”

Asked about securities trading, in which the bank turned “a giant wheel,” Sewing replied: “We are not ending this strategy, we are only adjusting it very clearly. Because we are remaining a global bank.”

In February, in “National Industrial Strategy 2030,” German Economics Minister Peter Altmaier (Christian Democratic Union—CDU) had already called for the creation of “national champions” promoted by “large and powerful actors who stand on an equal footing with competitors from the US and China.” Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (Social Democratic Party—SPD) and his State Secretary Jörg Kukies, the former boss of Goldman Sachs Germany, then promoted the project of a merger of Deutsche Bank with Commerzbank, which subsequently failed. Now, Deutsche Bank alone is to be built up as the “national champion.”

The focus of the restructuring of the finance house is the withdrawal from equity trading in investment banking and the concentration on four business areas.

The corporate bank is primarily intended to provide German and European companies with the financial products and services they need for their foreign business: international payments, securing liquidity and trade finance. This bank would support medium-sized companies that were previously served by the Private Customers division.

The other three areas are private customer business, which is being merged with Postbank to form DB Privat und Firmenkundenbank AG, the DWS fund company, which manages large assets, and the remaining investment banking.

The costs of the restructuring are estimated at €7.4 billion by 2022. But by 2022, a profit margin of 8 percent should be achieved for the first time. Shareholders who do not receive a dividend in the next two years should then be royally rewarded.

Costs savings will be squeezed from employees through savings on salaries, downsizing and closing branches, and from customers through increased account charges and other fees.

“Of course, a substantial number of posts will be eliminated in Germany,” Sewing told Handelsblatt. He did not provide exact numbers, however, Handelsblatt assumes that it will be about 10,000 of the firm’s 18,000 jobs in Germany. This includes 6,000 at Postbank, the restructuring of which Deutsche Bank already announced in March.

German Defence Minister to become EU Commission president

Peter Schwarz

For the first time since 1958, a German politician will occupy the most powerful office in the European Union (EU). Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician Ursula von der Leyen will succeed Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the EU Commission. The former German Defence Minister was elected with a slim majority by the European Parliament on Tuesday evening. Requiring 374 votes, half of the 750 deputies, von der Leyen secured 383 votes.

The election was preceded by weeks of conflicts, deals and backroom manoeuvres. The EU Council, the body which represents all EU heads of government, took three summits and several all-night meetings before reaching an agreement. But the deal by no means guaranteed a majority in the European Parliament.

Von der Leyen engaged in two weeks of intensive lobbying to cobble together a majority. She was supported by an entire team and promised everyone what they wanted to hear. Her candidacy speech, delivered in German, French and English to the deputies on Tuesday morning, sounded as though it had been scripted by an advertising agency.

She emphasised the fact that she is a woman and pledged to occupy half of all Commission posts with women. She declared her support for environmental protection as if she were addressing one of the mass demonstrations organised by Fridays for Future. She also promised an improved minimum wage and better prospects for young people. She expressed her sorrow at the 17,000 deaths in the Mediterranean and vowed to strengthen the European border protection agency Frontex more rapidly than previously planned. She portrayed herself as a fervent European who was born in Brussels and only realised that she was German at the age of 13.

The speech was directed above all at Green and Social Democratic deputies so that they could vote for her without being completely discredited in the eyes of their supporters.

It worked. In the end, the conservative and liberal party groups, along with two thirds of the social democrats, voted for von der Leyen. Although the Greens rejected her candidacy, many Green politicians spoke positively of her. Only the European Left grouping and the right-wing populists spoke out against von der Leyen. The national conservatives refused to take a united position. The outcome of the election could not be predetermined because voting was secret.

The election of von der Leyen marks a further shift to the right by the European ruling class. It stands for further austerity and an expansion of militarism and the police-state build-up throughout the continent and abroad. Von der Leyen has been a member of the German cabinet ever since Angela Merkel became chancellor, serving four years as family minister, four years as labour minister, and six years as defence minister. In these positions, she has enforced deep social spending cuts, a redistribution of income and wealth from the bottom to the top of society, and the largest increase in military spending since German reunification. Since she became defence minister, military spending has increased from €30 billion to €45 billion, with more increases to come.

In her speech in Strasbourg von der Leyen stressed that “Europe should have a stronger and more united voice in the world—and it needs to act fast. That is why we must have the courage to take foreign policy decisions by qualified majority. And to stand united behind them… This is why we created the European Defence Union.” She added: “Our servicemen and servicewomen work side by side with police officers, diplomats and development aid workers. These men and women deserve our utmost respect and recognition for their tireless service for Europe.”

Five months ago, von der Leyen delivered a bellicose speech to 600 representatives of the political elite, the intelligence agencies and the military at the 2019 Munich Security Conference. She declared, “The most prominent characteristic of the new security landscape” is “the return of competition between the major powers.”

“Whether we like it or not, Germany and Europe are part of this competitive struggle. We are not neutral,” she proclaimed, and appealed for a more independent German-European defence policy to enable Berlin and Brussels to play an independent role in the coming struggle. We Germans shouldn’t claim to be more moral than France, or more far-sighted on human rights policy than Britain,” she said in concluding her speech.

The true signal being sent by von der Leyen’s election to head the EU Commission is that the European Union will be expanded into a military great power under German-French hegemony. Her candidacy for the EU Commission, which came as a surprise, was agreed in one-on-one negotiations between Chancellor Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.

For Macron, von der Leyen is acceptable for a number of reasons. She energetically pressed ahead with German military interventions in central Africa, where the German army has cooperated closely with France. Despite her push for a European army, she enjoys good relations with NATO, and can therefore keep the Eastern European states like Poland in line. Above all, nothing now stands in the way of the takeover of the top job at the European Central Bank by a Frenchwoman, former IMF director Christine Lagarde.

The German-French hegemony within the European Union, which will be strengthened by Britain’s departure, will not lessen the conflicts within the EU and the tensions between Berlin and Paris. Their attempt to dominate the EU will strengthen the right-wing nationalist forces in Eastern Europe that already enjoy a dominant political role.

Since Italy and Spain have been compensated with the posts of European Parliament President and High Representative for Foreign Affairs, the Eastern European and smaller EU states have been left empty-handed following the allocation of EU top jobs. Only Belgium will occupy the post of EU Council President.

Bitter international conflicts with the United States, China, Russia and other major powers will further intensify the differences within Europe. Just this week, tensions between the EU and NATO member Turkey heightened dramatically over the discovery of natural gas reserves off the coast of Cyprus.

The burden of these conflicts will be borne by the working class through low wages, precarious working conditions, and pay cuts. Although von der Leyen was careful not to focus too much on this during her speech because of its unpopularity, the arming of the European surveillance and police-state apparatus, together with military rearmament, will be the main focus of her term as Commission president.

India’s pro-business BJP government tables austerity budget

Kranti Kumara

Hemmed in by a deepening socioeconomic crisis that has sent unemployment to a 45-year high, the recently re-elected pro-business Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, led by the Hindu strongman Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has presented the first annual budget of its second five-year term.

Alongside soaring unemployment, economic growth has plummeted to a five-year low of 6.8 percent and an agrarian crisis is devastating rural households.

Prior to the unveiling of the budget on July 5, competing demands were being made by domestic and foreign big business on the one hand and the credit rating agencies and International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the other.

Corporations called for the government to increase economic stimulus to counter a fall in private investment to a 15-year low. Indian CEOs urged Modi to increase government spending on “new ports, highways and airports, considering that the private sector investment plans were still in cold storage.”

At the same time, because domestic consumption has fallen off, with mountains of automobiles and two-wheelers remaining unsold, a section of big business has called for tax breaks for the middle class, whose income has stagnated. They demand that the BJP-led ruling coalition, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), use its commanding parliamentary majority of 343 out of 543 seats to ram through “big-bang reforms.”

This is a euphemism for a further assault on what remains of labour laws and regulations, already virtually unenforced in practice, along with accelerated procedures for the purchase of land for industrial purposes, including forced evictions where necessary, and a steep lowering of corporate taxes.

Prior to the tabling of the budget, however, representatives of world finance capital warned the Modi government to maintain “fiscal discipline,” a code word for the austerity in social spending Modi had carried out during his first term in office from 2014.

In the event, despite the announcement to the Lok Sabha (the lower house of parliament) of a number of pro-business measures by newly appointed Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam, neither group was satisfied and the domestic stock market fell sharply.

The budget tabled by Sitharam amounts to Rs. 27.8 trillion (US$400 billion), an increase of over 13 percent from the previous year. As usual, fully a quarter of the budget, amounting to over Rs. 7 trillion (over $100 billion), is financed by debt. Because of this, annual interest payments alone consume Rs. 6.6 trillion ($95 billion). Coupled with a military budget amounting to Rs. 4.3 trillion ($62 billion, fourth highest after the US, China and Saudi Arabia), the two items consume 40 percent of the budget.

This leaves a meagre Rs. $16.9 trillion ($245 billion) for all other spending in a country of 1.3 billion people, out of which close to 900 million eke out a living on less than $2 a day.

Thus, there are hardly any financial resources left outside of debt financing for increased government spending to stimulate economic growth. And any further increase in debt adding to the budget deficit will be frowned upon by the Western credit rating agencies such as Moody’s, which indirectly control the cost of funds through their ability to downgrade India’s credit rating.

A major announcement in the finance minister’s speech was the goal of growing the Indian economy to a nominal $5 trillion from its current nominal gross domestic product of $2.8 trillion. Sitharam said: “Our economy was at approximately US$1.85 trillion when we formed the government in 2014. Within five years, it has reached US$2.7 trillion. Hence, it is well within our capacity to reach US$5 trillion in the next few years.”

Assuming the exchange rate remains the same, the growth rate has to average about 12.5 percent every year for the next five years for this goal to be met.

The budget deficit increased to 3.4 percent of GDP from the announced 3.3 percent for the last fiscal year because of a fall in revenue due to lower sales tax (GST) intake arising from the slump in demand for consumer and industrial goods. Even this figure is highly suspect, since the Modi government has deliberately overstated its revenue for 2018-19 to the tune of Rs. 1.7 trillion ($25 billion). This is because the government has refused update its figures prior to presenting the current year’s budget despite having access to the more accurate revenue figures released by the Comptroller and Auditor General on May 31.

In keeping with the Modi government’s mantra of privatization, giant public sector units (PSUs) such as the national carrier Air India are to be sold off to private capital. The targeted amount is a little over Rs. 1 trillion ($15 billion) higher than the Rs. 900 billion in the last financial year. Media, aviation and insurance sectors that have already seen significant penetration by foreign capital are to be further opened up.

Railways are to attract a gargantuan sum of Rs. 50 trillion ($725 billion) by 2030. The overwhelming bulk of these funds is to come from private capital, which means more privatization. In response, the rail workers’ union has announced a three-day strike against privatization this week.

The budget provides no relief for the rural masses, whose impoverishment is so great they are barely able to feed themselves properly. Although agriculture contributes only 23 percent to the country’s GDP, over 59 percent of the country’s workers depend upon this sector for a living.

Despite the announcement of Rs. 600 billion ($9 billion) to the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS), which guarantees 100 days of menial, minimum-wage work per year to one member of any rural household that requests it, the fund is actually being starved of money. At least 20 percent of the current year funds over the past five years have been used to meet past liabilities.

More and more rural households have come to depend on MNREGS as they sink deeper into poverty under conditions of a chronic depression in rural income. However, increasing numbers are being turned away when they seek employment under this scheme. Last year through November, out of the 72 million who sought employment, only 59 million were provided some sort of a job. Even their minuscule wages are not being paid on time, discouraging ever more rural workers from applying.

The much-anticipated tax relief for the “middle-class”—a misnomer given that the average annual income of the top 10 percent was a little over $12,000 in 2014—was not forthcoming. Instead, Sitharam proposed an income tax exemption of Rs 150,000 ($2,000) for loans taken out to purchase electric vehicles. This move highlights the vast gulf separating the world inhabited by the Modi government and the life of daily misery experienced by the majority of the middle class, who struggle with daily shortages of drinking water and electricity.

Further tax hikes on petrol and diesel will increase food costs and impoverish the masses even further.

Sitharam also announced a further bailout of country’s public-sector banks by carrying out a “capitalization” to the tune of Rs. 700 billion (over $10 billion). This injection of money is prompted by the inability of the banks to increase credit to India’s cash-starved businesses because of the huge amount of mostly corporate debt that remains unpaid. This debt amount was estimated at Rs. 10.25 trillion ($150 billion) as of March 2018. In the last fiscal year, the government injected a record Rs. 1.6 trillion ($23 billion), thus indirectly compensating the banks for their losses.

In keeping with the Indian elite’s ambitions to be a global military power and a junior military partner in US imperialism’s drive against China, the military budget has risen to Rs. 4.3 trillion ($63 billion) from last year’s Rs. 4 trillion ($50 billion). Out of this, a little over Rs. 1 trillion ($14.5 billion) is earmarked for pensions.

This military budget has evoked general criticism for not keeping up with “need.” According to the Hindu: “There is disappointment in the military and industry over the defence allocation in the Union Budget.” The Air Force has been allocated Rs. 390 billion, but it has a committed liability for Chinook, Rafael and the S-400 of Rs. 490 billion this year, which means it won’t even be able to meet the current year’s commitment.

As the Business Standard observed: “In 2014-15, defence allocations, including pensions, accounted for 17.1 per cent of the central government’s spending, or about 2.28 per cent of GDP. This year, the Defence Budget will comprise 15.5 per cent of government expenditure and only 2.04 per cent of GDP.”

Given the paucity of domestic capital, the Modi government will increasingly bend to the demands of foreign capital to spur economic growth. That is why it is determined to gut any labour and environmental regulations that stand in the way of profit interests.

Signaling to big businesses that its demands are being heard, the government announced last week that will table a bill in the Lok Sabha to consolidate 13 labour laws into a single “code.” Although it is not yet clear what this will entail in practice, it is all but certain that it will benefit businesses at the expense of the already brutalized Indian working class.

China’s growth slows to lowest level since 1992

Nick Beams

China has recorded its lowest quarterly growth rate since 1992 in a clear sign that the US trade war measures are starting to impact on the world’s second largest economy.

The economy grew by 6.2 percent in the June quarter compared with a year earlier, down from the 6.4 percent recorded in the first three months of the year. The figure is still within the range of 6 to 6.5 percent which the government set as its target in March, but the trend is clearly down.

A report in the New York Times, as well as comments published elsewhere, noted that “much of the growth in the quarter may have taken place in April and May when public confidence was high because of a tax cut in March and heavy infrastructure spending as spring began.”

The outlook changed markedly after May 10 when trade negotiations broke down and Trump threatened tariffs on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese goods. This was followed by the decision of the Commerce Department to place the telecom giant Huawei on its Entity List, requiring US tech firms wanting to supply it with components to get a licence to do so.

There are clearly growing concerns in the Chinese government that the growth figure could go lower in the months ahead.

At a news conference on the release of the data, Mao Shengyong, spokesman for China’s National Bureau of Statistics said: “Economic conditions are still severe both at home and abroad, the global economic growth is slowing down, the external instabilities and uncertainties are increasing, the unbalanced and inadequate development at home is still acute, and the economy is under new downward pressure.”

In line with the regime’s assertions that it is successfully resisting Trump’s trade war attacks, Mao downplayed the significance of trade, saying the economy was becoming more reliant on domestic consumption.

However, trade data, both imports and exports, showed a significant movement. China specialist George Magnus told the New York Times there was a “surge in activity through April” but then “something happened in May.”

Exports rose by only 0.1 percent in the first six months of the year compared to the same period last year. Most of the downturn in growth came from the fall in exports which were down 1.3 percent in June on a year-on year basis. Imports, an indicator of industrial activity, fell by 7.3 percent compared to a year earlier.

Mao said China had “sufficient policy reserves” to stabilize the economy in the second half of the year, including tax cuts and measures to boost infrastructure spending. But economic commentators have expressed doubts over whether this can be sustained.

Julian Evans-Pritchard, the senior economist at the consultancy Capital Economics, told the Guardian he doubted the more supportive policy of the government marked the start of a turn around and policymakers faced more weakness in the economy.

“We think that construction activity will come under pressure in the coming quarters as the recent boom in property development unwinds. Combined with increasing headwinds from US tariffs and weaker global growth, we expect this to culminate in a further slowdown over the coming year,” he said.

Industrial output rose by 6.3 percent in June, up from the figure of 5 percent in May, which had been the lowest rate since 2002.

US President Donald Trump hailed the slowdown in the Chinese economy as evidence of the effectiveness of his trade war measures.

“United States tariffs are having a major effect on companies wanting to leave China for non-tariff countries,” he tweeted.

“Thousands of companies are leaving. This is why China wants to make a deal with the US and wishes it had not broken the original deal in the first place. In the meantime, we are receiving billions of dollars in tariffs from China and possibly much more to come.”

As usual, Trump’s remarks contained a series of fictions. The breakdown in the trade talks did not result from China walking away from a deal.

The talks collapsed because of the continued US insistence that the tariff measures it had put in place would remain even after an agreement was signed and the Chinese government had to rewrite laws on intellectual property in accordance with Washington’s dictates. Beijing had indicated from the outset that both demands were unacceptable.

As for the “billions” in tariff revenues, these are not paid by Chinese firms but by US companies importing Chinese goods.

There is evidence that some US companies are moving out of China, with an article in the Wall Street Journal detailing a number of consumer goods firms planning to shift their manufacturing operations. It said that Apple was also considering moving some of its final assembly operations out of China in order to avoid US tariffs.

Contrary to the assertions by Trump, however, these companies are not shifting operations back to the US. Rather they are moving to cheap-labour platforms elsewhere. US imports from Vietnam, for example, are expected to increase by 36 percent this year from their levels in 2018.

International economic bodies, including the International Monetary Fund, have warned that the US trade war measures will have a significant impact on already slowing world economic growth. And the signs of that have started to emerge.

Last week, the trade-dependent Singapore economy reported an unexpected contraction in the second quarter. Gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 3.4 percent on an annualized basis compared to the previous three month, the biggest fall since 2012.

The contraction is significant because Singapore is often regarded as a bellwether for global demand and the state of world trade because of its export dependence that amounts to 176 percent of GDP.

Chua Hak Bin, an economist at a Singapore-based research institute, told Bloomberg: “Singapore is the canary in the coal mine, being very open and sensitive to trade.” The data pointed to the “risk of a deepening slowdown for the rest of Asia.”

“I thought the numbers might be bad, but this is ugly. We thought it might be shallow, but the risk now is that it might be deeper,” he said.

General Electric workers reject union-backed contract

Steve Filips

General Electric (GE) workers in the US last week voted down a tentative agreement backed by the unions that would impose concessions on 6,600 workers. The workers opposed rising medical expenses, cuts to their retirement pensions, and changes to workplace rules.

Workers at Boston-based GE and its subsidiary GE Aviation in nearby Lynn, Massachusetts, voted down the contract proposed by Local 201 of the International Union of Electronic workers and Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA). The IUE affiliated with the CWA in 2000.

The CWA Facebook page GE Workers United posted, “The Per Capita vote results are 1,591 yes and 2,001 no, so the contract is hereby rejected.” The prior four-year agreement expired June 23. By blocking strike action, the unions are giving the giant company time to prepare against any action by workers.

There are 11 different unions at GE in the US. The CWA is leading the negotiations. In an effort to save face among workers, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Vice President Brian Bryant came out against the deal, saying, “It’s what we consider a concessionary contract.” IAM workers rejected the agreement.

The GE workers with IUE-CWA Local 301 in Schenectady, New York, also voted down the deal.

The company has conducted a years-long job and cost-cutting program. GE’s financial filings reported in the Daily Gazette showed that company employment shrank by 10 percent from 313,000 to 283,000 employees in 2018. The company’s original headquarters along the Mohawk River in Schenectady has seen a 34 percent reduction from 4,000 to 3,000 employees since March 2018.

GE is making cuts internationally, including its GE Power division, which bought Alstom’s gas turbine segment in France in 2014. In May, GE announced the cut of 1,000 workers at its Belfort plant in eastern France.

The United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers (UE) Locals 506 and 618 shut down and betrayed a nine-day strike earlier this year at the Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation (Wabtec) Locomotive factory in Erie, Pennsylvania. The plant was sold by GE Transportation, but GE still holds a 25 percent share.

UE and the other unions have given GE Transportation and Wabtec free rein to cut wage and benefits, as well as add new tiers. Up to 25 percent of the workforce are part-time workers.

The latest deal at Wabtec inserted language for the creation of a two-tier workforce. Like the United Auto Workers, the UE has used the euphemism “workers in progression” to label these workers who must labor 10 years before reaching top pay. The union also accepted a further restriction on the right to strike, which was demanded by the company.

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders weighed in on the Wabtec struggle to cover up the role of the unions and keep workers tied to the corporate-controlled Democratic Party.

The giant industrial conglomerate GE was founded in 1892 by Thomas Edison with financial backing by Gilded Age robber baron JP Morgan. The giant monopoly developed manufacturing plants around the world. The fortunes of the company and American capitalism have been intertwined for its more than 127-year history. GE was symbolic of the US industrial colossus, and its decline was part of the loss of American capitalism’s hegemony in the world economy and the rise of powerful international competitors.

Former GE CEO Jack Welch personified the rise of financial parasitism, deindustrialization and the ruthless attack on the working class in the US and internationally.

The company floundered as a result of its GE Finance division’s losses in the Great Recession. Exploiting its low share prices, Warren Buffett, one of the world’s richest men, invested $3 billion and then sold all of his shares in 2017 for a $1.2 billion gain. Since then, there has been a 40 percent devaluation in share values. This has coincided with falling profits.

GE has sold off a number of its subsidiary divisions, including GE Appliance. The CWA helped impose a two-tier wage scheme at the GE Appliance plant in Louisville, Kentucky, before it was bought by Chinese-owned Haier for $5.4 billion. Workers at the Louisville plant, which employs 6,000 workers, currently start at the poverty-level wage of $14 per hour.

GE Healthcare, one of the largest health care providers in the world, is scheduled to have its Initial Public Offering (IPO) sometime this year.

The rejection of the union-backed contract is a sign of the growing militancy of the working class in the US and around the world. It underscores the need to build rank-and-file factory committees, independent of the unions, and to develop an international strategy to fight the global assault on workers’ jobs and living standards.

The Assange precedent: Journalists in Britain threatened with Official Secrets Act

Robert Stevens & Laura Tiernan

London’s Metropolitan Police threatened journalists with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act last Friday in an unprecedented attack on media freedom.

Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu announced that Counter Terrorism Command would investigate alleged breaches of the Official Secrets Act over publication of leaked diplomatic telegrams written by Sir Kim Darroch.

Darroch resigned last week as Britain’s ambassador to the US after his damning confidential assessments of President Donald Trump were published by the Mail on Sunday. Trump had publicly reprimanded Darroch over descriptions of his administration as “uniquely dysfunctional” and “inept.”

Speaking outside New Scotland Yard, Basu stated, “Given the widely reported consequences of that leak, I am satisfied that there has been damage caused to UK international relations, and there would be clear public interest in bringing the person or people responsible to justice.”

He told the leaker, “Turn yourself in at the earliest opportunity, explain yourself and face the consequences.”

Basu’s statement also targeted journalists and media organisations: “The publication of leaked communications, knowing the damage they have caused or are likely to cause may also be a criminal matter.

“I would advise all owners, editors and publishers of social and mainstream media not to publish leaked government documents that may already be in their possession, or which may be offered to them, and to turn them over to the police or give them back to their rightful owner, Her Majesty’s Government.”

A storm of protest followed Basu’s threats, as newspaper editors weighed in to oppose what Sunday Times political editor Tim Shipman described as his “sinister, absurd, anti-democratic statement.”

On Saturday afternoon, Basu issued a follow-up statement widely described in the media as a “row-back.” It was not.

He declared, “The Metropolitan Police respects the rights of the media and has no intention of seeking to prevent editors from publishing stories in the public interest in a liberal democracy. The media hold an important role in scrutinising the actions of the state.”

He continued, “However, we have also been told the publication of these specific documents, now knowing they may be a breach of the Official Secrets Act, could also constitute a criminal offence and one that carries no public interest defence.”

In other words, any journalist or media organisation publishing the leaked material after the Met’s announcement would be committing a criminal offence. “We know these documents and potentially others remain in circulation,” he warned.

Facing opprobrium from major news outlets, Conservative Party leadership contenders Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt both felt it necessary to condemn the Met’s threats as an “infringement on press freedom.”

But this was a transparent cover-up. According to a report in the Guardian, the Met’s investigation was launched under a “Gateway Process” following discussions between “Senior Cabinet Office officials” and Met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, who is “the senior national coordinator at Scotland yard’s SO15.”

SO15 is the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command (CTC) unit and is the police body charged with national responsibility for investigating allegations of criminal breaches of the Official Secrets Act.

What the Met proposed was the de facto criminalisation of journalism so that it could be bracketed within terrorist activity.

Statements such as those made by former Tory Chancellor and current Evening Standard editor George Osborne, portraying Basu as a bumbling incompetent, were an attempt at damage control. Osborne described Basu’s statement as “very stupid and ill-advised,” the work of “a junior officer who doesn’t appear to understand much about press freedom.”

But the sinister import of the Met’s investigation was made clear by the intervention of former defence secretary, Sir Michael Fallon. Speaking to BBC Radio Four’s “Today” programme on Saturday, Fallon insisted journalists should be subject to the Official Secrets Act. He described Basu’s attack on the media as “quite logical,” adding, “If they [newspapers] are receiving stolen material then they should give it back to the rightful owner and should be aware of the huge damage done and potential greater damage by further breaches of the Official Secrets Act.”

Asked whether journalists should comply with the act he replied, “I don’t think anyone can entirely absolve themselves of the need to avoid damage to this country. … We have press freedom … but we also have laws. We have the Official Secrets Act and it is important that law is upheld.”

Fallon was backed up by Security Minister Ben Wallace who tweeted that “members of the general public are also bound by a part of the Act.”

The Official Secrets Act has been on the statute books since 1911 and was adopted in its current form in 1989. Under it, “disclosing information, documents or other articles relating to” security or intelligence, defence, and international relations is an offence. Currently, only serving or former civil servants, government contractors, or members of the security and intelligence services can be prosecuted for committing offences under the act. Those found guilty face fines or a jail sentence of between two and 14 years.

Speaking on Friday, Executive Director of the Society of Editors Ian Murray condemned the Met’s invocation of the Act against journalists, “Frankly it is the kind of approach we would expect from totalitarian regimes where the media are expected to be little more than a tame arm of the government.” The Met’s dictatorial edicts show the Assange precedent in action. The decision of the US government, with the backing of outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, to prosecute the WikiLeaks founder under the Espionage Act for publishing leaked government documents has opened the floodgates.

Passed in 1917, the Espionage Act was heavily modelled on the original UK Official Secrets Act of 1889 that was updated just three years prior to the outbreak of World War I.

Friday’s threats by the Met follow raids by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) on the headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the home of Sunday Telegraph political editor Annika Smethurst. AFP officers seized hundreds of files relating to articles exposing government spying and war crimes committed by Australian troops in Afghanistan.

The growing state suppression of core journalistic activity takes place amid an escalating drive to war. Britain is working to assist US war plans against Iran, staging provocations in Gibraltar and the Strait of Hormuz in the past fortnight that have been used to ratchet up tensions.

Fallon’s involvement and his demand that journalists be subject to the Official Secrets Act is aimed at concealing from the public the advanced preparations for war. According to last week’s Foreign Policy magazine, the UK and France have agreed behind closed doors to bolster their ground forces in Syria by 10-15 percent, with the UK sending more Special Forces troops.

If the provisions threatened by the British state are enacted, journalists will face years in prison for bringing to light the intrigues of those preparing new wars and other anti-democratic measures.

Amazon workers internationally protest against conditions on Prime Day

Kayla Costa

Thousands of warehouse and tech workers in the United States, the UK, Germany, Poland and Spain are engaged in strikes and demonstrations on Amazon “Prime Day,” a shopping holiday created by the online retail giant to promote sales through discounts to subscribers of its Amazon Prime membership.

This year, Amazon extended Prime Day from 36 to 48 hours. The one-trillion-dollar corporation headed by CEO Jeff Bezos expects to rake in more than $5 billion in sales over the two days, a new record for the company’s annual promotion.

The sales bonanza is carried out on the backs of the workers, who are forced to move faster and process higher volumes of orders with no increase in their poverty-level compensation.

Since last year’s Prime Day, when workers carried out strikes in the US and Europe, conditions have only worsened. Amazon representatives boasted to the media yesterday that “our wages are at the upper end of what is paid in comparable jobs.” They claimed that the protesting workers were “misinformed,” since the company had raised its minimum US wage to $15 an hour. They were silent on the fact that Bezos had at the same time eliminated bonus payments, actually reducing take-home pay for some workers.

Workers continue to report health and safety violations, speedup, increased quotas, harassment and injuries. This is the reality that has propelled Amazon workers in many parts of the world to protest against dangerous working conditions, inadequate compensation and grotesque inequality between employees and corporate executives. Amazon workers are also solidarizing themselves with immigrants being scapegoated and persecuted by the Trump administration and governments across Europe. They are denouncing Amazon’s ties to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the midst of immigrant raids launched Sunday and Trump’s latest attack on the right to asylum.

Two thousand German workers participated in strikes at warehouses in Werne, Rheinberg, Leipzig, Graben, Koblenz and Bad Hersfeld. The strikes, organized by the Verdi union, were held under the slogan “No more discount on our incomes,” though rank-and-file workers raised a number of issues beyond pay.

In the United Kingdom, hundreds of workers will join protests across the country throughout the week to voice their opposition. The GMB union has not called for a strike or boycott, with bureaucrat Mick Rix explicitly declaring in a statement that union officials do not want to cause “economic damage for Amazon.”

Workers in Spain and Poland will also participate in demonstrations throughout the week.

In the United States, some 1,500 full-time workers at a fulfillment center near Minneapolis, Minnesota are holding a six-hour strike between the day and night shifts. This is the second major action workers have carried out at the facility since a group of East African Muslim workers began speaking out 18 months ago, and it is the first major strike by Amazon workers in North America.

On top of the usual harassment, speedup and on-the-job injuries that all warehouse workers face, immigrant workers were initially denied adequate time for prayer breaks. Even after the company agreed to the breaks, workers were still required to meet the quota of 230 items per hour, heightening the risk of being arbitrarily fired or injured. Immigrant workers began organizing themselves alongside native-born workers, with the support of a local immigrant rights organization, the Awood Center.

Amazon workers and supporters are also protesting the ties of Amazon Web Services (AWS) to ICE, as well as the poor conditions facing AWS workers. Demonstrations were attended by hundreds in San Francisco, Portland and New York, in addition to a protest at the headquarters building in Seattle, Washington. Activists associated with Jobs with Justice plan to turn in a petition at Bezos’s Manhattan mansion and the company’s San Francisco office demanding an end to the use of AWS facial recognition technology by ICE. The petition has 270,000 signatures.

Tech workers published an open letter to Bezos in June of 2018 opposing the contract between AWS and ICE after Google and Microsoft employees drafted similar letters in opposition to their companies’ ties to US militarism. More recently in Boston, hundreds of Wayfair workers walked off their jobs at the online furniture retailer to protest the company’s decision to profit from sales to immigrant detention centers.

The protests this week are an indication of the power that can be unleashed by Amazon workers internationally. Within the global logistics and technology supply chain, the workers constitute an international force at the heart of the world economy. It is especially significant that American workers are protesting not just poor compensation and working conditions, but also the role of the company in aiding the US government in its savage crackdown on immigrants.

The World Socialist Web Site spoke with several Amazon workers about the Prime Day events. Michelle, an injured warehouse worker from Texas, sent a message via the WSWS to the striking Amazon workers. She wrote: “Don't give in, because what Jeff Bezos doesn’t understand is that the people hold the power, not the company. There is strength in numbers… the workers don’t need Amazon; Amazon needs its workers.”

She pointed to “a small problem” in the current strikes—that they were too short and isolated to “make a dent” in such a giant corporation. But, she continued, “If they lasted longer and there were even delivery drivers and pilots refusing to work a few days...now that would be something.”

Michelle reflected on the common interests of different sections of the working class—for example, Amazon workers and autoworkers, where “the employees are struggling and sacrificing so much while the company is making so much profit off of their suffering.”

Beyond the initial steps taken to protest on Prime Day, Amazon workers must develop their struggle on the basis of their international strength. Company leaders boasted that isolated, short-term strikes in a few scattered hubs would barely impact the massive profits made during the online frenzy, but this must only stir workers to counter the global strategy of Amazon to maximize the exploitation of workers with a globally coordinated strategy for workers to fight back and assert their interests in opposition to the profit drive of the company.

It is within this context that the treacherous role of the trade unions and supposedly “pro-worker” and “progressive” politicians must be understood. With Amazon workers growing more radical and militant, the unions are seeking to gain control in order to isolate, limit and suppress their resistance while obtaining new sources of dues revenue.

Many European warehouse employees are already unionized by Verdi in Germany and the GMB union in the UK, where actions were deliberately limited to short strikes or scattered demonstrations in order to prevent any threat to Amazon’s profits. In Poland and Spain, the protests are barely being publicized by the unions. The actions of the unions this year are similar to their role in strangling strike efforts last year.

Amazon workers in the United States are nonunion, though “progressive” Democrats, pseudo-left organizations and union organizations have ramped up their campaign to channel growing discontent into the confines of the unions and the Democratic Party.

A number of unions issued statements of support for the striking workers. “Amazon workers are sending a powerful message to Jeff Bezos this Prime Day: It’s time to stop putting profits ahead of people,” United Food and Commercial Workers International Union President Marc Perrone said in a statement. “With the recent move to one-day Prime shipping, Amazon workers are being forced to meet impossible demands at increasingly unsafe speeds,” he added.

Though it is not clear which union will emerge from the scramble of competing bureaucracies to win the Amazon franchise, it seems that the Teamsters union is in the lead.

Democratic Party presidential candidates—who have backed every betrayal of workers’ struggles carried out by the unions—used the strikes as an opportunity to con workers into believing they were on the employees’ side. Elizabeth Warren tweeted: “I fully support Amazon workers’ Prime Day strike. Their fight for safe and reliable jobs is another reminder that we must come together to hold big corporations accountable.”

Soon after, Bernie Sanders, who praised Bezos for “doing the right thing” by paying workers a paltry $15 an hour, tweeted, “I stand in solidarity with the courageous Amazon workers engaging in a work stoppage against unconscionable working conditions in their warehouses.”

Shannon Allen, a former Amazon worker who attracted a large online following after sharing her story of becoming homeless after a workplace injury, had a sharp message in response to Senator Warren. “You are a capitalist,” she wrote. “You are one of the rich millionaires out here… What are you going to do for these people besides voice your opinion and get more votes? These are real people’s lives.”

Though the verbal support of politicians comes and goes, “This is an epidemic that has been going on a long time” Allen said. “Only over the last few years have people started to speak out.”

If workers want to really fight the rampant exploitation and abuse, “All these workers need to band together and strike at one time,” Allen declared. “Hit them where it hurts.”

In order to wage an effective struggle, workers need to create new organizations independent of the trade unions and all the capitalist political parties. They need to establish rank-and-file committees to link up every tech center and fulfillment center and develop a program of demands that bases itself on the workers’ interests, not what the company says it can afford: for decent and safe full-time jobs, adequate break time, steep increases to wages and benefits, workers’ control over line speed and production, among other demands.

Such committees established at Amazon facilities around the world will make possible an internationally coordinated struggle to unite the workers against the transnational company and link up with the struggles of other logistics workers, autoworkers, service workers, nurses, teachers and other sections of the international working class.

Sri Lankan prime minister promotes US defence agreement

Vijith Samarasinghe & K. Ratnayake

Addressing the Sri Lankan parliament last Wednesday, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe attempted to gloss over the geo-strategic implications of a planned Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Colombo and Washington. If signed, the deal would give the US the right to freely use the strategically located Indian Ocean island nation for its military forces.

The government of former President Chandrika Kumaratunga signed a SOFA deal with Washington in mid-1995. The US wants that agreement to be replaced with one that suits its aggressive military preparations against China.

Wickremesinghe commented on the planned SOFA in reply to a question from Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader and MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The JVP, which previously supported the pro-US government in 2015, is now attempting to posture as an opponent of US imperialism.

Wickremesinghe told parliament that the negotiations were ongoing but claimed that “no deal impacting the sovereignty of Sri Lanka will be signed [and] there are some things which we can’t agree on.” He did not elaborate on any disagreements and ludicrously claimed what was being prepared was a “peace time document.”

However, Wickremesinghe admitted, “This agreement generally establishes the framework for US military personnel operating in a foreign country. The SOFA provides for the powers and privileges of covered individuals.”

A leaked version of the 15-paragraph document published in Colombo’s Sunday Times on June 30 reveals some of the extensive powers that would be granted to US Defence Department officials and the American military. These include:

* All US personnel be accorded the privileges, exemptions, and immunities equivalent to those accorded to the administrative and technical staff of a diplomatic mission under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations; that US personnel enter and exit Sri Lanka with US identification and with collective movement or individual travel orders; that Sri Lanka accept as valid all professional licenses issued by the US, its political subdivisions or states; and US personnel be authorised to wear uniforms while performing official duties and to carry arms while on duty.

* The US government is to exercise criminal jurisdiction over US personnel. They cannot be subjected to Sri Lankan law.

* Vehicles, aircraft, vessels and equipment of US forces are to enter and move freely within Sri Lankan territory and be free from boarding and inspection by local authorities.

* US forces are to be allocated a dedicated radio spectrum and can operate their own telecommunication system.

* Any construction or procurement activity undertaken by US forces in Sri Lanka will be free from local taxes.

Wickremesinghe claimed in parliament that “the pact would not lead to a permanent US presence on the island,” but failed to explain why Washington needed such freedom for its forces. Contrary to Wickremesinghe’s attempts to downplay a new SOFA deal, the Trump administration wants the closest military collaboration with Colombo.

Addressing the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington last February, INDOPACOM chief, Admiral Philip Davidson, declared that Sri Lanka “remains a significant strategic opportunity in the Indian Ocean and our military-to-military relationship continues to strengthen.”

These relations expanded dramatically after President Maithripala Sirisena came to power in a US-orchestrated regime change operation that ousted former President Mahinda Rajapakse in 2015. Sirisena and Wickremesinghe immediately brought Sri Lanka’s foreign policy into line with Washington and New Delhi, its South Asian strategic partner, and their confrontational geo-strategic agenda against China.

In 2017, Colombo extended the Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement (ACSA) with the US for an indefinite period. Originally signed in 2007, it enables the US military access to Sri Lankan ports and airports.

In March this year, a report by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing US think tank, listed all the US-Sri Lankan military agreements and joint exercises since 2015 and declared that “since late 2018, the country has been serving as a new Indian Ocean logistics hub for the US Navy.”

Sri Lanka is strategically important to Washington and its preparations to economically and militarily block China in the Indian Ocean region in the event of war.

While the Wickremesinghe government is seeking to push through the agreement with some cosmetic changes, other factions of the ruling elite are silent or making hypocritical criticisms.

President Sirisena, who backed Washington’s military build-up in the region after his coming to power in 2015, is now pretending to be critical of some clauses in the agreement.

At a recent public meeting, Sirisena demagogically declared: “I will not allow the SOFA that seeks to betray the nation.” Having signed the ACSA in 2017, he now claims that he was unaware of the clauses in that agreement and was duped by its authors.

Before he fell out with Wickremesinghe after their unity government was discredited among workers and poor, Sirisena boasted about his “excellent relations” with the “international community”—i.e., the US, Europe and India. When Sirisena removed Wickremesinghe and appointed Rajapakse as prime minister in an attempted political coup last October, his representatives visited western ambassadors, including the US, informing them of Rajapakse’s readiness to follow their demands.

Leaders of the opposition Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), including Rajapakse, are conspicuously silent about the SOFA and other agreements with the US. Only second ranking leaders of the SLPP or other parties in alliance with it, such as the communalist Mahajana Eksath Peramuna and the National Freedom Front, have issued statements denouncing the government for betraying the country’s sovereignty.

The JVP's opposition to the SOFA agreement is entirely hypocritical. Its claims to have opposed the ACSA in 2007 are a lie. There is no evidence in the parliamentary Hansard or in any media report that the JVP opposed the agreement. The JVP, like other parties in Sri Lanka, fully backed Washington’s so-called war on terror in 2001 and the invasion of Afghanistan, developed relations with Western diplomats in Sri Lanka and called for US support for Colombo’s war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Nervous about the deep-seated opposition of Sri Lankan workers and youth to US imperialism, Sirisena and the opposition political parties are posturing as opponents of the SOFA agreement.

The planned SOFA deal and the ever-deepening military relations between Washington and Colombo for war against China raise the necessity for the development of a mass anti-war movement of the working class based on the struggle for socialist internationalism. As part of this fight, the Sri Lankan working class must reject all factions of the Sri Lankan ruling elite and oppose SOFA, ACSA and other overt and covert deals between Colombo, Washington and other imperialist powers.