Student protests in Indonesian Papua suppressed by police violence

Owen Howell

A protest involving thousands of students and workers in Wamena in the Indonesian province of Papua on September 23 was brutally attacked by police and military forces, resulting in at least 32 deaths and 66 injuries.

It is to date the most violent event in this year’s protests in Indonesian Papua, now in their eighth week. The protests first erupted on August 17 when police, soldiers, and Islamic militia members assaulted Papuan students in the East Javan city of Surabaya.

The Wamena protest was apparently sparked by an incident two days earlier, in which a non-Papuan teacher at a senior high school described one of his indigenous students as “a monkey.” The students of SMA PGRI Wamena high school were outraged and immediately took to their phones to share the story with students from other local schools. Within two days around 5,000 students joined them on the streets.

On the morning of the Wamena protest, workers and university students from the town and surrounding villages marched alongside the high school students, forming a large demonstration. Police and military officers deployed in Wamena responded by opening fire on the crowd. Horrified and angered by the sudden shootings, the protesters set fire to several government buildings.

Later that day, President Joko Widodo stated in a press conference that the clash between protesters and security personnel had been provoked by the spread of “fake news”—or, as he called it, “a hoax” perpetrated by Papuan separatist groups. This was reiterated by police, who alleged that pro-independence activists had dressed up in school uniforms and effectively led the march.

Widodo further claimed that an armed criminal group had descended from the nearby mountains and swept through the town, stirring up riots and torching homes. He provided no evidence whatsoever for these claims, nor did he elaborate on the name or leaders of the marauding group.

The official police report argued that the majority of victims were non-Papuan migrants who had been targeted by native Papuan rioters and died from stab and arrow wounds, and from being trapped inside burning buildings. This is characteristic of the government’s efforts to divide working people along ethnic lines and whip up racist sentiment. Antara, the national news agency, closely linked to the state apparatus, reported that 16 non-Papuans and only one native Papuan were killed, while 66 others were maimed “by the rioters brandishing machetes and arrows.”

The government has attempted to cloak the Papuan protests in secrecy, shutting down internet services and imposing a ban on international journalists. First-hand accounts, however, have leaked out despite government censorship and presented a sharply contrasting picture of the Wamena shootings. Witnesses told foreign media outlets about the police violence and suggested the true death toll may be significantly higher than the official toll of 32 people.

An anonymous university student, 19, explained the involvement of the police to the Guardian: “There was a shootout and we fought back with rocks and arrows. The police shot at the Papuans. There were about 16 to 20 people who died directly on the street that I saw.” Yance, 18, a student told Al Jazeera the he saw his friend being shot in the chest after police had blanketed the crowd in tear gas.

Another witness saw victims of the police brutality being brought to the Wamena hospital after the shooting, including a young student who had been shot in the back. The following day, he saw six bodies laid out in the hospital’s morgue, who all appeared to be of “high school age.” Police and military patrols have since been observed guarding the entrance of the hospital, blocking access to anyone trying to verify the number of deaths. The police presence has also made it difficult for families to visit their injured relatives.

Government authorities have continued their cover up. Ahmad Mustofa Kamal, the police spokesman of Papua province, insisted that police had not received any reports of protesters being harmed by gunfire. But this is not the first time that the national police have flatly denied using extreme violence against protesters.

On August 28, a large gathering of protesters in Deiyai regency stood outside the Regent’s Office asking the Regent to sign a joint statement they had written. Soldiers and police officers, waiting inside the building, proceeded to fire gunshots into the crowd, killing at least eight people. Mobile phone signals were disrupted in the area of the shooting. Dedi Prasetyo, a police spokesman, denied the use of gunfire and told the media that no one was killed in the incident except two policemen.

The use of police state measures in West Papua is an attempt to crush any form of resistance to the abuse of democratic rights and the economic and social crisis facing working people. President Widodo has visited the Papuan provinces five times since his 2014 election and has promised better living conditions for impoverished Papuans. However, conditions have only continued to deteriorate.

After the shootings in Wamena, as many as 4,000 people were forced to evacuate. Residents are also fleeing the town and the entire regency, Jayawijaya, of their own volition, after hearing of a huge military deployment due to arrive in the area. Tens of thousands of civilians throughout the West Papua region have been forced from their homes by security forces.

According to Veronica Koman, an Indonesian human rights lawyer, some of the 6,000 troops currently stationed in West Papua are being employed to blockade roads connecting villages, towns, and regencies, in order to prevent protesters in different areas from uniting in force.

Unintimidated, the Papuan protesters have continued demonstrating, drawing strength from recent student movements in Jakarta and other major cities. Over the last two weeks, tens of thousands of students across the country protested the Widodo government’s proposed regressive criminal code. In the wake of the Wamena shootings, the students stood in full support of the Papuan protesters and demanded an “end to militarism” in West Papua.

While protesters have been calling for Papuan independence from Indonesia, such a move will not benefit ordinary working people but represents the interests of a small elite layer that seek to profit from foreign investment seeking to exploit resources and cheap labour. Workers and students in Indonesian Papua should turn to their class brothers and sisters across the Indonesian archipelago and internationally in a united struggle against social inequality and the capitalist profit system.

Workers in stone fabrication industry worldwide at high risk of deadly lung disease, CDC finds

Jessica Goldstein

Last month, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released a report which detailed the results of an investigation into 18 cases of silicosis, a deadly occupational lung disease for which there is no cure, among workers in the stone fabrication industry across the US states of California, Colorado, Texas, and Washington from 2017 to 2019. Two of the cases reportedly resulted in death.

Silicosis is characterized by intense scarring and inflammation of the lungs. Patients who suffer from silicosis bear many of the same symptoms as those diagnosed with pneumonia and tuberculosis, such as shortness of breath, persistent cough, fever and bluish skin. In 2013, silicosis killed 46,000 people around the world. No cure is known, yet some experimental treatments such as inhalation of powdered aluminum and corticosteroid therapy have been used.

The report found that most of the cases were in workers under 50 years old, with several under the age of 40. The disease is caused by inhaling tiny particles of crystalline silica, which are released into the air when workers cut, grind and sand pieces of marble, granite and engineered stone for finishing, particularly for use in the fabrication of kitchen and bathroom countertops. Workers also inhale the dust when cleaning and sweeping workplaces where the dust accumulates.

Lung showing nodular silicosis [Credit: Wikimedia Commons]

The CDC report found the most severe cases of silicosis to be found in workers who work with engineered stone. Engineered stone is a manufactured quartz-based composite material that can contain over 90 percent crystalline silica, compared to less than 45 percent in natural granite. The report also noted that the popularity of engineered stone for use in manufacturing countertops has spiked in recent years, noting an 800 percent growth in demand for quartz surface imports to the United States between 2010 and 2018.

Significantly, the CDC investigation highlighted the international character of the incidence of silicosis and the overall effects of the stone fabrication industry on workers’ health. Silicosis was found to have been reported among other workers in the same industry in other countries around the world. Before the investigation was published, only one case had been reported previously in the United States.

Mass protests against endemic poverty, government corruption convulse Haiti

Richard Dufour

Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince and several other major cities have been virtually shut down for the past three weeks in a continuation of mass anti-government protests that have erupted at regular intervals since July of last year. Impoverished youth from working-class neighborhoods have come out by the tens of thousands to denounce their hellish conditions of life.

The recent mass demonstrations have been accompanied by road blocks and clashes with police in response to their indiscriminate use of tear gas, water cannons, and live ammunition. At least seventeen people have died since the latest round of protests began in mid-September, according to a Haitian human rights organization.

Protestors are denouncing, among other things, a chronic lack of fuel that has kept schools closed for weeks, disrupted hospital services and resulted in widespread power outages; a precipitous decline of the Haitian currency (the gourde) in relation to the US dollar and a near 20 percent inflation rate that has put basic food items increasingly out of reach for the majority of the population; and the brazen theft of public funds by politicians in all parts of the government –including the Presidency, the various ministries, the Senate and the lower house of the legislature.

The main demand of the protestors, however, is the ousting of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and his prosecution for extrajudicial killings of government opponents and massive corruption. According to a 600-page report issued last June by the country’s Audit Court (Cour Supérieure des Comptes), two Moïse-controlled companies were given public road construction contracts worth over a million dollars for which no actual work was ever done. The contracts were awarded under the previous president, the neo-Duvalierist Michel Martelly, who, with Washington’s backing, helped rig the 2016 election to bring Moïse to power.

The money for the bogus road contracts came from the so-called PetroCaribe fund, which was built up over a ten-year period starting in 2007 from government sales of subsidized Venezuelan oil. The total amount that passed through this fund in Haiti is estimated to have been over two billion dollars. Awarded by Venezuela to Haiti and a number of other Caribbean nations, in the face of fierce opposition by the US government, this money was meant to help finance social programs and public infrastructure projects, but was largely looted by Haiti’s political elite and their business cronies.

In addition to Moïse, a number of high-profile politicians, including former President Martelly, have been accused of misappropriating PetroCaribe funds, of which very little remains.

The July 2018 protests that initiated the recurring cycle of mass anti-Moïse demonstrations were themselves triggered by an up to 50-percent increase of at-the-pump gasoline prices. That hike was made under direct orders from the IMF. With the Venezuelan government compelled to stop the assistance program due to deepening economic crisis at home, the IMF insisted Haiti must stop subsidizing the price of oil and squeeze the masses of the poorest country in the Western hemisphere still harder, so as to pay back the country’s debts to the world’s big banks.

The current resistance movement of the Haitian working class and oppressed masses is part of a resurgence of class struggle internationally, as seen with similar protests in every part of the world–from the mass anti-government demonstrations in Ecuador and Puerto Rico, to strikes by US, Mexican and Korean auto workers, the Yellow Vest movement in France, and the mass popular mobilizations that have led to the fall of presidents in Algeria and Sudan.

Moïse and his corrupt and repressive regime are fitting representatives of Haiti’s venal ruling class. But the chief bulwark of capitalist rule in Haiti, and the principal cause of the endemic poverty, squalor and brutal social relations that characterize contemporary Haiti, is imperialism, above all US imperialism.

Beginning with the 1915-34 US Marines’ occupation of Haiti, Washington has repeatedly invaded and occupied the tiny, but densely populated country, and supported and sustained in power a succession of right-wing repressive regimes. Most notorious of these was the nearly three decades-long dictatorship of “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier. As in many countries, Washington long used Haiti’s army as its principal instrument for maintaining its domination, instigating repeated bloody coups.

Democratically-elected governments headed by the former liberation theology priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide were twice overthrown by “made in USA” coups, first in 1991 and then 2004, although Aristide pledged fidelity to Washington and worked with the IMF and other imperialist institutions. In 2004, the US, Canada and France connived in a rebellion led by former Haitian army officers and Tonton Macoutes, then sent in troops to “stabilize” the country and kidnap Aristide, who was hustled onto a plane destined for the remote Central African Republic.

Since the mid-1980s, Haiti has been subject to repeated IMF-style “neo-liberal” economic restructuring programs, aimed at increasing imperialist domination of its economy and transforming it into an ultra-cheap labour producer of garments and other low-tech manufactured goods.

The results have been ruinous. Unrestricted US rice and other food imports led to the virtual destruction of the Haitian peasantry, while a spiraling state debt was used to siphon the country’s meager resources into the coffers of Western financial institutions.

Today the Moïse government is clinging to power only thanks to the support of Washington, and its French and Canadian allies. Leaders of the so-called Core Group of countries, they have repeatedly offered to “mediate” between the government and opposition leaders, while cynically declaiming on the need to uphold the “rule of law” and “democracy,” i.e. to keep the current government in power.

On Sept. 26, the US Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan met with Moïse’s foreign minister, Bocchit Edmond.

President Vizcarra dissolves Congress in response to conflict within Peruvian state

Armando Cruz

President Martin Vizcarra is ruling Peru by decree after succeeding in dissolving the country’s parliament. The legislative body will resume its functions only after new elections scheduled for January 26.

Vizcarra had announced the dissolution of Congress on September 30, hours after its members refused to debate a vote of confidence (cuestion de confianza), giving the president the constitutional power to dissolve Congress and call new elections.

The leadership of Congress immediately denounced the dissolution as a coup d’état and an “unconstitutional” action, refusing recognize its validity. Meanwhile, on the streets of Lima and other major cities, crowds came out to defend the president’s decision.

The dissolution of Congress was the explosive culmination of a protracted struggle within Peru’s state, a conflict between the executive and legislative branches. This battle had raged since Vizcarra’s predecessor, the right-wing former Wall Street financier Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, narrowly defeated Keiko Fujimori, the right-wing populist leader of the fujimorista Fuerza Popular (FP), in the 2016 election.

Both Kuczynski and Keiko Fujimori are now being held under “preventive detention” while prosecutors gather evidence related to bribes that they both received from the Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht (part of the so-called “Lava Jato” investigation).

Kuczynski took office in July 2016—with Vizcarra and the right-wing technocrat Mercedes Araoz as his first and second vice-presidents, respectively. He had no real base of support within the population, winning the election at the last minute thanks to the support of pseudo-left leaders Veronika Mendoza and Marco Arana, who lined up behind him as the “lesser evil.”

However, 83 FP lawmakers were elected to Congress, giving the fujimoristas virtually total control over the legislative branch. Fujimori, embittered after losing an election she thought she had in her pocket, ordered her party members to obstruct and undermine Kuczynski’s government.

Ever since, the FP has transformed Congress into its own reactionary political platform. It placed its allies and militants in key state positions, while protecting judges, prosecutors and its own congressmen from investigations. It voted down anti-corruption measures, undermining Kuczynki’s government, while attacking and bringing down its ministers.

Among other things, it used a congressional commission formed to investigate presidents and other senior public officials who received Odebrecht’s bribes as an instrument to clear Fujimori and Alan Garcia of the APRA party—its congressional ally—while trying to send its political rivals, such as former President Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) and Kuczynski himself, to jail.

But this abuse of power came with a high price: by mid-2018, opinion polls indicated that the FP had lost support within its working class and lower middle class base. The party had based itself on the populist legacy of the original fujimorista government of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), Keiko’s father, who was jailed for the massacres carried out by his authoritarian regime. In response to the FP’s thuggish and dictatorial methods, spontaneous protests began demanding the dissolution of Congress, mainly led by young people.

Kuczynki resigned in March 2018 amidst a scandal over vote-buying to avoid an impeachment set by FP congressmen. Vizcarra took office, and he and his cabinet decided not to pursue a confrontation with Fujimori or contest her control of Congress, in order to better implement the right-wing, neoliberal policies demanded by big business and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

However, things changed in late October when a judge approved the demand by anti-corruption attorneys for preventively incarcerating Fujimori to prevent her from obstructing the Lava Jato investigation. The attorneys’ theory is that Fujimori was the leader of a “criminal organization” that used the FP as an apparatus for laundering Odebrecht’s bribe money. Fujimori has since been incarcerated in the Santa Monica prison for women in Chorrillos, Lima. She ordered her subordinates in Congress to pressure the judiciary and the courts for her release and to once again obstruct the executive power.

Meanwhile, Vizcarra was enjoying a relatively high approval rating. This stemmed mainly from his not having been charged with corruption or taking bribes from Odebrecht, like the last four presidents. He exploited this perception by announcing a set of reforms of the judiciary after a corruption scandal involving judges and attorneys.

One of the main props sustaining Vizcarra’s government has been the refusal of the pseudo-left to confront his right-wing policies. The Vizcarra administration is defending and expanding the neo-liberal pro-business framework established by

Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s, after he himself dissolved parliament in what amounted to a parliamentary coup. The government continues to hand over the country’s rich mineral resources to international investors, without regard to the environment and the population. Pseudo-left forces such as Mendoza’s Nuevo Peru and Arana’s Frente Amplio refuse to engage in a fight against these policies for fear it would threaten the collapse of the whole capitalist state, which they support. Instead, they channel the anger of the working class and youth exclusively against the right-wing fujimoristas in Congress.

On July 28, during his Independence Day speech, Vizcarra announced his surprise proposal for early elections. He invoked the “voice of the people” for his decision but also presented it as a way to get the country out of the crisis provoked by the enmity between the executive and legislative powers. The measure was welcomed by the population with nearly 70 percent of approval, expressing widespread disgust with the FP-led Congress.

With dozens of congressmen facing corruption charges once their constitutional immunity as lawmakers ends, Vizcarra’s proposal was unsurprisingly opposed by the right-wing opposition caucuses, chiefly among them the FP. This opposition was joined by Vice-President Araoz, a representative of big business in Peru.

On September 26, the Congressional Commission on the Constitution—dominated by staunch fujimoristas—voted to shelve Vizcarra’s proposal for early elections, fueling the population’s anger and immediately prompting new street protests demanding the dissolution of the fujimorista-dominated Congress.

Meanwhile, Fujimori, from jail, decided to play her last card for her release from prison, ordering FP congressmen to push forward the election of six new members of the Constitutional Tribunal (CT), a body of 10 judges that could vote to release her.

Having a CT run by friendly judges was also a matter of life and death for FP and APRA lawmakers, since it is the only institution that can deprive congressmen of their legal immunity. With new information coming from Odebrecht in Brazil about bribes given to congressmen, the FP and other opposition parties joined in frenetically rushing to the election of judges in a matter of days, a process that usually had taken months under previous governments. Further discrediting this election, the CT’s incumbent vice-president, Maria Ledezma, revealed that an unnamed congressman had offered to re-elect her if she would vote for the release of Fujimori.

After failed negotiations with the opposition, Vizcarra responded on September 27 by announcing a vote of confidence for the implementation of a new bill that would reform and make “more transparent” the CT’s election mechanism. On Sunday, he declared during a TV interview he would dissolve Congress if it rejected this vote of confidence. According to the constitution, the president can dissolve Congress if it rejects two votes of confidence. Congress had already rejected one vote of confidence under Kuczynski two years ago, so Vizcarra’s dissolution would be technically constitutional.

Hundreds of Extinction Rebellion protesters arrested in central London

Steve James

The number of arrests of Extinction Rebellion (XR) climate protestors in London topped 500 yesterday, in a naked display of state repression designed to intimidate and silence political and social opposition among much broader layers.

By 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, the capital’s Metropolitan Police had arrested 212 peaceful protesters, after having arrested an initial 319 protesters by midnight on Monday. To this total must be added 10 “pre-emptive” arrests made Saturday by dozens of officers from the Metropolitan police’s territorial support group.

Police on Whitehall confronting protesters

The specialist riot police raided a building in Kennington, south London, where Extinction Rebellion was storing its equipment, using a battering ram to smash their way in. Activists who had begun moving equipment from the site were also arrested and their vehicles impounded. The activists were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause public nuisance. XR reported that police seized items such as tents, toilets, disabled access equipment, wheelie bins, solar panels, hot water bottles, cooking urns and flasks.

XR is seeking to raise public awareness of global warming, while demanding policy changes from the world’s governments. London is the focal point of a globally coordinated series of protests which have seen, according to XR’s web site, hundreds of arrests in 60 cities around the world—including Melbourne and Sydney, New York, Berlin, Paris, Mumbai, Buenos Aires and Cape Town. Over the weekend, Berlin protesters surrounded the Siegesaul and blocked the Brandenburg gate. In New York, the famous Wall Street capitalist Charging Bull was covered in fake blood.

Police arrest Extinction Rebellion protester

In London Monday, XR supporters targeted 12 sites in the centre of the city for occupations, sit-ins and protests. The group intend to continue for up to two weeks. The sites were at traffic thoroughfares close to central government buildings, including Lambeth Bridge, the Mall, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Bridge, Millbank, Downing Street and Smithfield Market.

As many as 30,000 protesters were involved Monday in myriad activities—making speeches at open mike sessions, pitching tents, banging drums, chaining or gluing themselves to vehicles, sitting in the road, spraying messages on public buildings, dancing, milling about and marching. One couple got married. Another group played cricket in Parliament Square. Groups of striking, red-clad street statues marched in silence, others did yoga. Ages of participants ranged at least from 9 to 83 years. Occupations included farmers, social workers, doctors, actors, models and students. Celebrities supporting them included actors Sir Mark Rylance and Ruby Wax.

In contrast, police attempted to brutally break up the protests, smash up temporary stages and arrest as many people as possible. On Tuesday morning, remaining protesters, many in tents, were told they would be arrested unless they moved to Trafalgar Square under the Public Order Act.

The protests developed from a similar event in April this year, also in London, which ultimately saw over 1,130 people arrested in the largest mass arrests in Britain since the riots of 2011. Those saw more than 5,000 arrests nationally, more than 4,350 arrests in London alone, with over 1,292 people imprisoned for a total of over 1,800 years.

If police arrest 300 people a day during the current protests, the total will end up at around 4,200 at the end of the 14 days. This is on top of the 1,130 XR protesters already arrested in April. In a blatantly intimidatory move, the Metropolitan Police are seeking to prosecute all those arrested.

Specialist “protest removal teams” of police have been mobilised from across the UK, while the Met has increased shift teams and cancelled other police work to confront the protesters. Those who refused to move had their tents cut open, after which they were arrested.

Police are intent on preventing extended protests from being allowed to develop, particularly in key traffic choke points. The XR protesters were attacked by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who described the thousands of concerned, largely middle-class people as “nose-ringed climate change protesters” and “denizens of the heaving hemp-smelling bivouacs that now litter Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park.”

Workers must vigorously oppose the mass arrests of protesters whose only crime is to seek a way out of the terrible environmental calamity threatening humanity. The methods being developed against XR are in preparation for far broader use against the working class in the period immediately ahead.

US protects NSA spy’s wife wanted in UK over teenager’s death

Laura Tiernan

The Trump administration is refusing to waive immunity for the wife of a senior US spy, who fled the UK after she was involved in a head-on collision more than a month ago that killed 19-year-old Harry Dunn.

Anne Sacoolas, 42, is wanted by police over the death of the young motorcyclist in Northamptonshire on August 27. She was reportedly travelling on the wrong side of the road for up to 400 metres and collided head-on with Dunn, who suffered horrific multiple injuries.

The accident took place near the RAF base at Croughton, a US Airforce spy base otherwise known as the Joint Intelligence Analysis Centre.

Sacoolas, a former US State Department employee, has been widely described in the press as the wife of a diplomat, but in fact her husband Jonathan Sacoolas is a National Security Agency (NSA) spy. A lawyer acting for Dunn’s family told the Mail on Sunday that Jonathan Sacoolas “was working with intelligence which is, I guess, why it has been handled in the way that it has.”

The crash location

Northamptonshire police have confirmed that “diplomatic immunity had been raised as an issue” when they met with Anne Sacoolas the day after the crash. No further details surrounding this initial claim have been divulged.

According to the Guardian’s Diplomatic Editor Patrick Wintour, “US staff, including civilian staff and their dependents, at designated military bases in the UK, including RAF Croughton, are protected under the Visiting Forces Act 1952, reinforced by further legislation in 1964. They are able to claim some legal immunity in the UK.”

After news of Sacoolas’s flight broke over the weekend, the British media highlighted police claims that the suspect had “engaged fully” following the incident. Police Superintendent Sarah Johnson said Sacoolas “had previously confirmed... that she had no plans to leave the country in the near future.”

Police accepted the suspect’s empty assurances of full cooperation, concluding she was not a “flight risk.” This defies innocent explanation. If Sacoolas was “fully engaged” in helping the investigation, why was she dangling the threat of diplomatic immunity the day after the crash?

The official timeline surrounding these events is deliberately murky.

Northamptonshire police responded to Sacoolas’s assertion of diplomatic immunity by applying to the US embassy for a waiver to arrest and formally interview the suspect. But US embassy officials later—at an unreported date—told police the waiver had been refused and that Sacoolas had already left the country.

According to Tuesday’s Daily Mail, “Government sources said Mrs. Sacoolas and her family were ‘put on a plane’ within hours of learning she may face charges. Harry’s family believe she flew out quickly as her husband is a spy and US authorities wanted to ensure his identity was not compromised.”

Police were preparing to charge Sacoolas with dangerous driving causing death and had reportedly prepared a file for the Crown Prosecution Service. On Tuesday, Northamptonshire Chief Constable Nick Adderley said he had written to the US embassy “in the strongest terms, urging them to apply the diplomatic immunity waiver.”

Harry Dunn’s parents, Charlotte and Tim, have spoken out publicly, calling on Sacoolas to return to the UK and face questioning over their son’s death. Harry Dunn told SkyNews on Tuesday, “Our understanding is that she was compliant with police and admitted at the time she was in the wrong. We know from police she was going to stay in the country and committed to being here for three years. So, to hear the news from police [that she had fled the UK] a few weeks after the funeral was devastating.”

Harry Dunn's parents speaking out this week

Charlotte said, “She’s left a family in complete ruin. We’re broken inside and out… We’re just utterly shocked and appalled that somebody is allowed to get on a plane and go home and avoid our justice system. We’re not a horrible family, we’re just a usual UK family who just need to put a face to what we now have as a name and talk to her, find out how she’s feeling. She’s got to be suffering as well, you know, she’s a mum.”

The stand taken by Dunn’s parents met with immediate public sympathy. A GoFundMe appeal raised more than £10,000 towards legal costs in just a few days and #Justice4Harry was trending yesterday on social media. The family has said it will pursue matters legally in the US.

Why do the CIA assassins and coup-plotters love this “whistleblower”?

Patrick Martin

Ninety former national security officials under the Obama and Bush administrations—and three who served for a period under Donald Trump—have signed an “Open Letter to the American People” defending the CIA officer, as yet unidentified, whose whistleblower complaint has become the basis for the House of Representatives opening an impeachment inquiry into the president.

The signers “applaud the whistleblower not only for living up to that responsibility but also for using precisely the channels made available by federal law for raising such concerns.”

They further claim, “A responsible whistleblower makes all Americans safer by ensuring that serious wrongdoing can be investigated and addressed ... What’s more, being a responsible whistleblower means that, by law, one is protected from certain egregious forms of retaliation.”

They draw the conclusion that the anti-Trump whistleblower’s identity must be protected at all costs, writing that “he or she has done what our law demands; now he or she deserves our protection.”

This professed defense of whistleblowing as a critical function of democracy would be more convincing if it did not come from high officials in the administration that prosecuted more leakers and whistleblowers than all previous US administrations combined.

The signers include former CIA directors John Brennan, Michael Hayden and Michael Morell, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, former Defense Undersecretary Michele Flournoy, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman (Obama’s point-woman on Ukraine). Bush administration officials who signed the letter include Matthew G. Olsen, former head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, and Paul Rosenzweig, former deputy assistant secretary for policy, Department of Homeland Security. Among the former Trump aides who signed is Andrea Kendall-Taylor, former deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Security Council.

These officials had a much different attitude toward genuine American whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and John Kiriakou, who exposed crimes of US imperialism. Manning supplied WikiLeaks with Pentagon files documenting US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as State Department cables showing US conspiracies against governments around the world. Snowden brought to light NSA spying on the entire world. Kiriakou exposed CIA torture in secret overseas prisons during the “war on terror.”

None of these genuine whistleblowers received any form of protection. On the contrary, they were rebuffed in their efforts to expose atrocities by the US military-intelligence apparatus and felt compelled to release the information to the public. For their courageous actions, they have been brutally persecuted.

Manning went to prison for seven years, before her sentence was commuted, and is now in prison again for refusing to provide false testimony against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, currently in solitary confinement in London’s Belmarsh Prison awaiting hearings on the US demand that he be extradited to face espionage charges and a possible 175-year prison sentence. Kiriakou went to prison for two years. Snowden fled the country as Democratic and Republican politicians called for his arrest and even assassination. He has been living in exile in Russia for the past six years.

In a recent commentary in Consortium News, Kiriakou noted the contrast between his own treatment and that accorded the “whistleblower” in the Ukraine case. He wrote, “If he’s a whistleblower, and not a CIA plant whose task it is to take down the president, then his career is probably over. Intelligence agencies only pay lip service to whistleblowing.”

Kiriakou further noted the dubious role of one of the whistleblower’s attorneys, Mark Zaid, who had been his, Kiriakou’s, first attorney when he sought to expose CIA torture. Kiriakou fired him, only to have his former attorney testify against him in front of the grand jury that indicted him. “How this man still has a law license is an utter mystery to me,” Kiriakou wrote. “That Zaid is involved in this case leads me to believe that the CIA whistleblower is either an idiot who has no idea what he’s gotten himself into or he’s been directed to make his ‘disclosure.’”

In other words, the former CIA agent suggests, the entire “whistleblower” complaint against Trump is likely an operation directed by higher-level officials at the agency.

Ecuador’s president retreats from capital in face of growing mass protests

Andrea Lobo

In the face of a continuing strike and a mass indigenous mobilization against an IMF-dictated austerity package, Ecuador’s President Lenín Moreno moved his government from the capital of Quito to the coastal city of Guayaquil, where he is now directing a police-state crackdown.

This retreat from Ecuador’s Andean capital, unprecedented in the country’s history, is a measure of the intensity of social and political unrest as Ecuador enters a second week of demonstrations against the draconian austerity program unveiled by the Moreno government on October 1.

Anti-government protesters clash with police near the National Assembly in Quito, Ecuador [Credit: AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa]

On Tuesday, indigenous demonstrators marched through the streets of Quito and occupied the national congress as well as other government buildings.

Late on Tuesday, Moreno decreed a partial curfew near “strategic zones” like government buildings, which will be overseen by the armed forces. Heavily armed troops have been deployed to the streets of Quito, deploying razor-wire barricades to block protesters.

The government has responded to the resistance with increasingly dictatorial measures. It has suspended the right to assembly and strike and deployed the military after declaring a state of exception last Wednesday. Emergency rule was ratified by the Supreme Court, despite reducing it from 60 to 30 days. The repression has resulted in one death, the wounding of dozens of demonstrators attacked with rubber bullets, tear gas and baton charges, along with 570 arrests. Several detainees, including the leader of the taxi drivers’ union, face three-year sentences for “paralyzing public services.”

Schools have remained closed since Thursday. There were roadblocks Tuesday in 17 of the 24 provinces. On Sunday, a demonstrator named Raúl Chilpe was killed by a driver attempting to run over a roadblock in the Azuay province.

On Monday, Moreno said he would not “turn back” on his decisions and portrayed the protests as “looting, vandalism and violence” aimed at “destabilizing the government.” He alleged—without providing a shred of evidence—that the mass protests had been instigated and financed by his predecessor Rafael Correa and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Moreno’s chief of staff, Juan Sebastián Roldán contradicted his boss, declaring: “What is happening and what may happen is the sole and exclusive responsibility of the indigenous leaders who have lost control of the situation.”

Across the eastern and southern provinces, indigenous protesters have captured several military and police convoys, with at least one group of 50 soldiers and five policemen held prisoner until Monday, when they were freed. The oil ministry reported that three state-owned PetroAmazonas oilfields in the northeastern provinces had been “occupied by people not related to the operation,” leading to a 12 percent fall in national production.

Workers, students and indigenous communities have mobilized massively in roadblocks and during the nationwide strike last Thursday and Friday, demanding an immediate end to austerity and the resignation of the Moreno government.

On the other hand, despite claiming to reject any talks with Moreno until the austerity package is cancelled, the organizations leading the protests—most prominently the trade union confederation United Workers Front (FUT), the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (CONAIE) and the Stalinist-led Popular Front—are appealing for intermittent, “gradual” protests and “national unity.”

Dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as part of a $4.2 billion loan agreement approved in February, the most severe measure is the elimination of $1.3 billion in fuel subsidies, which have resulted in the more than doubling of gas and diesel prices. This in turn has triggered a spiraling of prices of basic necessities.

The decision to scrap the fuel subsidies—which even the most right-wing governments had shied away from for the last four decades—marks a new stage in the efforts of the Ecuadorian ruling class to ingratiate itself with US and European capital. The international banks and financial institutions have persistently demanded the elimination of the subsidies, which were created by the CIA-backed military dictatorship during the 1970s.

A June 2019 study by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) found that the greatest beneficiaries of the subsidies were oil companies and the businesses in general; however, their elimination will cut the incomes of the poorest 40 percent of the population by 4.5 to 5 percent. The proceeds extracted through the intensification of poverty and hunger will be channeled to Wall Street as well as wealthy bondholders within Ecuador itself.

Other diktats of globalized finance announced by Moreno on October 1 include cuts to tariffs and taxes on certain imports, a labor reform to facilitate “flexible” contracts, a 20 percent wage cut for new-hires in the public sector and a reduction from 30 to 15 yearly vacation days. This comes on top of the firing of 20,000 public employees that has been carried out since May 2017.

Trump White House declares it will not cooperate with impeachment inquiry

Joseph Kishore

The Trump White House declared Tuesday evening that it will not cooperate with the US House of Representatives and the impeachment inquiry launched by the Democratic Party leadership. The move marks a major escalation of the political war in Washington.

A letter signed by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone claims that the inquiry is a violation of “due process” and the US Constitution. “In order to fulfill his duties to the American people, the Constitution, the Executive Branch, and all future occupants of the Office of the presidency, President Trump and his administration cannot participate in your partisan and unconstitutional inquiry under these circumstances,” it states.

The letter warns that the White House will not provide testimony or documents demanded by the congressional inquiry established to investigate Trump’s July 25 telephone discussion with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Earlier in the day, the Trump administration ordered Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, not to appear for a scheduled interview with the House inquiry. Following that announcement, Trump denounced the inquiry as “a totally compromised kangaroo court.”

Trump’s defiance of Congress has a distinctly dictatorial character. In essence, he is declaring that his White House recognizes no legal restraints on the power of the presidency. His extraordinary assertion of unchecked power is being accompanied by efforts to mobilize his right-wing base. On Thursday, Trump will hold a rally in front of police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which he has framed as a campaign against the “far left” mayor of the city.

Trump’s defiance of Congress—which he seeks to legitimize by portraying himself as the victim of a conspiracy—is facilitated by the methods being employed by the Democrats. Their fight against Trump is devoid of any democratic or progressive content. The argument being made by the Democrats and their supporters in the media is that Trump’s policies and actions have undermined the strategic interests of American imperialism. They are pitching their arguments not to the working class and youth, but to those sections of the ruling class, the military-intelligence apparatus and even sections of the Republican Party that oppose Trump’s divergence from the global geopolitical priorities and agenda of Central Intelligence Agency.

The dynamic behind the impeachment campaign was revealed by the denunciations from Democratic and Republican politicians and the media of Trump’s decision Monday to pull US troops out of Syria.

The New York Times, which speaks for the Democratic Party and the intelligence agencies, launched a bitter attack on the move. In its lead article on Tuesday, “When ‘Get Out’ Is a President’s National Security Strategy,” the Times ’ David Sanger wrote that the withdrawal shows that Trump “is once again pursuing a national security strategy at odds with the official position of his government,” and which “his own senior advisors have warned would risk new chaos throughout the region.”

Trump, Sanger complained, “is demonstrating that in his pursuit of ending America’s ‘endless wars,’ no American troop presence abroad is too small to escape his desire to terminate it.” He continued, “But if there is a Trump doctrine around the world after 32 months of chaotic policy-making, it may have been expressed in its purest form when the president vented on Twitter on Monday morning: ‘Time for us to get out.’”

For the Times, it is not the endless wars in the Middle East, which have resulted in the deaths of more than one million people, that are “chaotic,” but the “precipitous withdrawal” of US troops from Syria, where the military and the CIA have been engaged in a regime-change operation for the past eight years.

The conflict within the state is a conflict between two sections of the ruling elite, in which there is no progressive or democratic side. The Democrats represent sections of the military and intelligence apparatus that have lost confidence in Trump’s ability to manage the affairs of the ruling class, abroad and at home. The conflicts over foreign policy are exacerbated by growing signs of a renewed economic recession.

The Democrats are determined above all to isolate their opposition to Trump from the social and political concerns that are fueling the anger of the masses.

For this reason, they are strictly limiting the impeachment inquiry to the issues relating to the Ukraine phone call. Leadership of the investigation has been turned over to the House Intelligence Committee, most closely connected with the spy agencies. There are to be no public hearings, with everything confined behind closed doors.

The operation of the Democratic Party is aimed at connecting the fight against Trump with support for the intelligence agencies and US military operations. This guarantees a reactionary outcome no matter what the result of the impeachment process.

If it succeeds, it will bring to power a government that is, if anything, even more beholden to the military and the CIA and committed to an escalation of war in the Middle East and against Russia. If it fails, it will strengthen Trump and call into question whether he can be removed at all. To the extent that opposition is channeled behind the Democrats, it will allow Trump to cloak his reactionary policies behind the absurd pretense of opposition to war and defense of democratic rights.

The working class cannot allow itself to be directed behind either faction of the ruling class. No outcome to the conflict as it presently exists can lead to anything other than war and dictatorship.

The only legitimate basis for a fight against Trump is the development of the class struggle.

In its statement published more than two years ago, “Palace Coup or Class Struggle: The political crisis in Washington and the strategy of the working class,” the World Socialist Web Site wrote that, alongside the conflict within the ruling elite, “an altogether different conflict is developing—between the ruling class and the working class, the broad mass of the population, which is suffering various forms of social distress and is completely excluded from political life… The decades-long suppression of the class struggle by the trade union bureaucracy, the Democratic Party and the affluent sponsors of various forms of identity politics is coming to an end.”

This prognosis has proven to be correct. Last year saw the eruption of teachers’ strikes in the US, in many cases independently of and in opposition to the trade unions. These walkouts were part of a wave of working class struggles internationally. Now, with the strike by nearly 50,000 GM autoworkers, the class struggle has expanded to one of the most important sections of the industrial working class.

The urgent task is to develop within the working class a revolutionary leadership, conscious that a resolution to the great issues confronting workers throughout the world—extreme social inequality; the unrelenting attack on jobs, wages and benefits; the danger of world war; the turn by the ruling class toward authoritarian forms of rule—requires a fight against the capitalist system.

General Electric freezes pension benefits for over 20,000 employees

Jacob Crosse

General Electric (GE) executives, at the behest of voracious shareholders and Wall Street hedge fund managers, announced Monday that they had made the “difficult decision” to freeze the pension benefits belonging to 20,000 GE employees beginning January 1, 2021.

In little more than year, an additional 700 employees will also have their supplementary pension benefits frozen, while 100,000 employees, who have yet to start receiving any benefits but would eventually be eligible will be offered a one-time lump sum payment in lieu of any future benefits.

This craven maneuver is expected to save the multinational conglomerate between $4 and $6 billion in net debt, while reducing future pension benefits by a further $5 to $8 billion. This enormous sum however is not nearly enough for the vampires on the trading floor or the executives running the company. Current CEO Larry Culp has previously stated his intentions to slash nearly $25 billion in GE's debt. Pension obligations, which GE has purposefully and criminally underfunded for decades, accounts for nearly half of the multinational conglomerate’s $54 billion debt.

GE worker inspecting F-class gas turbine in Greenville

In a prepared statement, GE Chief Human Resources Officer Kevin Cox didn’t specify that his or any other executives’ benefits and compensation would be affected by the announced freeze. Instead the burden of returning GE to a more “favorable market position”—GE’s stock has fallen in value more than 32 percent over the last 12 months—would unwillingly fall on rank and file workers. The executive went on to state that “returning GE to a position of strength has required us to make several difficult decisions, and today’s decision to freeze the pension is no exception.”

According to the website Glassdoor.com the salary of an average General Electric executive is $200,602 in base pay with an average yearly additional cash bonus of $41,785. In total, Glassdoor estimates that the average GE executive could expect to “earn” $260,749 in yearly compensation in 2018. This is over six times as much as the estimated $47,060 median wage of a US worker according the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the first half of 2019.

The “freezing” of a pension plan usually precedes the outright termination of the plan or benefit. As of 2012 GE has not offered a defined pension plan to any new employee. Current retirees receiving benefits will not be affected, for now. However, future benefits may be terminated at any time by the company.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) in the United States is severely underfunded and would be the last and only recourse for the thousands of American General Electric workers and retirees who are currently, or are slated to receive some form of earned pension benefits in the future.

The new plan that GE workers have access to will be a 401(k) plan. The main difference between a typical pension and the now ubiquitous 401(k) is that while an employer may match contributions up to a certain percent of a worker's paycheck towards the plan typically, the worker is not guaranteed a base level of payments upon retirement. That is because 401(k) contributions are invested into various stocks and bonds that may not exist or hold value once a worker has reached the age of retirement. Companies however prefer this model as it shifts the burden of providing for retirement away from the company and onto the worker while injecting liquidity into the casino known as Wall Street.

General Electric has been a pillar of American capitalism for 127 years, posting a 2018 revenue of over $127 billion. However its profitability has tanked in recent years, posting a loss of $22.4 billion last year, while also laying off thousands of workers. GE stock has also been adversely affected by the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max, of which GE produces the engines for.

GE’s stock initially jumped 2.6 percent in pre-market trading upon news of the planned freeze, however, by the end of the trading day it eventually settled back down below 0.1 percent of its opening price, as investors and stockholders weren’t satisfied with the proposed dollar amount to be taken from workers.

Similar to the auto industry, and Sears, GE—known for producing, appliances, turbines, engines, and lighting, in addition to founding media giant NBCUniversal, which it sold to Comcast in 2013—is attempting to appease Wall Street by dismantling the conditions and benefits workers had won in previous generations of struggle by stripping away healthcare, pensions, and decent wages.

J.P. Morgan analyst Stephen Tusa, in an article published by CNBC, wrote that GE expects to announce more cuts to employee benefits in the future.

“Defender 2020”: NATO powers threaten war against Russia

Gregor Link

In the coming year, armed forces from 17 NATO states, including the US and Germany, will carry out the “Defender 2020” manoeuvres. With the largest military deployment in Europe in 25 years, the Western military alliance is preparing for a war against the nuclear power Russia, which in turn is conducting its own massive military manoeuvres.

As the German defence ministry told the parliamentary defence committee last week, the US military will be transferring a full division to Poland and the Baltic between April and May next year. A total of 37,000 soldiers will participate, up to 20,000 of them being brought across the Atlantic from the US along with tanks and military equipment.

The aim of the “exercise” is to rehearse a “rapid deployment of larger units across the Atlantic and through Europe” to “ensure that the appropriate procedures work in a crisis situation.” The “linchpin” of the mobilization of the US armed forces will be Germany and its Bundeswehr (armed forces).

As the newspaper Die Welt states, referring to the letter from the defence ministry, Germany has an “essential interest” in “proving” its “central role” in the transatlantic military alliance. The German army, according to the paper, will participate in the manoeuvres in the areas of “combat” and “combat support” and play a key role in the “leadership” of American troops. As part of its role as a logistical “hub” and NATO transit country, Germany will establish three so-called convoy support centres for the marching columns, as well as a tank facility at the Bergen military training area on the Lüneburg Heath.

The responsible US military brass, who in their publications have blithely compared the manoeuvres with the D-Day invasion of Europe, regard it as an important practical step in their increasing military and strategic cooperation with Poland.

As early as June of this year, a defence agreement between President Donald Trump and Polish President Andrzej Duda had created the logistical conditions for such a massive deployment of troops. These include a “forward-facing” division headquarters, an air force base, a combat training centre, and other supporting infrastructure. The agreement also included the reinforcement of US troops in Poland to nearly 6,000 and the deployment of a squadron of “Reaper” MQ-9 drones.

Despite growing transatlantic conflicts, the German government is leading the way in the war against Russia. German imperialism is pursuing its own military interests. Berlin sees the exercise as an opportunity to ensure the operational ability of Germany’s Joint Support Enabling Command (JSEC) in Ulm, thereby coming closer to its claim to be Europe’s leading military power.

According to the German defence ministry, the tasks of the NATO command post established last year include the coordination of European troop movements and materiel transports in the event of a “critical development towards an impending confrontation with an equal opponent,” i.e., the outbreak of another great war in Europe.

In order to be able to “perform” optimally at the time of such a “maximum level of effort,” the JSEC writes in its task description, “tasks are already to be fulfilled in peace-time.” In the journal InfoBrief Heer published by the Förderkreis Deutsches Heer (FKH), a think tank promoting the interests of the German military, it says, “the involvement of the JSEC ... in the US exercise Defender” serves the “preparation” of the command for “complete operational capability.”

Washington green lights Turkish attack on Kurdish forces in Syria

Alex Lantier & Ulaş Atesci

On Sunday night, in a major shift in US war policy, the White House gave a green light for a Turkish invasion of northern Syria. In doing so, it has abandoned to their fate Kurdish nationalist militias that have fought since 2015 as Washington’s main proxy force in the NATO war in Syria, and which the Turkish government denounces as terrorists to be bloodily suppressed.

After Trump called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the White House issued a statement at 11 p.m. Sunday declaring: “Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria. The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial ‘Caliphate,’ will no longer be in the immediate area.”

Yesterday, as US troops withdrew from positions along the Turkish-Syrian border, Erdoğan said the Turkish attack could begin any time. “We made a decision," he declared. "We said, ‘one night we could come suddenly.’ We continue with our determination... It is absolutely out of the question for us to further tolerate the threats from these terrorist groups.”

Turkish armored vehicles patrol as they conduct a joint ground patrol with American forces in the so-called "safe zone" on the Syrian side of the border with Turkey, near the town of Tal Abyad, northeastern Syria, Friday, Oct.4, 2019.

With US approval, the Turkish government is preparing a bloodbath against Kurdish forces in Syria. Washington and Ankara have agreed that Turkish troops are to control a zone in northern Syria 30 kilometers deep, along 480 km of the Turkish-Syrian border (19 miles by 300 miles). Ankara plans to forcibly resettle in this zone 1 to 2 million of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees who fled to Turkey during the eight-year NATO proxy war in Syria, and has threatened to pursue its offensive outside this zone if necessary.

US troops are reportedly withdrawing from a 100 km stretch of the border from Tal Abyad to Ras al-Ain to allow Turkish troops to attack through this gap. However, the BBC reported that in light of Ankara’s threats of a broader invasion, “British and American special forces have for months been making preparations for a partial or full withdrawal from the area if the situation escalates.”

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia called on Kurds to “defend our homeland from Turkish aggression,” pledging “all-out war along the entire border.” SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel denounced the White House statement as a betrayal: “The statement was a surprise, and we can say that it is a stab in the back for the SDF.”

The SDF, which has only 60,000 fighters against the Turkish army’s 402,000 heavily-armed active personnel, added that it had received “assurances from the US that it would not allow any Turkish military operations against the region.”

In fact, having built up and armed the SDF for its regime change war in Syria, Washington is now coordinating closely with Ankara the crushing and massacring of its Kurdish “allies.” In a barrage of tweets commenting on his decision yesterday, Trump made clear that he intended to have the final say on what Turkish troops attacking Kurdish militias could and could not do.

Trump wrote, “As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over the captured ISIS fighters and families. The US has done far more than anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100 percent of the ISIS Caliphate.”

A US-backed Turkish invasion of Syria to massacre Kurdish forces would be a horrific crime and a major escalation of violence in a region bled white by decades of imperialist occupations and proxy wars, from the first US-led war against Iraq in 1991 to the NATO wars in Libya and Syria launched in 2011. It comes only months after Trump called off air strikes on Iran 10 minutes before they were to proceed as retaliation for Iranian forces downing a US drone in their airspace.

With Iran and Russia already involved in Syria to back President Bashar al-Assad’s regime against NATO-backed proxy militias, the longer-term danger of military escalation to direct conflict between major world powers is posed. The Syrian government has repeatedly denounced Turkish plans to invade and occupy Syrian sovereign territory. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif also criticized the Turkish plans, declaring, “Security cannot be created through military action against Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”

Moscow signaled, however, that for now it intends to collaborate with Ankara, even if the Turkish Army invades Syria to crush the Kurds. Claiming that Turkey and Russia have a common position on Syrian territorial integrity, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov blandly declared, “We hope that our Turkish colleagues would stick to this position in all situations.”

Bone-crushing labor prevails across the American meatpacking industry

Brian Brown

One hundred and thirteen years have passed since Upton Sinclair wrote about the practice of abuse and exploitation of workers in Chicago’s meat packing industry in The Jungle. Much of what was written then about abuse and exploitation still rings true in present day America.

While the meatpacking industry has historically been a dirty and dangerous occupation, taking workers lives and limbs, a dangerous job will become a lot worse with the Trump administration pushing a further deregulation.

In a drive to ensure profits are maximized regardless of the result to the broad majority of workers, the United States Department of Agriculture has declared that the meat packing giants are essentially capable of regulating themselves. The changes will translate to an already poorly regulated industry being allowed to input more dangerous and drastic increases in line speeds and a reduction of safety inspections.

A new rule which went into effect in September reduces the number of inspectors required at pork plants and also removes a cap on the line speeds. According to a report produced by the National Employment Law Project, “the new rule would remove 40 percent of government food safety inspectors from the pig slaughter plants, turning the task over to plant operators with no required training, and allow plants to aggressively increase their already breakneck line speeds to process more hogs per hour and increase profits.”

The Trump administration, by removing limits on line speeds, is throwing workers into a literal meat grinder, guaranteeing that more workers will sacrifice their health and safety to benefit the profit interests of corporate management. “We’ve already gone from the line of exhaustion to the line of pain…” a poultry worker told a Human Rights Watch investigator, “When we’re dead and buried, our bones will keep hurting.”

While shoppers are often reassured of the purportedly humane treatment of animals processed for consumption, they are not made aware that the workers who produce the meat are treated daily with the utmost disrespect, forced to work in unsafe, inhumane conditions which lead to serious injuries and death.

The women and men who do the killing, deboning, cutting and packing in the American meat industry are white, black, Hispanic, young and old, native born and immigrant. They are all paid poverty wages—workers in the meat packing industry earn on average $23,800 per year or just $11.44 per hour—operating under the high pressure of line speed, wielding sharp knives with numbing repetition.

A slaughterer or meat packer can get salaries ranging between $16,000 and $24,000 depending on experience. Slaughterers and meat packers will most likely earn a pay level of $24,100 yearly.

When compared to the revenues of the largest meat and poultry companies, it becomes evident workers are being massively exploited. Tyson Foods reported revenue around $40 billion for 2018, Cargill raked in as much as $114 billion and Smithfield reported receiving more than $14 billion.

Meat packers have some of the highest rates of occupational injury and illness in the United States. Workers recently interviewed by HRW for the organization’s latest review of the American meat-packing industry reported shared experiences of serious injury or illness caused by their work.

The United Nations Human Rights Report found that “together poultry slaughter and processing companies reported more severe injuries to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) than, construction workers, sawmill workers, and oil and gas workers.” OSHA data shows that a worker in the meat and poultry industry lost a body part or was sent to the hospital for in-patient treatment about every other day between 2015 and 2018.

Workers in the meat and poultry industry work in environments where workspaces are refrigerator-cold or excessively hot, cramped, coated with grease and blood; saturated with the smell of dead animals and overpowering chemicals. “Everyone who goes to the plant is risking their lives every day,” Monica R., a worker at a Smithfield-owned hog plant told HRW, “you come home and give thanks to God because we don’t know when we’re going to get hurt.”