Thomas Gaist
Egyptian security forces killed at least 18 demonstrators and wounded
at least 80 more Sunday as protests rocked Cairo, Giza, Kafr al-Sheikh
and Menya.
Security forces carried out mass arrests, detaining at
least 134 demonstrators, according to statement by the Minister of the
Interior, and deployed liberal amounts of tear gas and “birdshot.”
Demonstrators shouted slogans calling for a new revolution and the end
of the military junta that seized power during the summer of 2013.
Heavily
armed police and military Special Forces teams as well as undercover
agents dressed in civilian clothes fired on protestors sporadically
throughout the day, and gunfire could be heard well into the night,
according to eyewitnesses cited by Reuters. Military vehicles continued
to sweep the city as night fell. A number of government buildings were
set ablaze by groups of protestors, according to state media.
The
apparent murder Saturday of 32-year-old Shaimaa el-Sabagh as she marched
in a demonstration commemorating the nearly 900 Egyptians killed during
the mass struggles of 2011 has poured fuel on simmering popular hatred
of the military dictatorship headed by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Video
footage shows commando-style security forces aiming rifles at el-Sabagh
moments before she was killed by gunshots to her face and back.
The
US-backed al-Sisi regime has responded to the protests with police
state measures, imposing fortified checkpoints and dispatching heavily
armed patrols across the capital. Top security officials justified the
measures by claiming that scores of roadside bombs were found around the
capital during the weekend.
Martial law measures imposed by the
military in Sinai, including a strictly enforced curfew, will continue
for at least another three months, the government announced Sunday.
Since
the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood government in 2013, the
military regime has sought to suppress the struggles of the Egyptian
workers through military-police terror. After banning public protests,
it has violently repressed attempts to defy the ban, slaughtering dozens
during demonstrations last year commemorating the third anniversary of
the 2011 uprising.
The government handed down death sentences to
more than 1,400 political prisoners in 2014, while imprisoning tens of
thousands more in secret prisons and torture centers.
Repression
in Egypt has been applauded by international investors and by the major
imperialist powers. Among the measures implemented by the regime on
behalf of big business and foreign capital was a steep cut to fuel
subsidies. Al-Sisi and his top officers are now especially concerned
about the impact of continued turmoil on an upcoming international
investors symposium to be held in March.
Islamist parties
including the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) participated in Sunday’s
demonstrations, reportedly spreading the slogan that they are “reviving
the revolution.” The MB, however, has already demonstrated its hostility
to the working class in Egypt and throughout the Middle East. During
the government of Mohamed Mursi, the MB supported US and Israeli
military operations in the region and planned to impose austerity
measures in league with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The
release from prison of Hosni Mubarak’s two sons, scheduled for next
week, has been delayed, according to Egyptian media reports published
Sunday. The brothers are charged with embezzling millions of dollars in
state funds.
The Mubarak brothers, who are appealing a four-year
prison sentence handed down in May, were due for release under laws
limiting the length of pretrial detention. It appears likely that the
decision to delay their release was taken to avoid a further political
provocation. Nonetheless, it is safe to assume that the al-Sisi regime
plans to secure the brothers’ acquittal, as it has done for the former
dictator himself. Hosni Mubarak received only a three-year sentence in
the same case, which was overturned by the Egyptian Supreme Court
earlier this month.
Mubarak was already cleared last November of
murder charges in relation to the nearly 900 civilians killed by his
security forces during the revolutionary struggles of 2011. He may be
released at any time from the elite military hospital where he is
currently held.
26 Jan 2015
Imperialist mourning for King Abdullah
Patrick Martin
In its disgusting fawning and hypocrisy, little could top the outpouring of praise from the major imperialist powers in response to the death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who died Friday at age 90.
Tributes have poured in from governments around the world. In London, the British government flew flags at half-mast at government buildings and at Buckingham Palace, prior to a trip by Prince Charles and Prime Minister David Cameron to Saudi Arabia over the weekend.
As for the US, the Obama administration announced that it was upending the travel plans of the president, currently in India, to make a special trip to Riyadh to visit Abdullah’s successor, his 79-year-old half-brother, Salman. The White House issued a statement noting the “genuine and warm friendship” between President Obama and the departed monarch.
It is perhaps a fitting expression of the nature of the government he will rule that Salman, the sixth of the sons of Ibn Saud, founder of the semi-feudal regime, is reportedly afflicted with Alzheimer’s. Simon Henderson, director of the Gulf and Energy Policy Program at the Washington Institute on Near East Policy, wrote last month, “Salman’s brain is evidently ravaged by dementia. Visitors report that after a few minutes of conversation, he becomes incoherent.”
It is, of course, possible for a ruler of such diminished capacity to occupy a figurehead role for a significant length of time, as Ronald Reagan did throughout most of his presidency. But these reports make it clear why it was all-important, in the view of the White House, Pentagon and State Department, that the new king’s first action was to confirm as his successor and crown prince the youngest son of Ibn Saud, Prince Muqrin, age 69.
Even more critical, from the standpoint of American imperialism, was the designation of Prince Mohammed ibn Nayef, the interior minister, as deputy crown prince and presumed successor to Muqrin. At age 55, the prince is the first potential occupant of the throne chosen from the generation of grandchildren of Ibn Saud. As chief of Saudi Arabia’s antiterrorism operations, he has worked closely with the American CIA and Pentagon. The Wall Street Journal noted in a column, “Prince Mohammed was long seen as Washington’s preferred candidate among the younger princes who aspired to be king.”
The close collaboration between Washington and the Saudi regime speaks volumes about the nature of American intervention in the Middle East. Despite claims by countless administrations that US foreign policy promotes democracy, American imperialism has long relied on the most reactionary and oppressive regime in the Middle East. For 70 years, there has been an agreement that the US will back the Saudi monarchy, arming it to the teeth against both domestic and external threats, in return for Saudi oil supplies and Saudi backing to US foreign policy generally.
While for more than a decade US administrations have embraced the “war on terror,” now described by the Obama administration as the “struggle against violent extremism,” the basis of American foreign policy in the Middle East has been an alliance with a state that espouses Islamic fundamentalism and finances and arms right-wing Islamic fundamentalist groups throughout the region.
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration and Saudi Arabia jointly sponsored the Afghan mujaheddin, the guerrilla force of Islamic fundamentalists recruited by the CIA and sanctioned and paid for by Saudi Arabia, to fight the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. The US-Saudi collaboration in Afghanistan gave rise to Al Qaeda, headed by Osama bin Laden, son of a construction magnate made wealthy by his contracts in Saudi Arabia. Saudi money—including some from the monarchy itself—financed the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, and 15 of the 19 suicide hijackers were Saudis.
But the Bush administration whitewashed these connections, first invading Afghanistan, then fabricating a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 in order to justify its criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. While the Saudis offered verbal opposition to the US intervention, (because they regarded Saddam Hussein as a bulwark against Iran), the US military had full access to Saudi bases to carry out military and intelligence operations during the war.
More recently, Saudi Arabia backed the US-NATO war against Libya and intervened heavily within Syria as part of the US-orchestrated campaign to destabilize the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which is allied with Iran, the Saudis’ main regional rival.
The US-Saudi alliance has been an unmitigated disaster for the people of the Middle East. Iraq, Syria, Libya and now Yemen, on Saudi Arabia’s southern border, have been destroyed as functioning societies, devastated by military onslaught (either directly, as in Iraq and Libya, indirectly as in Syria, or remotely, via drone missiles, as in Yemen).
Saudi military forces invaded the sheikdom of Bahrain—the headquarters for US naval operations in the Persian Gulf—to suppress popular opposition to the ruling family. In 2013, Washington and Riyadh backed the coup of General al-Sisi in Egypt and the reimposition of military dictatorship on the most populous Arab state.
In Syria, Saudi dollars and Saudi-supplied American weapons helped fuel the rise of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), leading to last summer’s debacle, when ISIS fighters conquered most of western Iraq, including the country’s second-largest city, Mosul. Now Saudi pilots have joined in the US-led bombing campaign in Syria, the forerunner of a much broader and bloodier conflict.
The latest example of US-Saudi collaboration is the Saudi-led decision by OPEC to reject any reduction in oil production as prices have plunged. This action is aimed at bankrupting Iran and Russia, the two main allies of Assad in Syria, by slashing the oil export revenues on which the governments of both countries depend.
This is something of a double-edged sword, however. In the US, the oil price plunge has devastated the fracking industry and begun to create mass unemployment in Texas, North Dakota and other states. In Saudi Arabia, the drop in oil prices has put a hole of nearly $40 billion in the national budget, forcing it to draw down international reserves.
Both poverty and unemployment are spreading in the country, despite its oil wealth. A recently cited CIA country study estimated that 506,000 young people will enter the job market in Saudi Arabia in 2015, where more than half the population of 27 million is under 25 years of age. Given that only 1.7 million out of the 8.4 million wage earners in Saudi Arabia are actually Saudi citizens—the vast majority are immigrants—the regime faces what one imperialist strategist described as “an incredible challenge in terms of internal stability.”
The most reactionary force in the region—the Saudi monarchy—is aligned with the most reactionary force on the planet—US imperialism. The result is a noxious combination of economic convulsions, widening sectarian and tribal conflicts, and escalating imperialist military intervention.
In its disgusting fawning and hypocrisy, little could top the outpouring of praise from the major imperialist powers in response to the death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who died Friday at age 90.
Tributes have poured in from governments around the world. In London, the British government flew flags at half-mast at government buildings and at Buckingham Palace, prior to a trip by Prince Charles and Prime Minister David Cameron to Saudi Arabia over the weekend.
As for the US, the Obama administration announced that it was upending the travel plans of the president, currently in India, to make a special trip to Riyadh to visit Abdullah’s successor, his 79-year-old half-brother, Salman. The White House issued a statement noting the “genuine and warm friendship” between President Obama and the departed monarch.
It is perhaps a fitting expression of the nature of the government he will rule that Salman, the sixth of the sons of Ibn Saud, founder of the semi-feudal regime, is reportedly afflicted with Alzheimer’s. Simon Henderson, director of the Gulf and Energy Policy Program at the Washington Institute on Near East Policy, wrote last month, “Salman’s brain is evidently ravaged by dementia. Visitors report that after a few minutes of conversation, he becomes incoherent.”
It is, of course, possible for a ruler of such diminished capacity to occupy a figurehead role for a significant length of time, as Ronald Reagan did throughout most of his presidency. But these reports make it clear why it was all-important, in the view of the White House, Pentagon and State Department, that the new king’s first action was to confirm as his successor and crown prince the youngest son of Ibn Saud, Prince Muqrin, age 69.
Even more critical, from the standpoint of American imperialism, was the designation of Prince Mohammed ibn Nayef, the interior minister, as deputy crown prince and presumed successor to Muqrin. At age 55, the prince is the first potential occupant of the throne chosen from the generation of grandchildren of Ibn Saud. As chief of Saudi Arabia’s antiterrorism operations, he has worked closely with the American CIA and Pentagon. The Wall Street Journal noted in a column, “Prince Mohammed was long seen as Washington’s preferred candidate among the younger princes who aspired to be king.”
The close collaboration between Washington and the Saudi regime speaks volumes about the nature of American intervention in the Middle East. Despite claims by countless administrations that US foreign policy promotes democracy, American imperialism has long relied on the most reactionary and oppressive regime in the Middle East. For 70 years, there has been an agreement that the US will back the Saudi monarchy, arming it to the teeth against both domestic and external threats, in return for Saudi oil supplies and Saudi backing to US foreign policy generally.
While for more than a decade US administrations have embraced the “war on terror,” now described by the Obama administration as the “struggle against violent extremism,” the basis of American foreign policy in the Middle East has been an alliance with a state that espouses Islamic fundamentalism and finances and arms right-wing Islamic fundamentalist groups throughout the region.
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration and Saudi Arabia jointly sponsored the Afghan mujaheddin, the guerrilla force of Islamic fundamentalists recruited by the CIA and sanctioned and paid for by Saudi Arabia, to fight the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. The US-Saudi collaboration in Afghanistan gave rise to Al Qaeda, headed by Osama bin Laden, son of a construction magnate made wealthy by his contracts in Saudi Arabia. Saudi money—including some from the monarchy itself—financed the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, and 15 of the 19 suicide hijackers were Saudis.
But the Bush administration whitewashed these connections, first invading Afghanistan, then fabricating a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 in order to justify its criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. While the Saudis offered verbal opposition to the US intervention, (because they regarded Saddam Hussein as a bulwark against Iran), the US military had full access to Saudi bases to carry out military and intelligence operations during the war.
More recently, Saudi Arabia backed the US-NATO war against Libya and intervened heavily within Syria as part of the US-orchestrated campaign to destabilize the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which is allied with Iran, the Saudis’ main regional rival.
The US-Saudi alliance has been an unmitigated disaster for the people of the Middle East. Iraq, Syria, Libya and now Yemen, on Saudi Arabia’s southern border, have been destroyed as functioning societies, devastated by military onslaught (either directly, as in Iraq and Libya, indirectly as in Syria, or remotely, via drone missiles, as in Yemen).
Saudi military forces invaded the sheikdom of Bahrain—the headquarters for US naval operations in the Persian Gulf—to suppress popular opposition to the ruling family. In 2013, Washington and Riyadh backed the coup of General al-Sisi in Egypt and the reimposition of military dictatorship on the most populous Arab state.
In Syria, Saudi dollars and Saudi-supplied American weapons helped fuel the rise of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), leading to last summer’s debacle, when ISIS fighters conquered most of western Iraq, including the country’s second-largest city, Mosul. Now Saudi pilots have joined in the US-led bombing campaign in Syria, the forerunner of a much broader and bloodier conflict.
The latest example of US-Saudi collaboration is the Saudi-led decision by OPEC to reject any reduction in oil production as prices have plunged. This action is aimed at bankrupting Iran and Russia, the two main allies of Assad in Syria, by slashing the oil export revenues on which the governments of both countries depend.
This is something of a double-edged sword, however. In the US, the oil price plunge has devastated the fracking industry and begun to create mass unemployment in Texas, North Dakota and other states. In Saudi Arabia, the drop in oil prices has put a hole of nearly $40 billion in the national budget, forcing it to draw down international reserves.
Both poverty and unemployment are spreading in the country, despite its oil wealth. A recently cited CIA country study estimated that 506,000 young people will enter the job market in Saudi Arabia in 2015, where more than half the population of 27 million is under 25 years of age. Given that only 1.7 million out of the 8.4 million wage earners in Saudi Arabia are actually Saudi citizens—the vast majority are immigrants—the regime faces what one imperialist strategist described as “an incredible challenge in terms of internal stability.”
The most reactionary force in the region—the Saudi monarchy—is aligned with the most reactionary force on the planet—US imperialism. The result is a noxious combination of economic convulsions, widening sectarian and tribal conflicts, and escalating imperialist military intervention.
Syriza wins Greek elections
Alex Lantier
In a broad electoral repudiation of the policies of the European Union (EU) and the outgoing government of conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) took first place in legislative elections yesterday in Greece.
According to initial projections by the Greek Interior Ministry, Syriza won 36.34 percent of the vote, more than projected and far surpassing Samaras’s New Democracy (ND) party’s 27.84 percent. Thanks to the 50-seat bonus given to the party with the largest number of votes, Syriza is expected to have 149 seats in parliament compared to ND’s 76. This is two short of the 151 needed for an absolute majority in the 300-seat parliament, so it appears Syriza will have to look for partners to form a governmental coalition.
The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party is projected to take third with 6.30 percent of the vote (17 seats), the To Potami (River) party 6.03 percent (16 seats) and the Stalinist Greek Communist Party (KKE) 5.47 percent (15 seats). The social-democratic PASOK got only 4.72 percent (13 seats) and the Independent Greeks, a split-off of ND, 4.68 percent (13 seats).
Voters at the polls denounced EU austerity policies, which have led to economic collapse on a scale unseen in Europe since the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. Since 2009, job and budget cuts have thrown millions of Greeks into unemployment, deprived them of health care, cut Greece’s economic output by 25 percent and wages even further, and pushed youth unemployment to 60 percent.
The electoral repudiation of the Greek capitalist class’s traditional parties of rule, PASOK and ND, reflects mass outrage with austerity dictated by the banks. However, Syriza is a bourgeois party that is committed to the EU, the euro and the defense of capitalism. While it has made a few vague promises about improving Greek life, it has been engaged in intense discussion behind the scenes aimed at reaching an accommodation with the European banks.
In a victory speech delivered at Athens University, Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras said he would find a “new viable solution” for Greece and Europe. “The troika, that is the past,” Tsipras said, referring to the EU, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which together arranged austerity policies with governments in Athens.
However, Tsipras promptly promised to work with Greece’s lenders, the most important of which are the agencies making up the “troika.” He said that the Greek government would be “ready to negotiate with our lenders a mutually acceptable solution” and would “prove all Cassandras wrong. There will be no conflict with partners.”
These comments echoed previous pledges that a Syriza government would “maintain a balanced budget, and will commit to quantitative targets.”
Tsipras’s main aim is to make some sort of deal with the banks of Europe, including a revision of the terms of the repayment of Greek debt. Indeed, there are sections of the ruling class in the United States and Europe that are concerned that such a revision is necessary in order to ensure that Greek bonds can be repaid.
Officials in Germany, which has led the campaign against any let-up in austerity measures, stressed that there should be no abatement in the attack on Greek workers. Jens Weidmann, the president of the Bundesbank, Germany’s powerful central bank, insisted that the Greek government should not “make promises that the country cannot afford.”
All discussions over the course of policy are taking place within the framework of defending capitalism in Greece and throughout Europe. At most, Tsipras is hoping for some concession that he can hail as a victory in order to bide time and prepare a further attack on the working class.
The main challenge facing the working class in Greece and internationally is to grasp the full dimensions of the political struggle opening up before it. In a Syriza government, workers face a determined enemy. Even Syriza’s own Thessaloniki program, from which it is preparing to beat a hasty retreat in talks with its European “partners,” pledged only 2 billion euros in new social spending, whereas the EU has cut over 60 billion euros from Greek budgets since 2009.
In the run-up to the elections, Syriza officials were busy behind the scenes reassuring journalists, economists and politicians that an election victory posed no danger to the banks. European news site EurActiv wrote: “Key to Syriza’s ascent, party officials say privately, is a calculated effort to moderate the radical leftist rhetoric that prompted Der Spiegel to name Tsipras among the most dangerous men in Europe in 2012.”
Former Syriza leader Alekos Alavanos stressed that the party would pose no threat to the banks in an interview with the Financial Times of London two days ago. “Even Mr Tsipras’ predecessor as Syriza chief, Alekos Alavanos, questions whether the party’s rhetoric matches its intentions,” the FT concluded, citing Alavanos’s remark that Syriza “now is a moderate party.”
Economist Jean-Marc Daniel reassured France’s 20 Minutes that Syriza would do no long-term harm to the stock portfolios of the affluent and the super-rich. “The stock market does not usually like the beginning of ‘left’ governments, but it picks up gradually as they abandon their program. What is most striking about Alexis Tsipras, is that he is already diluting his program,” Daniel said.
If representatives of finance capital state so openly and with such confidence that Syriza is no threat to them, this is because Syriza has been thoroughly vetted by the banks and intelligence agencies. Since Syriza emerged as a major electoral force in Greece in 2012, Tsipras has met publicly with the Greek army and repeatedly traveled to the major capitals of the euro zone and to Washington—after declaring himself an admirer of President Barack Obama’s economic policies.
No solution to the crisis facing the Greek working class can be found within the framework of the pro-capitalist and nationalist program of Syriza. What is required is the building of an independent political movement of the working class, based on an internationalist and socialist perspective.
In a broad electoral repudiation of the policies of the European Union (EU) and the outgoing government of conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) took first place in legislative elections yesterday in Greece.
According to initial projections by the Greek Interior Ministry, Syriza won 36.34 percent of the vote, more than projected and far surpassing Samaras’s New Democracy (ND) party’s 27.84 percent. Thanks to the 50-seat bonus given to the party with the largest number of votes, Syriza is expected to have 149 seats in parliament compared to ND’s 76. This is two short of the 151 needed for an absolute majority in the 300-seat parliament, so it appears Syriza will have to look for partners to form a governmental coalition.
The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party is projected to take third with 6.30 percent of the vote (17 seats), the To Potami (River) party 6.03 percent (16 seats) and the Stalinist Greek Communist Party (KKE) 5.47 percent (15 seats). The social-democratic PASOK got only 4.72 percent (13 seats) and the Independent Greeks, a split-off of ND, 4.68 percent (13 seats).
Voters at the polls denounced EU austerity policies, which have led to economic collapse on a scale unseen in Europe since the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. Since 2009, job and budget cuts have thrown millions of Greeks into unemployment, deprived them of health care, cut Greece’s economic output by 25 percent and wages even further, and pushed youth unemployment to 60 percent.
The electoral repudiation of the Greek capitalist class’s traditional parties of rule, PASOK and ND, reflects mass outrage with austerity dictated by the banks. However, Syriza is a bourgeois party that is committed to the EU, the euro and the defense of capitalism. While it has made a few vague promises about improving Greek life, it has been engaged in intense discussion behind the scenes aimed at reaching an accommodation with the European banks.
In a victory speech delivered at Athens University, Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras said he would find a “new viable solution” for Greece and Europe. “The troika, that is the past,” Tsipras said, referring to the EU, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which together arranged austerity policies with governments in Athens.
However, Tsipras promptly promised to work with Greece’s lenders, the most important of which are the agencies making up the “troika.” He said that the Greek government would be “ready to negotiate with our lenders a mutually acceptable solution” and would “prove all Cassandras wrong. There will be no conflict with partners.”
These comments echoed previous pledges that a Syriza government would “maintain a balanced budget, and will commit to quantitative targets.”
Tsipras’s main aim is to make some sort of deal with the banks of Europe, including a revision of the terms of the repayment of Greek debt. Indeed, there are sections of the ruling class in the United States and Europe that are concerned that such a revision is necessary in order to ensure that Greek bonds can be repaid.
Officials in Germany, which has led the campaign against any let-up in austerity measures, stressed that there should be no abatement in the attack on Greek workers. Jens Weidmann, the president of the Bundesbank, Germany’s powerful central bank, insisted that the Greek government should not “make promises that the country cannot afford.”
All discussions over the course of policy are taking place within the framework of defending capitalism in Greece and throughout Europe. At most, Tsipras is hoping for some concession that he can hail as a victory in order to bide time and prepare a further attack on the working class.
The main challenge facing the working class in Greece and internationally is to grasp the full dimensions of the political struggle opening up before it. In a Syriza government, workers face a determined enemy. Even Syriza’s own Thessaloniki program, from which it is preparing to beat a hasty retreat in talks with its European “partners,” pledged only 2 billion euros in new social spending, whereas the EU has cut over 60 billion euros from Greek budgets since 2009.
In the run-up to the elections, Syriza officials were busy behind the scenes reassuring journalists, economists and politicians that an election victory posed no danger to the banks. European news site EurActiv wrote: “Key to Syriza’s ascent, party officials say privately, is a calculated effort to moderate the radical leftist rhetoric that prompted Der Spiegel to name Tsipras among the most dangerous men in Europe in 2012.”
Former Syriza leader Alekos Alavanos stressed that the party would pose no threat to the banks in an interview with the Financial Times of London two days ago. “Even Mr Tsipras’ predecessor as Syriza chief, Alekos Alavanos, questions whether the party’s rhetoric matches its intentions,” the FT concluded, citing Alavanos’s remark that Syriza “now is a moderate party.”
Economist Jean-Marc Daniel reassured France’s 20 Minutes that Syriza would do no long-term harm to the stock portfolios of the affluent and the super-rich. “The stock market does not usually like the beginning of ‘left’ governments, but it picks up gradually as they abandon their program. What is most striking about Alexis Tsipras, is that he is already diluting his program,” Daniel said.
If representatives of finance capital state so openly and with such confidence that Syriza is no threat to them, this is because Syriza has been thoroughly vetted by the banks and intelligence agencies. Since Syriza emerged as a major electoral force in Greece in 2012, Tsipras has met publicly with the Greek army and repeatedly traveled to the major capitals of the euro zone and to Washington—after declaring himself an admirer of President Barack Obama’s economic policies.
No solution to the crisis facing the Greek working class can be found within the framework of the pro-capitalist and nationalist program of Syriza. What is required is the building of an independent political movement of the working class, based on an internationalist and socialist perspective.
19 Jan 2015
Australia & India: A New Era in Defence Cooperation?
Stephen Westcott
Following a particularly productive year in Indo-Australian relations that saw great strides most notably in defence cooperation, it is timely to reflect upon the events and ask two key questions: what is the status of the bilateral defence relationship entering 2015?; and what, if any, developments are likely to be seen in the coming year?
India-Australia Defence Relations: Looking Back
Since their nadir in 2008-2009, Australian-Indian relations and defence ties have markedly improved. Indeed, defence and security engagement between the two countries have steadily increased to culminate in the signing of the New Framework for Security Cooperation (NFSC) on 18 November 2014 during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bilateral visit to Australia. The NFSC combined and expanded several previous agreements and commits both countries to hold annual high-level summits, cooperate closely on counter-terrorism and international crime, hold regular bilateral maritime exercises and focus on the early operationalisation the Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation Agreement (CNECA) to assist India’s quest for energy security. Most of the statements in the lead up to and after the signing of the NFSC have shown that both sides intend to make maritime security the key pillar in the defence cooperation.
There have been plenty of false starts in the Australian-Indian defence cooperation efforts in the past. In 1998, Australia immediately suspended its defence cooperation with India after the nuclear weapons test. When the fledgling Quadrilateral Initiative in 2007 that saw Australia, India, Japan, Singapore and the US participate in a maritime exercise drew a strong hostile Chinese reaction, the newly elected centre-left Labor government publically withdrew in 2008 in a move that annoyed many Indian officials who saw it as Australia bowing to Chinese pressure.
The New Rapprochement: New Governments and Convergences
Defence ties were restored in 2009 but only moved tentatively forward until June 2013 when the Defence Ministers met in Perth, Australia, and agreed to establish bilateral maritime exercises. This rapprochement however appears to have stronger foundations than the preceding efforts and will likely endure for two key reasons.
Firstly, over the past five years governments on both sides of the political spectrum in Australia and India have been working hard to remove the key issues of contention between them, removing the likelihood of change of government producing another change of heart. Indeed, in 2009 the Labor government sought to undo the damage caused by its withdrawal in 2008 by establishing a strategic partnership with India and signing the Joint Declaration on Defence Cooperation in 2009 as well as formally dropping its opposition to uranium sales in 2012. The last major obstacle between the two countries’ relations was removed when Prime Minister Abbot signed the CNECA in September 2014 during his bilateral visit to India, thus finally clearing the way for the sale of Australian uranium to India.
Secondly, both Australian and Indian interests have been increasingly converging. Modi’s government has been keen to revamp India’s ‘Look East’ policy into an ‘Act East’ in a search for greater economic ties and also more substantial political connections. As Australia has a similar political system, is a reliable regional provider of raw resources and services needed by the Indian economy, and has a highly skilled and professional defence force, it has moved from the periphery to being comfortably within the scope of this policy. Australia for its part has been showing growing interest in the Indian Ocean, formally identifying the Indo-Pacific (as opposed to the Asia-Pacific) as the key security focus in its 2013 Defence White Paper.
Is there a China Factor?
Providing an additional, if publically unspoken, adhesive are both countries’ serious concerns about China’s incursions into the Indian Ocean, which have been growing more numerous and bolder over the years. Of particular concern has been the emergence of Chinese submarines evidently practising long-range deployments in the Indian Ocean, with the latest incident of note occurring when a Chinese nuclear submarine surfaced just off Sri Lanka in September 2014. While China has legitimate interests in safeguarding its commercial routes that pass through the Indian Ocean, India is inherently concerned about the Chinese military potentially surrounding it by land and by sea as well as eroding its’ dominance in what it has long considered its backyard. Australia likewise has been concerned by China’s aggressive posturing in the South China Sea and is particularly interested in ensuring that no nation is able to establish a maritime advantage in its’ own neighbouring waters.
Defence Ties: Looking Ahead
Heading into 2015, Australian-Indian defence ties are likely to deepen significantly, especially in the field of maritime security. The first formal bilateral maritime exercise between the two countries is scheduled to be conducted in 2015, although the exact date has yet to be published. While piracy in the Indian Ocean may be on the decline, there is also plenty of room for bilateral cooperation over other illegal maritime activities such as the prolific smuggling of people and narcotics in the region. Australia also has several state-of-the-art defence training facilities such as the Submarine Escape Facility in Western Australia that would be of definite interest to the Indian defence forces, and 2015 could see arrangements for joint training courses to be run in the near future.
Nonetheless, one should not get too ecstatic about these developments and possibilities. As the former Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith noted, “Australian Indian relations are like a Twenty-Twenty cricket match-short bursts of activity followed by lengthy periods of inactivity.” Only time will tell whether this period of engagement will peter out like those before it or finally move beyond brief flirtations and develop into a self-sustaining relationship. That being said, there is every reason to be optimistic that this time they are built on firmer foundations.
Following a particularly productive year in Indo-Australian relations that saw great strides most notably in defence cooperation, it is timely to reflect upon the events and ask two key questions: what is the status of the bilateral defence relationship entering 2015?; and what, if any, developments are likely to be seen in the coming year?
India-Australia Defence Relations: Looking Back
Since their nadir in 2008-2009, Australian-Indian relations and defence ties have markedly improved. Indeed, defence and security engagement between the two countries have steadily increased to culminate in the signing of the New Framework for Security Cooperation (NFSC) on 18 November 2014 during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bilateral visit to Australia. The NFSC combined and expanded several previous agreements and commits both countries to hold annual high-level summits, cooperate closely on counter-terrorism and international crime, hold regular bilateral maritime exercises and focus on the early operationalisation the Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation Agreement (CNECA) to assist India’s quest for energy security. Most of the statements in the lead up to and after the signing of the NFSC have shown that both sides intend to make maritime security the key pillar in the defence cooperation.
There have been plenty of false starts in the Australian-Indian defence cooperation efforts in the past. In 1998, Australia immediately suspended its defence cooperation with India after the nuclear weapons test. When the fledgling Quadrilateral Initiative in 2007 that saw Australia, India, Japan, Singapore and the US participate in a maritime exercise drew a strong hostile Chinese reaction, the newly elected centre-left Labor government publically withdrew in 2008 in a move that annoyed many Indian officials who saw it as Australia bowing to Chinese pressure.
The New Rapprochement: New Governments and Convergences
Defence ties were restored in 2009 but only moved tentatively forward until June 2013 when the Defence Ministers met in Perth, Australia, and agreed to establish bilateral maritime exercises. This rapprochement however appears to have stronger foundations than the preceding efforts and will likely endure for two key reasons.
Firstly, over the past five years governments on both sides of the political spectrum in Australia and India have been working hard to remove the key issues of contention between them, removing the likelihood of change of government producing another change of heart. Indeed, in 2009 the Labor government sought to undo the damage caused by its withdrawal in 2008 by establishing a strategic partnership with India and signing the Joint Declaration on Defence Cooperation in 2009 as well as formally dropping its opposition to uranium sales in 2012. The last major obstacle between the two countries’ relations was removed when Prime Minister Abbot signed the CNECA in September 2014 during his bilateral visit to India, thus finally clearing the way for the sale of Australian uranium to India.
Secondly, both Australian and Indian interests have been increasingly converging. Modi’s government has been keen to revamp India’s ‘Look East’ policy into an ‘Act East’ in a search for greater economic ties and also more substantial political connections. As Australia has a similar political system, is a reliable regional provider of raw resources and services needed by the Indian economy, and has a highly skilled and professional defence force, it has moved from the periphery to being comfortably within the scope of this policy. Australia for its part has been showing growing interest in the Indian Ocean, formally identifying the Indo-Pacific (as opposed to the Asia-Pacific) as the key security focus in its 2013 Defence White Paper.
Is there a China Factor?
Providing an additional, if publically unspoken, adhesive are both countries’ serious concerns about China’s incursions into the Indian Ocean, which have been growing more numerous and bolder over the years. Of particular concern has been the emergence of Chinese submarines evidently practising long-range deployments in the Indian Ocean, with the latest incident of note occurring when a Chinese nuclear submarine surfaced just off Sri Lanka in September 2014. While China has legitimate interests in safeguarding its commercial routes that pass through the Indian Ocean, India is inherently concerned about the Chinese military potentially surrounding it by land and by sea as well as eroding its’ dominance in what it has long considered its backyard. Australia likewise has been concerned by China’s aggressive posturing in the South China Sea and is particularly interested in ensuring that no nation is able to establish a maritime advantage in its’ own neighbouring waters.
Defence Ties: Looking Ahead
Heading into 2015, Australian-Indian defence ties are likely to deepen significantly, especially in the field of maritime security. The first formal bilateral maritime exercise between the two countries is scheduled to be conducted in 2015, although the exact date has yet to be published. While piracy in the Indian Ocean may be on the decline, there is also plenty of room for bilateral cooperation over other illegal maritime activities such as the prolific smuggling of people and narcotics in the region. Australia also has several state-of-the-art defence training facilities such as the Submarine Escape Facility in Western Australia that would be of definite interest to the Indian defence forces, and 2015 could see arrangements for joint training courses to be run in the near future.
Nonetheless, one should not get too ecstatic about these developments and possibilities. As the former Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith noted, “Australian Indian relations are like a Twenty-Twenty cricket match-short bursts of activity followed by lengthy periods of inactivity.” Only time will tell whether this period of engagement will peter out like those before it or finally move beyond brief flirtations and develop into a self-sustaining relationship. That being said, there is every reason to be optimistic that this time they are built on firmer foundations.
The Fall of Rajapaksa: Why Democracies Fail Strongmen
D Suba Chandran
Last January in 2014, none would have predicted the fall of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa. At that time, he was gathering momentum politically every passing day; political opposition within Sri Lanka – both inside and outside the Parliament was perhaps the weakest; and he had earlier vanquished the LTTE, the biggest threat to Sri Lankan polity until then.
There was no opposition to him; none of the leaders from the opposition party, including Ranil Wikramasinghe was confident of fighting against Rajapaksa at that time. There were no threats from any of the sub-regions in Sri Lanka – either from the east or the north politically or otherwise. There was no non-State actor that could even remotely pose a challenge to Rajapaksa. His family had by then taken absolute control over the entire State. From the Parliament to media, not many dared to question Rajapaksa and his family. In fact, he felt so strong, that he even preponed the election schedule.
And what an election it turned out to be, strengthening the very core of democratic ideals in South Asia! In retrospect, he is not the only leader in South Asia, who got elected to power democratically by the people, and further got elevated almost into a demi-god or a messiah, only to be dethroned subsequently by the same people who elected them. The list in India alone is long enough; it includes Sheikh Abdullah, Laloo Prasad Yadav, Mamta Banerjee, NT Ramarao, Jayalalitha and many others. While some like Jayalalitha have bounced back electorally, others like Laloo are still trying to float. What causes the rise and fall of these strong men and women? What makes the democracies to elect them strongly, and also make them fall?
Revenge of Minorities?For the fall of Rajapaksa, the simplest explanation provided so far is too simple to agree with. It talks about the revenge of minorities in Sri Lanka, meaning, the Sri Lankan Tamils and Muslims voted completely against Rajapaksa. Perhaps, the minorities did not vote for Rajapaksa; but the minorities in Sri Lanka put together do not constitute an electoral majority! This means, a substantial section of the Sinhala community have also voted against Rajapaksa.
Ethnically, the Sri Lankan Tamils (a section of them being Muslims) constitute less than 12 percent and the Sinhalese constitute close to 75 percent. In religious terms, the Buddhists constitute 70 percent, while the Hindus, Muslims and Christians form the rest. Revenge of minorities’ theory may not do justice to the larger aspirations and anger within Sri Lanka against Rajapaksa, his family and their naked pursuit and abuse of power.
Over Confidence and Arrogance of Rajapaksa Family?Second, perhaps Rajapaksa’s arrogance and over confidence brought his downfall. From the Airport to the rural areas, one could see huge banners of Rajapaksa, a problem afflicted with political leaders starting from South of India. The banner culture reflects a particular attitude of the political leadership, bordering megalomania. In Tamil Nadu for example, one of the previous losses that Jayalalitha suffered was attributed to this attitude.
Democratically elected leaders, in certain cases get themselves alienated from the very people who have voted them to power. When sycophants’ takeover and build a wall between the leader and people, and when the former get carried away and start listening to a self serving cabal, it is an invitation to disaster.
Added to the above problem is allowing one’s family to abuse the system. This has become a South Asian trait and a bane to democracy in the region. The “Rajapaksa brothers” have become a governance issue and even dynastic; the general perception in Sri Lanka about Rajapaksa, his brothers and wards has been highly negative – not only amongst the minority communities, but also the majority.
And what an election it turned out to be, strengthening the very core of democratic ideals in South Asia! In retrospect, he is not the only leader in South Asia, who got elected to power democratically by the people, and further got elevated almost into a demi-god or a messiah, only to be dethroned subsequently by the same people who elected them. The list in India alone is long enough; it includes Sheikh Abdullah, Laloo Prasad Yadav, Mamta Banerjee, NT Ramarao, Jayalalitha and many others. While some like Jayalalitha have bounced back electorally, others like Laloo are still trying to float. What causes the rise and fall of these strong men and women? What makes the democracies to elect them strongly, and also make them fall?
Revenge of Minorities?For the fall of Rajapaksa, the simplest explanation provided so far is too simple to agree with. It talks about the revenge of minorities in Sri Lanka, meaning, the Sri Lankan Tamils and Muslims voted completely against Rajapaksa. Perhaps, the minorities did not vote for Rajapaksa; but the minorities in Sri Lanka put together do not constitute an electoral majority! This means, a substantial section of the Sinhala community have also voted against Rajapaksa.
Ethnically, the Sri Lankan Tamils (a section of them being Muslims) constitute less than 12 percent and the Sinhalese constitute close to 75 percent. In religious terms, the Buddhists constitute 70 percent, while the Hindus, Muslims and Christians form the rest. Revenge of minorities’ theory may not do justice to the larger aspirations and anger within Sri Lanka against Rajapaksa, his family and their naked pursuit and abuse of power.
Over Confidence and Arrogance of Rajapaksa Family?Second, perhaps Rajapaksa’s arrogance and over confidence brought his downfall. From the Airport to the rural areas, one could see huge banners of Rajapaksa, a problem afflicted with political leaders starting from South of India. The banner culture reflects a particular attitude of the political leadership, bordering megalomania. In Tamil Nadu for example, one of the previous losses that Jayalalitha suffered was attributed to this attitude.
Democratically elected leaders, in certain cases get themselves alienated from the very people who have voted them to power. When sycophants’ takeover and build a wall between the leader and people, and when the former get carried away and start listening to a self serving cabal, it is an invitation to disaster.
Added to the above problem is allowing one’s family to abuse the system. This has become a South Asian trait and a bane to democracy in the region. The “Rajapaksa brothers” have become a governance issue and even dynastic; the general perception in Sri Lanka about Rajapaksa, his brothers and wards has been highly negative – not only amongst the minority communities, but also the majority.
In fact the recent Sri Lankan Presidential election concluded was not about electing a new leader. It was all about dethroning Rajapaksa and his family members. The new President Maithripala Sirisena was an unknown name, even within Sri Lanka; by no stretch of imagination, even his own family members would vouch that his popularity carried the day for him. Not many Tamils and Muslims who had voted for him in the elections had actually heard his name before or seen his photograph. Nor the UNP, the main opposition in Sri Lanka was so strong, that it factored substantially in the electoral result. It was Rajapaksa’s unpopularity that elected Sirisena.
Rajapaksa’s decision to prepone the election presumably based on the advice of an astrologer – Sumanadasa Abeygunawardena and invite a Bollywood Star – Salman Khan to campaign for him defeats all political logic. What went wrong with a towering political leader, who was shrewd enough to defeat the LTTE? At the end, it is neither star power of one’s own, or imported from Bollywood that secures the win. It is people and democracy.
Development vs Devolution vs Decentralization: It’s the Combination Stupid
Rajapaksa’s decision to prepone the election presumably based on the advice of an astrologer – Sumanadasa Abeygunawardena and invite a Bollywood Star – Salman Khan to campaign for him defeats all political logic. What went wrong with a towering political leader, who was shrewd enough to defeat the LTTE? At the end, it is neither star power of one’s own, or imported from Bollywood that secures the win. It is people and democracy.
Development vs Devolution vs Decentralization: It’s the Combination Stupid
Third, the most important issue that the democrats in South Asia should understand is relating to good governance, efficient administration and decentralized power. What makes men and women as “strong leaders” is not their charisma, but their ability to make positive use of the same to deliver goods to people. True, Rajapaksa had vanquished an enemy and won the War. True, Rajapaksa restored the road and rail networks. But development has to go along with democratic governance and political decentralization. Rajapaksa’s fall should be a big lesson to all the strong men and women in South Asia.
Despite their individual popularity and even an emphasis on developmental projects, what people need is a clean government, good governance and corruption free administration. Rajapaksa may have restored the Yal Devi, the famous and historic train service linking Jaffna with Colombo; and reopened the A-9 Highway after the Civil War and necessary demining, linking the Northern Province with the rest of Sri Lanka. But, this has not cut much ice amongst the Tamils in northern Sri Lanka. In South, Rajapaksa may have built a huge international airport in Mattala and a deep sea port in Hambantota. And a super expressway connecting the Kattunayake international airport with Colombo city. But that has not resulted in Sinhalese voting for Rajapaksa. People in north and south, cutting across ethnic divides, were expecting not just developmental projects, but good governance, devolution of powers and corruption free administration.
Unlike the predominant perception outside Sri Lanka, not all Tamils in the island are pro-LTTE. In fact, the mainstream Tamil leadership was equally targeted by the LTTE during 1980s and 1990s. There were/are genuine political grievances, which Rajapaksa ignored completely; overwhelmed with the military victory over the LTTE, he ignored the mainstream. Perhaps his advisors questioned the need to devolve political powers, after the LTTE had been militarily defeated. The 13th amendment could have been a starting point, totally sidelined unfortunately.
Despite their individual popularity and even an emphasis on developmental projects, what people need is a clean government, good governance and corruption free administration. Rajapaksa may have restored the Yal Devi, the famous and historic train service linking Jaffna with Colombo; and reopened the A-9 Highway after the Civil War and necessary demining, linking the Northern Province with the rest of Sri Lanka. But, this has not cut much ice amongst the Tamils in northern Sri Lanka. In South, Rajapaksa may have built a huge international airport in Mattala and a deep sea port in Hambantota. And a super expressway connecting the Kattunayake international airport with Colombo city. But that has not resulted in Sinhalese voting for Rajapaksa. People in north and south, cutting across ethnic divides, were expecting not just developmental projects, but good governance, devolution of powers and corruption free administration.
Unlike the predominant perception outside Sri Lanka, not all Tamils in the island are pro-LTTE. In fact, the mainstream Tamil leadership was equally targeted by the LTTE during 1980s and 1990s. There were/are genuine political grievances, which Rajapaksa ignored completely; overwhelmed with the military victory over the LTTE, he ignored the mainstream. Perhaps his advisors questioned the need to devolve political powers, after the LTTE had been militarily defeated. The 13th amendment could have been a starting point, totally sidelined unfortunately.
A substantial lesson that the big leaders have to learn in South Asian context is the need for empowerment of the regions and providing adequate space for political voices from different spectrums. Beating one’s own chest about winning the war or vanquishing an enemy will yield fewer dividends in the long run. As a political turning point becomes history, people start living in their present. Democratically elected leaders will have to understand that the people want a better future and a comfortable present and hardly have time to bask in the glory of a past, how much ever glamorous it was.
The new President today has more challenges to address. But there is enough for him to start with. The fact that the election was violence-free and there was a smooth transition underlines the fact that the democratic institutions are still intact. Perhaps, one should also credit Rajapaksa for accepting the defeat and ensuring the smooth transfer of power. Well done and congratulations Rajapaksa. Whatever may have been your flaws while in power, you have accepted its loss with so much grace. You may have missed a huge opportunity to build the nation, after the military defeat of the LTTE; but by peacefully handing over power to the next President, you have earned some credit. Perhaps, the Begums of Bangladesh have something to learn from Sri Lanka on this issue. Perhaps, the other strong men and women who have been elected by the system, should also learn from Rajapaksa’s defeat. Democracies in South Asia may elect strong leaders, but will also not hesitate to throw them out, using the same ballots.
All the best Sri Lanka. 2015 should be a new beginning.
The new President today has more challenges to address. But there is enough for him to start with. The fact that the election was violence-free and there was a smooth transition underlines the fact that the democratic institutions are still intact. Perhaps, one should also credit Rajapaksa for accepting the defeat and ensuring the smooth transfer of power. Well done and congratulations Rajapaksa. Whatever may have been your flaws while in power, you have accepted its loss with so much grace. You may have missed a huge opportunity to build the nation, after the military defeat of the LTTE; but by peacefully handing over power to the next President, you have earned some credit. Perhaps, the Begums of Bangladesh have something to learn from Sri Lanka on this issue. Perhaps, the other strong men and women who have been elected by the system, should also learn from Rajapaksa’s defeat. Democracies in South Asia may elect strong leaders, but will also not hesitate to throw them out, using the same ballots.
All the best Sri Lanka. 2015 should be a new beginning.
Governor's Rule and PDP's Dilemma
Shujaat Bukhari
Even after a high voter turnout that was witnessed for the first time in last 28 years, Jammu and Kashmir failed to get a government. Eighteen days after the results to tumultuous assembly elections were declared, political parties could not cobble up together to stake a claim. This resulted in state slipping into Governor’s rule and N N Vohra taking over the reins of the administration.
The Governor’s rule has disappointed people at large as they were expecting a government in place. Since Omar Abdullah, who headed the NC-Congress coalition for six years declined to continue as caretaker Chief Minister which he could have till January 18 when the term of the Assembly would end, there was no alternative but to fill the vacuum with a spell of Governor’s rule.
Not only the people had voted for a change, which was reflected in results and the look forward for better governance, but people particularly in Kashmir had pinned hopes for a speedy rehabilitation process for flood victims. Kashmir had seen severe floods in September affecting nearly a million people. A proper government is need of the hour to address their requirements.
However, the fractured mandate that these elections threw up has temporarily blocked the road to formation of a government. Not only were the seats divided among many parties but the clear division on the communal lines also played a significant role in this delay. As Jammu preferred BJP, this marked the beginning of the end of a fragile unity of a state that is diverse in nature. In contrast Kashmiris voted for all – from PDP to NC and Congress. Regional aspirations must have played a role in Kashmir but not the religion. Even as people were outraged on the hanging of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru during Congress led UPA, the Sopore constituency where from he hailed ironically returned a Congress candidate to the Assembly. Ladakh region, which has four seats, chose Congress, though by default. All the three out of four (one Independent won from Zanskar) were elected purely on their personality cult and not because of Congress, which has otherwise been routed in entire India.
Out of 87-member house, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) emerged as the single largest party with 28 followed by BJP with 25, National Conference 15, Congress 12 and others 7. Both NC and Congress extended support to PDP to form the government to keep BJP away and this could be possible with the support of few independents. Reports suggested that both BJP and NC had a “failed” round of negotiations in Delhi two days after the results were declared. But both parties denied the same.
For PDP, the situation turned piquant. On the one hand they maintained that they couldn’t trust NC and going with Congress, according to a PDP insider was “against the mandate of people”, but on other they had to walk on a razor’s edge to deal with BJP.
Both PDP and BJP are ideologically poles apart. BJP’s integrationist agenda for Kashmir is diametrically opposite to PDP’s Self-Rule. Still they had opened up backchannel communication and even exchanged papers for stitching up an alliance. PDP’s patron and old horse of Kashmir politics, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, weighed more on having BJP alliance and to give time to mature it was not his worry. By exploring this option he wants to carry along the Jammu region, which has overwhelmingly voted for BJP. “There would be a vacuum if we would go with NC or PDP as there would be zero participation in the government from Jammu as no elected member could join cabinet from the Hindu dominated belt” a senior PDP leader explained. So the motive was to seek more time to find a middle road.
But Omar Abdullah’s decision to call it a day halfway prompted the Governor to recommend his rule. The talks between PDP and BJP have not been called off and BJP has not refused to discuss three crucial points of Mufti’s agenda, viz resumption of dialogue with Pakistan and separatists, keeping Article 370 off the table, strengthening cross LoC CBM’s and withdrawal of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from certain areas. Sources say that structured dialogue could begin anytime. But the political grapevine is that BJP may further drag the process keeping in view the elections in Delhi scheduled to be held next month.
Not only are the non-BJP parties upping their ante against PDP but the separatists have also joined the chorus. Their standard response vis-Ã -vis elections have always been that it was a futile exercise. But with the changing situation in which BJP is poising to come into power in Jammu and Kashmir, even the hardest among hard-liners, Syed Ali Geelani, issued a literal warning to PDP. “If the state is handed over to the people having fascist ideologies, then a ‘do or die’ like situation will be created for our nation because our lives, property, faith and our culture will be in danger and with the help of armed forces, Kashmir would be made a testing lab for the projects like ‘home coming’ and ‘save daughter and bring daughter-in-law’.” he said adding that Muslim identity was at stake. This seems Mufti’s most testing time in his 50-year-long career.
Whatever unfolds in the coming weeks, the fact is that the state is in a chaotic situation where the administration has to be manned by a few bureaucrats. Successful elections, which always are a challenge in Jammu and Kashmir, had rekindled the hope for a stable government but it worsened those prospects and a commoner in Kashmir is fuming as why political parties could not put their inherent acrimony behind and move forward to give them a government they deserved. With Governor’s Rule in place, only worry now is that Delhi is not repeated in Jammu and Kashmir. No one wants a re-election in the state.
Even after a high voter turnout that was witnessed for the first time in last 28 years, Jammu and Kashmir failed to get a government. Eighteen days after the results to tumultuous assembly elections were declared, political parties could not cobble up together to stake a claim. This resulted in state slipping into Governor’s rule and N N Vohra taking over the reins of the administration.
The Governor’s rule has disappointed people at large as they were expecting a government in place. Since Omar Abdullah, who headed the NC-Congress coalition for six years declined to continue as caretaker Chief Minister which he could have till January 18 when the term of the Assembly would end, there was no alternative but to fill the vacuum with a spell of Governor’s rule.
Not only the people had voted for a change, which was reflected in results and the look forward for better governance, but people particularly in Kashmir had pinned hopes for a speedy rehabilitation process for flood victims. Kashmir had seen severe floods in September affecting nearly a million people. A proper government is need of the hour to address their requirements.
However, the fractured mandate that these elections threw up has temporarily blocked the road to formation of a government. Not only were the seats divided among many parties but the clear division on the communal lines also played a significant role in this delay. As Jammu preferred BJP, this marked the beginning of the end of a fragile unity of a state that is diverse in nature. In contrast Kashmiris voted for all – from PDP to NC and Congress. Regional aspirations must have played a role in Kashmir but not the religion. Even as people were outraged on the hanging of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru during Congress led UPA, the Sopore constituency where from he hailed ironically returned a Congress candidate to the Assembly. Ladakh region, which has four seats, chose Congress, though by default. All the three out of four (one Independent won from Zanskar) were elected purely on their personality cult and not because of Congress, which has otherwise been routed in entire India.
Out of 87-member house, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) emerged as the single largest party with 28 followed by BJP with 25, National Conference 15, Congress 12 and others 7. Both NC and Congress extended support to PDP to form the government to keep BJP away and this could be possible with the support of few independents. Reports suggested that both BJP and NC had a “failed” round of negotiations in Delhi two days after the results were declared. But both parties denied the same.
For PDP, the situation turned piquant. On the one hand they maintained that they couldn’t trust NC and going with Congress, according to a PDP insider was “against the mandate of people”, but on other they had to walk on a razor’s edge to deal with BJP.
Both PDP and BJP are ideologically poles apart. BJP’s integrationist agenda for Kashmir is diametrically opposite to PDP’s Self-Rule. Still they had opened up backchannel communication and even exchanged papers for stitching up an alliance. PDP’s patron and old horse of Kashmir politics, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, weighed more on having BJP alliance and to give time to mature it was not his worry. By exploring this option he wants to carry along the Jammu region, which has overwhelmingly voted for BJP. “There would be a vacuum if we would go with NC or PDP as there would be zero participation in the government from Jammu as no elected member could join cabinet from the Hindu dominated belt” a senior PDP leader explained. So the motive was to seek more time to find a middle road.
But Omar Abdullah’s decision to call it a day halfway prompted the Governor to recommend his rule. The talks between PDP and BJP have not been called off and BJP has not refused to discuss three crucial points of Mufti’s agenda, viz resumption of dialogue with Pakistan and separatists, keeping Article 370 off the table, strengthening cross LoC CBM’s and withdrawal of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from certain areas. Sources say that structured dialogue could begin anytime. But the political grapevine is that BJP may further drag the process keeping in view the elections in Delhi scheduled to be held next month.
Not only are the non-BJP parties upping their ante against PDP but the separatists have also joined the chorus. Their standard response vis-Ã -vis elections have always been that it was a futile exercise. But with the changing situation in which BJP is poising to come into power in Jammu and Kashmir, even the hardest among hard-liners, Syed Ali Geelani, issued a literal warning to PDP. “If the state is handed over to the people having fascist ideologies, then a ‘do or die’ like situation will be created for our nation because our lives, property, faith and our culture will be in danger and with the help of armed forces, Kashmir would be made a testing lab for the projects like ‘home coming’ and ‘save daughter and bring daughter-in-law’.” he said adding that Muslim identity was at stake. This seems Mufti’s most testing time in his 50-year-long career.
Whatever unfolds in the coming weeks, the fact is that the state is in a chaotic situation where the administration has to be manned by a few bureaucrats. Successful elections, which always are a challenge in Jammu and Kashmir, had rekindled the hope for a stable government but it worsened those prospects and a commoner in Kashmir is fuming as why political parties could not put their inherent acrimony behind and move forward to give them a government they deserved. With Governor’s Rule in place, only worry now is that Delhi is not repeated in Jammu and Kashmir. No one wants a re-election in the state.
Ukraine premier’s pro-Nazi version of World War II: USSR invaded Ukraine, Germany
Lena Sokoll
In a recent broadcast of “Tagesthemen”, the main newscast of Germany’s ARD public television channel, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk grotesquely distorted the history of World War II, accusing the Soviet Union of having invaded Germany and Ukraine.
Remarkably, this brazen and thoroughly calculated falsehood, designed to promote the myth of a joint German-Ukrainian struggle against a Soviet-Russian aggressor, went unchallenged by the presenter. It has not been denounced by the broadcaster in retrospect.
The interview, conducted with Yatsenyuk during his visit to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on January 7, consisted largely of anti-Russian ranting. Presenter Pinar Atalay’s innocuous and unfocused questions remained unanswered, and only amounted to brief interruptions to Yatsenyuk’s castigation of Putin, Russia and the Soviet Union.
Yatsenyuk said, “Russian aggression in Ukraine is an attack on world order and order in Europe. All of us still clearly remember the Soviet invasion of Ukraine and Germany. That has to be avoided. And nobody has the right to rewrite the results of the Second World War. And that is exactly what Russia’s President Putin is trying to do.”
Atalay made no comment on this scandalous historical lie, i.e. that the Soviet Union—not Nazi Germany—had invaded Ukraine. The television station responded to a complaint about the programme from the Public Committee for Public Service Media, remarking that the quality of the simultaneous Russian-German translation was too poor for the presenter to question the statement during the ongoing interview. In fact, however, the “Tagesthemen” news item was a recording of the interview, and there was no critical response to Yatsenyuk’s lie from the programme’s director or ARD.
Five days after the interview, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper attacked not Yatsenyuk and ARD, but the Russian foreign ministry, which vehemently rejected the Ukrainian prime minister’s account, citing the proceedings of the Nuremberg Trials.
“As to the Second World War,” wrote Russia correspondent Kerstin Holm in the newspaper, “the thinking of the Russians is set in concrete ... But disabused countrymen remember that Russia, in the wake of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, was an aggressor in World War II and was responsible for the Katyn massacre”.
Holm also claims that “Liberation could at best be said to apply to the expulsion of the Nazis, but not to the Sovietisation of reconquered areas”.
The German government did not distance itself from Yatsenyuk’s remarks or comment on his statements. Foreign office spokesman Martin Schäfer said: “Like anyone here in Germany—politicians, citizens or sports celebrities—the Ukrainian prime minister has the right to tell the German media whatever he deems appropriate. That is part and parcel of our extremely important right to freedom of expression”.
Thus, the results of the Nuremberg Trials and the denial of German guilt in the Second World War are declared to be matters of opinion. In fact, the German Wehrmacht (army) and Waffen-SS waged a war of extermination in Ukraine, whose barbarism still stands out among the countless atrocities and crimes of the Nazi dictatorship and the world war that it wanted and started.
On June 22, 1941, German Wehrmacht troops stormed across the borders of the USSR without any declaration of war, aiming to engulf the enemy in a Blitzkrieg and push them far back into the interior of the country. While the northern and central sectors of the army had orders to capture Leningrad and Moscow, the southern army sector marched on Kiev. It was supported in this by two battalions of Ukrainian nationalists, code-named “Nachtigall” and “Roland”, marching in German uniforms and under German army command.
These Ukrainian battalions were recruited from the rabid anti-Semitic and anti-Communist Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) under the leadership of Stepan Bandera. After the invasion and with the approval of the German occupiers, they took over management of police stations and launched pogroms. In late June 1941, the German occupiers incited the first major pogrom, in the Galician city of Lviv, which was carried out with the active support of the OUN. The public hunting down of Jews claimed at least 4,000 lives.
Many massacres and pogroms followed. The largest single extermination took place shortly after the sacking of Kiev on September 29-30, 1941 in the ravine of Babi Yar. Approximately 33,000 Kiev Jews were killed, including elderly people, women and children who had not been able to flee from the advancing army. The massacre was one of the crimes prosecuted at the Nuremberg Trials. Approximately 850,000 Jews were murdered in the German war of extermination in Ukraine.
Judaism and Bolshevism were synonymous in the propaganda of the Nazis and the OUN. The murder of Jews was seen and propagandised as equivalent to the anti-Soviet struggle. The brutal terror waged against the Jews and the determination to destroy particularly the Jewish people in occupied Ukraine flowed from the German Reich’s resolve to annihilate the Soviet Union and the impact of the world’s first socialist revolution.
The Wehrmacht’s conquest of Ukraine not only entailed a deep incursion into Soviet territory. It also cut off the rest of the USSR from Ukraine’s fertile agricultural land and large coal reserves. While the USSR was weakened by hunger, Nazi Germany exploited Ukraine’s resources, deporting over a million Ukrainians to work in German industry and agriculture as slave labour.
The German occupiers were therefore unwilling to tolerate any notion of an independent Ukraine. When the OUN proclaimed Ukraine’s independence in Lviv on June 30, 1941, Bandera was taken into “protective custody” in then Sachsenhausen concentration camp. This was not the end of collaboration between the German occupiers and Ukrainian fascists, however.
OUN supporters remained active in administration and as an auxiliary police force in the organisation of the Holocaust in Ukraine. Tens of thousands of them served as volunteers in SS divisions, directly aiding the Nazis in combat against the Red Army.
The current Ukrainian leadership, which was backed by Germany in the coup d’état that brought it to power last spring, stands unashamedly in this bloody tradition of Ukrainian nationalists and fascists. They extol Stepan Bandera as a national hero and rely on an alliance with Germany against Russia as the basis of their political power.
Members of Yatsenyuk’s government maintain close relations with fascist elements and place them in key positions.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov appointed the fascist, Vadim Trojan, chief of police for the Kiev region in November 2014. Trojan was commander of the extreme right-wing Azov volunteer battalion, some of whose members wear helmets with swastikas and SS runes in the fighting against pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Another commander of the Azov battalion, Andrij Bilezki, told the BritishTelegraph newspaper: “The historical mission of our nation in these crucial times is to lead the white races of the world in the final crusade for their survival”.
The installation of such violently reactionary forces in power in Kiev and the support given to them by the imperialist powers of NATO requires the rewriting and falsification of history. This is the significance of Yatsenyuk’s statements to ARD, and the silence of authorities in Germany on them.
The coming fight over wages in the US
Jerry White
Amidst general proclamations of “economic recovery” in the United States, there is a nervousness within the corporate and political elite over the consequences of the real state of social relations in the country—above all, extraordinary levels of social inequality. Several leading newspapers and think tanks have pointed to the long-term stagnation of wages and the lack of social mobility, especially among young workers, as the catalyst for a potential eruption of class conflict in 2015.
In a January 17 blog entry, “Driving the Obama Tax Plan: The Great Wage Slowdown,” New York Times columnist David Leonhardt writes: “Wages and incomes for most Americans have now been stagnant for 15 years. They rose at a mediocre pace for much of President Bush’s tenure in the 2000s, before falling sharply during the financial crisis that dominated the end of his presidency.” Leonhardt claims that Obama “helped break the back of the crisis.” However, he adds, “the recovery on his watch has been decidedly mediocre, too — especially in terms of paychecks.”
What is involved is a historic restructuring of class relations in the United States. Leonhardt notes: “There is little modern precedent for a period of income stagnation lasting as long as this one. Official records don’t exist before World War II. But the best estimate is that the Great Depression may be the only other modern time in which incomes for most households in the United States have grown so slowly—or not at all—for so long.”
Leonhardt cites a new report by the Democratic Party-aligned Center for American Progress, whose coauthors—Obama's former economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, and British Labour Party Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Ed Balls—warn, “When democratic governments and market systems cannot deliver such prosperity to their citizens, the result is political alienation, a loss of social trust, and increasing conflict across the lines of race, class, and ethnicity…”
Leonhardt, following the line of Summers and Balls, presents the historic decline of wages in the United States as the outcome of cosmic economic forces—globalization, disparities in education, technological change and the like—divorced from any analysis of the policies of the ruling class and its political representatives. While counseling his readers that “no politician, of either party, can quickly alter the basic forces behind the great wage slowdown,” he hails a number of paltry proposals from the Obama administration as a significant step toward resolving the growth of social inequality.
In fact, the slashing of wages has been the deliberate policy of successive Democratic and Republican administrations over the last three-and-a-half decades, starting with the administrations of Democratic President Jimmy Carter and Republican President Ronald Reagan. Responding to the globalization of production and the long-term decline of American capitalism, the ruling class went on the offensive: a systematic campaign that involved the destruction of tens of millions of industrial jobs, wage-cutting and union-busting on the one hand, and the promotion of the most reckless forms of financial parasitism on the other.
This process has vastly accelerated under Obama. Beginning with the forced bankruptcy and restructuring of the auto industry in 2009, which led to the halving of wages for tens of thousands of new-hires, the Obama administration and US big business utilized chronically high levels of unemployment to transform American workers into a highly exploited, low-wage work force, hired and fired at will, with virtually no job security or guaranteed level of hours, wages and benefits.
As a result, the proportion of labor’s share of the gross domestic product—in the form of wages, benefits and government outlays for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—is now at the lowest level since the Second World War. At the same time, the share of GDP going to corporate profits is at the highest-ever postwar level.
With consummate cynicism, Obama, in his State of the Union address tomorrow, is expected to call on Congress to pass tax increases on capital gains and on the biggest financial firms to fund tax credits for childcare and college tuition. The effort is a political fraud, since the president knows that the Republican-controlled Congress will not pass any of these proposals.
What is most striking about the proposals to deal with wage stagnation is their paucity. Even if the Obama administration passed its meager tax proposals, they would do nothing to reverse the historic decline of working class living standards. Every other proposal, “profit-sharing” and “employee stock ownership,” is aimed at further tying the fate of the working class to American capitalism and its struggle for market share and profits.
In its efforts to forestall independent action by the working class over wages, the ruling class is seeking to mobilize the right-wing, pro-corporate trade unions. Earlier this month, the AFL-CIO—which has been instrumental in suppressing the class struggle and driving down wages —held a “National Summit on Raising Wages” in Washington, DC.
The keynote address, delivered by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, was filled with demagogy about social inequality and Wall Street greed, along with obsequious praise for the trade union functionaries she was addressing. The Massachusetts senator avoided any criticism of the Obama administration itself, which has funneled trillions of dollars to the banks as part of the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in American history.
The emergence of a movement by workers in the United States and throughout the world to fight for better living standards is inevitable. Young workers and students, in particular, confront a future of economic insecurity far worse than the conditions faced by their parents or even their grandparents.
To carry out this fight, the working class must be armed with a clear perspective and strategy. The Socialist Equality Party urges workers to establish independent and genuinely democratic rank-and-file committees, organized in opposition to the trade unions and their defense of the capitalist system and subordination of the working class to the Democratic Party.
The experiences of the working class over the last three-and-a-half decades have shown that such a fight involves a struggle against not just this or that greedy employer or political administration, but in opposition to the entire economic and political system.
This is a political struggle, which requires uniting the working class—black, white, immigrant and native-born, young and old, in the United States and internationally—on the basis of a common revolutionary perspective and program. The capitalist system has failed and must be replaced with socialism, the rational organization of the world economy on the basis of democratic control and production for human need, not private profit.
More than half of US public school students living in poverty
Andre Damon
For the first time in at least half a century, low-income children make up the majority of students enrolled in American public schools, according to a report by the Southern Education Foundation (SEF).
The percentage of public school students who are classified as low-income has risen steadily over the past quarter century, under both Democratic and Republican administrations. In 1989, under 32 percent of public school students were classified as low-income, according to statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) cited by the report. This rose to 38 percent by 2000, 48 percent in 2011, and 51 percent in 2013.
These figures are the result of decades of deindustrialization, stagnating wages and cuts to antipoverty programs. Since the 2008 financial crisis in particular, the US ruling class, with the Obama administration at its head, has waged an unrelenting assault on the social rights of working people, carrying out mass layoffs, driving down wages, and slashing social services during the recession and the “recovery.” The SEF report makes clear that it has been the most vulnerable sections of society, including children, who have been made to bear a disproportionate burden due to these policies.
The study defines low-income students as those qualifying for either free or reduced-price lunches. Students from families making less than 135 percent of the federal poverty threshold are eligible for free lunches, while those making under 185 percent of the federal poverty line are eligible for reduced-price lunches.
The report was published last week in the form of an update to a 2007 study, entitled “A New Majority,” which warned that low-income students had for the first time in decades become the majority in the historically impoverished American South, and were well on their way to becoming the majority in the US as a whole. In 2006, the year covered by the report, low-income students constituted 42 percent of students enrolled at public schools. Seven years later, the figure has risen by a shocking nine percentage points.
The 2007 report noted that in 1959, “Historical correlations suggest that close to a majority of the school-age children in the South were in households living below the recently defined American poverty line.” It added, “Somewhere between 1959 and 1967, it is likely that for the first time since public schools were established in the South, low income children no longer constituted a majority of students in the South’s public schools.”
“By 1967, the percentage of low income children in the South and the nation had declined to unmatched levels,” the report continued, but noted that the improvement “came to a halt in 1970 when the percentage of low income children leveled off and remained essentially constant over five years. In 1975 the trend lines for low income students in the South and across the nation began to creep upward. After 1980, the Reagan Administration convinced Congress to enact large federal cutbacks in anti-poverty programs, and the numbers of low income children in the South started to rise sharply.”
The vast historical retrogression exposed by the report is further emphasized in the breakdown by state. The report notes, “In 1989, Mississippi was the only state in the nation with a majority of low income students. It had 59 percent. Louisiana ranked second with 49 percent.”
Low-income students now comprise the majority in 21 states, and between 40 percent and 49 percent of students in 19 others. While all states had significant numbers of low-income students, the share of poor students in the South and West is “extraordinarily high.” It notes that “thirteen of the 21 states with a majority of low income students in 2013 were located in the South, and six of the other 21 states were in the West.”
Mississippi has the highest share of low-income students, at a shocking 71 percent, or nearly three out of four, in 2013. Second was New Mexico, where 68 percent of public school students are low-income. These are followed by Louisiana, with 65 percent; Arkansas, with 61 percent; Oklahoma, with 61 percent; and Texas, with 60 percent. California, the country’s most populous state, has 55 percent of its public school students in poverty.
Poor students require far more resources than their affluent peers if they are to keep up. But rather than provide resources according to need, the Bush and Obama administrations, under the “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top” programs, have channeled resources away from schools with a high share of students in poverty, which are declared to be “underperforming.”
The SEF report warns, “With huge, stubbornly unchanging gaps in learning, schools in the South and across the nation face the real danger of becoming entrenched, inadequately funded educational systems that enlarge the division in America between haves and have-nots.”
The study is the latest in a series of reports showing the increasingly desperate social conditions facing children in the United States.
In September, the US Department of Education released statistics showing that the number of homeless children increased by eight percent in the 2012-2013 school year, compared to the year before. There were 1.3 million homeless children enrolled in US schools, a figure that is up by 85 percent since the beginning of the recession.
In April, Feeding America reported that 16 million children, or 21.6 percent, live in food insecure households. The share of all people in the United States who are food insecure has increased from 13.4 percent in 2006 to 21.1 percent in 2013.
In April 2013, the United Nations Children’s Fund released a report showing that the US has the fourth-highest child poverty rate among 29 developed countries. Only Lithuania, Latvia and Romania have higher child poverty rates. The US fell behind even Greece, which has been devastated by years of austerity measures dictated by the International Monetary Fund.
18 Jan 2015
Arrests follow terror raids across Europe.
Chris Marsden
Terror raids have been mounted in Belgium, France and Germany in the aftermath of the January 7 assault on the offices of Charlie Hebdo .
In Belgium, two suspects were shot dead by police and another seriously wounded in the town of Verviers, near the border with Germany. Thirteen arrests were made, with nine suspects held in raids in Molembeek, two in Brussels, one in Berchem, one in Verviers, and two in France. All three Verviers gunmen were Belgian nationals recently returned from Syria. The centre of Verviers and its train station were sealed
off Thursday by heavily armed police, who tried to enter a flat above a bakery. Witnesses said they heard a series of explosions at 5:45pm and sustained gunfire.
Special police units carried out at least a dozen raids elsewhere in four districts with predominantly immigrant neighbourhoods. A total of 10 search warrants were issued. Police reported that two more suspects had
been arrested after a car chase and gunfight in the city of Liege.
Authorities claim they had moved to dismantle an active terror cell spanning Belgium and France that was planning an “imminent” attack targeting police officers
and various buildings in Belgium. Eric van der Sijpt, a federal magistrate, said, “The suspects immediately and for several minutes opened fire with military weaponry and handguns on the special units of the federal police before they were neutralised.” Police sources said earlier that they had resolved to launch the pre emptive operation a fortnight ago, i.e., before the Charlie Hebdo attacks, after bugging the
homes and cars of the men recently returned from fighting in Syria. “I can confirm that we started this investigation before the attacks in Paris,” Van Der Sypt
said. No link had been established with the Paris attack, he insisted. The authorities and the media are deliberately downplaying or concealing the wealth of information on the perpetrators, including the gunmen who carried out the Charlie Hebdo attack, known by European and US
intelligence and police officials in advance of the attacks and alleged plots.
Belgian police this week acknowledged that
Kalashnikovs and a rocket launcher used in the Charlie Hebdo and Kosher supermarket attacks, as well as the Tokarev handgun used by Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman in the Kosher market attack, had been purchased from Belgian criminal gangs. The information is highly specific. Coulibaly is said to have bought the weapons near the Gare du Midi in Brussels. Neetin Farasula, from Charleroi, is in detention after he
handed himself over to police Tuesday. He admits being in contact with Coulibaly.
In another example of cross-border operations, French national Mehdi Nemmouche last May killed four people
at the Jewish museum in Brussels after having fought in Syria the previous year. He was caught by French police in Marseille.
A court case is underway in Antwerp involving 43 men and three women alleged to be members of Sharia4Belgium, which is linked to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
This week, Europol Director Rob Wainwright told British MPs that the names of 2,500 Islamist suspects had been collected from agencies across European Union member states.
In France, 12 people were arrested in anti-terrorism raids targeting people linked to Coulibaly. A spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office, Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, said the arrests began overnight
Thursday and continued in three towns Friday morning. Those arrested included the man who supplied a car to Coulibaly, identified based on DNA found in the car.
The Gare de l’Est train station in Paris was evacuated for an hour Friday morning after an alleged bomb threat. This occurred on the day US Secretary of State John Kerry was in Paris, mending fences with President
François Hollande after President Barack Obama’s failure to attend the memorial rally for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack. Another incident Friday afternoon involved a gunman who took two people hostage in a post office in Colombes, a suburb of Paris. The man was arrested
after giving himself up to police and releasing the hostages unharmed. He was reportedly carrying a military weapon that he told police was a Kalashnikov. Friday saw prominent media reports that several French national media web sites, including L’Express , Le Parisien and France Inter , experienced technical problems traced to a common service provider, Oxalide.
About 19,000 French web sites have been hit by cyberattacks in the wake of the Paris shootings, according to Arnaud Coustilliere, head of cyber-defence for the French military. Military authorities have reportedly launched round-the-clock surveillance to protect government sites.
On Friday morning, in Berlin, 250 police were involved in dawn raids on 11 premises, leading to the arrest of two
men suspected of helping to recruit for the Islamic State in Syria. One, Ismet D, a 41-year-old man, was suspected of “leading an Islamist extremist group made up of Turkish and Russian nationals from Chechnya and Dagestan,” the police said.
On Thursday, police in Wolfsburg, about 200 kilometres west of Berlin, took a 26-year-old German-Tunisian dual national, Ayub B, into custody on suspicion he had
fought in Syria for the Islamic State in 2014.
The ruling elite have lost no time in using the raids to whip up a climate of fear and justify demands for further repressive powers for the state.
Jewish schools in Brussels and Antwerp were closed and classes cancelled after officials said they were a “potential target” for attack. The Cheider school, the only Orthodox Jewish school in the Netherlands, was also closed. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel announced new legislation making traveling abroad for terrorist activists punishable by law, expanding the reasons for Belgian citizenship to be revoked for dual nationals deemed to be a terror risk, freezing assets of those suspected of aiding terror and, most importantly, authorizing the calling in of the army domestically.
In France, up to 100 people are now under investigation for making or posting comments supporting or justifying terrorism—with some sentences of years in prison already summarily handed out.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet approved a draft bill Wednesday to allow the authorities to withdraw the national identity cards of suspected
extremists to prevent them from traveling abroad.
British Prime Minister David Cameron is in the United States seeking the support of President Obama for his own raft of repressive measures. His visit was preceded
by former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair speaking at a private strategy session of Republican senators. Introduced by Senator John McCain, he stressed that,
“a substantial and not a fringe minority” of Muslims supported fundamentalism, which must be opposed by “force.”
Terror raids have been mounted in Belgium, France and Germany in the aftermath of the January 7 assault on the offices of Charlie Hebdo .
In Belgium, two suspects were shot dead by police and another seriously wounded in the town of Verviers, near the border with Germany. Thirteen arrests were made, with nine suspects held in raids in Molembeek, two in Brussels, one in Berchem, one in Verviers, and two in France. All three Verviers gunmen were Belgian nationals recently returned from Syria. The centre of Verviers and its train station were sealed
off Thursday by heavily armed police, who tried to enter a flat above a bakery. Witnesses said they heard a series of explosions at 5:45pm and sustained gunfire.
Special police units carried out at least a dozen raids elsewhere in four districts with predominantly immigrant neighbourhoods. A total of 10 search warrants were issued. Police reported that two more suspects had
been arrested after a car chase and gunfight in the city of Liege.
Authorities claim they had moved to dismantle an active terror cell spanning Belgium and France that was planning an “imminent” attack targeting police officers
and various buildings in Belgium. Eric van der Sijpt, a federal magistrate, said, “The suspects immediately and for several minutes opened fire with military weaponry and handguns on the special units of the federal police before they were neutralised.” Police sources said earlier that they had resolved to launch the pre emptive operation a fortnight ago, i.e., before the Charlie Hebdo attacks, after bugging the
homes and cars of the men recently returned from fighting in Syria. “I can confirm that we started this investigation before the attacks in Paris,” Van Der Sypt
said. No link had been established with the Paris attack, he insisted. The authorities and the media are deliberately downplaying or concealing the wealth of information on the perpetrators, including the gunmen who carried out the Charlie Hebdo attack, known by European and US
intelligence and police officials in advance of the attacks and alleged plots.
Belgian police this week acknowledged that
Kalashnikovs and a rocket launcher used in the Charlie Hebdo and Kosher supermarket attacks, as well as the Tokarev handgun used by Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman in the Kosher market attack, had been purchased from Belgian criminal gangs. The information is highly specific. Coulibaly is said to have bought the weapons near the Gare du Midi in Brussels. Neetin Farasula, from Charleroi, is in detention after he
handed himself over to police Tuesday. He admits being in contact with Coulibaly.
In another example of cross-border operations, French national Mehdi Nemmouche last May killed four people
at the Jewish museum in Brussels after having fought in Syria the previous year. He was caught by French police in Marseille.
A court case is underway in Antwerp involving 43 men and three women alleged to be members of Sharia4Belgium, which is linked to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
This week, Europol Director Rob Wainwright told British MPs that the names of 2,500 Islamist suspects had been collected from agencies across European Union member states.
In France, 12 people were arrested in anti-terrorism raids targeting people linked to Coulibaly. A spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office, Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, said the arrests began overnight
Thursday and continued in three towns Friday morning. Those arrested included the man who supplied a car to Coulibaly, identified based on DNA found in the car.
The Gare de l’Est train station in Paris was evacuated for an hour Friday morning after an alleged bomb threat. This occurred on the day US Secretary of State John Kerry was in Paris, mending fences with President
François Hollande after President Barack Obama’s failure to attend the memorial rally for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack. Another incident Friday afternoon involved a gunman who took two people hostage in a post office in Colombes, a suburb of Paris. The man was arrested
after giving himself up to police and releasing the hostages unharmed. He was reportedly carrying a military weapon that he told police was a Kalashnikov. Friday saw prominent media reports that several French national media web sites, including L’Express , Le Parisien and France Inter , experienced technical problems traced to a common service provider, Oxalide.
About 19,000 French web sites have been hit by cyberattacks in the wake of the Paris shootings, according to Arnaud Coustilliere, head of cyber-defence for the French military. Military authorities have reportedly launched round-the-clock surveillance to protect government sites.
On Friday morning, in Berlin, 250 police were involved in dawn raids on 11 premises, leading to the arrest of two
men suspected of helping to recruit for the Islamic State in Syria. One, Ismet D, a 41-year-old man, was suspected of “leading an Islamist extremist group made up of Turkish and Russian nationals from Chechnya and Dagestan,” the police said.
On Thursday, police in Wolfsburg, about 200 kilometres west of Berlin, took a 26-year-old German-Tunisian dual national, Ayub B, into custody on suspicion he had
fought in Syria for the Islamic State in 2014.
The ruling elite have lost no time in using the raids to whip up a climate of fear and justify demands for further repressive powers for the state.
Jewish schools in Brussels and Antwerp were closed and classes cancelled after officials said they were a “potential target” for attack. The Cheider school, the only Orthodox Jewish school in the Netherlands, was also closed. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel announced new legislation making traveling abroad for terrorist activists punishable by law, expanding the reasons for Belgian citizenship to be revoked for dual nationals deemed to be a terror risk, freezing assets of those suspected of aiding terror and, most importantly, authorizing the calling in of the army domestically.
In France, up to 100 people are now under investigation for making or posting comments supporting or justifying terrorism—with some sentences of years in prison already summarily handed out.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet approved a draft bill Wednesday to allow the authorities to withdraw the national identity cards of suspected
extremists to prevent them from traveling abroad.
British Prime Minister David Cameron is in the United States seeking the support of President Obama for his own raft of repressive measures. His visit was preceded
by former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair speaking at a private strategy session of Republican senators. Introduced by Senator John McCain, he stressed that,
“a substantial and not a fringe minority” of Muslims supported fundamentalism, which must be opposed by “force.”
Behind whitewash of CIA spying: The trail leads to the White House.
Thomas Gaist & Patrick Martin
Only a day after the final CIA whitewash of its unconstitutional spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee, documents released by the agency reveal that the Obama White House knew in advance that CIA operatives had been ordered to investigate the legislative panel, which has legal responsibility for overseeing the agency.
An Accountability Board appointed by CIA Director John Brennan handed down its official finding Wednesday that the five CIA operatives who broke into Senate Intelligence Committee computers and read staff email were acting in good faith and that their spying was “reasonable.”
The five-member panel included former Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, former White House Counsel Bob Bauer and three unnamed CIA officials (so much for
accountability!). The panel rejected the findings of the agency’s own Inspector General, David Buckley, prepared last July, which condemned the spying on the Senate committee and referred it to the Justice
Department for possible prosecution.
Along with the Accountability Board report, however, the CIA was also compelled to release a redacted version of Buckley’s report, which it had been fighting to keep
secret, opposing Freedom of Information Act requests from several news organizations. One attachment to the Buckley report is a memorandum from one of the five CIA operatives, a lawyer for the
agency, which makes the remarkable admission about Brennan’s prior consultation with the White House before the intrusion into the Senate Intelligence
Committee’s computer system. This was a special computer system set up by the CIA
itself to handle some six million pages of documents on torture in CIA secret prisons between 2002 and 2007, which became the basis for the 6,300-page report prepared by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the
512-page summary released to the public—again in redacted form—last month. At some point during 2013, the CIA learned that the Senate committee staff had obtained a copy of an internal document dubbed the “Panetta report.” This was a summary of the evidence of CIA torture, prepared for then-director Leon Panetta in 2012 that undercut the CIA’s official pretense that it had never tortured prisoners at “black sites” in Europe and Asia.
CIA Director Brennan ordered an investigation into how the document came into the hands of the Senate committee staff, and then met with White House Chief
of Staff Denis McDonough to brief him on the plan. Following this meeting (whose contents remains top secret), Brennan called the CIA attorney who was part
of the group of five investigating the Senate committee, and told him to use “whatever means necessary” to find the source of the leak.
“The conversation with McDonough came after Brennan first issued the directive, but before he reiterated it to a CIA attorney leading the probe,” the internal CIA report
states. This is nothing short of a smoking gun, demonstrating direct involvement of the Obama White House in actions which Senate Democrats publicly condemned as
unconstitutional and illegal. Obama himself was more than likely consulted, given the sensitivity of the issue and his own close ties to Brennan, the head of counterterrorism at the White House before he was named CIA director. McDonough and Obama are known to have an extremely close relationship, particularly on national security matters, as demonstrated by reports at the time of Obama’s decision, in August 2013, to pull back on plans for air strikes on Syria. After initially approving the military action, Obama went for a walk with McDonough, during which the two discussed the order
to attack Syria and agreed it should be rescinded. No other White House or Pentagon officials were involved in the process. The memorandum from the CIA lawyer suggests that he was well aware that discussing the spying on the Senate with the White House could be a political bombshell if it was subsequently revealed. He wrote of
his conversation with Brennan: “I cautioned that discussing this matter with the WH, at this stage, was problematic, as it could later be viewed as WH interference in a potential criminal investigation.” The memorandum continues: “I repeatedly counseled the Director, as well as [redacted] and [the Director of the Office of
Congressional Affairs], that it was unwise to ask the WH for direction as to a possible criminal investigation… If the WH were to order the inquiry stopped, it could constitute an act in furtherance of obstruction of justice. At the least, it could be interpreted that way by Congressional critics and the press. Merely consulting
with the WH would place the director in a bad light, making it appear that he was politicizing a potential criminal matter.”
In the upside-down world of the CIA, the “criminal investigation” was being conducted by the agency, the “crime” was the Senate staff obtaining the Panetta review, and “obstruction of justice” would be any effort to prevent the CIA from spying on the Senate.
Nonetheless, the use of such language is extraordinary, and goes far to explain the frenzied efforts of both the CIA and the Obama White House to block the release of
the Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture and all other associated documents.
It should be pointed out here that McDonough, who had advance warning from Brennan that the CIA was spying on the Senate committee, was later designated by Obama to “mediate” disputes between the agency and the committee over the declassification of the torture report. Throughout this process, McDonough sided with the CIA. Members of the Senate committee complained that the White House backed CIA demands for redaction
of even the pseudonyms given to CIA agents, including those who directly perpetrated acts of torture.
In response to the final whitewash of the CIA by the Accountability Board, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was chairman of the Intelligence Committee during the
preparation of the torture report, issued a statement declaring, “I continue to believe CIA’s actions constituted a violation of the constitutional separation of powers.”
Feinstein said she was “disappointed that no one at the CIA will be held accountable,” but was conspicuously silent about the role played by the White House in both the cover-up of CIA torture and the intrusion into the Senate committee’s computers.
The Brennan-McDonough meeting sheds new light on the July 2014 declaration of the Obama Justice Department that it “had no prosecutorial interest” in the CIA spying on the Senate committee. Any such
prosecution would have had to follow a trail that led straight to the highest officials in the White House. Both the circumstances behind the obstruction of the Senate report on CIA torture, and the report itself, reveal
criminality at the highest levels of the state—under both the Bush and the Obama administrations. Yet no one has been held accountable, and the entire matter has been almost entirely dropped by the media.
Only a day after the final CIA whitewash of its unconstitutional spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee, documents released by the agency reveal that the Obama White House knew in advance that CIA operatives had been ordered to investigate the legislative panel, which has legal responsibility for overseeing the agency.
An Accountability Board appointed by CIA Director John Brennan handed down its official finding Wednesday that the five CIA operatives who broke into Senate Intelligence Committee computers and read staff email were acting in good faith and that their spying was “reasonable.”
The five-member panel included former Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, former White House Counsel Bob Bauer and three unnamed CIA officials (so much for
accountability!). The panel rejected the findings of the agency’s own Inspector General, David Buckley, prepared last July, which condemned the spying on the Senate committee and referred it to the Justice
Department for possible prosecution.
Along with the Accountability Board report, however, the CIA was also compelled to release a redacted version of Buckley’s report, which it had been fighting to keep
secret, opposing Freedom of Information Act requests from several news organizations. One attachment to the Buckley report is a memorandum from one of the five CIA operatives, a lawyer for the
agency, which makes the remarkable admission about Brennan’s prior consultation with the White House before the intrusion into the Senate Intelligence
Committee’s computer system. This was a special computer system set up by the CIA
itself to handle some six million pages of documents on torture in CIA secret prisons between 2002 and 2007, which became the basis for the 6,300-page report prepared by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the
512-page summary released to the public—again in redacted form—last month. At some point during 2013, the CIA learned that the Senate committee staff had obtained a copy of an internal document dubbed the “Panetta report.” This was a summary of the evidence of CIA torture, prepared for then-director Leon Panetta in 2012 that undercut the CIA’s official pretense that it had never tortured prisoners at “black sites” in Europe and Asia.
CIA Director Brennan ordered an investigation into how the document came into the hands of the Senate committee staff, and then met with White House Chief
of Staff Denis McDonough to brief him on the plan. Following this meeting (whose contents remains top secret), Brennan called the CIA attorney who was part
of the group of five investigating the Senate committee, and told him to use “whatever means necessary” to find the source of the leak.
“The conversation with McDonough came after Brennan first issued the directive, but before he reiterated it to a CIA attorney leading the probe,” the internal CIA report
states. This is nothing short of a smoking gun, demonstrating direct involvement of the Obama White House in actions which Senate Democrats publicly condemned as
unconstitutional and illegal. Obama himself was more than likely consulted, given the sensitivity of the issue and his own close ties to Brennan, the head of counterterrorism at the White House before he was named CIA director. McDonough and Obama are known to have an extremely close relationship, particularly on national security matters, as demonstrated by reports at the time of Obama’s decision, in August 2013, to pull back on plans for air strikes on Syria. After initially approving the military action, Obama went for a walk with McDonough, during which the two discussed the order
to attack Syria and agreed it should be rescinded. No other White House or Pentagon officials were involved in the process. The memorandum from the CIA lawyer suggests that he was well aware that discussing the spying on the Senate with the White House could be a political bombshell if it was subsequently revealed. He wrote of
his conversation with Brennan: “I cautioned that discussing this matter with the WH, at this stage, was problematic, as it could later be viewed as WH interference in a potential criminal investigation.” The memorandum continues: “I repeatedly counseled the Director, as well as [redacted] and [the Director of the Office of
Congressional Affairs], that it was unwise to ask the WH for direction as to a possible criminal investigation… If the WH were to order the inquiry stopped, it could constitute an act in furtherance of obstruction of justice. At the least, it could be interpreted that way by Congressional critics and the press. Merely consulting
with the WH would place the director in a bad light, making it appear that he was politicizing a potential criminal matter.”
In the upside-down world of the CIA, the “criminal investigation” was being conducted by the agency, the “crime” was the Senate staff obtaining the Panetta review, and “obstruction of justice” would be any effort to prevent the CIA from spying on the Senate.
Nonetheless, the use of such language is extraordinary, and goes far to explain the frenzied efforts of both the CIA and the Obama White House to block the release of
the Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture and all other associated documents.
It should be pointed out here that McDonough, who had advance warning from Brennan that the CIA was spying on the Senate committee, was later designated by Obama to “mediate” disputes between the agency and the committee over the declassification of the torture report. Throughout this process, McDonough sided with the CIA. Members of the Senate committee complained that the White House backed CIA demands for redaction
of even the pseudonyms given to CIA agents, including those who directly perpetrated acts of torture.
In response to the final whitewash of the CIA by the Accountability Board, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was chairman of the Intelligence Committee during the
preparation of the torture report, issued a statement declaring, “I continue to believe CIA’s actions constituted a violation of the constitutional separation of powers.”
Feinstein said she was “disappointed that no one at the CIA will be held accountable,” but was conspicuously silent about the role played by the White House in both the cover-up of CIA torture and the intrusion into the Senate committee’s computers.
The Brennan-McDonough meeting sheds new light on the July 2014 declaration of the Obama Justice Department that it “had no prosecutorial interest” in the CIA spying on the Senate committee. Any such
prosecution would have had to follow a trail that led straight to the highest officials in the White House. Both the circumstances behind the obstruction of the Senate report on CIA torture, and the report itself, reveal
criminality at the highest levels of the state—under both the Bush and the Obama administrations. Yet no one has been held accountable, and the entire matter has been almost entirely dropped by the media.
US torture report exposes European powers’ involvement in CIA crimes.
Alex Lantier
The publication of the US Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture has exposed the European powers'
complicity in ghastly crimes of US intelligence. Even though European states' complicity in CIA torture and rendition operations has been documented for nearly a decade, no European officials have been held accountable.
In 2005, the Council of Europe tasked former Swiss prosecutor Dick Marty with preparing a report on secret CIA prisons in Europe. He released two reports, in 2006
and 2007, documenting the complicity of dozens of European states in setting up facilities for illegal CIA rendition and torture. The states involved included Britain, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Albania.
The existence of approximately 1,000 CIA flights and of secret prisons in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Bucharest (Romania), Antavilas (Lithuania), and Stare Kiejkuty
(Poland) has since been confirmed.
Nonetheless, after the US Senate recognized CIA use of the grisliest forms of torture—including murder, sexual assault, sleep deprivation and forcing inmates to stand on broken limbs—officials across Europe reacted by insisting that they should enjoy immunity. Top officials of the Polish government, which is appealing a July ruling against it over its role in CIA torture by the European Court on Human Rights,
denounced the report. “Certain secrets should stay that way,” said Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak.
Polish prosecutors have been investigating the case for six years, including a two-year investigation of former Polish intelligence chief Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, without
bringing any charges. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, was waterboarded as soon as he arrived at Stare Kiejkuty.
One medical officer there noted: “We are basically doing a series of near-drownings.”
Other detainees at Stare Kiejkuty, which housed Saudi, Algerian and Yemeni detainees, were subjected to mock executions with a power drill while standing hooded and naked. Former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski lamely
claimed that CIA officials did not explain how they planned to use their secret prisons in Poland. “It was a question as we saw it only of creating secret sites,” he said, adding that he closed down the facility in 2003 because “the Americans' secret activities began to worry” Polish authorities. Lithuanian officials confirmed that the black site named “detention center Violet” by the US Senate report appears
to be the Lithuanian detention center near the capital, Vilnius, identified in a 2009-2010 parliamentary investigation. Lawmaker Arvydas Anusauskas told
Reuters, “The US Senate report, to me, makes a convincing case that prisoners were indeed held at the Lithuanian site.”
Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi detainee now kept at Guantanamo Bay, has stated that he was kept and tortured at the site. Washington paid the Lithuanian government $1 million to “show appreciation” for operating the prison, according to the US Senate report,
though the funds were reportedly paid out through “complex mechanisms.”
Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius has asked Washington to confirm whether or not the CIA tortured prisoners at its secret prisons in Lithuania.
British Prime Minister David Cameron dismissed the issue of torture and Britain's role in rendition flights to countries including Libya, saying that it had been “dealt with from a British perspective.” He told the public to trust British intelligence to police itself, as official investigations had “produced a series of questions that the intelligence and security community will look at ... I'm satisfied that our system is dealing with all of these issues.”
In fact, the CIA torture report has revealed the advanced state of collapse of democratic forms of rule not only in the United States, but also in Europe. What has emerged across Europe since the September 11 attacks is the framework of a police state far more technically powerful than even the most ruthless dictatorships of twentieth-century Europe. The methods deployed as
part of the “war on terror” will also be used against opposition in the working class to unpopular policies of austerity and war.
European governments participate in the digital spying on telecommunications and Internet activities of the European population, carried out by the US National
Security Agency and its local counterparts, as revealed by Edward Snowden. They also are planning joint repression of social protests, based on talks between German federal police, France's Gendarmerie, and other security forces with the European Commission. “During my investigation, people called me a traitor and said I was making things up,” Marty told the Tribune de Genève. “The Europeans disappointed me. Germany, the United Kingdom, and many others blocked the establishment of the truth. In fact, most European countries actively participated in a system that
legitimated large-scale state crimes.” “I think we must recall, and it is very important, that this operation, this anti-terrorist policy, was decided and carried out under the aegis of NATO,” Marty told Swiss television channel RTS.
“The United States invoked Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which says that if one member of the alliance is attacked militarily [e.g., as Washington claimed, on
September 11], all NATO members are required to come to its aid,” Marty said. Once this was accepted, he added, “there were a whole series of secret accords
between the United States and European powers. And all the European countries pledged to grant total immunity to CIA agents, which is manifestly illegal.”
The European powers’ participation in the CIA torture program underscores the utter hypocrisy of the humanitarian pretensions used to justify operations ranging from NATO wars in Syria and Libya to this
February's NATO-backed, fascist-led putsch in Ukraine. The ferocious opposition of the European ruling elites to attempts to bring this criminality to light is the clearest
indication that the democratic rights of the population cannot be secured by appeals to any section of the state. The defense of the population's democratic and social rights is a question of the revolutionary mobilization of the working class in an international struggle against European capitalism.
The publication of the US Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture has exposed the European powers'
complicity in ghastly crimes of US intelligence. Even though European states' complicity in CIA torture and rendition operations has been documented for nearly a decade, no European officials have been held accountable.
In 2005, the Council of Europe tasked former Swiss prosecutor Dick Marty with preparing a report on secret CIA prisons in Europe. He released two reports, in 2006
and 2007, documenting the complicity of dozens of European states in setting up facilities for illegal CIA rendition and torture. The states involved included Britain, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Albania.
The existence of approximately 1,000 CIA flights and of secret prisons in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Bucharest (Romania), Antavilas (Lithuania), and Stare Kiejkuty
(Poland) has since been confirmed.
Nonetheless, after the US Senate recognized CIA use of the grisliest forms of torture—including murder, sexual assault, sleep deprivation and forcing inmates to stand on broken limbs—officials across Europe reacted by insisting that they should enjoy immunity. Top officials of the Polish government, which is appealing a July ruling against it over its role in CIA torture by the European Court on Human Rights,
denounced the report. “Certain secrets should stay that way,” said Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak.
Polish prosecutors have been investigating the case for six years, including a two-year investigation of former Polish intelligence chief Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, without
bringing any charges. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, was waterboarded as soon as he arrived at Stare Kiejkuty.
One medical officer there noted: “We are basically doing a series of near-drownings.”
Other detainees at Stare Kiejkuty, which housed Saudi, Algerian and Yemeni detainees, were subjected to mock executions with a power drill while standing hooded and naked. Former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski lamely
claimed that CIA officials did not explain how they planned to use their secret prisons in Poland. “It was a question as we saw it only of creating secret sites,” he said, adding that he closed down the facility in 2003 because “the Americans' secret activities began to worry” Polish authorities. Lithuanian officials confirmed that the black site named “detention center Violet” by the US Senate report appears
to be the Lithuanian detention center near the capital, Vilnius, identified in a 2009-2010 parliamentary investigation. Lawmaker Arvydas Anusauskas told
Reuters, “The US Senate report, to me, makes a convincing case that prisoners were indeed held at the Lithuanian site.”
Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi detainee now kept at Guantanamo Bay, has stated that he was kept and tortured at the site. Washington paid the Lithuanian government $1 million to “show appreciation” for operating the prison, according to the US Senate report,
though the funds were reportedly paid out through “complex mechanisms.”
Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius has asked Washington to confirm whether or not the CIA tortured prisoners at its secret prisons in Lithuania.
British Prime Minister David Cameron dismissed the issue of torture and Britain's role in rendition flights to countries including Libya, saying that it had been “dealt with from a British perspective.” He told the public to trust British intelligence to police itself, as official investigations had “produced a series of questions that the intelligence and security community will look at ... I'm satisfied that our system is dealing with all of these issues.”
In fact, the CIA torture report has revealed the advanced state of collapse of democratic forms of rule not only in the United States, but also in Europe. What has emerged across Europe since the September 11 attacks is the framework of a police state far more technically powerful than even the most ruthless dictatorships of twentieth-century Europe. The methods deployed as
part of the “war on terror” will also be used against opposition in the working class to unpopular policies of austerity and war.
European governments participate in the digital spying on telecommunications and Internet activities of the European population, carried out by the US National
Security Agency and its local counterparts, as revealed by Edward Snowden. They also are planning joint repression of social protests, based on talks between German federal police, France's Gendarmerie, and other security forces with the European Commission. “During my investigation, people called me a traitor and said I was making things up,” Marty told the Tribune de Genève. “The Europeans disappointed me. Germany, the United Kingdom, and many others blocked the establishment of the truth. In fact, most European countries actively participated in a system that
legitimated large-scale state crimes.” “I think we must recall, and it is very important, that this operation, this anti-terrorist policy, was decided and carried out under the aegis of NATO,” Marty told Swiss television channel RTS.
“The United States invoked Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which says that if one member of the alliance is attacked militarily [e.g., as Washington claimed, on
September 11], all NATO members are required to come to its aid,” Marty said. Once this was accepted, he added, “there were a whole series of secret accords
between the United States and European powers. And all the European countries pledged to grant total immunity to CIA agents, which is manifestly illegal.”
The European powers’ participation in the CIA torture program underscores the utter hypocrisy of the humanitarian pretensions used to justify operations ranging from NATO wars in Syria and Libya to this
February's NATO-backed, fascist-led putsch in Ukraine. The ferocious opposition of the European ruling elites to attempts to bring this criminality to light is the clearest
indication that the democratic rights of the population cannot be secured by appeals to any section of the state. The defense of the population's democratic and social rights is a question of the revolutionary mobilization of the working class in an international struggle against European capitalism.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)