Amazon announces new cloud to host “Secret” government data

Evan Blake

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud computing company owned by Amazon, announced Monday that they are launching a new “AWS Secret Region” cloud designed to host government data classified as “Secret.” The AWS Secret Region is the most recent product of the company’s $600 million deal reached in 2013 with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the military-intelligence apparatus, and signals the complete integration of Amazon with the government and spy agencies.

While no details have emerged about the cost, security architecture or design of the Secret Region cloud, leading company and state officials are hailing it as the culmination of Amazon’s deepening partnership with the American spy agencies.

In a post on the “AWS Government, Education, & Nonprofits Blog,” the company proudly proclaims, “With the launch of this new Secret Region, AWS becomes the first and only commercial cloud provider to offer regions to serve government workloads across the full range of data classifications, including Unclassified, Sensitive, Secret, and Top Secret. By using the cloud, the U.S. Government is better able to deliver necessary information and data to mission stakeholders.”

Summarizing the significance of the new storage cloud, Teresa Carlson, vice president at AWS Worldwide Public Sector, said in a statement, “The U.S. Intelligence Community can now execute their missions with a common set of tools, a constant flow of the latest technology and the flexibility to rapidly scale with the mission. The AWS Top Secret Region was launched three years ago as the first air-gapped commercial cloud and customers across the U.S. Intelligence Community have made it a resounding success. Ultimately, this capability allows more agency collaboration, helps get critical information to decision makers faster, and enables an increase in our Nation’s Security.”

John Edwards, the chief information officer of the CIA, declared, “The AWS Secret Region is a key component of the Intel Community’s multi-fabric cloud strategy. It will have the same material impact on the IC at the Secret level that C2S has had at Top Secret.”

The “AWS Top Secret Region” that Carlson and Edwards refer to is a private, off-the-grid computing cloud used solely by the 17 agencies that comprise the military-intelligence state apparatus. The cloud, known as the Commercial Cloud Service (C2S), stores large portions of the internet and telecommunications data collected by the IC agencies. It is a component of the Intelligence Community Information Technology Enterprise (IC ITE) program launched in 2011 in response to the data breaches carried out by Chelsea Manning, which exposed the war crimes carried out by American imperialism in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In a speech given before the 2017 AWS Public Sector Summit in Washington DC last June, Edwards heaped praise upon Amazon for the benefits that the C2S cloud has brought the CIA and other spy agencies. He declared, “It’s the best decision we ever made. It’s the most innovative thing we’ve ever done. It is making a material difference and having a material impact on both the CIA and IC [intelligence community].”

Edwards noted that the cloud has led to significant cost savings, while providing the IC with the ability to “scale vast infrastructures in seconds.” He revealed that “adoption of the cloud across the IC is growing at 208 percent year-over-year.”

Edwards went on to characterize the C2S cloud as the equivalent of a superhero, possessing the superpowers of Speed, Power, Scalability, Strength, Durability and Truth, with each attribute as a separate heading on his PowerPoint slides.

Regarding the “Strength” of the C2S cloud, he stated, “I’m never gonna say that anything you do in the cyber world is totally invincible, but this is pretty close. … I would argue and say that this is probably the most secure thing there is out there.”

Edwards’ claims that C2S is nearly impenetrable are belied by revelations made last week that a massive database created by the Department of Defense (DoD) and hosted on an AWS server has been publicly exposed. The database contained upwards of 1.8 billion internet posts from thousands of people across the world that had been compiled by the Pentagon over the past eight years, apparently as part of a vast intelligence-gathering operation. In all likelihood, this database was classified as Top Secret and therefore could have been hosted on the supposedly impenetrable C2S cloud.

Breaking the story, US cybersecurity firm UpGuard wrote, “UpGuard Director of Cyber Risk Research Chris Vickery discovered three Amazon Web Services S3 cloud storage buckets configured to allow any AWS global authenticated user to browse and download the contents; AWS accounts of this type can be acquired with a free sign-up.”

Describing the character of the released documents, UpGuard noted, “The repositories appear to contain billions of public internet posts and news commentary scraped from the writings of many individuals from a broad array of countries, including the United States, by CENTCOM and PACOM, two Pentagon unified combatant commands charged with US military operations across the Middle East, Asia, and the South Pacific.”

The character and immense scale of this data gathering operation provide a glimpse into the profoundly antidemocratic spying activities which the Pentagon and spy agencies engage in every day, and which Amazon has been profiting from handsomely in recent years.

The internet posts compiled by the Pentagon included “content captured from news sites, comment sections, web forums, and social media sites like Facebook, featuring multiple languages and originating from countries around the world,” according to UpGuard.

As Google and other tech companies are working with the American state to censor the internet and countries around the world prepare their own plans for internet censorship—all in the name of combating the bogeyman of “fake news”—the Pentagon has secretly been engaged in mass surveillance of the global population’s online activity, in close consultation with Amazon.

The creation of the new Secret Region cloud, alongside the broader drive toward internet censorship and surveillance, highlights the growing integration of all the major tech corporations with the state in preparation for a vast expansion of war abroad and attacks on democratic rights within the US.

Last Thursday, the Senate voted to approve the $700 billion National Defense Authorization Act by a voice vote, after it quickly passed through the House of Representatives by a bipartisan vote of 356 to 70. While significantly increasing troop levels and providing funding for more ships and military equipment, the budget also mandates the creation of “e-commerce portals,” which will eventually lead to the funneling of billions of dollars directly to Amazon.

US expands military offensive in Somalia

Eddie Haywood 

Since the beginning of the year, the US has rapidly expanded its forces and significantly ramped up its military offensive in Somalia, conducting at least 28 air strikes in 2017. By comparison, 13 such air strikes were carried out in 2016, and five during 2015.

On Tuesday, AFRICOM stated that a US air strike killed more than 100 at a training camp purportedly belonging to the Somali-based Al-Shabaab militia. The air strike impacted an area around 125 miles northwest of capital city Mogadishu. US officials claimed the strike was carried out at the request of the US-backed Federal Transitional Government (FTG).

Speaking on the US pretext for the attack, a spokesperson from AFRICOM told the media, “Al-Shabaab has publicly committed to planning and conducting attacks against the US and our partners in the region.”

The attack is part of the broader US campaign against Al-Shabaab, in which the US has carried out repeated drone strikes against militants in the several weeks since a truck bombing in central Mogadishu by Al-Shabaab killed over 350. Increased air strikes augment a ramped-up military offensive by the Trump administration in the Horn of Africa.

The expanded campaign comes with new rules of engagement enacted by the Trump administration in March, granting broad authority to US forces to conduct open-ended warfare. These loosened restrictions on rules that were ostensibly in place to protect the civilian population from US bombardment make it clear that Washington is preparing for a dramatically expanded military offensive in Somalia.

Al-Shabaab maintains a strong presence in the center and south of the country, but has steadily lost ground since 2011, when US-backed forces from the African Union routed the militia that had taken control over most of Mogadishu.

In deploying the largest contingent of US military troops in the country since 1993, AFRICOM has increased its troops in Somalia to more than 500 soldiers. In launching an all-out offensive in the country, the deployment includes special operations personnel, including Green Berets and Navy Seals, the elite commandos known for carrying out US imperialism’s gravest crimes.

For its part, the Pentagon sought to downplay the significance of the increased troop levels. Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Politico, “I would not associate that with a buildup, as you’re calling it. I think it’s just the flow of forces in and out as different organizations come in that might be sized a little differently, and I certainly don’t think there’s a ramp-up of attacks.”

Despite this, the increased number of US troops taken together with more than twice the number of air strikes over the previous year constitutes a significant expansion of the American military campaign in the country.

Robyn Mack, spokesperson for AFRICOM, said, “[The larger] advise and assist mission [is now] the most significant element of our partnership [in Somalia].”

For the better part of a decade, the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab militia has sought to topple the US-backed government in Mogadishu. The US, in carrying out its offensive against the militia, has been augmented by over 22,000 troops from the African Union, consisting of forces from several African countries, together with the Somali army. The African Union mission, called AMISOM, having officially lead the US-backed offensive since 2007, is set to withdraw its forces in December 2020.

Retired Brigadier General Donald Bolduc, who headed AFRICOM until June, spoke of the expansion to Politico: “We had to put more small teams on the ground to partner in a regional way with the Somali government. So we changed our strategy and we changed our operational approach. That’s why the footprint went up.”

AFRICOM’s expansion follows the template set in 2016 in the northern Somali region of Puntland, when AFRICOM deployed elite soldiers to assist the Somali army in routing ISIS militants who had taken control of the city of Qandala.

Outlining Washington’s strategy as a move toward a more proactive military offensive in the country, Bolduc said, “Puntland was the example we used. We said, ‘We can do this in the other areas.’ So we changed our strategy and we changed our operational approach.”

Being more specific, Bolduc said, “Do we get into contact with the enemy? Yes, we do—our partners do and we’re there to support it, and sometimes we come into contact by virtue of how the enemy attacked them.” Bolduc went on, “Taking out high-value targets is necessary, but it’s not going to lead you to strategic success, and it’s not going to build capability and capacity in our partners to secure themselves. So we provided a plan that complemented the kinetic strikes.”

Since the end of the Mohamed Siad Barre dictatorship in 1991, the US has been engaged in an effort to secure a puppet regime in Mogadishu. The consequent decades of war and conflict stoked by US imperialism have left the country in complete disarray, with the population experiencing conditions of mass deprivation and misery.

According to UN figures, more than half the population does not have access to clean water sources, and 73 percent are completely impoverished. Due to the destruction of vital infrastructure, the Somali masses have been deprived of access to decent health care and education.

The US-backed FTG government has no popular support anywhere in the country, and is viewed with outright hostility by the majority of Somalis. The military offensive and drone strikes carried out by the US and its proxy forces have killed thousands of Somalis. The consequent destruction of Somali society has led to the emergence of Al-Shabaab.

The American military expansion in the Horn of Africa must be seen in the context of China’s far-reaching and expanding economic influence on the continent, together with Beijing’s recent opening of a navy base in Djibouti, which has provoked Washington’s ire. Washington is seeking to neutralize Beijing’s influence by military force.

In establishing its first overseas base, some five miles from the joint US/French military base Camp Lemonnier, Beijing agreed to pay the Djibouti government $100 million per year. Beijing claimed the base is merely a “logistics facility.”

Last week, China’s POLY-GCL Petroleum Group signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Djibouti to invest $4 billion in a natural gas project at Damerjog near the border with Somalia. In six months, the company will begin construction on the project, which includes a pipeline, a liquefaction plant, and an export terminal. The pipeline is projected to transport 12 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year from Ethiopia to Djibouti.

China Railway Group and China Civil Engineering Construction Corp (CCECC) have financed 70 percent of the construction for an electrified Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, the first such cross-border railway on the continent. The commercial rail line connects Ethiopia’s capital with the Rea Sea port in Djibouti, and carries 90 percent of the trade from Ethiopia’s goods.

German SPD leader Martin Schulz: A false friend of Siemens workers

Peter Schwarz

The well-known proverb “Beware of false friends” should be taken as a warning by German Siemens workers, who are protesting against the elimination of 6,900 jobs and the shuttering of several plants. Some 2,500 Siemens employees demonstrated in Berlin on Thursday.

Among the speakers who addressed the protesters was Social Democratic (SPD) leader Martin Schulz. He condemned the company’s actions as “anti-social” and “irresponsible.” He accused Siemens of following the maxim, “So we can make a bit more profit, we’ll throw the people out.” A day earlier, IG Metall trade union leader Jörg Hofmann bellowed that his organization would not accept the closure of plants and will “now make an orderly ruckus.”

But despite their radical phrase-mongering, the SPD and IG Metall have been at the forefront of the ruling elite’s drive to slash workers’ wages and benefits. Hofmann leads a trade union whose functionaries, works councilors and supervisory board representatives have negotiated and signed off on hundreds of thousands of job cuts over recent years and decades—at Siemens, Opel, ThyssenKrupp and many other companies.

Schulz is chairman of a party which with the Hartz laws created the means making it possible for the companies to impose ruthless attacks on workers. The huge low-wage sector created as a result of Agenda 2010 creates downward pressure to reduce wages and undermine working conditions. Schulz spent 23 years of his political career in the European Parliament, and as its president he played a major part in throwing the living standards of Greek workers back decades.

After attending the Siemens workers’ demonstration, Schulz hurried to Bellevue Palace, where he informed German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier that the SPD is no longer insisting on new elections to resolve the government crisis. On Monday, after the failure of the Jamaica coalition talks, the SPD executive, at Schulz’s insistence, unanimously called for new elections.

In practice, the SPD’s about-face either means they will back the continuation of the hated grand coalition, which was severely punished in the federal election, or support a minority government made up of only Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union ministers that could rely on the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany), Free Democrats or Greens when required.

Both cases would involve the creation of an extreme right-wing government which will owe its power to manoeuvres behind the scenes with no democratic legitimacy. This would intensify the attacks on jobs, workers’ rights, wages and pensions, and press ahead with the strengthening of the domestic and external state apparatus that was begun by the grand coalition.

Siemens chief executive Joe Kaeser, who knows Schulz’s real agenda, mockingly answered his accusation of irresponsibility by referring to Schulz’s refusal to negotiate a new government coalition. “Perhaps you should consider who is acting irresponsibly,” he wrote in an open letter to the SPD leader. “Those who proactively deal with foreseeable structural problems and search for long-term solutions, or those who avoid taking responsibility and dialogue.”

Schulz’s appearance at the Siemens demonstration prior to his meeting with Steinmeier shows what the SPD leader is up to. His initial insistence on new elections was linked to the fear that left-wing and socialist ideas would gain influence if the SPD remained in the government and left the leadership of the opposition to the right-wing extremist AfD.

Social tensions are seething beneath the surface. The Siemens demonstration in Berlin was only one of many demonstrations over recent days. Also on Thursday, around 8,000 employees of ThyssenKrupp’s steel division protested in Andersnach, Rheinland-Palatinate against the planned merger with India’s Tata Steel. On Wednesday, a thousand laid off workers from the bankrupt Air Berlin marched from Berlin’s main train station to the Chancellor’s Office. Spiegel Online entitled an article, “Anger at the bosses, anger at politics.” And over the previous days, protests were held at several Siemens locations.

The SPD is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain control over social dissatisfaction in alliance with the trade unions, and to inoculate it against the influence of socialists. The SPD has been in government since 1998, with just one four-year break. This has discredited the party. It has shrunk to an organisational rump of state office holders, functionaries and public officials and barely secured 20 percent of the vote in the election.

The SPD’s attempt to pose as an opposition party also collides with its call for “responsible statesmanship.” President Steinmeier, Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU), Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leading state representatives want to avoid at all costs a re-run of the election because they fear an open political conflict. They are pushing for the decision on the composition of the next government to be arrived at in a small circle. In addition, there is the fear that a long-lasting government crisis would weaken Germany’s international standing. By abandoning the call for new elections, the SPD has endorsed this stance.

It is impossible to defend a single job, or any social or democratic right without challenging this conspiracy. The workers will confront the embittered hostility of the SPD and trade unions, and the government they back, if they launch a genuine struggle against Siemens’ plan, and not just a symbolic protest.

The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP) demands new elections to prevent the formation of a right-wing government behind the scenes. The SGP fights for a socialist program, which unites the working class on the basis of a struggle against social inequality, war and capitalism. Such a program, which places the social interests of the working class above the profit interests of the corporations, provides the basis for a defence of jobs.

Kremlin instructs Russian industry to prepare for war mobilization

Alex Lantier

Reports emerged yesterday in the British press that Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian industry to be prepared to divert all its efforts into war production. After Germany’s formal re-militarization of its foreign policy in 2014 and Sweden’s reintroduction of the draft, this makes clear that, just over a century after the outbreak of World War I in 1914, countries across Europe and the world are again preparing for total war.

Putin reportedly made this remark at the Sochi summit, where he discussed the Syrian war with Turkish and Iranian officials. As he spoke, he was reviewing the Russian military’s annual Zapad military exercise, which took place in September, with Russian army staff.

Putin said, “The ability of our economy to increase military production and services at a given time is one of the most important aspects of military security. To this end, all strategic and simply large-scale enterprise should be ready, regardless of ownership.”

His remarks made clear that this year’s Zapad exercise was designed to check whether Russia could sustain the all-out mobilization of its economic resources for large-scale nuclear war. The scenario of the exercise was for strategic nuclear forces to practice firing off their missiles—the country’s largest hydrogen bombs, designed to obliterate a country who attacked Russia—amid mock foreign ground invasions and large-scale missile strikes against Russia.

In such a war, the military would take over the economy, slash production for civilian needs, and re-direct whatever industrial capacity survived mass air and missile raids towards the war effort.

Putin said, “First, we checked our mobilization readiness and ability to use local resources to meet the troops’ requirements. Reservists were called up for this exercise, and we also tested the ability of civilian companies to transfer their vehicles and equipment to the armed forces and provide technical protection to transport communications. ... We also assessed the provision of transport and logistics services, as well as food and medicines to the army. We need to review once again the defense companies’ ability to quickly increase output.”

Putin’s remarks are an urgent warning to the international working class. Global capitalism is undergoing a historic political collapse. The danger of a Third World War, rooted in the conflict between the nation-state system and the global character of economic production, is imminent and growing. What Putin announced openly at the Sochi summit is what NATO governments are doing behind the backs of the people: preparing for all-out global war directly between the major nuclear powers and, if necessary, against their own population.

The chorus of attacks on Russia in the US and European media, denouncing its alleged aggression and interference in NATO countries’ politics, are saturated with imperialist hypocrisy. While Russia is carrying out military exercises on its own soil, the NATO powers are encircling Russia and marching their troops up to Russia’s very borders.

Two weeks ago, NATO held a summit in Brussels to discuss building naval and logistical bases to transport US and European troops across the Atlantic and the European continent to fight Russia. Reviewing the summit agenda, German news magazine Der Spiegel concluded, “In plain language: NATO is preparing for a possible war with Russia.”

As in Russia, NATO officials are readying for such a war with plans to subordinate all social and economic life to the diktat of the banks and the military. At the Brussels summit, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg made clear that NATO is also closely coordinating its war planning with the intelligence agencies, police and the banks. This planning, he said, “requires a whole-of-government approach. So it’s important that our defense ministers make our interior, finance and transport ministers aware of military requirements.”

Viewed from Moscow, US imperialism’s threats of aggressive military action around the planet resemble a noose being drawn around Russia. Nor are the threats concentrated on Russia’s western border with Europe. Since August, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened North Korea, which borders both eastern Russia and China, with nuclear obliteration. After Trump went to Saudi Arabia in May and pressed Riyadh to take a harsh line against Iran and Syria, Russia’s main allies to the south in the Middle East, the region is on the verge of all-out war.

At the same time, Pentagon figures publicized earlier this week showed that US military and support personnel deployed to the Middle East suddenly surged 30 percent, to 54,325.

Humanity is being brought face to face with the disastrous political consequences of the dissolution of the USSR by the Stalinist bureaucracy over a quarter century ago, in 1991. The imperialist lies of the Cold War era, that the USSR was the source of military aggression in the world, were refuted by the imperialist onslaught that developed after its dissolution. Entire regions were devastated as the NATO powers attacked or occupied formerly Soviet-allied states—Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria—or isolated and economically strangled them, as in the case of North Korea.

These wars have not only cost millions of lives, but forced over 60 million people to flee their homes, creating the greatest refugee crisis since World War II.

The crisis revealed by Putin’s call for Russia to be prepared for total war is the outcome of these decades of brutal wars waged by the NATO powers around the world. Attempts by US imperialism to use its military might to offset its economic decline and channel outward class tensions driven by rising unemployment and social deprivation, in which Washington was abetted by its European allies, have brought the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust.

This is now publicly discussed at the highest levels of the bourgeois state. Last week, in the US Senate, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey warned that plans could be in place, “right now in the White House, given to the president to launch a preemptive war against North Korea using American nuclear weapons without consulting with, informing Congress.” Another senator said the White House had become an “adult day care center” for an uncontrollable president, who could choose to launch a nuclear war virtually anytime.

The Kremlin’s policy, rooted in the bankrupt Russian nationalism of the post-Soviet capitalist oligarchy, is reactionary and incapable of opposing the imperialist war drive. Unwilling and unable to appeal to anti-war sentiment in the international working class, and financially dependent on the imperialist centers, the Kremlin oscillates between trying to cut deals with the NATO powers and risking an all-out military confrontation with them. Strategists clearly expect that such a conflict would likely escalate rapidly to large-scale nuclear war threatening the very survival of humanity.

There is no way to stop the drive to war outside a politically-conscious intervention by the working class, on an international scale, in revolutionary opposition to war and to capitalism. The greatest danger in this situation is that masses of workers are not fully aware of the depth of the political crisis and the rapidly rising danger of a catastrophic war.

It is under these conditions that, amid a campaign denouncing Russia in US and European media, governments are demanding stepped-up censorship of the Internet and social media, and Google is censoring anti-war and socialist web sites, first and foremost the World Socialist Web Site. This is why the WSWS calls for building an international anti-war movement in the working class and a socialist and anti-imperialist perspective, and asks for its readers’ support in spreading its materials against censorship and war.

The way forward in Zimbabwe after Mugabe

Chris Marsden

The resignation of Robert Mugabe as president was celebrated among broad masses, who have seen nothing but hardship due to the catastrophic economic situation facing Zimbabwe and the brutal repression and lack of democratic rights accompanying this social decline.

But those who believe Mugabe’s downfall will bring an improvement in their lives will be cruelly disappointed. The military and the faction of the ruling ZANU-PF led by Emmerson Mnangagwa have used Mugabe’s 37 years as head of state to channel social discontent against him and his wife Grace and the nouveau riche clique that makes up the Generation 40 faction she heads.

However, the promises made by Mnangagwa, sworn in as president today, of “a new and unfolding democracy” and “jobs, jobs” are worthless. His goal is to impose an adrenalized version of the capitalist policies that have already created so much suffering. What is needed is not merely the removal of Mugabe, but a political reckoning with Zimbabwe’s bourgeoisie and its abject failure to end imperialist domination, brutal exploitation and the looting of the country’s rich natural resources.

Mugabe came to power after a 15-year armed struggle against the white settler regime of Southern Rhodesia. He headed the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), which drew its support from the majority Shona people, with its main rival, the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) led by Joshua Nkomo, based among the Ndebele people.

The insurgency led to fears of the Soviet Union developing a bridgehead in Southern Africa, prompting US-inspired talks with the British Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. With its close relations to China, ZANU utilised socialist phrases to secure popular support, while exploiting fears of ZAPU’s relations with Russia, to secure Britain’s backing.

The Lancaster House Agreement paved the way for elections in 1980 won by ZANU. As a precondition for taking power, Mugabe signed up to policies preserving capitalist rule in the newly independent state of Zimbabwe and the domination of the key mining and agricultural sectors by international corporations. He also agreed not to encroach on the interests of white landowners for 10 years—taking over land only on a “willing seller” basis with full compensation.

In 1982, Mugabe launched “Operation Gukurahundi”—sweep away the chaff—in Ndebele-majority Matabeleland, a genocidal campaign led by Mnangagwa. Mugabe declared an amnesty in 1987, and the two rival parties merged to form ZANU-Popular Front.

The 1980s were a period of apparent success for Zimbabwe, which enjoyed a developed economy with rich resources, and was given favourable treatment by the West as a means of combating Soviet influence. Welfare measures and other progressive health and education reforms were implemented.

The liquidation of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought this period to an end. In the post-Cold War era, Washington, London and the European Union were no longer ready to extend the limited room for manoeuvre they once gave Zimbabwe.

Mugabe’s regime, reliant on patronage and nepotism, was viewed as an impediment to the interests of international investors. Throughout the 1990s, the International Monetary Fund cut off funding and demanded the opening of Zimbabwe to foreign investment, privatisation and ever-greater levels of exploitation as part of the Structural Adjustment Programmes agreed to by Mugabe.

This led to social unrest, including general strikes between 1997 and 1999. However, the Zimbabwe Confederation of Trade Unions (ZCTU) opposed Mugabe from the right—forming an alliance with white business and farming interests in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 2000, which pledged to “privatise and restore business confidence.”

Mugabe did nothing to wage a genuine offensive against big-business interests. He responded by combining attacks on the working class in the urban centres with encouraging limited land seizures to cement ZANU-PF’s overwhelmingly rural base—with Mugabe declaring, “Our roots are in the soil and not in the factories.”

His land policy offered no genuine solution to the social and economic problems facing either the rural poor or the workers and unemployed of the cities. The division of large agribusiness estates into small farms tied agrarian layers to ZANU-PF, but condemned previously productive agricultural land to subsistence farming when collective land ownership would have allowed for a highly productive alternative.

The imperialist powers replied to the land seizures and repression of the MDC with brutal sanctions in 2002 and 2008. Mugabe embarked on the “Look East Policy” in 2003 to seek alternative investments and markets, particularly from China and Russia. But Zimbabwe’s subordinate position in relation to the major imperialist powers was only replicated with its new trading partners, who took over vast tracts of industry, mining and the production of consumer goods. Rather than facilitating Mugabe’s declared policy of “indigenisation”, the domestic economy underwent a further collapse leading to a massive trading deficit.

Mugabe’s threat to extend indigenisation to the extraction industries was used by Mnangagwa and Commander of the Armed Forces Constantino Chiwenga to seek Beijing’s backing for their palace coup against Mugabe—with promises of a more liberal trade policy that were also extended to the US, Britain, etc. More importantly, Zimbabwe has placed itself at the centre of a struggle being waged by US imperialism against China and Russia in a contemporary version of the scramble for Africa that threatens the world with war.

The experience of Zimbabwe is that of the workers and agrarian masses in South Africa, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and throughout the continent.

None of the states established following World War II decolonisation have secured genuine independence from imperialism, or developed a viable economy that provides decent jobs, homes, education and health care. Instead, promises of national economic development have given way to the local elites acting as naked political agents of the imperialist governments, transnational corporations and banks.

The working class must adopt a genuinely socialist strategy in opposition to the counterfeit one advanced by ZANU-PF. Trotsky, based on his Theory of Permanent Revolution, opposed the Stalinist “two-stage” perspective that the path to socialism would proceed through a protracted stage of bourgeois democratic development, which has played such a disastrous role in Africa.

He insisted that in countries with a belated capitalist development, the resolution of the democratic tasks associated in the 19th century with bourgeois revolutions, including national unity and land reform, were now bound up with the taking of power by the working class. He made clear that the global development of capitalism in the imperialist epoch, coupled with fear of an already developed working class that threatened its interests, inevitably drives the national bourgeoisie into the arms of the imperialist powers that have already divided the world between them.

The realisation of socialism must be based on the same objective reality of a global economy and of the international character of the working class. Zimbabwe’s workers must strive to seize power and form their own state, offering leadership to the rural masses. But the success of a socialist revolution, even if begun in a single country, demands that it is spread to neighbouring countries in Africa, and can only be completed on the world arena.

The working class must maintain political independence from all representatives of the national bourgeoisie and the imperialist powers—including both factions of ZANU-PF, the rival MDCs, etc.—and the trade union federations that back them. The advanced workers and youth must begin building a Zimbabwean section of the International Committee of the Fourth International to fight for a socialist Zimbabwe and a United Socialist States of Africa, and to forge a unified movement for socialism with workers in the US, Britain and other imperialist states.

U.S. African Development Foundation Grants for African Enterprises 2018

Application Deadline: 29th January 2018

Eligible Countries: See List in Program Webpage (Link below)

Type: Grants

Eligibility: 

• USADF will only consider proposals from 100% African-owned enterprises, associations or cooperatives operating in the specified country sectors.
• Applicants must be legally registered in their country, with a with a proven ability to track, manage, and use internal and external resources to achieve growth.
• The majority of USADF’s funding agreements range between $100,000 and $250,000.  USADF does not provide funding to government agencies, political parties, or organizations that are not based in Africa

Selection Criteria: Successful Proposals Must

• Have a clearly defined market opportunity to grow revenues that can increase farmer incomes.
• Have a clearly defined plan of how they can increase revenues and farmer incomes in 2- 4 years.
• Be able to make significant cash or in-kind contributions toward making the project successful.
• Be able to impact hundreds of farmers.
• Be able to identify additional financing options available after the USADF grant ends.

Organization Requirements

1. The organization must be 100% African-owned and managed by country nationals.
2. The organization must be a legally registered African entity (or in the process of becoming legally registered. Registration must be completed before any funding may be provided).
3. The organization must demonstrate that it has successfully worked together and has the capability to effectively use grants funds..
4. The ownership and management must be in agreement on the problem to be addressed and have a commitment to benefit their community.
5. The organization must have basic functional management and controls to account for USADF funds.

Supporting Documents

1. Completed Application Form. – Required
2. Copy of a valid organization or enterprise registration form. – Required
3. Most Recent Business Plan. – Preferred but Optional
4. Two Years of Financial Statements  – Preferred but Optional

Grant Application Instructions

Send a copy of the completed application form and a copy of the registration document to the address listed below for your country. Be sure to include a copy of your recent business plan and financial statements if you have them.  Note: USADF is only accepting applications from cooperatives, associations, or enterprises directly involved in the sectors listed for each country in the table below. USADF is not accepting appliactions from NGOs.  Application materials submitted after January 29, 2018 will not be considered.

(For assistance with estimating revenues and income for application question number 5 in section C,  click on the following link.)

(For assistance with estimating your contribution level for application question number 2 in section D,  click on the following link.)

Grant Application Selection, Award and Implementation Process

USADF will review all applications and will contact those organizations that best fit country strategies and objectives. A site visit will be conducted and finalists will be referred to USADF Washington for a final assessment and selection. Once an application is selected by USADF Washington, a local USADF Technical Partner will be assigned to the organization to help complete additional Grant Design and Budget steps.  After the design steps are completed USADF will enter into a formal agreement to award grant funds to the organization.  The USADF Technical Partner will continue to assist the organization during the grant implementation period. Grant funds are disbursed to the organization over the grant period as the organization achieves the plans, activities, and outcomes of the grant design. Grant organizations report to USADF on a quarterly basis.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Maximum award US $250,000

How to Apply: Download the Application that suits you below. USADF grant applications are free of charge.

ENGLISH                     SWAHILI                      FRANÇAIS

Visit Program Webpage for Details

Award Provider: U.S. African Development Foundation

Open Society Masters and Doctoral Scholarships at Central European University 2018

Application Deadline: 1st February 2018

To be Taken at: Central European University, Hungary

About the Award: Central European University in Budapest is an internationally recognized institution of postgraduate education established by George Soros and supported by the Open Society Foundations. It is accredited in the United States and Hungary.

Fields of Study: Academic areas and programs include the following:

• cognitive science
• economics and business
• environmental sciences and policy
• gender studies
• history
• international relations
• legal studies
• mathematics and its applications
• medieval studies
• nationalism studies
• network science
• philosophy
• political science
• public policy
• sociology and social anthropology

Type: Masters, PhD

Eligibility: The University provides a variety of scholarships and research grants for which applicants from any country are eligible to apply.

Number of Awards: Not specified

How to Apply: 

Visit Program Webpage for Details

Award Provider: Open Society Foundation

Important Notes: Applications are due February 1, 2018 for master’s and PhD studies with financial aid. Applications are due June 1, 2018 for self-financing master’s studies.

Booking.com Delft Global Scholarships for Female Students from Sub-Saharan Africa 2018

Application Deadline: 1st February 2018 (23:59 CET)

Eligible Countries: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South-Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

To Be Taken At (Country): The Netherlands

About the Award: The Booking.com | Delft Global Scholarships give talented, motivated and broadly interested female students from Sub-Saharan Africa the opportunity to study at the Delft University of Technology. Recognizing an under-representation of women in under-graduate and advanced STEM-related areas of study, booking.com aims to ensure equal access and opportunity for all in the technology sector. The TU Delft, in particular TU Delft | Global Initiative, aims to support capacity building in the Global South and to advance future leadership focusing on sustainable global development. The UN Sustainable Development Goals are a guiding principle for the TU Delft.

Fields of Study: Admitted to one on the following TU Delft’s MSc programmes:

• Computer Science
• Embedded Systems
• Systems and Control
• Computer Engineering
• Applied Mathematics

Type: Masters

Eligibility: 

• Female student;
• A cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 80 percent or higher of the scale maximum in your bachelor’s degree.
• A degree from an accredited university in one of the above mentioned countries.

Number of Awards: 5

Value of Award:

•  Full tuition fees for a TU Delft MSc programme and living expenses for 2 years. Membership to the Scholarship club giving access to personal development, workshops, seminars, etc.
• A MSc thesis topic which relates to the Sustainable Development Goals and TU Delft / Global Initiative. Be our ambassador for Sub-Saharan Afrika.

Duration of Program: 2 years

How to Apply: 

Check if you’re eligible for this scholarship.
Complete your application for a Non EU. Check the admission requirements.
Complete, in addition to all the regular documents for a MSc programme, the Application Form for the Booking.com | Delft Global scholarship.
Upload your MSc application and the Application form for the Booking.com | Delft Global scholarship before 1 February 2018.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Booking.com

Important Notes: 

• Only students who have been granted a scholarship will be informed by TU Delft via email by begin-April 2018.
• Receiving the scholarship is conditional on the student fulfilling all admission criteria.

(AMENDS) Youth Summit for Young Leaders in MENA Region 2018

Application Deadline: 15th December 2017

Eligible Countries: Middle Eastern and North African countries

To Be Taken At (Country):  Stanford House in Oxford, United Kingdom

About the Award: The American Middle Eastern Network for Dialogue at Stanford (AMENDS) is a collaborative student-led initiative interested in the promotion of understanding and respect around the Middle East, and the support of a generation of leaders who are working to ignite concrete social and economic development in the MENA region.

AMENDS’ mission is to create a platform for promising youth leaders whose work impacts the Middle East, North Africa and United States to share and grow their initiatives. During the conference, we provide delegates opportunities to develop key skills, network and collaborate with established leaders, experts, and fellow changemakers, and share the story of their initiatives with a wider audience after receiving coaching and editing support.

Type: Conference

Eligibility: 

• be 18 – 28 years old.
• have innovative ideas and well thought-out initiatives that could affect positive change in the world.
• have initiatives addressing political, social, or economic issues pertaining to the Middle East in innovative ways.
• demonstrate the potential to further understanding between the respective regions and demonstrate potential to influence American-Middle Eastern affairs.

Selection Criteria: Delegates will be selected based on the level of their dedication to promoting change in the MENA region and/or in U.S.- MENA relations. AMENDS will also heavily consider the past experiences and backgrounds of each delegate that will enable him/her to contribute a unique perspective to the conference, in order to ensure a rich, diverse group of delegates.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Accepted delegates will:

• Present a 10-12 minute video talk about their initiative at AMENDS conference. Hosted on the channel, these talks have over 70,000 people.
• Attend a networking dinner.
• Attend workshops and talks at the conference. In the past, this has included a talk by Prince Moulay Hicham, a workshop on presenting by the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a workshop on design thinking by the Stanford d.school.

• Join and take leadership in the AMEND Fellows Network, a self-sustaining network of 120 former delegates. For the past 3 years, a separate conference has been held annually for fellows at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey.

Duration of Program: June 28 to July 2 2018

How to Apply:  Apply Here!

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: American Middle Eastern Network for Dialogue at Stanford (AMENDS)

Young African Leaders Journal of Development (YALJOD) 2018

Application Deadline: 30th March 2018

About the Award: The YALJOD is Africa’s first youth-led pan-African journal of development, and it is aimed at fostering the collective progress and development of the African people. The journal also provides the blueprint for our development mission as well as many other organisations.

The journal was established in 2015 to host scholarly analysis and competing viewpoints about the development of Africa. Our motive for establishing this historic journal is to garner the ideas of young Africans as pertaining the development of the continent. We want to know what young people are thinking, and how we can harness their potentials for the development of Africa and the realisation of both the SDGs and the Agenda-2063 vision.

YALJOD’s multidisciplinary approach makes it more formidable. It accepts papers from varied disciplinary areas – including Social Sciences, Physical Sciences and Humanities –that show direct relevance to the development of Africa. In this sense, it publishes researches understood as highlighting the social, political, cultural and technological processes of positive change in the continent. The specially targeted audience of the journal are the continent’s leadership operators, civil societies and NGOs, development academics, researchers and youth leaders.

Type: Call for Papers

Eligibility:  Articles submitted to YALJOD must be original work that has not been published anywhere previously. It also must not be currently under consideration by any other publication. Any consequences for the violation of these copyright laws or infringement will be duly borne by the defaulting author. The journal is not scholarly peer-reviewed; but in some cases, manuscripts will be sent to our specialists and scholars (YALF Consultants) for evaluation.

We are regrettably unable to provide individualised critiques of most of the manuscripts that we reject. However, we will ensure we confirm the receipt of articles once they arrive.

OTHER CONDITION FOR SUBMISSION OF ARTICLES:

• To successfully submit articles for publication, prospective Authors must meet the following requirements:
• – Must hold, at least, a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree obtainable from tertiary institutions.
• – Must be between the ages of 20 – 50 when submitting the article.
• – Must not have sent the article for consideration in another publication.
• – Must be willing to participate and present the paper in any of the YALF Conferences when called upon.

Duration of Program: The 2nd edition of YALJOD will be officially launched during the 2018 Annual Summit of the Young African Leaders Forum (YALF).

How to Apply: Please carefully read through and ensure you comply with the stated guidelines as any breach of the submission rules may lead to the rejection of your paper.

• – Each paper must be accompanied by the Author’s profile summary of no more than 100 words. This should include Author’s qualification and other affiliations.
• – Each paper must be accompanied by an abstract of not more than 150 words.
• – Article must not exceed 3,500 words.
• – All articles must be properly proofread by the author.
• – Articles must be double spaced.
• – Tables, models, diagrams or photographs should be within the text, and NOT as appendix.
• – Citations and referencing should follow the recent APA style.
• – Manuscripts should be submitted via regular email, and should take the form of attachment formatted in MICROSOFT WORD (send to yaljod@yalf-africa.org )

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Young African Leaders Forum (YALF).

JAUW International Fellowship Program for Women Leaders (Fully-funded to Japan) 2018

Application Deadline: 31st March, 2018

Eligible African Countries: Any country other than Japan

To be taken at (Country):  Japan

Subject Areas: Advance studies or research in areas that require being undertaken in Japan

About the Award: This program is to offer core funding to financially help you come and stay in Japan when you have found that it is preferable or very important for you to stay in Japan to further pursue your ongoing study/research.

Type: Fellowship, Research

By what Criteria is Selection Made? Must be a woman from any country other than Japan

Who is qualified to apply?

1. Applicants must be of non-Japanese women in the age below 45.
2. Applicants must live outside Japan at the time of application.
3. Applicants must hold a Master’s Degree or above.
4. Applicants need to identify an institution/university in Japan where to conduct research.

They need to have contacted and obtained a consent from a host at the identified institution/university before application.JAUW won’t extend any help regarding this matter.

5. Applicants must submit application forms according to the Instructions.

Number of Awards: Up to two fellowships will be awarded under this Program.

What are the benefits?

• The program will allow maximum of 2recipients,  each winning between Yen500,000 and up to Yen1,000,000 to support transportation to and from Japan and cost for her stay in Japan.
• The amount granted will vary depending on duration of stay in Japan and the nature of the work. One-third of the amount will be given to the grantee upon arrival in Japan.  The rest will normally be paid within 40 days after the initial payment. However, the latter amount (i.e. two thirds of the total) may be payable in two or three installments, depending on circumstances surrounding the grantee in Japan

How long will sponsorship last? This grant is for 4 to 6 months between September 2018 and March 2019.

How to Apply: To apply, you have to use the designated forms, downloadable on the Fellowship Webpage (Link below)

It is important to go through the Application Requirements before applying.

Visit the Fellowship Webpage for Details

Sponsors: The Japanese Association of University Women (JAUW)