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February 15-28, 2015
Volume 23 – Number 3 $1
Prolétaires de tous les pays, unissez-vous!
Otatoskewak ota kitaskinahk mamawestotan!
Workers of all lands, unite
1) TELL PARLIAMENT - DEFEAT POLICE STATE BILL C-51!
2) DEFEAT THE LIBERALS’ “CREATE A CRISIS” ATTACK ON EDUCATION
3) COMMUNIST PARTY LAUNCHES FEDERAL ELECTION PLANS
4) “EVERY CITIZEN HAS THE RIGHT TO VOTE" - Editorial
5) THE CANADA-ISRAEL MOU AND BILL C51 - Editorial
6) “FIGHT FOR 15" STARTS IN B.C.
7) SFL WELCOMES SUPREME COURT RULING
8) NOT ONE MORE DIME FOR UNION-BUSTING TRUE NORTH
9) PARTNERS IN APARTHEID: BOYCOTT INDIGO BOOKS AND MUSIC
10) HSBC HELPS WIDEN WEALTH GAP
11) CONFLICT CONTINUES IN CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
12) NO TO McCARTHYIST CENSORSHIP IN FRENCH UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
13) THE UNSUNG MUSLIM HEROES OF THE GHADAR MOVEMENT
14) WHEN UKRAINIANS CHOOSE NOT TO DIE IN A WAR
15) LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK
PEOPLE'S VOICE FEBRUARY 16-28, 2015 (pdf)
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(The following articles are from the February 15-28, 2015 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)
1) TELL PARLIAMENT - DEFEAT POLICE STATE BILL C-51!
Statement from the Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada, Feb. 5, 2015
Across Canada, alarms are being raised against Bill C-51, the so-called "Anti-Terrorism Act 2015" which gives the Canadian state sweeping new powers to further criminalize public dissent. In the first place, it targets those critical of the corporate agenda of austerity, environmental destruction, and imperialist war. This dangerous Tory legislation would help further transform CSIS into a secret police force beyond the control of the public or even Parliament. The Communist Party of Canada warns that Bill C-51 cannot be "amended" or "improved"; it must be rejected by Parliament, and CSIS itself should be dismantled, not expanded.
This Bill constitutes perhaps the most serious threat to free speech and civil liberties in Canada since the era of the War Measures Act, which was proclaimed by governments several times from World War One to the 1970s to suspend democratic rights, including mass incarcerations of targeted ethnic groups, Communists, trade union leaders and a broad range of democratic forces in Quebec, until it was finally repealed by Parliament in response to massive public pressure.
Bill C-51's alleged purpose is to protect Canadians from "terrorism", but its true aim is to help the Conservative Party use fear and intimidation tactics to extend its political base in advance of the 2015 federal election. The underlying purpose is to limit civil, labour and democratic rights of all Canadian citizens and residents, and to expand the powers of an increasingly authoritarian state.
Making racist speeches which single out mosques for special attention, the Prime Minister has openly signalled that entire sections of the population are being placed into a category of potential terrorists, considered "guilty until proven innocent." Even the Globe and Mail has warned that "the fearmongering of a campaigning Prime Minister" is being used to turn CSIS into "something that looks disturbingly like a secret police force."
Under this legislation, CSIS agents will be allowed to act against any perceived "threat to the security of Canada," without a judicial warrant if they claim that their activities do not contravene Charter rights or the law. CSIS would be permitted to disrupt vaguely defined "radical websites", and to apply for court orders to remove "terrorist propaganda" from the Internet. The Bill lowers the legal threshold to detain people without criminal charges, and expands the reach of the "no-fly list".
CSIS agents will be allowed to break into homes and offices, seize documents, remove whatever they find, install monitoring devices, or carry out any "dirty tricks" or disruptive activities which a judge agrees is "reasonable".
Since the government has declared that Canada is at war, there is every reason to believe that any judicial limits on these police powers will be minimal at best, and that these activities will be integrated with the CIA's "black operations" around the world. Just as ominous, there will be no mechanism for Canadians to even monitor CSIS, leaving only the PMO and a tiny clique of powerless and complicit government officials with knowledge of its actions.
Section 16 of C-51 prohibits "advocating and promoting terrorism", raising a wide range of unanswered questions. For example, Public Safety Minister Blaney has refused to give a direct response in Parliament or to the media regarding non-violent civil disobedience protests against the extraction and export of tar sands bitumen. The clear implication of Minister Blaney's comments is that any protests directed against the energy industry are by definition potentially dangerous, and could fall under the general umbrella of "terrorist" activity. Similarly, Conservative cabinet ministers repeatedly slander the broadly-supported movements which oppose Israel's apartheid-style occupation of Palestinian territories - such as the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions campaign - in effect branding these movements as targets of CSIS actions.
Since coming to power in 2006, the Harper government has engaged in massive surveillance against indigenous people's movements, and has frequently used back-to-work legislation against unions under federal jurisdiction, claiming that strikes at Air Canada, the Post Office, etc., constituted a threat to the economy. Now, Bill C-51 will criminalize actions which "interfere with the ability of the Canadian government to maintain economic or fiscal stability", an obvious threat against both the labour movement and the right to strike, and indeed any movement which resists the agenda of the banks and corporations. Trade unions and Aboriginal peoples will be a major focus of the beefed-up CSIS, just as the RCMP was used for decades by federal and provincial governments to break strikes and target Aboriginal activists.
In other words, the Harper Conservatives are providing CSIS with powers going far beyond those which were stripped from the RCMP over 30 years ago as a result of its illegal activities such as barn-burning in Quebec and spying on CUPW - and at the same time the Tories are implicitly setting the political agenda for this new secret police operation.
A growing chorus of criticism is emerging, including by some media outlets and civil liberties groups. The Green Party leader, MP Elizabeth May, has condemned C-51 as so "overbroad" that it "could apply to anything". The NDP, Liberals and Bloc Quebecois have raised some questions about the lack of public oversight of CSIS, but unfortunately these opposition parties have yet to take a principled stand to block C-51 in Parliament.
The Communist Party will do everything in our power to help defeat Bill C-51. We urge the labour and democratic movements, environmental groups, Aboriginal peoples, the Palestine solidarity and anti-war movements, civil liberties groups, and all those who care about civil, labour and democratic rights, to help build a powerful, mass, united campaign against this police state legislation. Such a broad-based fight can win, by mobilizing public opposition right across the country!
2) DEFEAT THE LIBERALS’ “CREATE A CRISIS” ATTACK ON EDUCATION
Premier Kathleen Wynn has adopted the “create a crisis” strategy of the Harris Tories, demanding the closure and sale of 25% of public schools in Toronto, and the dismantling of the Toronto District School Board. The Board must prove compliance by Feb. 13, or face a provincial take-over.
There are currently 133 schools at or below 65% enrolment, though TDSB enrolment projections put most of them well over that figure in 10 years. But the schools are fully utilized now, with child care centres, parent and family services, adult education, community services, settlement services, parks and recreation. Closing and selling the schools will leave important programs and public services homeless, and neighbourhoods without schools. The largest percentage of proposed closures are in the poorest neightbourhoods in Toronto.
The Liberals’ “shock and awe” attack is intended to paralyze voters, just 90 days after the new Board was elected with a progressive majority. Voters clearly opposed the government’s long-standing demands that the TDSB sell off schools, land and assets built up over decades for the benefit of children, youth and communities – past, present and future. At every opportunity, the public has opposed the province’s directives, including to undermine local democracy and dismantle the Board.
The Premier’s real concern is that the largest School Board in Canada, backed by the public, will refuse to sell off assets, privatize services, and cut education transfers – and instead demand a needs-based funding formula .
But the only proposals for funding in the provincial budget are to freeze public sector wages and cut education transfers by $500 million this year, resulting in more layoffs, and the elimination of even more services.
The government intends to do the same to School Boards across the province; that is, to remove all of their remaining responsibilities, and then to eliminate locally elected and accountable Public School Boards altogether. Local democracy and autonomy are in the cross-hairs.
The Communist Party (Ontario) demands that the government immediately withdraw the Minister’s January 16 directives to the TDSB, and:
* deliver a needs-based funding formula for education in Ontario
* provide capital funding for school repairs and new builds
* respect local democracy and autonomy
* eliminate the public sector wage freeze
* create one secular public school system open to all!
3) COMMUNIST PARTY LAUNCHES FEDERAL ELECTION PLANS
Special to PV
The Communist Party of Canada has initiated plans for a larger and more visible presence in the federal election which must be held sometime between this spring and the scheduled date of Monday, October 19.
With this timeline looming, the CPC’s Central Committee held a special on-line one day meeting on February 1, devoted to election planning. CC members took part from locations coast to coast, discussing the party’s outlook on the current political situation, the CPC election platform, and organizational preparations.
The CC meeting was opened by party leader Miguel Figueroa, who noted that the Tories appear to be retreating from an early election, primarily due to economic upheavals: the fall of the Canadian dollar, dropping world oil prices, rising consumer prices, and mass layoffs. Figueroa warned that the Tories will try to bring in a balanced budget, through more cutbacks of federal employees and other anti-working class measures. He predicted that PM Harper will shift the focus to his party’s pro-war and pro-imperialist foreign policy, around Canada’s role in the war in Iraq, hawkish positions over the Ukraine crisis, and support for Israel’s expansionism. Harper will also beat the drums for Bill C-51, the so-called “anti-terror” law which allows for preventive arrests without charges, expanded powers for CSIS, and other profoundly undemocratic changes.
The Tories will claim that they are for a “strong Canada”, while stepping up personal attack on Justin Trudeau and the Liberals, and using electoral loopholes to massively outspend the opposition parties. New voter suppression tactics are expected such as changes which allow the major parties to harass voters at the polls by challenging their ID credentials.
Meanwhile, he said, the Liberals will urge “strategic voting” to stop another Tory majority, hoping to win back votes which went NDP in 2011. For its part, the NDP will try to outflank the Liberals on the left (for example Thomas Mulcair’s call for a national child care program), while still aiming to appear as a “responsible” party ready to take the reins of government.
Figueroa said the Communist campaign will present the Party's perspectives and priorities as widely as possible to working people.
“Our first objective,” he said, “will be to help defeat the Harper Conservatives - the most aggressive and authoritarian big business party - and to help create the best possible conditions to carry forward the mass struggle after the election... The second objective is to advance our own platform as strongly as possible in the ridings where we are running, and to build support for a socialist alternative, and gain new members for the Party and the YCL.”
The CC members had a wide-ranging discussion of a preliminary draft of an election statement reflecting Figueroa’s introduction.
That statement notes that while the past nine years have seen widespread resistance, the Harper Conservatives continue to “chop and privatize vital social programs and services, lower the real wages of working people, and gut labour’s right to free collective bargaining. Their drive to export raw materials is destroying the environment and trampling on Aboriginal sovereignty, while creating huge profits for the oil and resource corporations. They have attacked civil rights, democracy and equality. And they have driven Canada’s foreign policy further toward militarism, aggression and war.”
The Communist Party will urge working people to dump the Tories, and to launch a longer-term, extra-parliamentary fight, including mass social mobilizations which can begin to have an electoral impact. The CPC calls for a powerful and broad People’s Coalition of the working class and its allies outside of Parliament, as the way to shift power from the banks and transnational corporations, and start moving Canada in a new direction.
The draft election statement notes that today’s global crisis “is not really about government policies – it is about capitalism itself. It is time that capitalism and exploitation was replaced with a new system – socialism, a society based on full democracy, human equality, and environmental sustainability, in which the resources and economic wealth are owned and controlled by the working people, not by corporate bosses. “
Voting Communist, the statement says, sends “a strong and clear message that another Canada – and a better world – is necessary, urgent and worth fighting for.”
From that discussion, the CC meeting moved into an extensive review of a draft election platform, covering a wide range of policy proposals to create jobs, expand democracy and social equality rights, protect the environment, and move towards an independent foreign policy of peace and disarmament. The election statement and platform will be on the agenda for a full in-person CC meeting later this spring, or by another conference call in the event of a snap election.
In the meantime, organizational work has begun to nominate 20-25 Communist candidates in key ridings across the country. The Party’s new Central Organizer, Johan Boyden, presented an overview of these preparations, including recent efforts to identify candidates and ridings, and to begin collection of signatures for nominations. Among other rules, Elections Canada requires at least 100 valid nomination signatures in each riding, plus a $1000 refundable deposit. These requirements pose a significant challenge for a small political party, but the CPC has been up to the task every time that Parliament adds new hurdles and barriers to the participation of smaller parties.
For more information on the Communist campaign, including how you can help to nominate CPC candidates, please contact the party’s central office at 416-469-2446, or email info@cpc-pcc-ca.
4) “EVERY CITIZEN HAS THE RIGHT TO VOTE"
People’s Voice Editorial
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that "every citizen of Canada has the right to vote." But imagine this scenario during the next election. For weeks, the Harper Conservatives have been bombarding the media with attack ads, using a new spending loophole created by allowing a longer campaign period. Shortly before E-Day, an official from “Elections Canada” calls to advise that your polling place has been moved to 666 Dead End Road. So you call the real Elections Canada to report a serious crime. "Not much we can do," they say. "Everyone knows the Harper gang hires U.S.-trained operatives to sabotage elections, but they just designate one fall guy to take the rap."
Undaunted, you head to the polls, only to see a lineup stretching out the doors. Some folks are leaving as the line inches forward. It turns out Conservative scrutineers are being mighty careful. After all, a terrorist cleverly disguised as an Indigenous elder might try to use their Voter Information Card to vote for an opposition candidate.
Everybody knows you can't use a VIC to vote, you point out. But the scrutineers are checking every piece of photo ID, using magnifying glasses, cross-checking name spellings, asking for more proof, just as the new election laws allow. Is it just a coincidence that this is happening in your low-income working class neighbourhood, with a high percentage of seniors, Indigenous people, tenants, and students?
Fortunately, there is resistance. The Council of Canadians is challenging the "(Un)Fair Elections Act" and its restrictive ID requirements, and the opposition parties have pledged to reverse the voter suppression laws. But that not might matter if Harper grabs another majority. So get ready to mobilize your friends. Your vote is your right - don't let them steal it!
5) THE CANADA-ISRAEL MOU AND BILL C51
People’s Voice Editorial
When John Baird resigned his federal cabinet post in early February. there was considerable mock “dismay”, including the question: how will Israel be able to function with only one foreign minister?
Probably it’s just a coincidence, but his sudden departure came just two weeks after a shocking “Memorandum of Agreement” was co-signed by Baird on behalf of Canada, and the notorious Zionist hawk Avigdor Lieberman, the actual Foreign Minister of Israel. Readers are urged to look up the MOU on the internet, but a few excerpts suffice to explain its content.
“Deeply concerned by efforts to single out the State of Israel for criticism and isolate the State of Israel internationally including calls for a boycott of the State of Israel, for the divestment of investments, and for sanctions to be imposed on Israel (and) Recognizing that the selective targeting of Israel reflects the new face of anti-Semitism (the two states) will work together to oppose efforts to single out or isolate the State of Israel through: developing a coordinated, public diplomacy initiative...”
Taken in the context of the Harper government’s vitriolic denunciations of Palestine solidarity movements, this MOU gives Bill C-51, the legislation currently before Parliament, a new and terrifying dimension. Essentially, Canada has signed a commitment to define any supporter of the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions movement against Israel’s apartheid policies as a potential terrorist subject to a wide range of police surveillance, pre-emptive detentions, seizure of computers, and other dirty tricks and state repression. Supporters of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, and of the brutal killings of Palestinian civilians by Israeli Defence Forces and deranged Zionist settlers, will of course be treated as heroes. The stench of racist hypocrisy from Parliament Hill these days is overpowering.
6) “FIGHT FOR 15" STARTS IN B.C.
It took a huge campaign by the labour and student movements to finally compel the B.C. Liberal government to raise the minimum wage rate for the first time in over a decade. But less than three years after that 2012 victory, the province is back near the bottom - eighth in Canada behind Ontario, Nunavut, Yukon, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Prince Edward Island.
Even though Statistics Canada reports that BC has the highest cost of living in the country, 120,000 workers here are paid only the $10.25/hour minimum wage, and a total of 517,000 earn $15 or less. Shockingly, liquor servers and farm workers can even be paid lower than the minimum. Restaurant owners often take full advantage of a legal loophole to pay employees just $9/hour, by scheduling some staff to do table service just often enough to claim that they fall into the liquor server category. Farm workers are still paid at piece rates.
These harsh realities led the BC Federation of Labour to launch a new campaign to raise the province’s minimum wage. Taking a page from similar struggles across the border, the demand is for a $15/hour minimum to be won by the end of 2015. Already there is strong public backing; surveys indicate that about three-quarters of British Columbians support an increase.
The campaign aims to dispel longstanding myths about minimum wage earners. Fast food corporations and other employers often claim that these are mostly high school students working the occasional shift while living for free at home, or that only new employees are paid the $10.25 rate while they learn on the job.
In fact, 47% of the 120,400 minimum wage earners in BC are 25 or older, and nearly 10,000 are over 55 years old. Almost two-thirds are women, and 55% have worked in their jobs for at least a year. Nearly half of these workers are employed by companies with more than 500 employees, and 14% - one in seven - hold a university degree.
Unlike some other provinces, British Columbia has no provision to review the minimum wage, leaving the issue to become a political football. That was the strategy used by Christy Clark shortly after she became Premier in 2012, when she boosted the minimum wage to project an image of caring for ordinary working folk.
The “Fight for 15" campaign argues that “work should lift you out of poverty”. A $15 wage would put BC’s lowest paid workers 10 per cent above Statistics Canada’s low income cut-off, and give them a better chance to cover the cost of basic necessities.
And it would also help counteract the trend of increasing income inequality in Canada’s most expensive province. For example, young people from low- and middle-income families are finding it harder to access the university or college education they need to get a good job. Tuition fees here have doubled since 2002, leaving many with crippling debt loads. Just to cover the cost of tuition, a student earning minimum wage must work 550 hours - fourteen weeks of full-time work - which does not include any other living costs.
The “Fight for 15" campaign went public on January 15, with petition drives at locations in Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey and Victoria. Similar events will be organized on the 15th of each month, to highlight unique aspects of the campaign. In January, the focus was on students.
“We know that many students are struggling to put themselves through school and make ends meet on minimum wage jobs,” said Irene Lanzinger, President of the B.C. Federation of Labour. “Post-secondary graduates are leaving school with an average of $35,000 of debt. That is not good for our young people, and not good for the economy.”
For more details and to get involved in the campaign, visit www.fightfor15bc.ca.
7) SFL WELCOMES SUPREME COURT RULING
PV Vancouver Bureau
Working people won a major victory on Jan. 30 when the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruled on a case brought forward by the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour (SFL) and its affiliates. The precedent-setting 5-2 decision found that the Saskatchewan Party government’s Public Service Essential Service Act (Bill 5) is unconstitutional because it violates the right to strike, which is protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The SFL says the ruling means that any government that tries to limit the rights of working people will be vulnerable to legal challenges. Stronger legal protection for the right to strike, according to the Federation, will help workers to form unions and bargain collectively for fair wages and working conditions, countering the power wielded by employers.
“Saskatchewan’s labour movement has always fought for the rights of working people, protected the public during labour disputes, and ensured that job action is a last resort,” said SFL president Larry Hubich, “however, the recognition of the right to strike is necessary to restore the balance between workers and employers.”
“As Canadians we value the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. So this decision today is not just a win for working people, it is also a victory for the values of fairness we all share,” said Hubich, “it is my hope that the Saskatchewan Party government will recognize its mistake, and pledge to never again let its ideology get in the way of good public policy.”
Observers agree that the ruling raises the bar for federal and provincial governments in their dealings with public sector employees, by affirming the right to strike as constitutionally protected.
The Supreme Court gave Saskatchewan one year to enact new legislation, and warned that any new law must be fair to workers. The same principle was used in another recent SCC ruling to allow RCMP members to form unions or associations.
After winning election in 2007. the Saskatchewan Party introduced Bill 5, stating that if employers and unions are not able to agree on which workers are deemed essential and cannot legally strike, the government gets to decide.
The majority of the Supreme Court judges ruled that such unilateral power violated the section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that protects freedom of association.
Saskatchewan Labour Minister Don Morgan initially said his government’s original legislation “could have been done far better than it was." But since then, his government has warned that it may use the infamous “notwithstanding clause” to veto the Charter.
Hassan Yussuff, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, said the ruling will force government's to craft more careful legislation to stop essential workers from striking, compared to the "much more cavalier" approach it has taken in the past.
"The government needs to take a great deal of care if they're going to intervene to interrupt that right of workers," said Yussuff.
Bill 5 was widely seen as retribution against public sector workers, after a strike by thousands of nurses in 1999 and another by highway workers and correctional officers in late 2006 and early 2007.
Court challenges began in 2008, and the Regina Court of Queen's Bench struck it down as unconstitutional in February 2012. After the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal overturned that ruling in 2013, the SFL appealed to the Supreme Court and succeeded.
The ruling could affect public service unions across the country, such as in Nova Scotia, where the Liberal government imposed a controversial essential services law for health care workers last April. Newfoundland and Labrador and British Columbia have similar laws on the books.
8) NOT ONE MORE DIME FOR UNION-BUSTING TRUE NORTH
Public letter to Winnipeg City Council, January 28, 2015, from Darrell Rankin, Leader of the Communist Party of Canada-Manitoba
Dear members of City Council,
The media will probably insulate the public from my comments, but I want to say this about True North's plan to build a hotel and, likely, retail space to link with the Convention Centre. More gambling machines could line the new hallways with funds going to True North.
I don't want to see another dime of City money go to a union-busting, billionaire-backed outfit like True North. This is an outfit that receives at least $12.5 million in public money every year, and fails to say even a small thank-you on its website.
We are talking about a quarter-billion dollars in public money over twenty-five years being sucked up by True North with no accountability, calculated before we landed the Jets franchise. How fair is that to other downtown hotels?
I'm not counting the recently-installed gambling machines whose revenue goes to True North and subsidies to support the Jets franchise. How many more machines will True North want in the new development?
It is a private corporation that does not have to report its profits, unlike how the government forces First Nations (who are owed resources and funds) and trade unions (who are democratic, unlike corporations) to disclose all their spending.
This privileged outfit busted the union that worked at the publicly-owned Arena.
To me, you are allowing CentreVenture to get away lightly for signing a secret deal with True North. You have the power to make True North give the stagehands their jobs back, show some gratitude, and disclose its finances.
If True North fails to do that right away, then it's time for you to reverse the privatization of the Arena.
I am unable to make these comments in person to you today, but I hope the discussion at council shows you will put people before billionaires. I'd put $12.5 million a year towards building houses and child care centres, not supporting an outfit like True North.
9) PARTNERS IN APARTHEID: BOYCOTT INDIGO BOOKS AND MUSIC
By T.J. Petrowski
Branches of Indigo Books and Music and its subsidiaries Chapters, Coles, SmithBooks, and IndigoSpirit are familiar coast to coast, thanks to the company’s monopoly control of retail bookstore sales in Canada. But behind the inviting facade lies a terrible reality – the murder of Palestinians.
Heather Reisman, the founder and CEO of Indigo Books and Music, and her husband, Gerry Schwartz, the co-founder of Onex Corporation, are among the most pro-Zionist capitalists in Canada. With a combined net worth between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion, they donate millions of dollars to support Israel’s occupation of Palestine, through the Heseg Foundation, which they founded to provide scholarships and other support to foreign-born soldiers who serve in the Israeli military.
The Heseg organization handed out over $100,000 worth of rewards to Israeli soldiers who participated in the 2008-2009 assault on Gaza. The assault, which aimed to weaken the democratically-elected Hamas into submission, killed 200 Palestinians in a single day, and more than 1,400 (including 400 children) in total.
Reisman and Schwartz are close to several powerful Israeli military leaders and war criminals. On the Heseg board are army and air force chiefs of staff, the head of Israeli intelligence (Mossad), and Major General Doron Almog, who has been accused of war crimes for his role in bombing civilians in Gaza during 2000-2003.
Israel’s genocidal war on the people of Lebanon in 2006 killed thousands of civilians and destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure. At that time, Reisman and Schwartz, in a highly publicized spectacle, switched from backing the Liberals to the Harper neo-conservatives, who gave strong support for Israel.
Kate Gilmore, speaking for Amnesty International, dismissed claims that Israel tried to avoid civilian casualties: “Many of the violations identified in our report are war crimes, including indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks. The evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of power and water plants, as well as the transport infrastructure vital for food and other humanitarian relief, was deliberate and an integral part of a military strategy,” she told the press.
The level of destruction in Lebanon invalidates Israeli claims of ‘collateral damage’ and indicates that the war was about much more than ‘self-defense’. The Lebanese government estimated that 30, 000 houses, 900 businesses, 120 bridges, 94 roads, and 31 other vital points were destroyed in the 7, 000 Israeli airstrikes and 2, 000 naval shells launched against targets in Lebanon. The firing of over a million cluster bombs left large swathes of southern Lebanon uninhabitable, and the extensive use of cluster bombs near the end of the war “looked suspiciously as if Israel had taken the brief opportunity before the war’s end to make south Lebanon – the heartland of both the country’s Shi’ite population and its militia, Hezbollah – uninhabitable, and to prevent the return of hundreds of thousands of Shi’ites who had fled Israel’s earlier bombing campaigns.” (See Jonathan Cook, www.antiwar.com/cook/?articleid=11459)
The use of white phosphorus shells, a chemical weapon that causes skin to melt away from the bone and can break down, was a clear war crime committed by Israel. In total, an estimated 700,000 Lebanese were displaced and around 1,100 killed by Israeli forces in the 34 day military campaign.
All peace loving people should support the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid’s boycott of Indigo Books and Music.
10) HSBC HELPS WIDEN WEALTH GAP
PV Commentary
While this scandal has seen little coverage in Canada, the BBC is reporting that banking giant HSBC helped wealthy clients across the world evade hundreds of millions of pounds worth of tax.
The BBC show Panorama has seen accounts from 106,000 clients in 203 countries, leaked by whistleblower Herve Falciani in 2007. The documents include details of almost 7,000 clients based in the UK.
HSBC admits that it was "accountable for past control failures," but it has now "fundamentally changed". (Of course, genuine “fundamental change” would require taking a stand against global capitalism, but no doubt HSBC has a different definition of this term.)
The bank now faces criminal investigations in the US, France, Belgium and Argentina. But not in the UK, where HSBC says it is "co-operating with relevant authorities".
As the BBC notes, “offshore accounts are not illegal, but many people use them to hide cash from the tax authorities. And while tax avoidance is perfectly legal, deliberately hiding money to evade tax is not. The French authorities concluded in 2013 that 99.8% of their citizens on the list were probably evading tax.”
Thousands of pages of data obtained by the French newspaper Le Monde have now been passed to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the Guardian newspaper, Panorama and more than 50 media outlets around the world.
Britain’s HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) was given the leaked data in 2010, and has identified 1,100 people from the list of 7,000 British clients who had not paid their taxes. But almost five years later, only one tax evader has been prosecuted.
HMRC said 135 million pounds in tax, interest and penalties have been paid by those who hid their assets in Switzerland, and he bank claims that it now puts compliance and tax transparency ahead of profitability. But many observers believe that the tax scam is much larger and still ongoing.
The bank did not just turn a blind eye to tax evaders- in some cases it broke the law by actively helping its clients. The bank gave one wealthy family a foreign credit card so they could withdraw their undeclared cash at cashpoints overseas.
HSBC also helped tax-dodgers stay ahead of the law. When the European Savings Directive was introduced in 2005, the idea was that Swiss banks would take any tax owed from undeclared accounts and pass it to the taxman. It was a tax designed to catch evaders. But instead of simply collecting the money, HSBC offered customers ways to get round the new tax.
Richard Brooks, a former tax inspector and author of The Great Tax Robbery, said: "I think they were a tax avoidance and tax evasion service. I think that's what they were offering. They knew full well that people come to them to dodge their tax liabilities."
The man in charge of HSBC at the time, Stephen Green, was made a Conservative peer and appointed to the government. Lord Green was made a minister eight months after HMRC had been given the leaked HSBC documents. He served as a minister of trade and investment until 2013.
Speaking on BBC’s Radio 4, UK Treasury minister David Gauke defended Lord Green's appointment, saying "I am not aware of any evidence that suggests that Lord Green was involved in this sort of activity". Sure, just like Al Capone had no idea that his gang was involved in criminal pursuits.
11) CONFLICT CONTINUES IN CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
By T.J. Petrowski
With the West’s latest war in the Middle East against Islamic State, and the vilification of Russian President Vladimir Putin dominating the news, it is easy to forget that the West is involved in numerous brutal military interventions in Afghanistan, Somalia, Mali, Ivory Coast, Pakistan, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, Niger, Haiti, Yemen, and elsewhere.
The Central African Republic (CAR), an impoverished former French colony with abundant mineral resources, has been marred by sectarian violence since the start of hostilities between Seléka, a coalition of insurgents led by Michel Djotodja, a former guerrilla leader in the Bush War, and the regime of Francois Bozize. The Seléka rebels accused the regime of failing to abide by the peace agreements made in 2007 and 2011 that ended the Bush War.
Bozize, who came to power through a military coup in 2003, ran afoul of Western imperialism when he signed mining and oil contracts with China; the U.S. and France indirectly supported the Seléka rebels by withholding support for his regime. In the words of Bozize: “Before giving oil to the Chinese, I met Total in Paris and told them to take the oil, nothing happened, I gave oil to the Chinese and it became a problem.”
French President Francois Hollande cynically declared that the hundreds of French troops in the country were “in no way to intervene in internal affairs,” a clear indication of support for the rebels, considering France has been intimately involved with the internal affairs of the country since its independence in 1960, including launching air strikes against anti-Bozize rebels in 2006 and 2007. The U.S. has dozens of Special Forces stationed in the CAR, ostensibly to assist in the search for Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, although likely being another deceptive cover for a regional imperialist intervention. When Bozize was overthrown in 2013 and Seléka’s leader Michel Djotodja declared himself president, then U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland (infamous for her leaked “Fuck the EU” tape), symbolically condemned the coup, but stopped short of calling for Bozize’s return to power.
The country quickly deteriorated into a state of warfare following the coup. The predominately Muslim Seléka rebels who brought Djotodia to power, many of whom came from Chad and the Sudan, refused to disarm and committed mass atrocities against civilians, especially Christians from the country’s south. Christian peasants and Bozize supporters formed anti-Seléka groups known as anti-Balakas, and armed with machetes, committed retaliatory massacres against Muslims. Close to a million have since become internally displaced or fled to neighbouring countries; there have been reports of widespread rape, torture, beheadings, recruitment of child soldiers, and even cannibalism.
The African Union and the United Nations formed the International Mission to Support CAR (MISCA), expanded in December 2013 with a force of 6,000, and support from nearly 2,000 French troops, to replace the regional African peacekeeping force. However these “peacekeepers” inflamed tensions in the country; the “neutral” French soldiers have been accused of siding with the Christian anti-Balakas, and the African peacekeepers sent to restore peace have different agendas, with soldiers from Chad supporting the Seléka militias and soldiers from the Republic of Congo and Burundi supporting the anti-Balakas. Indeed, soldiers from Chad and Burundi attacked each other, causing Chad to withdraw its forces from the CAR.
France forced the resignation of Djotodia, replaced by Catherine Samba-Panza, the former mayor of Bangui, in January 2014. Violence nevertheless continued, and the European Union deployed a thousand soldiers to the CAR, its first mission in six years. Several controversial incidents occurred, as foreign soldiers killed unarmed protestors demonstrating against the transitional government and the presence of foreign troops.
Despite the arrival of a larger United Nations peacekeeping force and a peace agreement between the belligerents, the sectarian violence continues, and last July the leader of Seléka called for the country to be partitioned into Christian and Muslim states.
The exploitation of the CAR’s extensive natural resources – oil, timber, gold, diamonds, copper, iron, and uranium – by Western corporations, and competition with Chinese investments, are the true reason for the Western-backed intervention.
Former French President Jacques Chirac famously acknowledged in 2008 that “without Africa, France will slide down into the rank of a third [world] power.”
Several Western corporations have invested heavily in the CAR’s mineral resources. Areva, the French-state owned nuclear corporation notorious for its exploitation of African uranium, was forced to suspend its Bakouma mine (“France’s biggest commercial interest in its former colony”), following an attack on the mine by rebels. The first French troops to arrive in the country were sent to “protect its [France’s] nationals, many of whom work in Areva’s large uranium mine at Bakouma in the south-east of the country,” as reported by the BBC. Nuclear power is France’s main source of electricity, therefore a continuous supply of cheap uranium from Africa is vital for French economic interests, a fact that was not lost on the French ruling class when Bozize’s regime contested Areva’s acquisition of the mine.
12) NO TO McCARTHYIST CENSORSHIP IN FRENCH UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
The following petition against censorship in French university libraries was addressed on Feb. 3, to the President of the Sorbonne University (Université Paris 1), Professor Philippe Boutry.
A user of the Sorbonne University's Pierre Mendès France Library recently proposed to a librarian that the library acquire the French edition of Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War 1939-1953 by Geoffrey Roberts, professor at the University of Cork in Ireland and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. The book was published in French in 2014 by Editions Delga, and originally published in English in 2006 by Yale University Press. The proposal received the following response:
“The proposed work, although it was written by a university professor, does not in principle seem to us to display the historical and scientific neutrality required for it to be included on our shelves. Nor do the other books published by the same publishing house.”
When the library directors were contacted about the incriminated book, as well as about the prerequisite conditions for a publisher's books to be admitted onto the library's shelves, a series of evasive answers was given. A visit to the shelves in question, those devoted to the history of Soviet Russia and the USSR, reveals that for over fifteen years, books containing unprofessional journalism and anti-Soviet propaganda have been systematically acquired, such as those by Bernard-Henri Lévy and André Glucksmann, as well as outright holocaust-denying books, such as those by Ernst Nolte. On the other hand, important scholarly works published in French during the same period have not been acquired, such as those by Arno Mayer, Michael Carley and Alexander Werth, whose famous Russia at War 1941 to 1945, republished in French in 2011, remains absent.
This censorship is taking place in a particular context. For example, on January 21, 2015, Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna claimed, in order to justify the fact that Russia had not been invited to the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz this year, that it was the Ukrainians and not the Soviet army that had liberated the concentration camp. And on January 8 Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk claimed – without receiving any more public outcry than the Polish foreign minister – that the Soviet Union had invaded Germany in June of 1941.
These gross falsehoods have not been answered with any official reaction. This passivity is made possible only by the lack of historical knowledge within public opinion, partly a result of the censorship that has extended into the university. While this censorship lay tacit and insidious for a long time, it has now attained such a level that the Sorbonne University library no longer attempts to dissimulate it, in its prohibition of a well-known university professor and the entire catalog of a progressive publisher.
We demand that this blatant violation of university ethics be brought to an end, and that the Pierre Mendès France Library at the Sorbonne University respect diversity and pluralism in its acquisitions of scholarly publications. We demand also that this respect extend to all other university libraries.
No to McCarthyist censorship in university libraries!
Circulated by Godefroy Clair, Research Engineer at Université Paris 8; Annie Lacroix-Riz, Professor Emeritus of contemporary history at Université Paris 7; Aymeric Monville, Editor-in-chief, Editions Delga.
A link to the petition can be found at the Marxism-Leninism Today website, http://mltoday.com
13) THE UNSUNG MUSLIM HEROES OF THE GHADAR MOVEMENT
From Radical Desi magazine
This February marks 100 years of a mutiny in the British army that took place under the influence of the Ghadar Party.
The majority of those who participated in the rebellion that rocked Singapore were Muslim soldiers. The uprising took place on February 15, 1915. Two Muslim platoons, Fifth Light Infantry and Malay Guide, were posted in Singapore around that time.
The Ghadar Party, a group of South Asian radical political activists, was established in the US in 1913. The party came into being in response to racism against the South Asian immigrants who had moved to North America for a better livelihood. These immigrants had come to the US and Canada as British subjects. Many had previously served in the British army and not surprisingly believed in the fairness of the British Empire.
However, the British government never came to their aid in a situation of racial violence from white supremacists. They soon realized that the root cause of their sufferings abroad was the British occupation of India. As a result they started getting organized to fight back against racism and colonialism. Thus, the Ghadar Party was formed with a mandate to go to India and launch an armed rebellion with the help of Indian soldiers in the British army. Although the majority of the Ghadar activists were Sikhs, the party believed in secularism and wanted to establish an egalitarian society in post-British India.
In 1914, when the British were locked in war with Germany, these activists thought that it was the right time to return and launch a revolt with the help of the masses and those serving in the army. The political situation in India was not that encouraging, and the public was not ready for a radical movement. Thus, the attempted rebellion was suppressed by the authorities. Many Ghadar activists were arrested and hanged, while others had to serve life imprisonments.
On the way to India, many halted in Singapore and propagated against the British Empire, encouraging the Indian soldiers to leave their jobs and join the revolution. They had already built connections in the Muslim platoons, and Ghadar literature was being distributed among the soldiers. In the meantime, Turkey’s opposition to Britain had also influenced these Muslim soldiers, and the Ghadar Party took advantage of that.
Unfortunately, the British army came to know about the plan and transferred the Malay Guide to Penang. But the authorities somehow could not figure out that the Fifth Light Infantry had already fixed February 15 as the date for rebellion. The platoon was informed that they had to leave for Hong Kong the next morning. As the soldiers were being asked to deposit their ammunition that evening they revolted, killing one officer. This led to indiscriminate killings of white officers.
The mutineers occupied the barracks and formed three groups, one of which marched to the German prisoners’ camp, while the second headed to the headquarters, and a third party went into the city. But the German prisoners refused to join the uprising. In the end, the British government was able to suppress the rebellion and 44 mutineers were executed. Out of these, 41 were shot to death publicly.
The British documents acknowledge that these mutineers were influenced by the Ghadar Party. The centenary of the Singapore mutiny is a reminder of the Muslims’ participation in the freedom movement, something that the Hindu right deliberately denies. These days, when Hindu fundamentalists are emboldened by the election of the Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party government, assaults on Muslims have increased, in the form of religious conversion campaigns designed to bring them into the Hindu fold. Often Muslims are branded as traitors and terrorists, and their loyalties are questioned. That the Muslims were part of the Ghadar movement needs to be recognized to dispel this myth.
The story also has lessons for supporters of the imaginary Sikh homeland of Khalistan, who continue to distort the image of the Ghadar movement. Because the majority of Ghadar activists were Sikhs, the Khalistanis are determined to present the Ghadar movement as a Sikh struggle. The secular image of the Ghadar Party is therefore constantly under attack from both Hindu and Sikh religious extremists. The party had many prominent non-Sikh faces, reflecting its humanist and inclusive character, something that remains missing in theocratic, exclusionist and counter-revolutionary movements.
14) WHEN UKRAINIANS CHOOSE NOT TO DIE IN A WAR
By Dmitry Kolesnik
The current war situation in eastern Ukraine and the decision of the government in Kyiv to begin a new, fourth wave of military conscription and mobilization is unleashing a firestorm of mass opposition and refusal to fight. Protest is rising in all the regions of the country. For sure, there are still nationalist fanatics and far-right militarists exercising violence and intimidation against antiwar protests, but their capacity to stamp out protest is diminishing.
Ukraine is historically a peaceful nation. For some time now, it has avoided military conflicts like those that have flared elsewhere in eastern Europe - Yugoslavia, Georgia, etc. That came to a crashing end last year when the Kyiv government launched its “anti-terrorist operation” against the people in the east of the country. But from the beginning of the conflict, Ukraine has seen refusals by soldiers to fire on their fellow citizens, desertions from the army and refusals to show up for conscription. Women - the mothers, wives, sisters and daughters of military conscripts - have held protests and even riots against the war or against force military service.
The protests have been sparked, first of all, by the fact that many Ukrainians do not accept the interpretation of the war as offered by the government. They don’t necessarily see foreign (i.e. Russian) aggression. They only know that when a Ukrainian soldier lifts his gun or artillery barrel, it is a compatriot, a fellow Ukrainian, who appears in the gunsight.
Secondly, many people don’t want to die for the current government which they view as composed of extreme nationalists and neoliberals. They are unwilling to be cannon fodder dying for the interests of Ukrainian oligarchs whose only apparent interest is to pursue a civil war, siphon Western financial aid and suppress opposition to their rule.
Last but not least, many ordinary workers and farmers, (contrary to middle-class, urban dwellers), preserve entrenched, regional identities. They consider their homeland to be a region such as Donbas, Bukovyna, Transcarpathia or Volhynia as much as, or perhaps even more importantly, it is the entity called “Ukraine”. It is harder to sell to such people the war’s patriotic, pro-Ukraine and anti-Russia message.
The astonishing fact that almost no one is coming voluntarily to the military recruitment offices in this fourth, latest round of conscription is causing panic in the government and top army command of Ukraine. They are appealing, as always, to patriotic and nationalist sentiments, but this is falling increasingly on deaf ears.
Men of conscription age are fleeing in the thousands, crossing Ukraine’s borders in all directions, or taking cover internally, to escape the clutches of the military recruiters. President Poroshenko has been obliged to order that, henceforth, only those men of military age with papers confirming they are duly registered with their military registration office will be permitted to leave the country.
“Each day, new facts about mass, draft evasion are emerging” reports the Ukrainian daily Korrespondent. It writes, “In the first wave of military mobilization in 2014, 20 per cent of those who showed up for the conscription call did so voluntarily. In the second wave the same year, it was ten per cent. This year, only six per cent of those conscripts showing up for the call to service have done so voluntarily”.
In the Transcarpathia region in western Ukraine, entire villages have scattered across various borders to escape conscription. The head of the village council of Kosiv district in Ivano-Frankivsk region reports that the entire population of the village booked buses and have moved to Russia to wait out the war. In the village of Colchino, authorities could find only three of the 105 eligible males to whom to serve papers.
Chief Recruitment Officer for Transcarpathia, O. Boyko, told Korrespondent, “It may seem a paradox, but from the western Ukrainian region of Ternopyl, people have fled to Russia in order to escape army conscription.”
Many people are selecting east European countries as temporary refuges. Yuri Biryukov, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, has admitted, “In the last 30 days, 17 per cent of the total number of reservists of the entire region of Chernivtsy (western Ukraine) have crossed borders into other countries. According to unofficial sources, the hostels and motels in the border area of neighbouring Romania are overcrowded with Ukrainian draft evaders.”
In the Volhynya region of western Ukraine, villagers have blocked the attempts by authorities to distribute call-up papers. A news report by 112.ua explained, “On January 24, the residents of the villages of Melniki, Zatishye and Pishcha in Shatsky district of Volhynya region blocked cars of the district administration as they arrived. Inside the vehicles were representatives of the local administration and the military recruitment office, arriving to deliver call-up papers for the military mobilization. Protesters forced the authorities to tear up the papers. They were then allowed to leave and the people went at home.”
Authorities in that case struck back. “Three criminal proceedings have been opened under Article 336 of the Criminal Code (evasion of conscription)”, reported a local police official.
The Odessa publication Timer reports that on January 23 in the village of Kulevchi in Saratsky district of Odessa region, the local population revolted against the military mobilization and kicked representatives out of the local recruitment office.
The population learned that 240 call-up papers were en route to be served in their village. Within minutes, Timer explained, some 500 people gathered on the village square. Six officers of the recruitment office arrived with the papers but they found a less than welcome reception among the local people. When officials declared that refusal of conscription is punishable by criminal prosecution, the people began to shout “No war” and “We want peace”. They reminded the officers that Ukraine has not declared martial law and that the Minsk ceasefire agreement of last September has not been formally renounced by the Ukraine government. They called the new wave of military mobilization illegal and the recruiting officers were forced to leave the village.
O1.ua news outlet in Odessa reports, “In the village of Limansky (Reni district), a representative of the military recruitment office arrived with call-up papers accompanied by two armed gunmen. It nearly cost them their lives. The peasant villagers almost lynched the three.”
Before the trip to the village, the military commissar of the district, Igor Skrypnik, was aware of the hostile attitude of the civilian population toward the mobilisation process. So he asked for protection while distributing mobilization papers. Two policemen armed with weapons were assigned. But it produced the opposite result.
“When two gunmen in camouflage appeared in the village, it immediately attracted people’s attention and caused a spontaneous riot,” said the acting chair of the local state administration, Sergey Barinov. “About 200 residents of Lima sky village surrounded the representative of the military and the armed police officers and threatened to punish them. Deputy Chair Ivan Stadnikov of the Reni district state administration and Military Commissar Igor Skrypnik immediately went to the village. After difficult negotiations, a compromise was reached. But then the local residents seized the call-up papers, defiantly poured gasoline on them and set them alight – right before the eyes of the officials who had brought the papers to the village.”
In some villages in Ternopil region, the heads of local councils did not even participate in the distribution of call-up papers. Even more, when representatives of military recruitment offices were due to arrive, some local authorities in the region tipped off residents in order to give them the opportunity to avoid conscription.
The Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reports on January 27, “Ukraine’s male population has massively started leaving abroad in search of jobs to dodge the current mobilization campaign. Entire villages are booking buses to dispatch their men as far as possible. Military committees are handing over the lists of fugitives to law enforcers to try and restrict the movement of men subject to conscription outside their native districts and areas.”
Citing the Ukrainian Vesti news agency, TASS reported, “Natalya from Zaporizhia (south-eastern Ukraine) dispatched her son to Russia several months ago. The woman told Vesti on condition of anonymity that she had also sent her husband away (also to Russia) one week earlier. Men from western regions are leaving for Poland and Hungary. The city military committee in Ukraine’s capital Kiev is also complaining about draft dodgers.”
Anti-war protests are continuing in the areas of the Donbas region that are controlled by Ukrainian troops. In the city of Kramatorsk in Donetsk region, women staged a spontaneous rally in late January chanting “No war!” In a video of the protest, a woman asks the military officer present, “Why are they beating on our doors at night and taking our men away to the army?”
In recent weeks, the neighbouring, small city of Debaltseve has become the epicenter of the military clash between Donbas self-defense forces and the Ukraine army and militias. Thousands of Ukrainian troops are at risk of encirclement and capture. Most of the town’s residents have fled. There are only some 6,000-8,000 residents left, and they are living without electricity, heating and water supply. They are reduced to cooking their food over open fires.
The online Ukrainian media outlet Expres.ua reports that the mayor of Debaltseve was recently arrested by the Ukrainian Secret Service, accused of having sympathies with the pro-autonomy forces of Donbas. In the face of all this, the people rallied at the end of January, blaming the Ukrainian troops for their plight and demanding that they leave.
A protest of mothers and wives of conscripts was recently held in the village of Belovodsk in a government-controlled part of Luhansk region. The authorities arrived under the protection of machine guns to explain the conscription policy. The villagers answered that they did not vote for President Petro Poroshenko and they had no interest in sacrificing themselves for the interests of the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky (a well-know Ukrainian billionaire and advocate of war).
Social networks are responding to the mobilization by creating memes with titles such as the “Elusive Battalion”. The message is that it’s only in make-believe worlds that the children of high-ranking officials, parliamentary deputies, politicians and businessmen are serving in the military.
Writing in the Ukrainian web journal Liva, journalist Roman Lyubar explains, “Due to conscription, Ukrainian authorities have managed to unite the citizens of the country who are everywhere joining to boycott the military draft and increasingly protest against it. This despite the threat of criminal prosecution and militarist propaganda… Now Ukrainians see more clearly than ever that the poorest citizens face being cannon fodder and dying in a war while government officials and rich capitalists escape such a fate.”
Yevgeny Kopatko, a Ukrainian analyst and founder of the Research and Branding Group, told TASS, “More and more statements are heard in Ukrainian society about a readiness [by ordinary people] to sit in prison instead of going to fight. In this situation, the decision on more military mobilizations is another test for the Ukrainian authorities”.
Sergei Kirichuk, a leader of Ukrainian left organization Borotba, writes in a January 29 commentary, “Even pro-government politicians and analysts are saying that the current mobilization has failed. Some people will not come to the draft board, and others desert after they are signed up. Thus are ever more drops added to the cauldron of popular discontent.”
Under such circumstances, the Kiev government may resort to the policy of mass terror (with the help of Ukrainian far-right paramilitary organizations), forcing people to go to war at the point of a gun and murdering antiwar activists. But based on the experience of revolts and revolutions in Europe in 1917-18 during World War One, we know where such policy can lead. When people are armed and forced to fight against their will, when they are indignant, facing dire economic circumstances and demanding peace and yet their will is ignored, then the prospects of governments and private capitalist interests deemed responsible for the mess are not very bright.
Dmitry Kolesnik is a Ukrainian journalist and editor of Liva.com (‘The Left’). This article originally appeared on Counterpunch www.counterpunch.org, Feb. 6, 2015. To read a wide variety of articles on the situation in Ukraine, visit the newcoldwar.org website.
15) LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK
By Eugene McCartan, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Ireland
We have begun a new year just like the old one: the political establishment treating the people like fools, weaving a web of deception about their failed policies with the pretence that we have “turned the corner” and are on our way back to economic health.
Again Ireland has been touted as the poster boy for compliance, with Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and others from the EU Central Bank congratulating the Irish people on the sacrifice they have made and for taking the medicine dished up by them without a whimper and declaring that the rest of Europe should follow our example.
Data recently published by the Central Statistics Office exposes the harsh economic and social reality experienced daily by working people: 12 per cent of children experiencing consistent poverty; 37 per cent of young people — 400,000 people — experiencing deprivation; 1.4 million people, or nearly a third of the population of the Republic, suffering deprivation, being unable to afford basic necessities. This deprivation is most acute among lone parents, the unemployed, the long-term ill, and the disabled. A quarter of the population are unable to heat their homes.
We witness the spread of zero-hour contracts, low wages, growing numbers of long-term unemployed, and continued emigration.
The Labour Party is desperately hanging on in government, in the vain hope that the cuts in tax revenue from the professional class contained in the last budget, to be followed in the next budget with changes to the universal social charge, will swing enough middle-class votes to secure it some Dáil representation.
There is a scramble between the two government parties to see who can placate the same classes and secure their vote. Lucinda Creighton, in her effort to build a new political party, is appealing to the same social strata, with her “Reboot” outfit also making a play for changes in the USC, as these would benefit the well off more than those on social welfare, pensions, or low wages. She also wants to keep the property tax and the water charges.
At the EU level Mario Draghi, president of the EU Central Bank (and former managing director of Goldman Sachs), announced the strategy called quantitative easing. There was a great deal of hype about the announcement. In short, the ECB will buy €60 billion worth of sovereign and agency bonds per month, beginning in March 2015 and running to the end of 2016. In total, they estimate that they will pump about €1.14 trillion into the European banking system.
This will mean that global investors will be able to make vast profits off shares. The ECB’s statement also makes it clear that it is an open-ended strategy and “will in any case be conducted until we see a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation which is consistent with our aim of achieving inflation rates below but close to 2 per cent over the medium term.” A speculator’s dream.
Of course the threat is there that they will buy bonds only for compliant governments that meet their criterion, which is what they call “restructuring,” to make the economy more competitive. To working people this means further stagnation in real wages, precarious employment extending further throughout the economy, tight budgetary controls, and the privatisation of public assets and the commercialisation of public services.
Quantitative easing will only lead to a growth in asset prices and speculation. The European stock market will boom, just as Wall Street boomed with Obama’s quantitative easing in the United States. The rich will get richer and the value of shares, government bonds and commercial property will grow, while workers’ wages will remain stagnant and the cuts will continue. “Austerity” is to be permanent.
Another trick pulled by the ECB is that 20 per cent of bond purchases will be subject to what they call “risk-sharing,” which is designed to limit the exposure that the ECB (i.e. Germany) has on its balance sheet. The greater part of the risk, 80 per cent, will remain with national central banks.
What this means is that the banks will have a lot of money to lend; and those clambering for it are the financial and property speculators, once again exposing working people to all the risk and being left to pick up the bill from wild speculation.
Quantitative easing is not about easing your financial problems; it will not help you pay your bills, your mortgage, or the loan on your car, nor will it put food on the table. It is part of the continuing attempt to save a failing currency, the EU power structures, and a crisis-ridden system. It reflects the central role and the power of finance capital within that system.
It will do little to affect the growing mass of unemployed. It will not put one extra bed in a hospital for those waiting on a trolley. What it will do is make the rich richer; and the bankers and speculators will be laughing all the way to the Cayman Islands.