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People’s Voice September 16-30, 2015
Volume 23 – Number 15 $1
1) BIG PARTIES HAVE NO ANSWERS TO ECONOMY’S PLUMMET
2) THE REAL STATE OF THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
3) HOW CAN WE SOLVE CANADA’S HOUSING CRISIS?
4) MULTI-MEDIA PROJECT DOCUMENTS TORY IMMIGRATION CHANGES
5) OPEN THE DOORS FOR CANADA’S VICTIMS - Editorial
6) SECRET REPORT ON GENDER INEQUALITY - Editorial
7) “LET SELFISHNESS END” - FIDEL’S PROPHETIC WARNING
8) GUATEMALAN PRESIDENT COMPELLED TO RESIGN
9) REFUGEE CRISIS: THE ROOT CAUSE IS IMPERIALISM
10) HORRORS IN AUSTRALIA’S OFFSHORE DETENTION CENTRES
11) DEATHS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
12) UE BECOMES FIRST NATIONAL U.S. UNION TO ENDORSE BDS
PEOPLE'S VOICE SEPTEMBER 16-30, 2015 (pdf)
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(The following articles are from the September 16-30, 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) BIG PARTIES HAVE NO ANSWERS TO ECONOMY’S PLUMMET
In a Sept. 1 news release, the Communist Party reacted angrily to the abject failure of the main political parties to address to deepening economic crisis in Canada with any meaningful policies promote growth and create permanent, well-paying jobs for working people across the country.
Statistics Canada has confirmed that the Canadian economy is now officially in recession, marked by two consecutive quarters of GDP decline.
“PM Harper is in complete denial over the depth of the crisis. He is in fantasyland if he thinks that Canadians really believe ‘all is well’ with the Tories’ stewardship of the economy,” Communist Party leader Miguel Figueroa said.
“But the other ‘pretenders to the throne’ – Trudeau and Mulcair – while eager to cast blame, offer no substantial alternatives of their own to stimulate growth, to narrow the widening disparities between the super-rich and the vast majority of working people, or to boost job creation,” Figueroa added. “They all race about, claiming to be the best managers of this crisis-ridden system of capitalism. And they all cling to the same neo-liberal dogma of ‘fiscal restraint’, ‘balancing the books’, tax cuts and incentives for business, and pro-corporate trade pacts like NAFTA, the TPP and CETA.
“But none are prepared to support measures to improve the living conditions of working people forced to pay for this crisis through austerity policies shoved down their throats by every level of government.
“And none of them are prepared to admit the obvious truth – that global capitalism is in a profound and worsening economic, social and environmental crisis ever since 2008, and that all the so-called remedies employed by capitalist governments everywhere – including here in Canada – have only served to make the crisis deeper and more intractable.
“Meanwhile, employment becomes ever more precarious for millions of workers, the quality and universality of basic public services like healthcare and education continue to decline, militarism grows along with Canada’s involvement in foreign wars of aggression, and the global environment deteriorates under the impact of climate change.”
The Communist Party calls for a major turn in public policy to address the crisis, a program for fundamental change serving the needs of working people, not the big banks and corporations:
* a “Jobs First” strategy to rebuild manufacturing and value-added industries; an increase in the minimum wage to $20/hr.;
* the introduction of a Guaranteed Annual Income to raise everyone out of poverty;
* massive investments in affordable social housing and public infrastructure;
* improved public pensions, including substantially higher CPP benefits;
* the expansion of Medicare to include universal pharmacare, dental and eye care, and long-term care, the introduction of a universal, affordable and publicly-administrated childcare program, and the reduction and elimination of tuition for post-secondary education; and
* emergency legislation to slash greenhouse gas emissions, major investments in renewable energy and conservation programs, and a substantial expansion of urban mass transit.”
“These and other measures we call for in our ‘people’s alternative’ platform would create millions of permanent, well-paying jobs, and raise the real living standards of all working people across the country,” Figueroa said. “And we can pay for these measures by doubling the corporate tax rate, nationalizing oil and other natural resources, and cutting the military budget by 75%.”
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2) THE REAL STATE OF THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
In the current federal election campaign, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are posing as the party best able to deal with turbulence in the global economy. But the news that Canada has entered a recession, combined with wildly fluctuating stock prices, a sharp decline in the value of the dollar, increased living costs, and more mass layoffs, have all undermined this argument. The following excerpts from the June 2015 Political Report adopted by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada present a very different analysis of the true state of the Canadian economy.
The capitalist offensive has resulted in ever-widening social disparity between rich and poor. Recent figures from the OECD show that Canada is among the worst of the advanced capitalist countries in terms of the widening income gap between top earners and others in society. The top 1% of Canadian pre-tax income earners now capture 37% of the overall income growth, and swallow up 12.2 per cent of the country's income pie, ranking Canada only behind the U.S., Great Britain, and Germany in terms of income disparity among the 18 relatively rich countries compared. On the other hand, real incomes for working people have been declining steadily for decades, but particularly since the onset of the current crisis.
While the official unemployment figures remain steady (at 6.8%), these statistics belie the fact that the pattern of job loss/job creation is shifting dramatically. Part-time jobs accounted for 80% of net job creation over the past year and the share of workers in part-time positions now stands at 19.3%. By comparison, in 1976 that figure stood at only 12.5 per cent. Furthermore, temporary contract positions have increased the most, and now stand at 1.1 million workers, up 83% since 1997. Temp workers tend to have lower pay, fewer benefits and less on-the-job training than permanent, full-time workers.
The other side of the equation is of course the loss of full-time and well-paying jobs. In March 2015 alone, some 28,000 full-time positions disappeared, mostly in manufacturing (e.g., Bombardier, Blackberry, Kelloggs), construction, mining (Iron Ore Co. in Labrador City) and in the tar sands development (owing to the collapse of world oil prices, but also because of growing mobilizations by Aboriginal peoples and environmental activists opposing this expansion). In B.C., some 17,000 full-time jobs were lost this spring. There has also been a raft of layoffs in the service and retail sector. In addition to the 17,500 jobs lost at Target, there have been large layoffs announced at CIBC, Future Shop, Tim Hortons, Black’s Photography, Mexx and Jacob stores, among others. Job losses in these sectors, combined with the lack of job creation (especially for new entrants in the labour market) in the economy in general has driven youth unemployment through the roof, often two to three times higher than the general rate of unemployment.
Wage reductions, and the loss of full-time work, have cut into the incomes and purchasing power of working people across the country. The drop in the Canadian dollar has also driven prices for food and other imported goods up dramatically, further reducing purchasing power. Because of the gradual decimation of the secondary manufacturing sector of the Canadian economy over the past two decades or more, there is little countervailing benefit derived from the weaker national currency (compared to the U.S. dollar), except perhaps in the tourism industry. Not surprisingly, millions of working people and those on fixed incomes are finding themselves in an increasingly precarious financial position, often a pay cheque or two away from homelessness. Savings rates are at an historic low, and by the end of the last quarter of 2014, the ratio of household debt to ‘disposable’ income hit an all-time high of 163.3%!
Dwindling real incomes are driving more and more Canadians into poverty. 4.8 million are now below the poverty line (i.e., 1 in every 7 people). More than 200,000 experience homelessness each year, and almost 1 in every 5 households have serious ‘housing affordability issues’ (spending over 50% of their income on rent). The housing crisis in the largest cities is growing ever more acute, especially in Toronto and Vancouver) where rents and housing prices have been artificially inflated by rampant real estate speculation. Housing in Vancouver, for instance, is now rated as the second-most unaffordable in the entire world!
Furthermore, the pay gap between men and women for work of equal value is once again widening, forcing more women into the ranks of the working poor. While the scourge of growing poverty affects every major urban centre (as well as in the countryside) and cuts across every community and demographic group, indigenous peoples, working women, seniors on modest pensions, racialized and immigrant communities, and youth and students are hardest hit. But nowhere is the scourge of poverty more entrenched and institutionalized than among Aboriginal peoples. As the May 2014 report of James Anaya, the UN Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples in Canada, pointed out, the “abysmal” social conditions in First Nations are reflected in the fact that out of the poorest 100 communities in Canada, 96 are indigenous.
Shrinking pay cheques and higher prices on food, housing and other essentials only tell part of the story. Add to this the impact of increased user fees and diminished public services, ravaged by government austerity, dwindling access to Employment Insurance (now denied to more than 60% of the unemployed), and the corporate attack on defined-benefit pension plans, and the socio-economic reality for millions of working people becomes ever more precarious and stark.
This decline in living standards for the vast majority of working people is coupled with a corresponding spike in profits, especially for the banks, oil & resource monopolies, and other large corporations. For instance, Canada’s top three telecommunications giants Rogers Communications, Bell and Telus averaged profit margins of 45.9% in the last fiscal year, well above the international average. In the manufacturing sector, an average of four percent of jobs have disappeared every year since the recession hit, but during that same period, manufacturing profits soared a stunning 24.3%.
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3) HOW CAN WE SOLVE CANADA’S HOUSING CRISIS?
An August 31 commentary by blogger Doreen Nicoll on the Rabble.ca website reports that Canada’s housing crisis could be solved by spending $2.04 per person per week. That figure comes from York University's Homeless Hub, which estimates that a total investment of $44 billion over the next decade would end homelessness in Canada, and make more affordable housing available to more Canadians.
Nicoll points out that “spending more than 30 per cent of before tax household income on housing, municipal services, electricity, fuel and water, means there's little money left for basic expenditures like food, transportation, clothing, personal toiletries, laundry, and no money for perks like recreation. Almost 20 per cent of all Canadian households are spending 50 per cent or more of their before tax annual income on rent. For various reasons, over 235,000 Canadians find themselves homeless annually.”
A 2012 report by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities found that housing costs have outpaced average incomes. Between 2006 and 2009, average income rose by 5.5 percent for the combination of couple families, lone-parent families, and single persons in 24 major cities with over half of Canada’s population, while the average cost of home ownership rose by 22 per cent.
A “healthy” housing price-to-income ratio is generally considered to be four to one. The most recent figures for these cities show this ratio was 5.3 to one in 2014; in Vancouver the ratio was 10 to one.
Nicoll’s article continues, “One third of Canadians live in rental housing. Those most in need of affordable rental units include female-led lone-parent families, older individuals, Aboriginal households, and recent newcomers to Canada. Social housing waitlists continue to grow, yet federal subsidies are set to end when current operating agreements expire. That will put an estimated 365,000 low-income households at risk of homelessness.”
And yet, the Conservative government claims that housing is exclusively a provincial and territorial matter.
In February 2012, NDP MPs Marie-Claude Morin, Andrew Cash and Michael Shapcott introduced draft legislation to create a national housing plan. Bill C-400, An Act to Secure Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing for Canadians, urged the government to consult with provincial ministers responsible for municipal affairs and housing as well as with representatives of municipalities, Aboriginal communities, non-profit and private sector housing providers and civil society organizations in order to create a national housing strategy. But in February 2013, Conservative MPs voted to defeat Bill C-400.
Nicoll compares the housing strategies advanced by the opposition parties, starting with the NDP which uses Bill C-400 as a starting point. She calls the Green Party's National Housing Strategy “very comprehensive”, bolstered by its call for a Guaranteed Livable Income to help low-income Canadians afford housing. Even the Liberals, she says, have an “Affordable National Housing Strategy” to eliminate waitlists for affordable housing; reduce the cost of housing for middle and lower income earners; and invest in housing infrastructure.
But the Harper government's “disappointing” housing policy relies solely on allocating nearly $600 million over five years towards the needs of individuals who are chronically homeless. Nicoll concludes that “Harper's housing plan helps one segment of Canadian society that is definitely in need, but overall, it is extremely myopic... Worse yet, Harper is set to cut housing funding to several programs that will leave more than one housing safety net torn to tatters.”
Nicoll’s article does not analyze the platforms of the smaller political parties, but it’s important to note that the Communist Party has 28 candidates on the ballot, most in major urban centres. The Communists propose to recognize housing as a basic human right, and to make full employment and full-time jobs a top priority. One element of this approach is an emergency plan to build one million units of affordable social, cooperative and non-profit housing over the next four years, creating tens of thousands of direct and spin-off jobs. The Communist platform includes the establishment of federal-provincial-municipal land banks; a ban on evictions, mortgage foreclosures and utility cut offs due to unemployment; and support for meaningful rent controls. More widely, the Communists demand a liveable guaranteed, annual income, and many other measures to immediately improve the living standards of low-income and working class people.
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4) MULTI-MEDIA PROJECT DOCUMENTS TORY IMMIGRATION CHANGES
A ground-breaking new media project, “Never Home: Legislating Discrimination in Canadian Immigration”, created by Vancouver-based advocacy groups No One Is Illegal and S**tHarperDid, aims to assess nearly a decade of “immigration reforms” under the Harper Conservative government.
“Never Home” reports that permanent residency for refugees, skilled workers and family members is restricted, and detentions, and deportations and secret trials are on the rise, while the migrant worker program expands. Claims of “bogus refugees”, “terrorists”, and “foreigners stealing jobs” are used to justify the exclusion and marginalization of migrants. Those who are allowed entry are often given only temporary, conditional or precarious status.
Here are some excerpts from the summary of this important project.
In 2009, the Conservative government oversaw the largest immigration raid in recent Canadian history, during which Canadian Border Services Agency officers stormed farms, factories and homes to detain over 100 non-status workers in Ontario. Two years later, the federal government announced the ‘four in and four out’ rule that now bars the renewal of work permits for foreign workers who have been working in Canada for four years. As a result of this policy, an estimated 70,000 low-waged migrant workers are facing the possibility of expulsion from 2015 onwards. This is one of the largest mass deportations in Canadian history.
... Immigrant exclusion has been central to Canada since its inception. From the Komagata Maru to the Chinese Head Tax, from the internment of Japanese-Canadians to the de facto prohibition on Black immigration, “White Canada forever” — and its intersections with other forms of systemic oppression — has been a prevailing political and social force in Canada.
This history of exclusion is, of course, informed by the foundational violence of genocide against Indigenous nations. Settler-colonialism has sought to conquer and forcibly displace Indigenous peoples from their territories, and is an ongoing reality. Indigenous peoples in Canada still experience disproportionate poverty and homelessness, child apprehension, the trauma and grief of having their loved ones go missing or be murdered, repressive policing, and dispossession from their lands.
Canada is also complicit in global displacement. Canada’s imperial and capital interests in other parts of the world have displaced many migrants to Canada. For example, over 75 percent of the world’s exploration and mining companies are headquartered in Canada, and Canadian mining corporations in the global South are implicated in four times as many violations as companies from other countries...
Canada currently accepts more migrants under temporary permits than those who immigrate permanently. Permanent residency for refugees, skilled workers and family members is restricted, citizenship is becoming harder to get and easier to lose, but the migrant worker program is exploding. Migrant workers are brought in as cheap labourers, while family-class immigrants (read: ‘economic burdens’) and refugees (read: ‘terrorists’) are kept out. In reality, all migrants provide an immense subsidy to the Canadian economy; for example, grandparents who undertake childcare and domestic labour. Moreover, it is dehumanizing to propagate the idea that migrants are only desirable if they can contribute to the paid workforce. All human beings are worthy.
“Never Home” reports that “Canadian citizenship is now harder to get and easier to lose.” The percentage of immigrants who became citizens dropped from 79 percent to 26 percent among people who arrived between 2000 and 2008. Muslim-Canadians have been particularly targeted as un-Canadian with, for example, the ban on niqabs at citizenship ceremonies. The new “Stealing Citizenship Act” (Bill C-24) legislates second-class citizenship.
TEMPORARY PERMITS: Canada currently accepts more migrants under temporary permits than those allowed to immigrate permanently. The federal government eliminated nearly 280,000 applications under the Federal Skilled Worker Program and removed the guaranteed right to permanent residency for caregivers, while the number of temporary migrant workers tripled over the past decade. This is a revolving door system; while more workers are brought in under exploitative conditions, at the same time many are being swiftly removed. As a result of the federal government’s recent ‘four in and four out’ rule, an estimated 70,000 low-wage migrant workers now face the possibility of expulsion. This is one of the largest mass deportations in Canadian history.
FAMILY CLASS IMMIGRANTS: The number of family-class immigrants dropped by 20 percent in the first five years of Conservative government. Most parents and grandparents can now only arrive on a temporary visitor Super Visa, which requires the purchase of private Canadian healthcare insurance. Many spouses have to come on a conditional sponsorship, and older children cannot be sponsored. Processing times for in-Canada spousal sponsorships have tripled and have been the subject of scathing criticism by the Office of the Auditor General. The income threshold for all family sponsorships has increased, making family reunification a privilege for the wealthy.
REFUGEES: Sweeping exclusions and inflammatory rhetoric about “bogus refugees” by the Conservative government resulted in a 50 percent decrease in the number of refugee claims and a 30 percent drop in the number of accepted refugees. Many refugees are contending with reduced legal avenues, mandatory incarceration for them and their children, a two-tier system that discriminates based on nationality, and lack of access to adequate healthcare and social assistance. If they do manage to be accepted as refugees, their refugee status is conditional. The Conservative government set $15 million towards reaching an annual target of 875 applications to strip refugee status, and the number of former refugees who lost their protected status and permanent residency has quintupled.
DETENTIONS: The Canadian government jailed 87,317 migrants without charges between 2006 and 2014, and spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars over five years to detain migrants. Migrants, including up to 807 children per year, are the only population in Canada who can be jailed without being charged with a specific criminal offense. This can include indefinite detention, which has repeatedly received strong condemnation by the United Nations. In 2013 alone, migrant detainees spent a collective total of 503 years behind bars. Some migrants now also face mandatory detention, and detained mothers face the painful choice of keeping their children incarcerated with them or handing them over to a child welfare agency.
DEPORTATION: The Canadian government deported 117,531 people between 2006 and 2014, including to countries with official moratoriums on deportation. The federal government and Canada Border Services Agency bribe people to self-deport and use international smugglers to get fake documents to deport migrants to countries to which they have no connection. Refugees are stripped of their permanent residency and face deportation, undocumented migrants face increased deportation raids, and permanent residents convicted of minor offences — including traffic offenses — are deported without a right to appeal.
SECURITY MEASURES: Refugees and permanent residents are facing secret trials, deportation or limbo due to tightened security processes. New anti-terror legislation and the secret police bill, C-51, grant extraordinary powers for surveillance, secret investigative hearings, and preventative detention without charge. Canada has included charities as well as almost every major Palestinian resistance movement on its anti-terror list. Under the vague guise of ‘terrorism,’ citizenship can be revoked from some Canadians.
FUNDING CUTS: Over $53 million has been cut from immigrant services, with additional cuts to refugee health and ESL training. Government offices offering walk-in services have closed, and trained staff in remaining offices have been laid off. This results in a high error rate in immigration processing; in a quality management review of just 88 refugee applications, 113 government errors were identified. Meanwhile, immigration enforcement spending rose by $107 million between 2010 and 2013, with an overall 2014 budget of $1.8 billion for enforcement activities.
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5) OPEN THE DOORS FOR CANADA’S VICTIMS
People’s Voice Editorial
Few things are quite as terrifying as disasters which unfold in slow motion, while those who could avert catastrophe insist on staying the course towards destruction. The so-called “refugee crisis” in Europe is a prime example. One of the first to warn about the dangers faced by humanity today was the former Cuban President, Fidel Castro (see below on this page), at the Rio Summit in 1993. Twenty-two years later, Fidel’s brief analysis shines a brilliant light on the root causes of today’s events.
These causes include the capitalist consumerism which is fundamentally responsible for the brutal destruction of the environment, such as the disappearance of forests and the loss of soil fertility; the exploitation and pillaging committed by transnational capital and an unjust imperialist international economic order; the continuation of enormously profitable arms races. Fidel’s speech was given before the NATO war against Yugoslavia in 1999 launched a new era of imperialist wars and occupations, invariably justified as “humanitarian” exercises or as actions necessary to combat terrorism.
We all know the true consequences of these military debacles, usually carried out with Canada as a reliable ally of US imperialism. Millions have died, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya and now Syria. Homes, cities and economic infrastructure have been demolished across huge areas, and now over 50 million people have been displaced worldwide. All of this was predicted in great detail by the anti-war movements, but governments, doing the bidding of the energy industry and the military-industrial complex, have stubbornly refused to change their disastrous policies.
Now, the chickens are coming home to roost, as the victims of our government’s warmongering seek a better life inside the borders of Canada. Our only humanitarian option is to open Canada’s doors to the refugees of 21st century wars and environment catastrophe.
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6) SECRET REPORT ON GENDER INEQUALITY
People’s Voice Editorial
For those watching closely, the misogynist policies of the Harper Conservative government are well known. But now, according to a “secret” internal report by Status of Women Canada, the pay gap between men and women is among the highest in the major capitalist countries; support for child care and parental leave is well below average; Canada registers 57th for gender equality in Parliament's elected members; and there is no pan-Canadian strategy to halt violence against women.
Dated last February 10, shortly before International Women’s Day, the 35-page report was ordered by the Privy Council Office to alert deputy ministers across many government departments about issues facing women and girls in Canada. A copy was obtained by CBC News under the Access to Information Act. Yet this “candid assessment” was never intended for public release, even though it was paid for by public funds.
Why the secrecy? Apparently because the information in the report was starkly accurate, and potentially highly damaging for the Conservatives. Hoping to minimize the fallout, a spokesperson for Kellie Leitch, the minister responsible for Status of Women, said Leitch "doesn't comment on draft slideshows."
What are some of the facts the minister dismisses so casually? Rural, immigrant and indigenous women are particularly vulnerable to violence. Poverty rates rose between 2009 and 2011 for one-parent families headed by women, and for unattached elderly females. Only three OECD countries have a wider gender pay gap than Canada (South Korea, Germany and Japan).
Perhaps this helps to explain why the proposal for a women's-issues debate in the current federal election campaign fell through after PM Harper refused to participate (NDP leader Tom Mulcair later chose not to participate without Harper's attendance). And perhaps these realities shed some light on why women are far less likely to vote Conservative next month.
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7) “LET SELFISHNESS END” - FIDEL’S PROPHETIC WARNING
On June 12, 1993, Cuban President Fidel Castro gave the following speech at the UN Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro. This historic speech sounded a clear warning about the impending dangers to humanity; the current “refugee crisis” in Europe is a perfect example of the consequences of the policies condemned by the Cuban leader.
An important biological species is in danger of disappearing due to the fast and progressive destruction of its natural living conditions: mankind. We have now become aware of this problem when it is almost too late to stop it.
It is necessary to point out that consumer societies are fundamentally responsible for the brutal destruction of the environment. They arose from the old colonial powers and from imperialist policies which in turn engendered the backwardness and poverty which today afflicts the vast majority of mankind. With only 20 percent of the world's population, these societies consume two-thirds of the metals and three-fourths of the energy produced in the world.
They have poisoned the seas and rivers, polluted the air, weakened and punctured the ozone layer, saturated the atmosphere with gases which are changing weather conditions with a catastrophic effect we are already beginning to experience.
The forests are disappearing. The deserts are expanding. Every year thousands of millions of tons of fertile soil end up in the sea. Numerous species are becoming extinct. Population pressures and poverty trigger frenzied efforts to survive even when it is at the expense of the environment. It is not possible to blame the Third World countries for this. Yesterday, they were colonies; today, they are nations exploited and pillaged by an unjust international economic order. The solution cannot be to prevent the development of those who need it most. The reality is that anything that nowadays contributes to underdevelopment and poverty constitutes a flagrant violation of ecology. Tens of millions of men, women, and children die every year in the Third World as a result of this, more than in each of the two world wars.
Unequal terms of trade, protectionism, and the foreign debt assault the ecology and promote the destruction of the environment. If we want to save mankind from this self-destruction, we have to better distribute the wealth and technologies available in the world. Less luxury and less waste by a few countries is needed so there is less poverty and less hunger on a large part of the Earth. We do not need any more transferring to the Third World of
lifestyles and consumption habits that ruin the environment. Let human life become more rational. Let us implement a just international economic order. Let us use all the science necessary for pollution-free, sustained development. Let us pay the ecological debt, and not the foreign debt. Let hunger disappear, and not mankind.
Now that the alleged threat of communism has disappeared and there are no longer any more excuses for cold wars, arms races, and military spending, what is blocking the immediate use of these resources to promote the development of the Third World and fight the threat of the ecological destruction of the planet? Let selfishness end. Let hegemonies end. Let insensitivity,
Irresponsibility, and deceit end. Tomorrow it will be too late to do what we should have done a long time ago. Thank you.
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8) GUATEMALAN PRESIDENT COMPELLED TO RESIGN
Special to PV
Guatemala’s Congress voted unanimously on Sept. 1 to strip President Otto Perez Molina of his official immunity from prosecution. All 132 deputies of the 158-member congress present backed the motion which came in response to a major corruption scandal.
Protesters gathered outside the congress building to celebrate as the vote was announced, and prosecutor Thelma Aldana said that she would seek a warrant for the president’s arrest. Just a day later, Perez Molina resigned and was soon arrested, cutting short his term in office which would have lasted until January.
These developments followed months of protests sparked by disclosures that Perez Molina was embroiled in a graft scandal. The final straw may have been a national strike on Aug. 27, which closed schools and businesses as huge demonstrations called for the president’s ouster. As U.S. human rights lawyer Lauren Carasik observed in a recent article on the Al Jazeera website, Guatemala “has never reckoned with the bloody legacy of its internal conflict, from 1960 to 1996, which saw the deaths of more than 200,000 Guatemalans, mostly indigenous Mayans. Guatemala has yet to dismantle the inequality, poverty and racism that gave rise to that conflict. The U.S.-backed elites who used state-sponsored terrorism to crush the 36-year insurgency still wield power.”
As the crisis deepened, even Perez Molina’s former ruling class allies turned against him. Most of his cabinet resigned, and the Supreme Court paved the way for his impeachment. But whether he will face prosecution remains unclear, given the impunity enjoyed by Guatemala’s previous criminal leaders.
Carasik says that the vast scope of corruption in the country undermines democracy and reinforces poverty, inequality and social exclusion. Now, she writes, many Guatemalans “have rejected another illicitly funded campaign and sullied election cycle and are demanding structural reforms, including changes to election and campaign finance laws.”
While Washington supported the protests which erupted last spring, the U.S. hopes that the elections held on Sept. 6 can maintain “stability”. This runs counter to the demands raised by those who call for deeper structural and social changes.
Perez Molina’s involvement in the scandal was uncovered through the forensic work of the United Nations-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala. The Commission found that Guatemala’s main political parties derived nearly half of their budgets from corruption, split evenly among business elites and organized crime. Along with weak campaign finance laws and no independent media, any hope of electoral change was blocked until now.
A former military general, Perez Molina was elected in 2012 on an “iron fist” platform. He attended the U.S.-based School of Americas, which trained Latin Americans in military and counter-insurgency techniques. He was a commander in the Nebaj region, where more than 1,700 indigenous Maya Ixil were killed during the “scorched earth” wars against peasants. He was implicated in the 2013 trial of former dictator Rios Montt, who was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity. Rios Montt was sentenced to 80 years in jail, but his defence team and supporters among the elite soon made sure that the verdict was overturned on a technicality.
Rios Montt is scheduled to face retrial in January. But because the court found that he suffers from dementia, the proceedings will be held behind closed doors, Rios Montt will not be required to attend and he will not be sentenced even if he is found guilty again.
Meanwhile, President Obama’s administration is pushing for a $1 billion aid package to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to stem the flow of refugees fleeing violence and poverty. The plan purports to advance good governance, security and economic development. But the downfall of Perez Molina vindicates those who call for genuine change to ensure that such aid benefits the people, not business interests and corrupt politicians.
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9) REFUGEE CRISIS: THE ROOT CAUSE IS IMPERIALISM
By T.J. Petrowski
The widely circulated photo of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy whose body was found on a beach in Turkey and whose family was making a desperate attempt to flee to relatives in Canada even though their asylum application had been rejected by the Harper government, has caused widespread outrage and helped put the “refugee crisis”onto the political map.
In Canada, the leaders of the Liberal and New Democratic parties have used the news of Kurdi’s tragic death, along with his five-year-old brother and his mother, to criticize the government’s response. Trudeau and Mulcair have called on Canada to accept more Syrian refugees, while the Harper government insists on more illegal bombing raids in Syria and Iraq as the “solution” to the surge of Syrian refugees.
The real tragedy is the refusal of Western leaders to acknowledge the cause of the refugee crisis: imperialism’s genocidal wars on the people of the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa.
There are now more refugees than at any time since World War 2, and the numbers have increased markedly since the start of the “Global War on Terror”. Wherever the U.S. and its imperialist allies have intervened, whether through direct military action or indirect proxy wars, economic sabotage, and coups, in the name of “democracy”, the “War on Terror”, or the “responsibility to protect”, death and despair have been forced upon millions of innocent people, who have been left no other choice than to abandon their native lands to embark on a dangerous future of desperate struggle.
In Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Mali, Korea, East Timor, Sudan, Ukraine, and elsewhere the livelihoods of millions have been destroyed by the forces of U.S. and Western imperialism.
In the 1980s, Afghanistan had a “genuinely popular government”, according to John Ryan, retired professor from the University of Winnipeg, that was implementing widespread reforms. Labour unions were legalized, a minimum wage was established, hundreds of thousands of Afghans were enrolled in educational facilities, and women were freed from age-old tribal bondage and able to earn an independent income. U.S. and western imperialism, fearful of that kind of equitable distribution of wealth, supported the feudal landlords and fundamentalist mullahs to sow chaos across the country, bringing rise to elements that later formed al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The Afghan people were once more dealt a severe punishment by the forces of Western imperialism following 9/11, despite a lack of conclusive evidence linking their country to the attacks. Thirty years of U.S. intervention have left the people of Afghanistan impoverished, traumatized, and desperate.
The conflicts in Libya and Syria are eerily similar to the destabilization of Afghanistan. In 2011, when the Arab Spring protests swept across the Middle East and North Africa, western imperialism hijacked legitimate grievances of the masses as a pretext for intervention in the name of the “responsibility to protect” and “democracy promotion”.
Prior to the 2011 U.S./NATO intervention, Libya was among the wealthiest and most stable countries in Africa, with the continent’s highest standard of living. Housing was enshrined as a human right, education and healthcare services were free for all citizens, and the country was pushing to establish an African currency linked to gold to help end the endless cycle of debt and impoverishment. Under the cloak of the United Nations, and using the pretext of protecting the people from Gaddafi’s murderous rule, western imperialism launched airstrikes on Libya and allied themselves with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other extremists. NATO airstrikes killed hundreds of civilians and forced Libya back into the stone age. Gaddafi was mercilessly tortured and murdered by the rebels. Thousands have been killed as rival tribal and extremist factions, some now allied with ISIS, battle for control of the country.
The conflict in Syria has been referred to as “Libya 2.0”. U.S. imperialism with the support of Israel, Turkey, and the Persian Gulf States, trained and financed “moderate” rebels to overthrow the secular, elected government of Bashar al-Assad.
The “Free Syrian Army”, i.e., the “moderate” rebels, has been virtually eliminated in the conflict despite millions of dollars in aid from the U.S. and its regional allies. FSA fighters have deserted en masse to the ranks of ISIS, itself a product of the illegal U.S. occupation of Iraq that killed one million Iraqis. There is overwhelming evidence that the U.S. and its allies have been actively training and supporting ISIS elements since the start of the proxy war in Syria. It wasn’t until ISIS invaded Iraq with its new Toyota technicals, courtesy of U.S. imperialism, that ISIS was declared a threat to the world. Western imperialism changed its tactic from supporting ISIS to airstrikes on Iraq and Syria, with the support of Turkey (which is also conveniently bombing anti-ISIS Kurdish fighters), Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf States, but without consultation with the Syrian government, Iran, or Hezbollah, which have been fighting ISIS and al-Qaeda elements since the start of the conflict. Hundreds of thousands have died in the West’s proxy war against the Syrian government.
From Libya to Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and Somalia, U.S. and western imperialist interventions, coups, and sanctions have displaced and killed millions of people. Physicians for Social Responsibility estimates that in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan alone, imperialist interventions have caused the deaths of 1.3 million people. It is no wonder that hundreds of thousands seek asylum elsewhere; however, after travelling huge distances overland and on water, refugees find themselves abused, discriminated against, held in detention, or rejected from Europe, Canada, the U.S., and Australia.
More than 2,500 have died this year trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe. The International Organization for Migration estimates that 30,000 could die by the end of 2015.
Refugees attempting to enter Europe, even if they are granted asylum in a country such as Germany, have been met with police violence in Greece, Italy, and other countries on the Mediterranean that are the first landing points for boats sailing from North Africa and Turkey.
Greek riot police have beaten refugees protesting the failure of local governments to process their applications, and newborn babies have died while waiting for processing.
On the Macedonia-Greece border, where more than a thousand refugees are crossing daily, refugees who broke through barbed wire fences were shot at with stun grenades, and the Macedonian police have treated refugees as rioters, according to Amnesty International.
Italian police forcibly removed African refugees camping out at the border after France refused to let them into the country. Hungary is building a fortified wall, similar to the barbaric wall that divides the U.S.-Mexico border, to stop refugees from crossing the border.
Thousands of refugees seeking asylum in Australia are held in detention facilities in Papua New Guinea and the small island nation of Nauru, dubbed the “Guantanamo Bay of the Pacific.” Refugees can be detained for more than five years in these facilities, where social workers have observed “profound damage” to those detained through "prolonged deprivation of freedom, abuse of power, confinement in an extremely harsh environment, uncertainty of future, disempowerment, loss of privacy and autonomy and inadequate health and protection services.”
The unannounced policy of the authorities is to make life too unbearable for refugees to seek asylum in Australia.
Imperialism is the root cause of the “refugee crisis”. Until the genocidal aims of the U.S., with the support of Canada, Australia, the European Union, and regional allies, are defeated, the “War on Terror” will continue to make life too unbearable for millions of people in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East to remain in their home countries.
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10) HORRORS IN AUSTRALIA’S OFFSHORE DETENTION CENTRES
Australia’s anti-refugee policies have been described by the New York Times as “inhumane, of dubious legality and strikingly at odds with the country's tradition of welcoming people fleeing persecution and war.” Since 2013, Australia has deployed its navy to turn back boats with migrants and asylum seekers from Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Eritrea and other conflict-roiled nations toward Indonesia. Others are held at detention centres run by private contractors on nearby islands, including the tiny nation of Nauru. The Border Force Act, which took effect July 1, makes it a crime punishable by a two-year prison sentence for employees at these detention camps to discuss the conditions publicly. This article by Peter Mac is from the Sept. 2 issue of The Guardian, weekly newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia.
Last week a former Nauru detention security guard testified he had seen male detainees gasping after experiencing the horrible waterboarding torture, and there are continuing reports of the rape and sexual assault of women, girls and young boys.
Many of the guards are former soldiers, described by journalist Martin McKenzie-Martin as involved in a “hyper masculine and immature culture”. They refer to the detainees by identification numbers, not by name.
The women detainees must take showers close to male guards, and must ask them for sanitary pads, because the management maintains they might be set alight and used as weapons during riots!
Morale collapsed within the centre last year after the government announced that no detainees would ever gain Australian citizenship. Incidents of rape, assault, self-harm and attempted suicide increased.
The Abbott government persuaded some detainees with refugee status to resettle on Nauru, offering them rudimentary education, employment and accommodation services. However, that generated bitter resentment among some Nauruan citizens who saw it as an act of favouritism for the “illegals”.
Many resettled women have been attacked. One is dying in hospital after having been raped and beaten. She was left semi-conscious for hours before being discovered and taken to the police station and much later to hospital.
Another woman detainee was set on fire after being raped. Yet another found herself pregnant after an attack. Deeply religious, she sought a termination but then attempted suicide after it was performed at a Brisbane hospital. She was then returned to Nauru.
Resettled women have spoken about the “50-dollar man”, who rapes women and then drops a $50 note onto their bodies. However, the Nauruan courts have recorded no convictions for assaults against detainees.
The Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA) claims that some crimes uncovered by the former Moss and Senate inquiries, including rape, assault, sexual assault, harassment and the trade of sexual favours for marijuana, were never reported to Comcare, the national work safety regulator.
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) claims it reported 81 notifiable incidents over the last two financial years, but Comcare says it only received 79 reports.
A spokesperson for Connect, the company that organises accommodation and other resettlement services, stated. “We are not aware of any allegations of rape made either to the local police or through Connect’s incident reporting process”.
However, the Nauru police are notoriously corrupt and the courts subject to ministerial control, and the statement regarding the incident reporting process is only technically correct. Under that process DIBP is required to report to Comcare, any “notifiable incident”, including death, serious injury, or illness arising from a detention centre’s operation. But not all notifiable incidents involve criminal behaviour, and notifiable incidents don’t have to be reported to Comcare unless the patient requires immediate treatment.
One reported case of sexual assault was described as involving “no serious injury or assault”, i.e. not notifiable, so no action was taken. Seven other incidents were described as not notifiable because they “did not result from the conduct of the business or undertaking”.
Transfield, the company running the offshore processing centres for a $1.2 billion fee, has now confirmed there were 67 allegations of child abuse at Nauru, including 30 against members of staff.
An ALA spokesman also claims that cases of typhoid and tuberculosis were not reported, and that DIBP over-reports slight injuries to centre workers, but fails to report serious injuries or incidents affecting detainees.
Meanwhile the Papua New Guinea government is furious because three Australian guards at the Manus Island detention centre who were accused of having drugged and raped a PNG nurse were repatriated before a formal investigation took place.
The DIBP has merely described the event as “inconsistent with expected behaviours and contrary to the service providers’ code of conduct”.
Only a minute percentage of the world’s 60 million displaced people seek asylum in Australia. This year more than 150,000 asylum seekers crossed the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy and 157,000 from Turkey to Greece.
In March 479 drowned or went missing in the Mediterranean and in April another 1,308, including 800 in a single wreck. Last week approximately 250 drowned off the Libyan coast, and almost 100 suffocated in two sealed people-smugglers’ trucks on the road to Austria.
The huge number of asylum seekers results primarily from wars, most of which involved military interventions by the US, or conflict generated as a result of US intervention.
At least a million people have fled Iraq and Syria, where the brutal terrorist group ISIS has captured huge areas. The Western forces could co-operate with the Syrian government in dealing with the situation but refuse because that government has an independent foreign policy and wants to break the US-imposed arrangement under which global oil sales are conducted in US dollars.
The US also refuses to adequately arm the Kurds of northern Iraq, even though they have fought ISIS with great courage and determination. Also, supporting the Kurds to fight ISIS would enrage Turkey, a key US ally, which has ruthlessly oppressed its own Kurdish minority.
Australia has participated in most of the US-led wars, which have generated the refugee tidal wave. The appalling situation in our offshore detention centres stems directly from the inhumane policies of offshore detention and mandatory detention, the demonisation of asylum seekers by the government, (which incorrectly describes them as “illegal” immigrants and bans them forever from our shores), and the secrecy and militarism which now dominates immigration operations and is beginning to do so in the wider society.
The Australian Labour Party has endorsed the cruel policy of asylum seeker boat turnbacks, and is unlikely to adopt a humane approach. Nor will it resist US attempts to gain our participation in a new war in Iraq and/or Syria, which would add to the numbers of asylum seekers.
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11) DEATHS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
Statement issued by Committee of Progressive Pakistani Canadians, Sept. 6, 2015
The picture of the body of the little Syrian child lying dead face down in the Water after a boat carrying refugees sank in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe, has seared the consciousness of people across the globe.
Thousands of others from Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan – and other African countries – making the same journey have perished in the same way.
Who is responsible?
Mainly the government of the United States and its western allies, including Canada.
How so?
For unleashing war, directly or indirectly, in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria, causing indescribable damage to human life, government and social infrastructure, agriculture, houses, hospitals and schools, employment in town and countryside – not in the interests of democracy or protecting human rights, but to gain back full control of the area for its oil and natural resources, a market for their goods and services, and for its strategic value.
The Saudi and the Gulf monarchies, long hating the republican, secular and non-capitalist oriented governments of Libya, Iraq and Syria, have assisted in this destruction by, among other things, financing and arming fundamentalist terrorist groups in these countries.
A popular international tribunal should be set up to see if Western and Arab leaders who have caused this death and destruction are guilty of violating international law and of crimes against humanity.
More generally, while poverty has been the lot of the masses in Africa and much of Asia for long, it has become exacerbated in recent decades due to increased globalization on terms greatly favourable to the west.
The absence of genuinely democratic governments in large parts of Asia and Africa has compounded the problem.
The wars, increased exploitation by western corporations, corrupt governments, fundamentalist violence, have made the lives of hundreds of millions wretched beyond measure. Hundreds of millions suffer from joblessness, hunger, homelessness; tens of millions are refugees or seek a better life in the west. While refugees seeking asylum in the west must be treated humanely and given asylum, it is the reasons for their mass exodus that must be addressed.
The Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, while professing great pain at seeing the picture of the dead child, is calling for more war in the region – the chief cause of the tragedy. All outside interference in Syria must stop forthwith and the Syrian government and opposition allowed to settle their differences themselves by negotiations.
The struggle against ISIS must be conducted in cooperation with the governments of Syria, Iraq and Libya.
Two other steps can be taken relatively speedily to provide relief to the people of the less developed world. World expenditure on armaments was over $1.5 trillion dollars in 2014 – a stupendous amount, which should be halved quickly, and the funds thus saved spent on social needs and development.
Total foreign aid from the richer to the poorer countries is a little short of $150 billion. It should be doubled – without any strings, at zero or nominal interest rates and for genuinely developmental projects – by increasing the taxes on multinationals and large corporations that, as is commonly known, pay hardly any or none at all.
Ending the unfair and unequal relations between the ‘north’ and the ‘south’, for fair trade that benefits all parties must be struggled for.
Last, but very importantly, genuinely democratic government representing the interests of the people, not the 1%, are urgently needed in the south as well as in the north!
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12) UE BECOMES FIRST NATIONAL U.S. UNION TO ENDORSE BDS
Published by Portside, August 28, 2015, see http://portside.org/2015-08-28/ue-becomes-first-national-us-union-endorse-bds
UE, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, held its 74th national convention in Baltimore August 16-20.
Delegates acted on 37 resolutions on collective bargaining, organizing, and political issues, and they upheld UE’s long tradition of courageous stands on foreign policy issues when they adopted the resolution on Palestine and Israel. It points to Israel’s long history of violating the human rights of the Palestinians, starting with the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in 1947-48 that turned most of Palestine into the State of Israel. It calls for cutting off U.S. aid to Israel, U.S. support for a peace settlement on the basis of self-determination for Palestinians and the right to return. The resolution also endorses the worldwide BDS movement – Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions – to pressure Israel to end its apartheid over the Palestinians just as similar tactics helped to end South African apartheid in the 1980s. UE is now the first U.S. national union to endorse BDS.
Five delegates spoke from the floor in support of the resolution. Angaza Laughinghouse of Local 150, composed of public workers in North Carolina, said, “Our government is on the wrong side, We have to stand on the right side of the Palestinian struggle.”
Autumn Martinez of Local 255 in Vermont said she had met Palestinian trade unionists at the World Social Forum in Tunisia and learned from them of conditions in the occupied territories. “It’s absolutely disgusting what is going on. Free Palestine!”
The convention also adopted a resolution on numerous military and foreign policy issues from an independent labour perspective. “For Peace, Jobs and a Pro-Worker Foreign Policy” endorses the work of U.S. Labour Against the War (USLAW); calls for reducing the military budget while improving the pay and benefits of military personnel and veterans and converting to peaceful uses of resources now devoted to the military; demands the end of U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and other regions; calls for negotiation to resolve the Ukraine crisis; supports Zenroren’s call for demilitarization in Japan; and supports the agreement to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
“The labour movement needs to have its own independent foreign policy,” said Carl Rosen, UE Western Region president. Several delegates talked about how they had been inspired by meeting members of Zenroren, the Japanese labour federation, 200 of whom came to New York City in late April to march for nuclear disarmament, with two smaller groups then joining UE members in New Haven and Chicago for May Day events. Brandon Dutton from Local 1161 in Wisconsin said, “We have done enough damage. We need to get out of the Middle East.”
UE’s convention included outreach and involvement in local struggles in Baltimore. On Tuesday of convention week, delegates joined local labour and human rights activists in a march to city hall to rally for Black Lives Matter, the Fight for 15, and several local workers struggles, including the contract fight of UNITE HERE members at the Baltimore Hilton where UE delegates were meeting. The march was led by members of UE’s two Baltimore locals. UE delegates also leafleted workers at an Amazon warehouse about organizing...
UE, founded in 1936, was the largest of the “left-led” unions in the CIO, but CIO leaders turned on UE and other progressive affiliates in the late 1940s as they sought "respectability" and enlisted in the Cold War. UE was heavily persecuted by the government and employers and raided by “mainstream” unions throughout the 1950s and into the ‘60s. But the union never abandoned its principles, and even through the worst period of “red scare” attacks, UE waged trail-blazing campaigns for workplace equality for African American and women workers.
In 1964, UE became the first national union to oppose the Vietnam War, and it was in the forefront of labour opposition to Reagan’s Central America wars in the 1980s, Clinton’s Yugoslav War in the ‘90s, and Bush and Obama’s wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond. Since the 1950s UE has consistently supported disarmament and called for reduced military spending, with its long-serving late President Albert Fitzgerald frequently telling union members, “You can’t have both guns and butter.”
In 1988, delegates to the UE 53rd Convention adopted the resolution “Time for a Just Settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”
In it they said, “The occupation by Israel of the West Bank and other Arab lands since 1967 has blocked the exercise of Palestinian national rights and resulted in ongoing violations of human, social, political, economic and particularly trade union rights of Palestinians…” The resolution said the U.S. government had “contributed to the continued conflict by its one-sided support for Israel and its failure to take into account the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people,” and it called for the U.S. government to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization and for the creation of a Palestinian state.
For more than 25 years the U.S. has engaged in a so-called “peace process” with Israeli and Palestinian representatives. But the U.S. role has remained extremely one-sided. The U.S. provides Israel $3 billion a year in aid and repeatedly uses its UN veto to shield Israel from criticism of its human rights abuses. The Palestinians are worse off. In the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel continues to confiscate homes and land to expand Israeli settlements which violate international law. Since 1967 Israel has settled more than 500,000 of its citizens in the West Bank, and has been building a wall that separates neighbouring towns and cuts off farmers from their fields. Many prominent human rights activists including former President Jimmy Carter and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu have called the system of Israeli rule over Palestinian people “apartheid.”
In Gaza, 1.8 million Palestinians are crowded into a tiny enclave under continuous military and economic blockade. In the summer of 2014 Israel waged a merciless war on the impoverished population of Gaza. More than 2,000 Palestinians were killed. The vast majority were civilians, including more than 500 children; and the physical destruction was overwhelming. UE’s officers issued a statement expressing our union’s alarm and over 300 Holocaust survivors and descendants signed a full-page newspaper ad, that condemned the Israeli attack as genocide and declared, “never again must mean never again for anyone.” Yet incredibly, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously at the time to endorse Israel’s actions.
The source of the conflict goes back to the origins of the State of Israel. The population was overwhelmingly Palestinian Arab (Muslim and Christian) before 1947-48, when well-armed Zionist militias seized most of the territory of Palestine and expelled 750,000 people from their cities, villages and farms. They executed much of the Palestinian leadership and declared the founding of the State of Israel. As a result millions of Palestinians are refugees both in the occupied territories and in other countries. Israel prohibits their return to their homes.
In recent years racism and extremism in Israel has grown more severe. One-fifth of Israeli citizens are Palestinians who survived ethnic cleansing. Some members of parliament, including cabinet members in Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s government, call for stripping their citizenship and expelling them. Some also call for expelling all Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza and annexing them to Israel. The “peace process”, supposedly aimed at negotiating the terms of Palestinian statehood in those territories, has been dead at least since March when Netanyahu, in his reelection campaign, declared he would never accept a Palestinian state.
In July 2005 Palestinian trade unions and hundreds of Palestinian civil society organizations called for a worldwide campaign of boycotts to pressure Israel to end its apartheid over the Palestinians. This has developed into a global movement called Boycott, Disinvestment, Sanctions. BDS was modelled after the 1980s international solidarity campaign that put economic pressure on South Africa’s government which helped end apartheid.
The summer 2014 Israeli attack on Gaza increased worldwide support for BDS. UE Local 150 endorsed BDS. The largest union in Britain, UNITE, endorsed BDS in July 2014. UAW Local 2865, which represents 13,000 graduate employees of the University of California, also endorsed BDS last year. COSATU, the Congress of South African Trade Unions that helped defeat apartheid in that country, is a strong backer of BDS. Many progressive Jewish organizations and individuals, in the U.S., Israel and elsewhere actively support BDS as a way to bring about peace and justice for the people of Israel and Palestine.
The resolution adopted by the 74th UE Convention “1) Calls on Congress and the Administration to end all U.S. military aid to Israel; and to pressure Israel to end the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the siege of Gaza and negotiate a peace agreement on the basis of equality, democracy, and human rights for the Palestinian and Israeli people, including Palestinian self determination and the right of return for refugees. 2) Endorses the BDS movement and urges the union at all levels to become engaged in BDS and the movement for peace, justice and equality between the Palestinians and Israelis.”
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