Federico Fuentes
10 August 2008
“Given everything that is occurring in Tarija, Santa Cruz, Pando and Beni, we have to denounce … that we are on the threshold of a real coup d’etat against the constitutional order”, announced Bolivian minister of the presidency, Ramon Quintana, on August 7.
The day before, two bullets were fired into his car in an assassination attempt during a visit to the city of Trinidad, in Beni. Beni is part of the “half moon” of the resource-rich eastern departments including Santa Cruz, Tarija and Pando, that are a stronghold of the opposition to the left-wing government of indigenous President Evo Morales.
“What the prefects are doing today is nothing more than an act of sedition, of contempt, or organisation of illegal forces, paramilitaries, to go against all public liberties”, added Quintana.
Later that day, the mayor of Santa Cruz, Percy Fernandez stated “that the armed forces should overthrow the national government because it is useless”. Sitting besides him was Santa Cruz prefect, Ruben Costas.
This right-wing offensive is occurring in the lead-up to referendums on whether or not to recall Morales and eight of the nine departmental prefects, organised for August 10 in an attempt to resolve the political stand-off between the government and the social movements, largely based in the west, on the one hand, and the forces of the oligarchy determined to stop the process of change.
During the week leading up to the vote, a small group of balaclava-wearing protesters took over the airport of Tarija and successfully prevented the scheduled meeting between Morales and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner — the visiting presidents’ plane being unable to land.
Both Morales and Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera cancelled their traditional independence day speeches due to fears of violent protests in Sucre. Sucre is Bolivia’s constitutional capital and capital of Chuquisaca department, where an opposition candidate recently won elections for prefect.
The former prefect, from Morales’ Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), is now in exile in Peru, following a series of violent attacks.
Morales was also forced to suspend political events in Beni, Pando and Santa Cruz as a few hundred opposition protesters surrounded airports in these regions.
Sensing defeat in the polls, the right-wing opposition — led by the half moon prefects — have unleashing a campaign of violence, terrorism and intimidation with the intention not only to stop the electoral process going ahead but to overthrow the president.
Polls continue to show an increasing support for Morales, which is now around 60%, while a number of opposition prefects look set to lose their seats. Cochabamba prefect, Manfred Villa Reyes, one of the most likely to be removed has already stated he will not accept the results of the referendum.
In Santa Cruz, Costas look set to win by a wide margin. A key aim for the opposition, however, is to ensure that in the vote on the presidency, Morales receives as little a vote as possible in the east in order to proclaim that he is “no longer president” of this part of Bolivia.
The half moon prefects, along with the eastern agribusiness and gas elites, have been promoting a campaign for autonomy for the eastern departments to protect their interests from the national-indigenous project of the Morales government.
Whiping up fear of an “indigenous revenge” and playing on the prejudices of the mestizo and white middle classes, the elites have run a systematically racist campaign, which has including violent lynch mobs attacking indigenous peoples.
Adding to the social conflicts, a number of sectors, such as miners, disabled people and transport drivers have mobilised across the country shutting down roads over sectoral demands. In Huanuni, violent clashes between police and miners left two dead and many more injured.
Following the deaths, Morales affirmed that their demands would be attended to via sincere and responsible dialogue, but that the most important thing right now was the unity of Bolivians and national integrity.
In this context, the need for international solidarity with Bolivia’s democratic process of change becomes paramount, as Chavez has repeatedly stated. The defeat of the Morales government would be a defeat not just for the oppressed in Bolivia, but the project for a new Latin America independent from US imperialism.
As Green Left Weekly goes to the press, the results of the referendum are still unknown. Next week’s issue will have full coverage of the referendum and its aftermath. To follow news about the events, visit http://boliviarising.blogspot.com.
Below is an abridged article by Hugo Moldiz, MAS leader and head of the General Staff of the Peoples, which unites most of Bolivia’s social movements. It has been translated for GLW by Federico Fuentes.
* * *
On August 10, the possibilities of consolidating and strengthening a national-popular project, that creates equal rights and opportunities for all without exclusion and racism, by building on the things we got right and correcting errors, will face off against the project of the old Bolivia.
The forces of the old Bolivia involve the privileged, who sometimes confuse and utilise oppressed social sectors, and talk about democracy and justice while benefiting from being in positions of power.
August 10 will be more than a simple referendum to decide the permanence or not of President Evo Morales and eight of the nine prefects of Bolivia.
The result of the recall referendums will determine the continuity and deepening of the process of change initiated in 2006, or the beginning of the return to a Bolivia based on exclusion and material and symbolic privileges for a tiny group of families.
Therefore a lot is at play. But talking about change is abstract if it is not grounded in what is at stake, which the powerful media machine has dedicated itself to distorting and manipulating.
Symbolic changes
The political-electoral victory of December 2005 and the inauguration of Morales as president on January 22, 2006, marked the beginning of one of the most profound chapters in all of republican history. A series of symbolic, political, material and cultural changes began to occur.
Bolivia — a country with an indigenous majority, independent of their status as peasant, worker, petty trader, professional, intellectual and student — for the first time had an indigenous president, adding weight to the warning issued by Tupac Katari, an indigenous person who was quartered by the Spanish colony after surrounding La Paz in 1781, when he said: “I will return and be millions!”
With his entry in the Palacio Quemado, Morales opened the possibility of a rupture of the colonialism in force until now — one of its manifestations being racism — and of substituting it with peace and democracy, with a society where men and women, indigenous and non-indigenous, can coexist.
That is why the swearing in of the indigenous president in Tiwanacu, a day before the official act in Congress, acquired a symbolic value never experimented with before. The indigenous people dreamed about storming heaven, with votes and without rifles — and unlike in the past, invited others to construct a homeland for all.
Political changes
In the political sphere, the popular victory of 2005 represented a great possibility, paraphrasing former US president Abraham Lincoln, to construct “a government of the people, by the people and for the people”. And this is no exaggeration.
As well as the symbolic value of being indigenous, Morales wagers on the construction of a political power in which the urban and rural oppressed classes, including broad fractions of the middle classes hit hard by neoliberalism, can have a protagonistic participation.
We are not dealing here with the subordination of indigenous people to an imperial and white project, as has occurred in our history, but rather a rebellious Indian that the privileged want nothing to do with.
In Bolivia, a project is underway aimed at going beyond capitalism and towards the construction of a society and state where there is an equilibrium between humans and nature, between social and political democracy.
And the project is not just national. Morales forms part of a group of regional leaders working towards the unity and integration of Latin America.
Economic changes
Changes have also occurred in the economic sphere where important steps forward have been taken.
This statement makes sense if we compare the current situation with the destruction caused in Bolivia and other backward countries by the fundamentalist application of a neoliberal model.
The figures are stark. The level of industrial development of Bolivia, already very precarious, decreased from 19% to 12% during the 20 years of neoliberalism. The informal market increased, the state bank was privatised and what was private was owned by transnationals.
Services became more expensive and natural resources — oil and minerals — were handed over to foreign corporations that barely left a tribute of no more than 20% on average.
Thousands of workers were thrown onto the streets.
The result of such destructive actions can not be repaired in a few years, especially in the second poorest nation in Latin America — for whom extraordinary natural wealth has meant poverty for its inhabitants, due to the concentration of profits in few hands.
What has Morales done up until now? Faced with this past, much more than what other countries in better conditions have done in two years.
International reserves have increased from US$1.7 billion to close to $7.5 billion. Petroleum rent has increased from $300 million to more than $2 billion per year, product of the nationalisation of petroleum. The income from mining has increased due to an increase in taxes and the state recuperation of the Posokoni mines and the Vinto tin smelter, as well as supporting the mining cooperative sector.
In all the macroeconomic indicators, growth in these last two years has been superior (more than 5%) to those registered during the period of state capitalism (1952-85) and the two decades of a market economy. The volume of exports continues its ascending trend since 2005.
There is also the never before seen support given to small producers with the creation of the Popular Development Bank and the Peoples Trade Agreements (TCP — part of the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America trading bloc).
There is also the productive and commercial reconversion of thousands of people that neoliberalism had condemned to import and sell as contraband used clothes, along with the first steps taken in line with a firm decision to advance towards an industrialisation that is compatible with the preservation of the environment.
It is not that nothing has been done, but the greatest lag, which can be explained by the magnitude of the political confrontation in Bolivia, is found in the distribution of land. Its not just that close to 700,000 hectares have been handed over to campesinos (peasants), out of an estimated 20 million, it’s that latifundio (large landed estates) is alive and well in the hands of the agro-exporting bourgeoisie.
Between 1996 and 2005, 36,815 hectares of fiscal land was distributed, that is, 3681 hectares per year on average. In the period 2006-07, the Morales government distributed 697,882 hectares to campesinos in the departments of La Paz, Pando, Santa Cruz and Tarija, or 350,000 hectares per year.
According to the vice-ministry of land, 200 times more land was redistributed to campesinos in two years than during a decade of the previous regimes, and out of 14.7 million hectares of land that have been assessed in three years, almost 9 million hectares is communitarian property, 577,000 small properties and 888,000 hectares belonging to medium and large companies.
Despite the creation of state companies, it is true that capitalist relations of production continue to be predominant. But looking towards the future, a longer transition awaits us.
Social changes
With Cuban-Venezuelan cooperation, 15,000 medical consultations have been registered, 250,000 eye operations have occurred and 10,000 people’s lives have been saved due to the expansion of health care. At the end of the year, Bolivia will be the third country after Cuba and Venezuela to be free of illiteracy in Latin America.
The payment of the “dignity rent” pension (3000 bolivianos) to all people over the age of 60 and the “juancito pinto” bonus (200 bolivianos) for children of primary school age, is something that marks a will to benefit all Bolivians via a better distribution of wealth.
The “energy revolution” is not being left behind and, with the help of Cuba, some 15 million energy saving light bulbs will be placed in all homes by the end of the year, representing a decrease of 70% in electricity consumption.
Constituent process
But, perhaps the best synthesis of the choice of advancing to the future or returning to the past, can be found in the struggle to the approve or reject the new constitution, and the totality of the constituent process that began with force in 2000.
A victory of the popular project in the referendums would represent a grand possibility of opening up a process of dialogue with the objective of breaking the catastrophic deadlock and give the county a new constitutional text.
The dominant classes, led by the agro-exporting bourgeoisie, are small but are currently unleashing an implacable offensive, driven by the US, against the emancipatory project led by Morales.
On the other side is the majority of people, in which, if the old unionism can leave behind its conservatism and the mestizo middle classes can overcome their prejudices, the conditions will exist to take a significant leap forward — together with a government that has to consolidate its advances but also correct errors in all spheres — towards the construction of a society with equal rights and opportunities for all.
From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #762 13 August 2008.
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Monday, July 14, 2008
Nepal: New government formed despite sabotage
Ben Peterson
12 July 2008While the historic elections for a constituent assembly were held in April — a product of the pro-democracy uprising that has ended Nepal’s monarchy and created a republic — Nepal is still yet to have a new government sworn in.
Political manoeuvres and the wholesale disregard of previous agreements and precedents have delayed the formation of the new government, despite a clear mandate given to the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M), who won the largest vote in the elections.
In particular, the Nepali Congress — the party of the traditional political elites — has actively sought to either exclude the Maoists from power or weaken any Maoist government to the point of irrelevance. The NC have even gone against the provisions of the peace agreements that ended a bloody civil war that lasted for more than a decade.
The April elections were the first time the people of Nepal directly elected a constitutional assembly, despite this being a basic demand of the people for more than 60 years. The former guerrillas of the CPN-M received almost a million more votes than their nearest rival.
Immediately following the elections, CPN-M chairperson Prachanda recommitted his party to a consensus-based government. On April 19, Kantipur Online reported the Maoist leader as saying “we are open to discussion and the next government will be formed through consensus”. However, he argued that parallel power centres should not be allowed to exist.
Manoeuvres
However, creating a parallel power centre is exactly what the opposing forces have tried to achieve.
In the immediate aftermath of the election, the media was suddenly flooded with contradictory reports. The Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) and the NC both tried to blame their electoral failures on the Maoist youth wing, the Young Communist League (YCL), and a supposed “terror campaign” across the country.
At the same time, all the electoral observers within the country were reporting that the elections were held in a more or less free and fair environment without any intimidation. In fact, according to Nepal News on April 12, former US president Jimmy Carter stated that “Seven people are dead, and 14 seriously wounded, all of them Maoist! … the Maoists were not armed — they were the victims of assassinations”.
Two members of the newly elected assembly have been charged with vote rigging and electoral fraud, yet neither of these were Maoists, according to Kantipur Online on May 27.
Following the elections, the NC prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala was expected to step down, however he refused on a wide range of pretences. The NC put forth a series of demands to the Maoists including for them to disband their youth wing — ignoring the fact that the NC maintains its own youth wing — and “return land seized” during the “people’s war” the CPN-M waged against the monarchy.
Threat of change
Other demands raised had already been agreed upon in prior peace agreements.
The CPN-UML and the NC also demanded an alteration to the interim constitution to scrap the provision that government be formed by a two-thirds majority. This was included specifically to prevent the political uncertainty and instability that had plagued Nepal’s last parliament, however with the CPN-M controlling more than a third of the assembly, it meant that any government would require its approval — something unacceptable to these parties.
Koirala finally officially resigned from his post on June 27, but manoeuvred to remain as effective prime minister. According to Nepal Mountain News, he will legally “continue his role as head of the interim government”.
The other parties are desperate to keep the Maoists out of power because they have mass support and the ability to drastically change the country. The NC’s support base is made up largely of land owners and civil servant bureaucrats, who are threatened by the Maoists plans for land reform and crackdowns on corruption. The CPN-UML has its position as Nepal’s main “leftist” party directly under threat, and it worries that its position in government and the political elite will be destroyed.
It is the threat of change that is feared and being resisted by the political establishment in Kathmandu.
In particular, the Nepali Congress — the party of the traditional political elites — has actively sought to either exclude the Maoists from power or weaken any Maoist government to the point of irrelevance. The NC have even gone against the provisions of the peace agreements that ended a bloody civil war that lasted for more than a decade.
The April elections were the first time the people of Nepal directly elected a constitutional assembly, despite this being a basic demand of the people for more than 60 years. The former guerrillas of the CPN-M received almost a million more votes than their nearest rival.
Immediately following the elections, CPN-M chairperson Prachanda recommitted his party to a consensus-based government. On April 19, Kantipur Online reported the Maoist leader as saying “we are open to discussion and the next government will be formed through consensus”. However, he argued that parallel power centres should not be allowed to exist.
Manoeuvres
However, creating a parallel power centre is exactly what the opposing forces have tried to achieve.
In the immediate aftermath of the election, the media was suddenly flooded with contradictory reports. The Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) and the NC both tried to blame their electoral failures on the Maoist youth wing, the Young Communist League (YCL), and a supposed “terror campaign” across the country.
At the same time, all the electoral observers within the country were reporting that the elections were held in a more or less free and fair environment without any intimidation. In fact, according to Nepal News on April 12, former US president Jimmy Carter stated that “Seven people are dead, and 14 seriously wounded, all of them Maoist! … the Maoists were not armed — they were the victims of assassinations”.
Two members of the newly elected assembly have been charged with vote rigging and electoral fraud, yet neither of these were Maoists, according to Kantipur Online on May 27.
Following the elections, the NC prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala was expected to step down, however he refused on a wide range of pretences. The NC put forth a series of demands to the Maoists including for them to disband their youth wing — ignoring the fact that the NC maintains its own youth wing — and “return land seized” during the “people’s war” the CPN-M waged against the monarchy.
Threat of change
Other demands raised had already been agreed upon in prior peace agreements.
The CPN-UML and the NC also demanded an alteration to the interim constitution to scrap the provision that government be formed by a two-thirds majority. This was included specifically to prevent the political uncertainty and instability that had plagued Nepal’s last parliament, however with the CPN-M controlling more than a third of the assembly, it meant that any government would require its approval — something unacceptable to these parties.
Koirala finally officially resigned from his post on June 27, but manoeuvred to remain as effective prime minister. According to Nepal Mountain News, he will legally “continue his role as head of the interim government”.
The other parties are desperate to keep the Maoists out of power because they have mass support and the ability to drastically change the country. The NC’s support base is made up largely of land owners and civil servant bureaucrats, who are threatened by the Maoists plans for land reform and crackdowns on corruption. The CPN-UML has its position as Nepal’s main “leftist” party directly under threat, and it worries that its position in government and the political elite will be destroyed.
It is the threat of change that is feared and being resisted by the political establishment in Kathmandu.
From: Comment & Analysis, Green Left Weekly issue #758 16 July 2008.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Big oil: enemy of people and planet
Dick Nichols
20 June 2008The latest surge in the spot price of crude oil (to US$139 a barrel — 87.4 cents a litre) dramatises the urgent need for society to wean itself off “black gold”. The longer we remain hooked the greater the devastation both to our environment and to the living standards of millions, especially the poorest peoples of the planet.
The challenge is huge. The response must combine defence against the threat to livelihoods from price rises with a plan to restructure economies and ways of living so that oil-intensive production and transport become things of the past.
Many pro-market commentators, and not a few environmentalists, welcome the latest oil price hike (which means the real price of oil has risen 400% in the last six years, greater than in 1970s oil crises) as bringing us closer to that goal. They bemoan the “cheap populism” of the Coalition’s proposed five cents a litre cut in petrol excise and the Rudd government’s FuelWatch scheme.
The Australian Financial Review’s economics editor, Alan Mitchell, wrote on May 28: “What our leaders should be telling voters is that the price of petrol has nowhere to go but up, and that they should take that into account when they buy their next car and make their next decision about where to live.”
And what about those billions of consumers of fossil fuels whose lives aren’t focused on getting out of a gas-guzzling four-wheel drive and into a Toyota Prius? Can the urban poor of Jakarta react to the Indonesian government’s planned 28.7% increase in fuel prices by switching to solar panels? How should the Yorkshire fishing family whose weekly fuel bill has gone from $4000 to over $9000 in the space of a year respond to this “price signal”?
What should be done about the $700-a-year increase in average Australian family expenditure that recent petrol price rises are reckoned to bring?
Defending living standards
The most immediate challenge the oil price surge creates is how to stop the burden of the crisis being placed on the shoulders of working people and the poor. But defence of people’s livelihoods is also critical to make sure that the shift away from fossil-fuel dependent energy wins the mass social support it will need if it is actually to happen.
Here those environmentalists who think that increases in oil prices are to be welcomed because they are producing a (still minor) shift to diesel and hybrid cars and public transport are dangerously deceived. If the movement against global warming doesn’t propose its own treatment for the pain of oil price hikes, it abandons the field to the Brendan Nelsons and even worse anti-environmental political rogues.
Take, as a warning sign, the recent demise at the polls of London mayor Ken Livingston, who with the best intentions in the world introduced parking fees in the inner city, but without sufficient improvements in public transport to reduce people’s car and petrol dependence.
Here it’s important to grasp that it’s not true in the short term that the retail price of petrol “has nowhere to go but up”. And that’s not just because the latest oil price hike contains a big speculative bubble that will burst sooner or later.
It’s because there’s a huge difference between the cost of extraction of crude oil and the final retail price of petrol. In between come the profits of the oil corporations, the wholesalers (often the same companies), the shippers and government taxes.
Start with the cost of oil extraction. According to the Bank of Kuwait, crude oil at US$100 a barrel yields the following astronomical rates of profit, which are based on the production cost of a litre (given here in brackets): Kuwait 488% (11 cents); United Arab Emirates 300% (16 cents); Saudi Arabia and Qatar 233% (19 cents); Canadian oil sands 203% (21 cents); and Bahrain and Oman 150% (25 cents).
Next along the chain comes refining. According to the December 2007 Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) report Petrol Prices and Australian Consumers, “the major refiners have established a comfortable oligopoly” that conducts a “policy of pricing locally refined petrol on the basis [of] an imported equivalent product rather than the actual cost of domestic refining or even the actual cost of imports”.
The ACCC calculated that when unleaded petrol retailed for 121.6 cents a litre in 2007, the suspect “import parity price” was 56.1 cents, the refiner margin 3.7 cents, the wholesale margin 8.1 cents, government taxes (petroleum excise and wholesale and retail GST) 49.2 cents and the retail margin 4.4 cents.
These figures make nonsense of Kevin Rudd’s claim that the federal government has done everything “physically possible” to contain oil price increases. A government that was prepared to confront the impact of such surges could:
•Set a maximum retail price and adjust fuel excise and consumption tax rates accordingly (presently being considered by the Italian, Spanish and French governments).
•Set limits to retail price movements and the various margins (refiner, wholesale and retail). In June 2007, the refiner margin in Australia jumped to over 12 cents, provoking the ACCC inquiry. Regulation along these lines has been introduced in Belgium and is presently being pushed in the Portuguese parliament by the Left Bloc. According to Bloc spokesperson and economist Francisco Louca simple anti-speculative rules like these could cut prices at the pump between 10 and 14 cents a litre.
Nationalise the oil corporations
Nonetheless, in today’s world of long-run rising oil extraction costs these sorts of measures will only bring temporary relief given the ever-present likelihood of a long-run shortfall in supply and as long as the industry remains profit-driven and in private hands. Seriously tackling the impact of oil prices on living standards will require the nationalisation of big oil (in Australia Shell, Mobil, Caltex and BP).
This is not just the only way to know the true accounts of the oil corporations, which the ACCC was never actually certain it had in its hands. Nationalisation of big oil is also critical to carrying out the program for energy sustainability that will have eliminating oil dependence at its core.
The movement against global warming needs to fight for the nationalisation of big oil for exactly the same reasons that it fights the privatisation of carbon-intensive electricity generation in New South Wales: without public ownership of the commanding heights of energy production, the capacity to plan the rapid transition to renewable technologies disappears.
It is also the only framework in which a right price for oil-based products can be found: not so low as to provide no incentive to reduce consumption, and not so high as to undermine the livelihoods of workers, family farmers, the self-employed and people on welfare.
In November 2006, the world price of crude was 38 cents a litre and retail prices ranged from Venezuela’s three cents a litre (involving a subsidy of 35 cents a litre) to Iceland’s 186 cents a litre (with the highest fuel taxes in the world).
On January 21, 2007, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez told the audience of his weekly TV program Alo Presidente that the price of petrol was far too low. “We haven’t touched the price of petrol for eight years. It’s really gross to sell petrol the way we’ve been selling it, it would be better to give it away.”
Our case in Australia is the complete opposite. Confronted with a Rudd government determined to do practically nothing about soaring petrol and food prices, the union movement must demand full compensation for the increases in the cost of living they produce.
Indeed, the oil price surge is a sharp reminder of the need for full indexation of wages and welfare payments, a position that the trade union movement should never have abandoned. As the world economy again faces a 1970s prospect of “stagflation” (rising unemployment and inflation) and the central banks move to make working people — especially those with mortgage debt — pay the price of controlling the price level, the Australian union movement cannot defend working people if it maintains support for the Reserve Bank’s inflation-targeting regime.
There’s only one solution to the oil price crisis: the union and environment movements must fight side by side against the devastation the Shells and Exxons of the world are wreaking on our planet and the livelihoods of its peoples.
[Dick Nichols is the national coordinator of the Socialist Alliance. For sources used in this article contact national_office@socialist-alliance.org.]
Many pro-market commentators, and not a few environmentalists, welcome the latest oil price hike (which means the real price of oil has risen 400% in the last six years, greater than in 1970s oil crises) as bringing us closer to that goal. They bemoan the “cheap populism” of the Coalition’s proposed five cents a litre cut in petrol excise and the Rudd government’s FuelWatch scheme.
The Australian Financial Review’s economics editor, Alan Mitchell, wrote on May 28: “What our leaders should be telling voters is that the price of petrol has nowhere to go but up, and that they should take that into account when they buy their next car and make their next decision about where to live.”
And what about those billions of consumers of fossil fuels whose lives aren’t focused on getting out of a gas-guzzling four-wheel drive and into a Toyota Prius? Can the urban poor of Jakarta react to the Indonesian government’s planned 28.7% increase in fuel prices by switching to solar panels? How should the Yorkshire fishing family whose weekly fuel bill has gone from $4000 to over $9000 in the space of a year respond to this “price signal”?
What should be done about the $700-a-year increase in average Australian family expenditure that recent petrol price rises are reckoned to bring?
Defending living standards
The most immediate challenge the oil price surge creates is how to stop the burden of the crisis being placed on the shoulders of working people and the poor. But defence of people’s livelihoods is also critical to make sure that the shift away from fossil-fuel dependent energy wins the mass social support it will need if it is actually to happen.
Here those environmentalists who think that increases in oil prices are to be welcomed because they are producing a (still minor) shift to diesel and hybrid cars and public transport are dangerously deceived. If the movement against global warming doesn’t propose its own treatment for the pain of oil price hikes, it abandons the field to the Brendan Nelsons and even worse anti-environmental political rogues.
Take, as a warning sign, the recent demise at the polls of London mayor Ken Livingston, who with the best intentions in the world introduced parking fees in the inner city, but without sufficient improvements in public transport to reduce people’s car and petrol dependence.
Here it’s important to grasp that it’s not true in the short term that the retail price of petrol “has nowhere to go but up”. And that’s not just because the latest oil price hike contains a big speculative bubble that will burst sooner or later.
It’s because there’s a huge difference between the cost of extraction of crude oil and the final retail price of petrol. In between come the profits of the oil corporations, the wholesalers (often the same companies), the shippers and government taxes.
Start with the cost of oil extraction. According to the Bank of Kuwait, crude oil at US$100 a barrel yields the following astronomical rates of profit, which are based on the production cost of a litre (given here in brackets): Kuwait 488% (11 cents); United Arab Emirates 300% (16 cents); Saudi Arabia and Qatar 233% (19 cents); Canadian oil sands 203% (21 cents); and Bahrain and Oman 150% (25 cents).
Next along the chain comes refining. According to the December 2007 Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) report Petrol Prices and Australian Consumers, “the major refiners have established a comfortable oligopoly” that conducts a “policy of pricing locally refined petrol on the basis [of] an imported equivalent product rather than the actual cost of domestic refining or even the actual cost of imports”.
The ACCC calculated that when unleaded petrol retailed for 121.6 cents a litre in 2007, the suspect “import parity price” was 56.1 cents, the refiner margin 3.7 cents, the wholesale margin 8.1 cents, government taxes (petroleum excise and wholesale and retail GST) 49.2 cents and the retail margin 4.4 cents.
These figures make nonsense of Kevin Rudd’s claim that the federal government has done everything “physically possible” to contain oil price increases. A government that was prepared to confront the impact of such surges could:
•Set a maximum retail price and adjust fuel excise and consumption tax rates accordingly (presently being considered by the Italian, Spanish and French governments).
•Set limits to retail price movements and the various margins (refiner, wholesale and retail). In June 2007, the refiner margin in Australia jumped to over 12 cents, provoking the ACCC inquiry. Regulation along these lines has been introduced in Belgium and is presently being pushed in the Portuguese parliament by the Left Bloc. According to Bloc spokesperson and economist Francisco Louca simple anti-speculative rules like these could cut prices at the pump between 10 and 14 cents a litre.
Nationalise the oil corporations
Nonetheless, in today’s world of long-run rising oil extraction costs these sorts of measures will only bring temporary relief given the ever-present likelihood of a long-run shortfall in supply and as long as the industry remains profit-driven and in private hands. Seriously tackling the impact of oil prices on living standards will require the nationalisation of big oil (in Australia Shell, Mobil, Caltex and BP).
This is not just the only way to know the true accounts of the oil corporations, which the ACCC was never actually certain it had in its hands. Nationalisation of big oil is also critical to carrying out the program for energy sustainability that will have eliminating oil dependence at its core.
The movement against global warming needs to fight for the nationalisation of big oil for exactly the same reasons that it fights the privatisation of carbon-intensive electricity generation in New South Wales: without public ownership of the commanding heights of energy production, the capacity to plan the rapid transition to renewable technologies disappears.
It is also the only framework in which a right price for oil-based products can be found: not so low as to provide no incentive to reduce consumption, and not so high as to undermine the livelihoods of workers, family farmers, the self-employed and people on welfare.
In November 2006, the world price of crude was 38 cents a litre and retail prices ranged from Venezuela’s three cents a litre (involving a subsidy of 35 cents a litre) to Iceland’s 186 cents a litre (with the highest fuel taxes in the world).
On January 21, 2007, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez told the audience of his weekly TV program Alo Presidente that the price of petrol was far too low. “We haven’t touched the price of petrol for eight years. It’s really gross to sell petrol the way we’ve been selling it, it would be better to give it away.”
Our case in Australia is the complete opposite. Confronted with a Rudd government determined to do practically nothing about soaring petrol and food prices, the union movement must demand full compensation for the increases in the cost of living they produce.
Indeed, the oil price surge is a sharp reminder of the need for full indexation of wages and welfare payments, a position that the trade union movement should never have abandoned. As the world economy again faces a 1970s prospect of “stagflation” (rising unemployment and inflation) and the central banks move to make working people — especially those with mortgage debt — pay the price of controlling the price level, the Australian union movement cannot defend working people if it maintains support for the Reserve Bank’s inflation-targeting regime.
There’s only one solution to the oil price crisis: the union and environment movements must fight side by side against the devastation the Shells and Exxons of the world are wreaking on our planet and the livelihoods of its peoples.
[Dick Nichols is the national coordinator of the Socialist Alliance. For sources used in this article contact national_office@socialist-alliance.org.]
From: Comment & Analysis, Green Left Weekly issue #756 25 June 2008.
Solutions to the global food crisis
Paul Benedek, Brisbane
15 June 2008Resistance activist Naomi Rodgers-Falk and Socialist Alliance’s Margaret Gleeson led a roundtable discussion with 25 others on “Solutions to the global food crisis” at Northey Street City Farm on June 8.
Rodgers-Falk outlined the cause of the global crisis, including agro-fuels, which she said are “taking food out of the mouths of the Third World to feed First World SUVs”. She pointed to the connection between rapidly rising oil prices and “peak oil”, as well as the destructive effects of climate change and weather extremes on arable lands.
“The root cause of the crisis, however, is the system of imperialism, in which a rich minority in the developed world dictate the terms of production in the less developed nations through the World Bank and IMF. This system leaves the rich majority exploited and, often, starving tools of the rich”, said Rodgers-Falk. She outlined how many subsistence farmers are even more poverty-stricken since being forced to cultivate cash crops, and how highly subsidised US farm goods are flooding into the Third World wiping out local farmers’ income.
Gleeson outlined some of the solutions being implemented in Venezuela and Cuba, including a “food bank” designed to guarantee basic food production needs to countries in Latin America.
“Venezuela is empowering its population to fight for food sovereignty, with President Hugo Chavez supporting thousands of cooperatives and urban farms to end the country’s sole dependence on oil — which was a result of its treatment by imperialism”, said Gleeson.
Gleeson recalled Cuba’s move to permaculture and organic city farms. She said Cuba was a good illustration of how it would be possible to move away from dependence on oil towards a rational ecological and people-first system.
[For more information on Brisbane’s monthly Socialist Alliance-sponsored discussions — of which this was one — or to get involved, phone Marg on 0439 411 330.]
“The root cause of the crisis, however, is the system of imperialism, in which a rich minority in the developed world dictate the terms of production in the less developed nations through the World Bank and IMF. This system leaves the rich majority exploited and, often, starving tools of the rich”, said Rodgers-Falk. She outlined how many subsistence farmers are even more poverty-stricken since being forced to cultivate cash crops, and how highly subsidised US farm goods are flooding into the Third World wiping out local farmers’ income.
Gleeson outlined some of the solutions being implemented in Venezuela and Cuba, including a “food bank” designed to guarantee basic food production needs to countries in Latin America.
“Venezuela is empowering its population to fight for food sovereignty, with President Hugo Chavez supporting thousands of cooperatives and urban farms to end the country’s sole dependence on oil — which was a result of its treatment by imperialism”, said Gleeson.
Gleeson recalled Cuba’s move to permaculture and organic city farms. She said Cuba was a good illustration of how it would be possible to move away from dependence on oil towards a rational ecological and people-first system.
[For more information on Brisbane’s monthly Socialist Alliance-sponsored discussions — of which this was one — or to get involved, phone Marg on 0439 411 330.]
From: Australian News, Green Left Weekly issue #755 18 June 2008.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Venezuela: Massive turnout for PSUV primaries
Kiraz Janicke, Caracas
7 June 2008In a massive show of support for the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) — established to unite the mass movement that supports the Bolivarian revolution led by President Hugo Chavez — on June 1 some 2.5 million PSUV members participated in an historic process of electing candidates for the upcoming regional elections in November.
Polling was extended to 9pm in the majority of states as thousands of PSUV members queued to exercise their right to vote in the elections which were monitored by the National Electoral Council (CNE).
The full list of candidates elected to run for the 22 governors and 328 mayors were announced on June 4.
“It doubled our initial expectations, the participation has been massive, much more than what we had hoped for”, PSUV national executive member Vanessa Davies announced to a late-night press conference on June 1.
“We are happy and proud of our members. We have complied with the requirements of elections by the grassroots. We have followed through with the people and the constitution”, she added.
Implementing democracy
The Bolivarian Constitution adopted through popular referendum in 1999 requires all political parties to hold democratic elections for leadership positions and candidates. So far, the PSUV is the only political party in Venezuela to meet this requirement.
Chavez, who cast his vote at the Manuel Antonio Fajardo Technical School in Barrio 23 de Enero, classified the PSUV elections as “truly historic” and “without precedent in the political history of Venezuela”.
“This internal process has impacted on the entire country and the collective morale … It is a grand example of how to construct true democracy, with debates and discussion, with some problems, but a great capacity to overcome these”, Chavez said.
He called on “all political parties, in the revolutionary camp as well as in the opposition and any other political movement”, to follow the example of the PSUV.
However, the president argued, a revolutionary party cannot have winning elections as its only objective, “The objective is to ensure the permanence and advance of the revolution”.
Chavez called for a “war to death” against corruption, cronyism, bureaucratism and inefficiency and for the re-launch of the “socialist plan”, which he initiated at the beginning of 2007.
“We need mayors and governors who will undertake the task, together with the people, to work for the construction of socialism from below … on every street corner, every municipality, in every state”, he emphasised.
Those pre-candidates who obtained at least 50 percent plus one votes, or 15 percent more votes than the second highest pre-candidate, passed over to automatically be the official PSUV candidates in the regional elections.
In line with a decision by a national assembly of PSUV delegates on May 9, in those eight states where no pre-candidate achieved a majority or the required winning margin, the national leadership of the PSUV will select a candidate from the top three based on a range of criteria, including “revolutionary commitment” and “ethics”. In eight states and 134 municipalities, none of the pre-candidates met the requirement for automatic nomination.
The internal party nomination process was monitored by 62 international observers and in large part occurred in a climate of normality. However, in some instances polling was marred by reports of some pre-candidates wielding undue influence in order to determine the outcome of the vote.
As thousands of PSUV members celebrated on the night of June 1, PSUV leader Jorge Rodriguez warned the opposition and “the lackeys of imperialism here in Venezuela” that they had better get ready for the November elections because, “We’re going all out to win the local and regional spaces”.
Support for Chavez
According to the results of a recent survey by private opposition-oriented polling firm, Keller & Associates, the pro-Chavez movement counts on 57% support nationally. The same poll showed 28% support for a united opposition.
The results were announced by journalist and former vice-president Jose Vicente Rangel on June 1 during his weekly program Jose Vicente Today on the private television station Televen.
Keller & Associates is a firm with a “known anti-Chavez position”, Rangel pointed out. Other surveys carried out by the same firm over the past week indicate that support for “Chavismo” is growing throughout the whole country, while support for the opposition is declining.
[Reprinted from http://venezuelanalysis.com. Kiraz Janicke is part of the Green Left Weekly Caracas bureau and will be a featured speaker discussing the Venezuelan revolution at the Resistance national conference in Sydney, June 27-29. Visit.]
The full list of candidates elected to run for the 22 governors and 328 mayors were announced on June 4.
“It doubled our initial expectations, the participation has been massive, much more than what we had hoped for”, PSUV national executive member Vanessa Davies announced to a late-night press conference on June 1.
“We are happy and proud of our members. We have complied with the requirements of elections by the grassroots. We have followed through with the people and the constitution”, she added.
Implementing democracy
The Bolivarian Constitution adopted through popular referendum in 1999 requires all political parties to hold democratic elections for leadership positions and candidates. So far, the PSUV is the only political party in Venezuela to meet this requirement.
Chavez, who cast his vote at the Manuel Antonio Fajardo Technical School in Barrio 23 de Enero, classified the PSUV elections as “truly historic” and “without precedent in the political history of Venezuela”.
“This internal process has impacted on the entire country and the collective morale … It is a grand example of how to construct true democracy, with debates and discussion, with some problems, but a great capacity to overcome these”, Chavez said.
He called on “all political parties, in the revolutionary camp as well as in the opposition and any other political movement”, to follow the example of the PSUV.
However, the president argued, a revolutionary party cannot have winning elections as its only objective, “The objective is to ensure the permanence and advance of the revolution”.
Chavez called for a “war to death” against corruption, cronyism, bureaucratism and inefficiency and for the re-launch of the “socialist plan”, which he initiated at the beginning of 2007.
“We need mayors and governors who will undertake the task, together with the people, to work for the construction of socialism from below … on every street corner, every municipality, in every state”, he emphasised.
Those pre-candidates who obtained at least 50 percent plus one votes, or 15 percent more votes than the second highest pre-candidate, passed over to automatically be the official PSUV candidates in the regional elections.
In line with a decision by a national assembly of PSUV delegates on May 9, in those eight states where no pre-candidate achieved a majority or the required winning margin, the national leadership of the PSUV will select a candidate from the top three based on a range of criteria, including “revolutionary commitment” and “ethics”. In eight states and 134 municipalities, none of the pre-candidates met the requirement for automatic nomination.
The internal party nomination process was monitored by 62 international observers and in large part occurred in a climate of normality. However, in some instances polling was marred by reports of some pre-candidates wielding undue influence in order to determine the outcome of the vote.
As thousands of PSUV members celebrated on the night of June 1, PSUV leader Jorge Rodriguez warned the opposition and “the lackeys of imperialism here in Venezuela” that they had better get ready for the November elections because, “We’re going all out to win the local and regional spaces”.
Support for Chavez
According to the results of a recent survey by private opposition-oriented polling firm, Keller & Associates, the pro-Chavez movement counts on 57% support nationally. The same poll showed 28% support for a united opposition.
The results were announced by journalist and former vice-president Jose Vicente Rangel on June 1 during his weekly program Jose Vicente Today on the private television station Televen.
Keller & Associates is a firm with a “known anti-Chavez position”, Rangel pointed out. Other surveys carried out by the same firm over the past week indicate that support for “Chavismo” is growing throughout the whole country, while support for the opposition is declining.
[Reprinted from http://venezuelanalysis.com. Kiraz Janicke is part of the Green Left Weekly Caracas bureau and will be a featured speaker discussing the Venezuelan revolution at the Resistance national conference in Sydney, June 27-29. Visit
From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #754 11 June 2008.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Venezuela: Big stakes in November elections
Kiraz Janicke & Federico Fuentes, Caracas
1 June 2008Following the December 2 constitutional reform referendum defeat — the first for the forces of the Bolivarian revolution since the election of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 1998 — and facing popular discontent at the problems holding back the advance of the process of change, the pro-revolution forces face a big challenge in securing an overwhelming victory in the November regional elections in order not to lose ground to the US-backed opposition.
Chavez, who described the upcoming regional elections as “the most important in Venezuelan history”, outlined what is at stake: “Imagine if the opposition groups managed to win the mayor of the Capital District, the mayor of Caracas, the state of Miranda, the state of Carabobo, Zulia, Tachira, Anzoategui … the next step would be war, because they would come for me, once again we would be in the same situation as April 11" he said in reference to the April 2002 US-backed coup against the Chavez government.
Chavez’s list was no coincidence. Apart from being some of the most strategic states in terms of population and economic strength, they are also. along with Aragua, Lara, Merida and Nueva Esparta, states where the opposition won a majority in the constitutional reform referendum. If repeated in November, it could see the number of Chavista governors reduced from 21 out of 23 to 14.
Such a result would provide a strengthened opposition with a launching pad to intensify its campaign to remove Chavez through a recall referendum in 2010 — or through more violent means.
In this context, the democratic primaries held by the 5.7-million-strong United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) on June 1, to choose candidates for the November 23 regional elections for mayors and governors, are crucial for re-engaging and revitalising the grassroots of the Chavista movement to push the revolution forward .
Uphill battle
In the 2004 regional elections the Chavista alliance — at that time predominately comprised of the Movement for the Fifth Republic (MVR — Chavez’s then-party that has dissolved into the PSUV), Homeland For All (PPT), Podemos and the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) along with smaller organisations — won 20 of the 22 governorships up for election along with the mayor of the Capital District.
The Chavistas also won an overwhelming majority of the municipalities, as commentators talked of an electoral map painted red.
Opposition forces, demoralised by their crushing loss in the recall referendum on Chavez’s presidency in August 2004 and claiming fraud (although there was no evidence) and in large part abstained from the regional elections in November.
This time the situation is not as favourable for the revolutionary forces. Boosted by its victory in the December referendum, a recycled opposition — presenting itself as removed from the old, discredited parties — is attempting to run a united campaign (although public clashes over seats in opposition strongholds are increasing) and can count on a re-mobilised and confident supporter base.
They will also count on more moderate sectors from the Chavista camp that have broken with the revolution since 2004 as the process of change has radicalised — such as the social democratic Podemos. In 2004, Podemos was won two governorships.
The revolutionary forces were then in a period of ascendancy, having defeated three attempts to depose Chavez — April 2002 coup, December 2002-January 2003 bosses lockout and the 2004 recall referendum. Today the mood is different.
Discontent, demoralisation and demobilisation have impacted on the popular forces, as many blame bureaucracy and corruption for sabotaging the revolutionary process — undermining both the social gains and blocking genuine popular power.
Imperialist offensive
Venezuela’s elite opposition, backed by US imperialism, has been increasing its orientation toward the poor majority that make up Chavez’s support base — adopting a populist discourse, such as “we want to improve the missoins” (the government-funded social programs that are helping solve the problems of the poor) and “build more houses for the poor”.
It is seeking to take advantage of discontent to infiltrate the barrios through what it calls “popular networks”, which according to US-Venezuelan lawyer Eva Golinger, recieve money from the US government-funded USAID. These networks work to spread rumours, promote divisions among Chavistas and mobilise people against the government.
It can be expected that the opposition will employ the same tactics in the lead up to the elections that worked for them in the constitutional reform referendum, such as extra-parliamentary destabilisation — including violent protests and economic sabotage — combined with a virulent campaign of media manipulation and lies to create a climate of crisis and ungovernability.
A renewed offensive by US imperialism to isolate the Chavez government internationally is adding to the internal pressure. The US has attempted to link the Chavez government with “terrorism” based on the supposed documents found on the laptops retrieved from the site of the illegal military assault by Colombia (the US’s key ally in the region)on a camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Venezuela has categorically rejected the allegations.
Despite claims by the US and Colombian governments that an Interpol investigation into the laptop backs up the charges, the Interpol report states on page 9 that, “The verification of the eight seized FARC computer exhibits by Interpol does not imply the validation of the accuracy of the user files, the validation of any country’s interpretation of the user files or the validation of the source of the user files.”
In addition, the US navy has decided to reactivate, after 58 years, its Fourth Fleet to patrol Latin American waters, and on May 16, Colombian troops were intercepted inside the Venezuelan border. On May 17, a US warplane was caught violating Venezuelan airspace.
Internal struggle
On top of all this, internal divisions between the “endogenous” (internal) right-wing of Chavismo, which doesn’t want to break with capitalism, and the more radical grassroots pushing the deepen the process of change and especially extend direct democracy to empower the poor are becoming increasingly exposed.
Since its was launched last year, the PSUV has become a battleground between these sectors, reflecting the conflicting class interests within the Bolivarian movement. This dynamic is playing out in the primary elections.
While the June 1 internal elections, which are open to all members of the PSUV, represent an historic landmark in the Bolivarian revolution — for the first time allowing the grassroots to participate in the selection of candidates — struggles over the form and content of this process have not been absent.
Sources within the PSUV told Green Left Weekly that it was the rank and file, who in a general assembly on May 9, forced the national leadership to back down from an initial proposal whereby the local PSUV battalions would be able to suggest names that would then be tallied in order to come up with a list of 15, from which the national leadership would select the final candidate.
Under the alternative compromise proposal, which was approved, if no candidates receives either 50% plus one votes or a margin of more than 15% above the next candidate, then the national leadership, in consultation with Chavez, will select the candidate from the top three.
Importantly, Chavez announced that all the results of the internal elections will be made publicly available in order to allow greater transparency, and in doing so reversed a previous decision by the national leadership to keep the results secret.
A key example of the internal struggle is the controversy that erupted following the exclusion of the popular mayor of Torres Municipality, Julio Chavez (no relation to the president), from the list of pre-candidate nominations for governor of the state of Lara.
Sections of the national leadership had attempted to pressure Julio to stand down in favour of more conservative candidate Henri Falcon. Even though the mayor rejected the proposal, he was excluded from the list of pre-candidates released by the national leadership.
This prompted a rebellion among rank-and-file PSUV members in Lara, who saw Julio’s exclusion as a bureaucratic attempt by the national executive to override internal democracy and impose a candidate from above.
Hundreds of PSUV members mobilised spontaneously and surrounded the party’s regional headquarters on May 29 and 30, and in a play on Julio’s surname, chanted the famous slogan celebrating the defeat of the coup; “Uh ah, Chavez no se va! (Chavez is not going).
The PSUV national executive was forced to back down and reincorporated Julio onto the list of pre-candidates for governor of Lara. The president, who has repeatedly called for candidates to be selected democratically, telephoned the mayor directly to assure him that the situation had been corrected
Julio, loathed by opposition sectors and particularly local business elites, is extremely popular among the poor for being the only mayor in Venezuela to have transferred control of the majority of the municipal budget directly to organised communities, and for implementing a process of radical transformation and democratisation of the entire governance system of his municipality.
The intervention by Chavez in defence of democracy, like his decision to nationalise the Sidor steel plant on April 9 after a long workers struggle there and the subsequent sacking of the right-wing labour minister, has boosted the morale of the rank-and-file.
Chavez has also pressured sectors tempted to flout the democratic decision of the party and stand as candidates outside of the PSUV: “Those that do not accept the results will be morally pulverised by the Bolivarian people.”
“What is important” Chavez argued, “is that we come out more united after June 1.” For this to happen, the mass participation of the ranks in the elections will be vital for consolidating the pro-revolution forces in the lead up to the regional elections.
Also key to the success of the Chavista forces is the strengthening of the Patriotic Alliance, which unites the PSUV with smaller pro-Chavez groups that haven’t joined the new party, such as the PPT and PCV.
However, frictions have emerged as the smaller parties have raised concerns about their exclusion from discussions on candidates and the platform on which to contest the elections.
With the PSUV still in formation and with important internal divisions, a yet to be solidified alliance with other groups and a significant layer of revolutionary activists who for a variety of reasons chose to remain outside the parties, there will be a serious need to push forward mobilise the broadest layers of the popular sectors.
Chavez has already called on each active member of the PSUV to work at mobilising a further five people — recalling the successful grassroots mobilising strategy used to win the 2004 recall referendum.
[Kiraz Janicke and Federico Fuentes are members of the Green Left Weekly Caracas bureau. They are both featured speakers at the Resistance national conference in Sydney, June 27-29. Visit http://resistance.org.au& for more information and to register.]
Chavez’s list was no coincidence. Apart from being some of the most strategic states in terms of population and economic strength, they are also. along with Aragua, Lara, Merida and Nueva Esparta, states where the opposition won a majority in the constitutional reform referendum. If repeated in November, it could see the number of Chavista governors reduced from 21 out of 23 to 14.
Such a result would provide a strengthened opposition with a launching pad to intensify its campaign to remove Chavez through a recall referendum in 2010 — or through more violent means.
In this context, the democratic primaries held by the 5.7-million-strong United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) on June 1, to choose candidates for the November 23 regional elections for mayors and governors, are crucial for re-engaging and revitalising the grassroots of the Chavista movement to push the revolution forward .
Uphill battle
In the 2004 regional elections the Chavista alliance — at that time predominately comprised of the Movement for the Fifth Republic (MVR — Chavez’s then-party that has dissolved into the PSUV), Homeland For All (PPT), Podemos and the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) along with smaller organisations — won 20 of the 22 governorships up for election along with the mayor of the Capital District.
The Chavistas also won an overwhelming majority of the municipalities, as commentators talked of an electoral map painted red.
Opposition forces, demoralised by their crushing loss in the recall referendum on Chavez’s presidency in August 2004 and claiming fraud (although there was no evidence) and in large part abstained from the regional elections in November.
This time the situation is not as favourable for the revolutionary forces. Boosted by its victory in the December referendum, a recycled opposition — presenting itself as removed from the old, discredited parties — is attempting to run a united campaign (although public clashes over seats in opposition strongholds are increasing) and can count on a re-mobilised and confident supporter base.
They will also count on more moderate sectors from the Chavista camp that have broken with the revolution since 2004 as the process of change has radicalised — such as the social democratic Podemos. In 2004, Podemos was won two governorships.
The revolutionary forces were then in a period of ascendancy, having defeated three attempts to depose Chavez — April 2002 coup, December 2002-January 2003 bosses lockout and the 2004 recall referendum. Today the mood is different.
Discontent, demoralisation and demobilisation have impacted on the popular forces, as many blame bureaucracy and corruption for sabotaging the revolutionary process — undermining both the social gains and blocking genuine popular power.
Imperialist offensive
Venezuela’s elite opposition, backed by US imperialism, has been increasing its orientation toward the poor majority that make up Chavez’s support base — adopting a populist discourse, such as “we want to improve the missoins” (the government-funded social programs that are helping solve the problems of the poor) and “build more houses for the poor”.
It is seeking to take advantage of discontent to infiltrate the barrios through what it calls “popular networks”, which according to US-Venezuelan lawyer Eva Golinger, recieve money from the US government-funded USAID. These networks work to spread rumours, promote divisions among Chavistas and mobilise people against the government.
It can be expected that the opposition will employ the same tactics in the lead up to the elections that worked for them in the constitutional reform referendum, such as extra-parliamentary destabilisation — including violent protests and economic sabotage — combined with a virulent campaign of media manipulation and lies to create a climate of crisis and ungovernability.
A renewed offensive by US imperialism to isolate the Chavez government internationally is adding to the internal pressure. The US has attempted to link the Chavez government with “terrorism” based on the supposed documents found on the laptops retrieved from the site of the illegal military assault by Colombia (the US’s key ally in the region)on a camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Venezuela has categorically rejected the allegations.
Despite claims by the US and Colombian governments that an Interpol investigation into the laptop backs up the charges, the Interpol report states on page 9 that, “The verification of the eight seized FARC computer exhibits by Interpol does not imply the validation of the accuracy of the user files, the validation of any country’s interpretation of the user files or the validation of the source of the user files.”
In addition, the US navy has decided to reactivate, after 58 years, its Fourth Fleet to patrol Latin American waters, and on May 16, Colombian troops were intercepted inside the Venezuelan border. On May 17, a US warplane was caught violating Venezuelan airspace.
Internal struggle
On top of all this, internal divisions between the “endogenous” (internal) right-wing of Chavismo, which doesn’t want to break with capitalism, and the more radical grassroots pushing the deepen the process of change and especially extend direct democracy to empower the poor are becoming increasingly exposed.
Since its was launched last year, the PSUV has become a battleground between these sectors, reflecting the conflicting class interests within the Bolivarian movement. This dynamic is playing out in the primary elections.
While the June 1 internal elections, which are open to all members of the PSUV, represent an historic landmark in the Bolivarian revolution — for the first time allowing the grassroots to participate in the selection of candidates — struggles over the form and content of this process have not been absent.
Sources within the PSUV told Green Left Weekly that it was the rank and file, who in a general assembly on May 9, forced the national leadership to back down from an initial proposal whereby the local PSUV battalions would be able to suggest names that would then be tallied in order to come up with a list of 15, from which the national leadership would select the final candidate.
Under the alternative compromise proposal, which was approved, if no candidates receives either 50% plus one votes or a margin of more than 15% above the next candidate, then the national leadership, in consultation with Chavez, will select the candidate from the top three.
Importantly, Chavez announced that all the results of the internal elections will be made publicly available in order to allow greater transparency, and in doing so reversed a previous decision by the national leadership to keep the results secret.
A key example of the internal struggle is the controversy that erupted following the exclusion of the popular mayor of Torres Municipality, Julio Chavez (no relation to the president), from the list of pre-candidate nominations for governor of the state of Lara.
Sections of the national leadership had attempted to pressure Julio to stand down in favour of more conservative candidate Henri Falcon. Even though the mayor rejected the proposal, he was excluded from the list of pre-candidates released by the national leadership.
This prompted a rebellion among rank-and-file PSUV members in Lara, who saw Julio’s exclusion as a bureaucratic attempt by the national executive to override internal democracy and impose a candidate from above.
Hundreds of PSUV members mobilised spontaneously and surrounded the party’s regional headquarters on May 29 and 30, and in a play on Julio’s surname, chanted the famous slogan celebrating the defeat of the coup; “Uh ah, Chavez no se va! (Chavez is not going).
The PSUV national executive was forced to back down and reincorporated Julio onto the list of pre-candidates for governor of Lara. The president, who has repeatedly called for candidates to be selected democratically, telephoned the mayor directly to assure him that the situation had been corrected
Julio, loathed by opposition sectors and particularly local business elites, is extremely popular among the poor for being the only mayor in Venezuela to have transferred control of the majority of the municipal budget directly to organised communities, and for implementing a process of radical transformation and democratisation of the entire governance system of his municipality.
The intervention by Chavez in defence of democracy, like his decision to nationalise the Sidor steel plant on April 9 after a long workers struggle there and the subsequent sacking of the right-wing labour minister, has boosted the morale of the rank-and-file.
Chavez has also pressured sectors tempted to flout the democratic decision of the party and stand as candidates outside of the PSUV: “Those that do not accept the results will be morally pulverised by the Bolivarian people.”
“What is important” Chavez argued, “is that we come out more united after June 1.” For this to happen, the mass participation of the ranks in the elections will be vital for consolidating the pro-revolution forces in the lead up to the regional elections.
Also key to the success of the Chavista forces is the strengthening of the Patriotic Alliance, which unites the PSUV with smaller pro-Chavez groups that haven’t joined the new party, such as the PPT and PCV.
However, frictions have emerged as the smaller parties have raised concerns about their exclusion from discussions on candidates and the platform on which to contest the elections.
With the PSUV still in formation and with important internal divisions, a yet to be solidified alliance with other groups and a significant layer of revolutionary activists who for a variety of reasons chose to remain outside the parties, there will be a serious need to push forward mobilise the broadest layers of the popular sectors.
Chavez has already called on each active member of the PSUV to work at mobilising a further five people — recalling the successful grassroots mobilising strategy used to win the 2004 recall referendum.
[Kiraz Janicke and Federico Fuentes are members of the Green Left Weekly Caracas bureau. They are both featured speakers at the Resistance national conference in Sydney, June 27-29. Visit http://resistance.org.au& for more information and to register.]
From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #753 4 June 2008.
Friday, May 30, 2008
El Salvador: Stop political killings!
Below is an abridged sign-on statement initiated by the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, http://cispes.org. To add you organisation, please email sistercities@gmail.com The context for the violence is the increasing likelihood of a victory in the elections for early next year of the left-wing Farabundo Marti Liberation Front.
From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #752 28 May 2008.
We denounce the assassination of Hector Antonio Ventura, committed on May 2, in the community of Valle Verde, Suchitoto in Cuscatlan department. According to preliminary information, Ventura was stabbed to death in the heart and received blows to the head from assailants who entered the house where Ventura was staying with a friend. The second young man was also attacked but survived.
Ventura was one of 14 people who were prosecuted by the Salvadoran government for “acts of terrorism” after participating in a peaceful protest against water privatisation in Suchitoto on July 2, 2007. Their case caused tremendous national and international outcry against the grave misuse of anti-terror statutes against legitimate political expression.
Ventura’s murder was committed just weeks after all 14 of the prosecuted were granted definitive liberty. The court decision proved false the accusations that the government made against the group of activists throughout the ten months prior.
The murder was also committed just two days after Ventura had agreed to give testimony of his experience at a public “Day Against Impunity” event planned for July 2 by the mayor of Suchitoto. Although we still await a full investigation of the crime — one that investigates not only the assailants but also the intellectual authors of the crime — these circumstances, including the fact that Ventura was a young social activist, and particularly the fact that he was a recently released political prisoner, create grave concerns that his assassination was committed for political reasons, with the intention of destabilising and intimidating members of the political opposition.
As members of the international community concerned with human rights in El Salvador, we join the Salvadoran social organisations in denouncing this atrocity, and express our profound anxiety regarding several other murders of social activists and opposition political leaders in the last two years.
The Salvadoran Archbishop’s Legal Defence Office investigated 26 homicides in 2006 that suggested the participation of death squads reminiscent of the Salvadoran civil war.
In the 2007 report of the Archbishop’s Legal Defense Office, 113 of 169 investigated violent deaths were extrajudicial executions: executions committed by organised crime structures reminiscent of civil war-era death squads, met with tolerance or participation by the state, and committed with the intent of generating terror in the population, social cleansing, or elimination of political opposition members.
We call upon our own, international governments to urge the Salvadoran authorities to thoroughly investigate these cases; and urge the office of the Salvadoran ombudsperson for Human Rights to ensure provision of protection and safety for witnesses in these trials, as well as to opposition members who receive politically motivated threats.
Ventura was one of 14 people who were prosecuted by the Salvadoran government for “acts of terrorism” after participating in a peaceful protest against water privatisation in Suchitoto on July 2, 2007. Their case caused tremendous national and international outcry against the grave misuse of anti-terror statutes against legitimate political expression.
Ventura’s murder was committed just weeks after all 14 of the prosecuted were granted definitive liberty. The court decision proved false the accusations that the government made against the group of activists throughout the ten months prior.
The murder was also committed just two days after Ventura had agreed to give testimony of his experience at a public “Day Against Impunity” event planned for July 2 by the mayor of Suchitoto. Although we still await a full investigation of the crime — one that investigates not only the assailants but also the intellectual authors of the crime — these circumstances, including the fact that Ventura was a young social activist, and particularly the fact that he was a recently released political prisoner, create grave concerns that his assassination was committed for political reasons, with the intention of destabilising and intimidating members of the political opposition.
As members of the international community concerned with human rights in El Salvador, we join the Salvadoran social organisations in denouncing this atrocity, and express our profound anxiety regarding several other murders of social activists and opposition political leaders in the last two years.
The Salvadoran Archbishop’s Legal Defence Office investigated 26 homicides in 2006 that suggested the participation of death squads reminiscent of the Salvadoran civil war.
In the 2007 report of the Archbishop’s Legal Defense Office, 113 of 169 investigated violent deaths were extrajudicial executions: executions committed by organised crime structures reminiscent of civil war-era death squads, met with tolerance or participation by the state, and committed with the intent of generating terror in the population, social cleansing, or elimination of political opposition members.
We call upon our own, international governments to urge the Salvadoran authorities to thoroughly investigate these cases; and urge the office of the Salvadoran ombudsperson for Human Rights to ensure provision of protection and safety for witnesses in these trials, as well as to opposition members who receive politically motivated threats.
From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #752 28 May 2008.
HARI GINI, MASIH PERCAYA JANJI POLITIK ARTIS KE RAKYAT?
Edisi: 126 Tahun IV - 2008
Sumber: www.prakarsa-rakyat.org
Oleh Fitri *
“..hari gini kalau tidak punya uang jangan berkecimpung di dunia politik..” (ucapan wakil bupati Tangerang, Rano Karno di tayangan SILET RCTI 21 Mei 2008)
!
Di tayangan infotainment itu diperlihatkan pula bagaimana hegemoni yang menciptakan pencitraan di kesadaran orang banyak bahwa hanya yang banyak uang lah yang bisa melenggang di percaturan politik Indonesia. Baru-baru ini pula kita lihat di tayangan televisi beberapa artis akan mengikuti jejak Rano Karno dan Dede Yusuf yang melenggang menjadi bagian dari antek kapitalis. Keberhasilan 2 aktor film ini dalam memenangkan kursi pemerintahan, menunjukan bahwa sebenarnya kepercayaan rakyat terhadap kandidat yang berasal dari kalangan birokrat dan militer semakin memudar dan cenderung untuk memilih kandidat yang sama sekali belum masuk ajang pemilihan pemimpin daerah, seperti yang terjadi di Jawa Barat. Tak akan lama lagi Saipul Jamil (si penyanyi dangdut), Ikang Fauzi (seorang rocker dan pengusaha), Wanda Hamidah segera menyusul. Hanya bermodalkan ketenaran dan punya uang saja mereka, k! arena untuk pencalonan saja -hanya sekedar mengambil formulir ! dibutuhk an biaya sebesar 15 juta- begitu penuturan seorang artis yang akan mencalonkan menjadi walikota Serang.
Pertanyaannya adalah mengapa partai politik yang ada sekarang menggunakan para artis untuk menjadi wakil-wakil rakyat di parlemen ataupun menajadi pemimpin rakyat di daerah? Masyarakat harus tahu bahwa cara “jualan artis” tersebut adalah bagian dari strategi partai borjuis. Kemunculan artis sebagai calon dalam berbagai pilkada tidak akan mensejahterakan rakyat, karena mereka berasal dari lingkungan yang borjuis, glamour, dan bukan berasal dari rakyat pekerja yang menderita tapi sebenarnya menopang perekonomian Negara. Rakyat diajak untuk melupakan masalah yang menimpa diri mereka karena disajikan seorang pemimpin yang berasal dari kalangan entertainer. Padahal permasalahan yang terjadi tidak akan pernah selesai walaupun berganti pemim! pin tetapi masih berada di ranah sistem kekuasaan modal (kekuasannya kaum borjuis) yang selama ini membelenggu rakyat.
Media infotainment menyihir pikiran rakyat pekerja yang menontonnya (karena gak ada kerjaan dan semua TV melakukan hal yang sama) dan menjadi raung propaganda kapitalis, yang menyatakan bahwa uang adalah segala-galanya. Pilkada dan menjelang pemilu 2009 lagi-lagi rakyat harus ditipu agar tidak bangkit merebut kekuasaan. Maraknya artis yang menjadi politisi adalah taktik yang sedang diuji keefektifannya, tetapi sudah pasti tidak akan membawa perubahan bagi kehidupan rakyat Indonesia. Sudah bukan saatnya rakyat menitipkan agendanya ke tangan-tangan elit politik borjuasi, ke tangan-tangan artis yang hanya bermodalkan ketenaran untuk merebut simpatik masyarakat.
Pe nderitaan rakyat hanya dijadikan untuk berkampanye elit politik borjuis. Penderitaan rakyat hanya dijadikan rayuan gombal untuk meraih kekuasaan negara, tapi ketika memerintah justru untuk menindas rakyat. Apakah para artis akan menolong rakyat melalui partai-partai borjuis? Jawabannya jelas, semua itu bualan saja dan sudah sering didengar oleh rakyat. Dalam status sosial kemasyarakatan posisi artis hari ini adalah sebagai kaki tangan kapitalis untuk mencekoki rakyat dengan berbagai tayangan di media, baik melalui iklan, sinetron, dan berbagai sandiwara lainnya yang membuat rakyat semakin hanyut dalam khayalanya untuk pemenuhan ekonomi yang nyatanya kian hari semakin mahal.
Yang Tidak Dibicarakan Para Artis
Para artis yang bermain di Pilkada sesuai pesanan para penguasa modal tidak akan pernah bicara caranya melepaskan belenggu! rakyat dari kemiskinan dan penghisapan. Artis bicara hal-hal lain yang mengalihkan perdebatan soal mengapa kehidupan rakyat diisi dengan berbagai kebijakan yang terus menghisap darah rakyat. Ketidakpastian kerja, upah murah, sistem kerja kontak dan outsourcing adalah bentuk dari penindasan kaum kapitalis. Sekarang lihat, apakah Rano Karno bicara bagaimana menghapus itu semua di Kabupaten Tangerang?
Dengan masuknya para artis menjadi elit-elit politik dan kaki tangan kapitalis jelas tidak akan menyelesaikan masalah. Rakyat bukan butuh hiburan semu yang akan memanjakan nasib rakyat tapi sekaligus dijadikan taruhan dalam perjudian kapitalisme. Nasib rakyat bukan untuk spekulasi gerak modal yang diakumulasikan oleh pemilik modal. Agar rakyat tidak digadaikan, tidak jadi taruhan, maka rakyat pekerjalah yang harus berkuasa. Rakyat pekerja lah yang harus memimpin dan merubah! segala kebijakan yang anti rakyat yang selama ini menjadi keb! ijakan p emerintah yang bertekuk lutut di bawah ketiak kaum pemilik modal dan tidak bisa membawa rakyat ke taraf hidup yang layak. Jangan biarkan perlawanan rakyat hari ini dimanfaatkan oleh segilintir orang yang ingin menjadi pahlawan kesiangan di tengah-tengah massa rakyat yang sedang mulai membangun kekuatan.
Ayo bersatu lawan penjajahan bentuk baru, penjajahan kaum modal!
* Penulis adalah anggota Federasi Serikat Pekerja Karawang (FSPEK), sekaligus anggota Forum Belajar Bersama Prakarsa Rakyat dari Simpul Jabodetabek.
**Siapa saja dipersilahkan mengutip, mengganda! kan, menyebarluaskan sebagian atau seluruh materi yang termuat dalam portal ini selama untuk kajian dan mendukung gerakan rakyat. Untuk keperluan komersial pengguna harus mendapatkan ijin tertulis dari pengelola portal Prakarsa Rakyat. Setiap pengutipan, penggandaan dan penyebarluasan sebagian atau seluruh materi harus mencantumkan sumber (portal Prakarsa Rakyat atau www.prakarsa-rakyat.org).
Sumber: www.prakarsa-rakyat.org
Oleh Fitri *
“..hari gini kalau tidak punya uang jangan berkecimpung di dunia politik..” (ucapan wakil bupati Tangerang, Rano Karno di tayangan SILET RCTI 21 Mei 2008)
!
Di tayangan infotainment itu diperlihatkan pula bagaimana hegemoni yang menciptakan pencitraan di kesadaran orang banyak bahwa hanya yang banyak uang lah yang bisa melenggang di percaturan politik Indonesia. Baru-baru ini pula kita lihat di tayangan televisi beberapa artis akan mengikuti jejak Rano Karno dan Dede Yusuf yang melenggang menjadi bagian dari antek kapitalis. Keberhasilan 2 aktor film ini dalam memenangkan kursi pemerintahan, menunjukan bahwa sebenarnya kepercayaan rakyat terhadap kandidat yang berasal dari kalangan birokrat dan militer semakin memudar dan cenderung untuk memilih kandidat yang sama sekali belum masuk ajang pemilihan pemimpin daerah, seperti yang terjadi di Jawa Barat. Tak akan lama lagi Saipul Jamil (si penyanyi dangdut), Ikang Fauzi (seorang rocker dan pengusaha), Wanda Hamidah segera menyusul. Hanya bermodalkan ketenaran dan punya uang saja mereka, k! arena untuk pencalonan saja -hanya sekedar mengambil formulir ! dibutuhk an biaya sebesar 15 juta- begitu penuturan seorang artis yang akan mencalonkan menjadi walikota Serang.
Pertanyaannya adalah mengapa partai politik yang ada sekarang menggunakan para artis untuk menjadi wakil-wakil rakyat di parlemen ataupun menajadi pemimpin rakyat di daerah? Masyarakat harus tahu bahwa cara “jualan artis” tersebut adalah bagian dari strategi partai borjuis. Kemunculan artis sebagai calon dalam berbagai pilkada tidak akan mensejahterakan rakyat, karena mereka berasal dari lingkungan yang borjuis, glamour, dan bukan berasal dari rakyat pekerja yang menderita tapi sebenarnya menopang perekonomian Negara. Rakyat diajak untuk melupakan masalah yang menimpa diri mereka karena disajikan seorang pemimpin yang berasal dari kalangan entertainer. Padahal permasalahan yang terjadi tidak akan pernah selesai walaupun berganti pemim! pin tetapi masih berada di ranah sistem kekuasaan modal (kekuasannya kaum borjuis) yang selama ini membelenggu rakyat.
Media infotainment menyihir pikiran rakyat pekerja yang menontonnya (karena gak ada kerjaan dan semua TV melakukan hal yang sama) dan menjadi raung propaganda kapitalis, yang menyatakan bahwa uang adalah segala-galanya. Pilkada dan menjelang pemilu 2009 lagi-lagi rakyat harus ditipu agar tidak bangkit merebut kekuasaan. Maraknya artis yang menjadi politisi adalah taktik yang sedang diuji keefektifannya, tetapi sudah pasti tidak akan membawa perubahan bagi kehidupan rakyat Indonesia. Sudah bukan saatnya rakyat menitipkan agendanya ke tangan-tangan elit politik borjuasi, ke tangan-tangan artis yang hanya bermodalkan ketenaran untuk merebut simpatik masyarakat.
Pe nderitaan rakyat hanya dijadikan untuk berkampanye elit politik borjuis. Penderitaan rakyat hanya dijadikan rayuan gombal untuk meraih kekuasaan negara, tapi ketika memerintah justru untuk menindas rakyat. Apakah para artis akan menolong rakyat melalui partai-partai borjuis? Jawabannya jelas, semua itu bualan saja dan sudah sering didengar oleh rakyat. Dalam status sosial kemasyarakatan posisi artis hari ini adalah sebagai kaki tangan kapitalis untuk mencekoki rakyat dengan berbagai tayangan di media, baik melalui iklan, sinetron, dan berbagai sandiwara lainnya yang membuat rakyat semakin hanyut dalam khayalanya untuk pemenuhan ekonomi yang nyatanya kian hari semakin mahal.
Yang Tidak Dibicarakan Para Artis
Para artis yang bermain di Pilkada sesuai pesanan para penguasa modal tidak akan pernah bicara caranya melepaskan belenggu! rakyat dari kemiskinan dan penghisapan. Artis bicara hal-hal lain yang mengalihkan perdebatan soal mengapa kehidupan rakyat diisi dengan berbagai kebijakan yang terus menghisap darah rakyat. Ketidakpastian kerja, upah murah, sistem kerja kontak dan outsourcing adalah bentuk dari penindasan kaum kapitalis. Sekarang lihat, apakah Rano Karno bicara bagaimana menghapus itu semua di Kabupaten Tangerang?
Dengan masuknya para artis menjadi elit-elit politik dan kaki tangan kapitalis jelas tidak akan menyelesaikan masalah. Rakyat bukan butuh hiburan semu yang akan memanjakan nasib rakyat tapi sekaligus dijadikan taruhan dalam perjudian kapitalisme. Nasib rakyat bukan untuk spekulasi gerak modal yang diakumulasikan oleh pemilik modal. Agar rakyat tidak digadaikan, tidak jadi taruhan, maka rakyat pekerjalah yang harus berkuasa. Rakyat pekerja lah yang harus memimpin dan merubah! segala kebijakan yang anti rakyat yang selama ini menjadi keb! ijakan p emerintah yang bertekuk lutut di bawah ketiak kaum pemilik modal dan tidak bisa membawa rakyat ke taraf hidup yang layak. Jangan biarkan perlawanan rakyat hari ini dimanfaatkan oleh segilintir orang yang ingin menjadi pahlawan kesiangan di tengah-tengah massa rakyat yang sedang mulai membangun kekuatan.
Ayo bersatu lawan penjajahan bentuk baru, penjajahan kaum modal!
* Penulis adalah anggota Federasi Serikat Pekerja Karawang (FSPEK), sekaligus anggota Forum Belajar Bersama Prakarsa Rakyat dari Simpul Jabodetabek.
**Siapa saja dipersilahkan mengutip, mengganda! kan, menyebarluaskan sebagian atau seluruh materi yang termuat dalam portal ini selama untuk kajian dan mendukung gerakan rakyat. Untuk keperluan komersial pengguna harus mendapatkan ijin tertulis dari pengelola portal Prakarsa Rakyat. Setiap pengutipan, penggandaan dan penyebarluasan sebagian atau seluruh materi harus mencantumkan sumber (portal Prakarsa Rakyat atau www.prakarsa-rakyat.org).
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Don’t wait until 2010 – Abolish the ABCC now!
Since it was set up in 2005, the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) has operated as an all-powerful secret police in the building industry, attacking unions, unionists and the right to organise. The ABCC has been handed dictatorial power to secretly interrogate and intimidate workers, to jail and levy huge fines, all in the interest of defending profits in the building industry. The new Rudd government must honour its commitment to abolish the ABCC, not in 2010 but now! Any proposal to introduce a new “tough cop on the beat”, as proposed by deputy PM Julia Gillard in the lead-up to the 2007 federal election, must also be dropped.
The ABCC was set up as the Howard government's special weapon against the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, especially after its critical role in defeating Howard's attack on the Maritime Union of Australia in the 1998 Patrick's dispute. It was formed out of the Cole Royal Commission into the building industry – a trumped-up kangaroo court, which failed to find any evidence of any corruption by building unions. It aims to intimidate union members, bankrupt and split unions, and destroy all workplace solidarity. $32 million a year of taxpayers' money goes to keeping this special cop shop running.
The Commission’s extraordinary powers allow it to operate in secrecy, deny workers the right to silence and impose hefty fines and prison sentences for non-cooperation. No other group of workers in Australia has been singled out to face the draconian and unjust force of the law to such an extent. Already three reports by the International Labour Organisation have been issued outlining how the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act, the Howard government legislation which formed the ABCC, is in breach of international labor law.
The ABCC has been involved in around 38 prosecutions targeting workers and unions who have taken industrial action over occupational health and safety concerns, in particular, including life-threatening workplace issues. Under the current laws the building industry is defined so broadly that it also includes transport and manufacturing workers, making them targets for the building industry’s attack dog. The ABCC’s target list includes the CFMEU, the Electrical Trades Union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the MUA.
Since the election of the Rudd government in November, the ABCC has been pursuing building workers with an increased frenzy. This points to a broader campaign by big business to create the impression of “industrial chaos” in the building industry in order justify the ABCC’s existence beyond Labor’s stated end-date of January 1, 2010. In particular, the charging in Geelong of CFMEU delegate Craig Johnston–former state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union – is a cynical attempt to revive anti-union hysteria by stirring memories of "unionists on the rampage" (when Johnston's "crime" as a union official was trying to defend unjustly sacked AMWU members!).
The bitter truth is that–contrary to election promises and much empty rhetoric–the Rudd Federal government wants to keep most of the previous Coalition government’s anti-worker laws. While promising to abolish the ABCC, Labor will replace it with a special section of its “Fair Work Australia”, which may have similar powers to the ABCC. This is an outrage. The ABCC needs to be completely abolished and discrimination against building workers ended once and for all!
No secret police for the building industry!
No more kangaroo courts – abolish the ABCC now!
Defend the right to organise!
Defend the right to strike!
Afghanistan — an unjust war
Tony Iltis
Despite the April 27 death of Lance Corporal Jason Marks, the fifth Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion, and subsequent allegations of the mistreatment of Afghan prisoners of war by Australian troops, the there are no plans to withdraw any of the 1000 Australian troops from Afghanistan.
Despite the April 27 death of Lance Corporal Jason Marks, the fifth Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion, and subsequent allegations of the mistreatment of Afghan prisoners of war by Australian troops, the there are no plans to withdraw any of the 1000 Australian troops from Afghanistan.
Since being elected in November, the Rudd ALP government has downsized the Australian contingent of the US-led occupation forces in Iraq. While most troops deployed to Iraq remain, the removal of 550 front-line soldiers was an acknowledgement that anti-war sentiment was a factor that helped the ALP government get elected.
While opposition to having troops in Iraq is greater, a majority of Australians also oppose the presence of Australian troops in Afghanistan.
However, ALP policy reflects a myth that is widespread in the Western “liberal” media, and likely to influence a future Barack Obama administration in the US. The myth is that while the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, and the bloody war there a “policy failure” by the US and its allies, the war in Afghanistan is part of a real fight against anti-Western terrorism that has also liberated the country from the nightmare of rule by the theocratic Taliban regime.
This myth obscures a military occupation that has caused at least as many civilian deaths as that of Iraq — and possibly a lot more.
Australian military and political leaders, including foreign minister Stephen Smith, have said that allegations that four Afghan prisoners of war were stripped and beaten by Australian troops, in apparent revenge for the combat death of Marks, are being taken seriously. On May 10, however, the head of the defence forces, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, announced that the military had already found there to be no truth in the reports.
The May 11 Sunday Age reported that there were also allegations that Australian forces regularly handed prisoners of war to Afghan forces who tortured them.
Allegations of prisoner abuse, many proven, have been consistent throughout the occupation. However, a far greater human rights catastrophe is the occupation forces’ reliance on air strikes.
While the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was ostensibly a response to the killing of about 3000 civilians in the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, by December 31, 2001, ABC Radio National was reporting that Western bombing had already taken a higher toll of Afghan civilians.
Since then civilian deaths have not been counted: some are reported as deaths of Taliban fighters while others are not reported at all. In addition to air strikes, civilian deaths are also caused by crossfire and arbitrary violence and terrorism by both pro- and anti-occupation militias. Some estimates put the number of civilian deaths in the millions.
The direct intervention of the US-led forces in 2001 was not the start of Western involvement in Afghanistan. Following a leftist revolution in 1978, whose social base was in the small urban population, the US began arming an Islamic fundamentalist insurgency based on the rural tribal aristocracy, as part of a covert Cold War strategy to draw the neighbouring Soviet Union into an unwinnable war.
The strategy was successful. The Soviet Union invaded in December 1979 and for 10 years was militarily held down by the Mujahideen — as the coalition of rival Afghan Islamist militias were known — and a Saudi-led multinational Islamist force headed by Osama bin Laden. Both forces were run by Pakistani military intelligence (the ISI) under the direction of the US.
This operation, which was financed by the US and Saudi governments and by Afghan heroin exports, directly contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union and US victory in the Cold War.
The leftist government of Afghanistan outlasted the Soviet Union, however in 1992 it was overthrown by the Mujahideen warlords, who then turned on each other in a devastating civil war. Murder, looting, abduction, torture and rape were combined with an ultra-violent version of religious law that actually owed more to local traditions and the brutalising effects of intergenerational war than to Islamic theology.
In 1996 the Taliban, a religious militia created by the ISI, took control of the capital, Kabul, and 80% of the country. At first people welcomed them for reducing inter-warlord violence but their corrupt and brutal theocracy rapidly alienated the population.
Initially, the Taliban was seen as close to Pakistan and the West, while the rival warlord coalition, the Northern Alliance, was closer to Russia and Iran. The West turned against the Taliban because of the presence in Afghanistan of Osama in Laden, who — in response to the US deciding that his international terrorist network was no longer needed as a proxy — attacked US targets in the Middle East and Africa.
The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was motivated by the now discredited neo-conservative agenda to use the September 11 attacks to justify direct military control over the oil-rich areas of Central Asia and the Middle East.
Despite the stated war-aim being the capture and elimination of Osama bin Laden, the US-led forces allowed the Pakistani military and ISI to disentangle themselves from the Taliban, which enabled bin Laden and the leadership of his network to escape.
The invaders bought the loyalty of the Northern Alliance and some previously pro-Taliban warlords with arms, money and a free hand in the heroin industry.
While the Western media makes much of Taliban involvement in heroin production and trafficking, only US$20 million goes to the Taliban from an industry which creates an estimated $4 billion profits annually.
However, drug eradication campaigns by the occupation forces — which ignore the warlords and criminals who control the trade but target farmers with no other source of livelihood — have been politically exploited by the Taliban, who have been arming farmers to defend their crops.
Before the invasion, the Taliban had actually eliminated the drug industry in the 80% of the country they controlled in the mistaken belief that this would return their regime to favour with the West.
Because of their reliance on air strikes and local warlords, the occupation forces have kept their own casualty rate lower than that in Iraq. Since 2001, 816 Western soldiers have died in Afghanistan, 505 of them from the US. However, 300 of these casualties have been since January 2007. The occupying powers do not have the capacity, or any strategy, to militarily control the country but their withdrawal — which would probably see the allegiance of most of the warlords revert to the Taliban — would be a political defeat.
For the Afghan people, the occupation has in no way diminished the depredations of religious fundamentalist and criminal militias. It has simply added the horrors of aerial bombardment.
The withdrawal of the occupation forces would not end the violence in Afghanistan. However, it would end the greatest cause of civilian casualties and, if combined with the cessation of military support for all the warlord forces and financial reparations to facilitate reconstructions, may allow space for the secular and democratic forces who, although decimated since 1992, have never been entirely wiped out.
While opposition to having troops in Iraq is greater, a majority of Australians also oppose the presence of Australian troops in Afghanistan.
However, ALP policy reflects a myth that is widespread in the Western “liberal” media, and likely to influence a future Barack Obama administration in the US. The myth is that while the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, and the bloody war there a “policy failure” by the US and its allies, the war in Afghanistan is part of a real fight against anti-Western terrorism that has also liberated the country from the nightmare of rule by the theocratic Taliban regime.
This myth obscures a military occupation that has caused at least as many civilian deaths as that of Iraq — and possibly a lot more.
Australian military and political leaders, including foreign minister Stephen Smith, have said that allegations that four Afghan prisoners of war were stripped and beaten by Australian troops, in apparent revenge for the combat death of Marks, are being taken seriously. On May 10, however, the head of the defence forces, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, announced that the military had already found there to be no truth in the reports.
The May 11 Sunday Age reported that there were also allegations that Australian forces regularly handed prisoners of war to Afghan forces who tortured them.
Allegations of prisoner abuse, many proven, have been consistent throughout the occupation. However, a far greater human rights catastrophe is the occupation forces’ reliance on air strikes.
While the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was ostensibly a response to the killing of about 3000 civilians in the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, by December 31, 2001, ABC Radio National was reporting that Western bombing had already taken a higher toll of Afghan civilians.
Since then civilian deaths have not been counted: some are reported as deaths of Taliban fighters while others are not reported at all. In addition to air strikes, civilian deaths are also caused by crossfire and arbitrary violence and terrorism by both pro- and anti-occupation militias. Some estimates put the number of civilian deaths in the millions.
The direct intervention of the US-led forces in 2001 was not the start of Western involvement in Afghanistan. Following a leftist revolution in 1978, whose social base was in the small urban population, the US began arming an Islamic fundamentalist insurgency based on the rural tribal aristocracy, as part of a covert Cold War strategy to draw the neighbouring Soviet Union into an unwinnable war.
The strategy was successful. The Soviet Union invaded in December 1979 and for 10 years was militarily held down by the Mujahideen — as the coalition of rival Afghan Islamist militias were known — and a Saudi-led multinational Islamist force headed by Osama bin Laden. Both forces were run by Pakistani military intelligence (the ISI) under the direction of the US.
This operation, which was financed by the US and Saudi governments and by Afghan heroin exports, directly contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union and US victory in the Cold War.
The leftist government of Afghanistan outlasted the Soviet Union, however in 1992 it was overthrown by the Mujahideen warlords, who then turned on each other in a devastating civil war. Murder, looting, abduction, torture and rape were combined with an ultra-violent version of religious law that actually owed more to local traditions and the brutalising effects of intergenerational war than to Islamic theology.
In 1996 the Taliban, a religious militia created by the ISI, took control of the capital, Kabul, and 80% of the country. At first people welcomed them for reducing inter-warlord violence but their corrupt and brutal theocracy rapidly alienated the population.
Initially, the Taliban was seen as close to Pakistan and the West, while the rival warlord coalition, the Northern Alliance, was closer to Russia and Iran. The West turned against the Taliban because of the presence in Afghanistan of Osama in Laden, who — in response to the US deciding that his international terrorist network was no longer needed as a proxy — attacked US targets in the Middle East and Africa.
The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was motivated by the now discredited neo-conservative agenda to use the September 11 attacks to justify direct military control over the oil-rich areas of Central Asia and the Middle East.
Despite the stated war-aim being the capture and elimination of Osama bin Laden, the US-led forces allowed the Pakistani military and ISI to disentangle themselves from the Taliban, which enabled bin Laden and the leadership of his network to escape.
The invaders bought the loyalty of the Northern Alliance and some previously pro-Taliban warlords with arms, money and a free hand in the heroin industry.
While the Western media makes much of Taliban involvement in heroin production and trafficking, only US$20 million goes to the Taliban from an industry which creates an estimated $4 billion profits annually.
However, drug eradication campaigns by the occupation forces — which ignore the warlords and criminals who control the trade but target farmers with no other source of livelihood — have been politically exploited by the Taliban, who have been arming farmers to defend their crops.
Before the invasion, the Taliban had actually eliminated the drug industry in the 80% of the country they controlled in the mistaken belief that this would return their regime to favour with the West.
Because of their reliance on air strikes and local warlords, the occupation forces have kept their own casualty rate lower than that in Iraq. Since 2001, 816 Western soldiers have died in Afghanistan, 505 of them from the US. However, 300 of these casualties have been since January 2007. The occupying powers do not have the capacity, or any strategy, to militarily control the country but their withdrawal — which would probably see the allegiance of most of the warlords revert to the Taliban — would be a political defeat.
For the Afghan people, the occupation has in no way diminished the depredations of religious fundamentalist and criminal militias. It has simply added the horrors of aerial bombardment.
The withdrawal of the occupation forces would not end the violence in Afghanistan. However, it would end the greatest cause of civilian casualties and, if combined with the cessation of military support for all the warlord forces and financial reparations to facilitate reconstructions, may allow space for the secular and democratic forces who, although decimated since 1992, have never been entirely wiped out.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Socialism is the future — build it now
Michael Lebowitz
Ideas become a material force when they grasp the minds of masses.
This is true not only of ideas that can support revolutionary change. It is also true of those ideas that prevent change. An obvious example is the concept of TINA — the idea that “there is no alternative”, no alternative to neoliberalism, no alternative to capitalism.
Certainly we know that there have been significant changes in the terrain upon which the working class must struggle — changes that are a challenge because of a new international division of labour and because of the role of states in delivering a passive, docile working class to international capital.
It is not only changing material circumstances that affects the working class, however. It is also the loss of confidence of the working class that makes these material changes a deadly blow. Even the Korean working class, which has demonstrated so clearly in the past its militancy in the struggle against capital, has been affected.
But it does not have to be that way — because things are changing.
Look at Latin America, where the effects of global restructuring and neoliberalism took a very heavy toll. People said ultimately — enough! And they have said this not only to neoliberalism but, increasingly, they have moved further and say no to capitalism.
For many, it came as a great shock when Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, said at the World Social Forum in January of 2005 in Brazil that “we have to reinvent socialism”.
Capitalism, he stressed, has to be transcended if we are ever going to end the poverty of the majority of the world. “We must reclaim socialism as a thesis, a project and a path, but a new type of socialism, a humanist one, that puts humans and not machines or the state ahead of everything.”
That statement, however, did not drop from the sky. It was the product of a spontaneous rejection of neoliberalism by masses in 1989, the election of Chavez with a promise to change things in 1998 and the response to the combination of the domestic oligarchy and imperialism in their attempt to overthrow Chavez in 2002 and 2003.
The embrace of this new socialism, in short, was the product of struggle.
The struggle continues. And we can see that out of struggle comes creativity. In particular, the struggle in Venezuela has stressed the importance of a revolutionary democracy — a process in which people transform themselves as they directly transform circumstances.
Through the development of communal councils representing 200 to 400 families in urban areas and as few as 20 in the rural areas, people have begun to identify their needs and their capacities and to transform the very character of the state into one which does not stand over and above civil society but rather becomes the agency for working people themselves.
“All power to the communal councils” has been the call of Chavez. “The communal councils must become the cell of the new socialist state.”
Ideas can become a material force when they grasp the minds of masses.
In Latin America, the idea of a socialism for the 21st Century is beginning to move the masses, with its emphasis upon Karl Marx’s concept of revolutionary practice — the simultaneous changing of circumstances and self-change.
At its core is the concept of revolutionary democracy. In contrast to the hierarchical capitalist state and to the despotism of the capitalist workplace, the concept is one of democracy in practice, democracy as practice, democracy as protagonism.
Democracy in this sense — protagonistic democracy in the workplace, neighbourhoods, communities, communes — is the democracy of people who are transforming themselves into revolutionary subjects.
Here is an alternative to capitalism — the concept of socialism for the 21st Century with its emphasis upon struggle from below, upon solidarity and upon building the capacities of working people through their own activities. It is an idea that a working class with a tradition of struggle against capital should have no difficulty in grasping.
Socialism is the future — build it now.
[This the preface to the forthcoming Korean edition of Michael Lebowitz’s Build It Now: Socialism for the 21st century, which as available through Monthly Review, . Lebowitz is professor emeritus of economics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He is also a member of the Miranda International Centre (CIM), a left-wing Venezuelan institute. Green Left Weekly journalist based in Caracas, Federico Fuentes, who also works for the CIM, will be a special guest at the national Resistance conference in Sydney, June 27-29, to discuss the struggle for socialism in revolutionary Venezuela.
Ideas become a material force when they grasp the minds of masses.
This is true not only of ideas that can support revolutionary change. It is also true of those ideas that prevent change. An obvious example is the concept of TINA — the idea that “there is no alternative”, no alternative to neoliberalism, no alternative to capitalism.
Certainly we know that there have been significant changes in the terrain upon which the working class must struggle — changes that are a challenge because of a new international division of labour and because of the role of states in delivering a passive, docile working class to international capital.
It is not only changing material circumstances that affects the working class, however. It is also the loss of confidence of the working class that makes these material changes a deadly blow. Even the Korean working class, which has demonstrated so clearly in the past its militancy in the struggle against capital, has been affected.
But it does not have to be that way — because things are changing.
Look at Latin America, where the effects of global restructuring and neoliberalism took a very heavy toll. People said ultimately — enough! And they have said this not only to neoliberalism but, increasingly, they have moved further and say no to capitalism.
For many, it came as a great shock when Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, said at the World Social Forum in January of 2005 in Brazil that “we have to reinvent socialism”.
Capitalism, he stressed, has to be transcended if we are ever going to end the poverty of the majority of the world. “We must reclaim socialism as a thesis, a project and a path, but a new type of socialism, a humanist one, that puts humans and not machines or the state ahead of everything.”
That statement, however, did not drop from the sky. It was the product of a spontaneous rejection of neoliberalism by masses in 1989, the election of Chavez with a promise to change things in 1998 and the response to the combination of the domestic oligarchy and imperialism in their attempt to overthrow Chavez in 2002 and 2003.
The embrace of this new socialism, in short, was the product of struggle.
The struggle continues. And we can see that out of struggle comes creativity. In particular, the struggle in Venezuela has stressed the importance of a revolutionary democracy — a process in which people transform themselves as they directly transform circumstances.
Through the development of communal councils representing 200 to 400 families in urban areas and as few as 20 in the rural areas, people have begun to identify their needs and their capacities and to transform the very character of the state into one which does not stand over and above civil society but rather becomes the agency for working people themselves.
“All power to the communal councils” has been the call of Chavez. “The communal councils must become the cell of the new socialist state.”
Ideas can become a material force when they grasp the minds of masses.
In Latin America, the idea of a socialism for the 21st Century is beginning to move the masses, with its emphasis upon Karl Marx’s concept of revolutionary practice — the simultaneous changing of circumstances and self-change.
At its core is the concept of revolutionary democracy. In contrast to the hierarchical capitalist state and to the despotism of the capitalist workplace, the concept is one of democracy in practice, democracy as practice, democracy as protagonism.
Democracy in this sense — protagonistic democracy in the workplace, neighbourhoods, communities, communes — is the democracy of people who are transforming themselves into revolutionary subjects.
Here is an alternative to capitalism — the concept of socialism for the 21st Century with its emphasis upon struggle from below, upon solidarity and upon building the capacities of working people through their own activities. It is an idea that a working class with a tradition of struggle against capital should have no difficulty in grasping.
Socialism is the future — build it now.
[This the preface to the forthcoming Korean edition of Michael Lebowitz’s Build It Now: Socialism for the 21st century, which as available through Monthly Review, . Lebowitz is professor emeritus of economics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He is also a member of the Miranda International Centre (CIM), a left-wing Venezuelan institute. Green Left Weekly journalist based in Caracas, Federico Fuentes, who also works for the CIM, will be a special guest at the national Resistance conference in Sydney, June 27-29, to discuss the struggle for socialism in revolutionary Venezuela.
Indonesia: Growing fuel price protests meet repression
The report below is based on accounts posted to the blog of the Indonesian National Liberation Party of Unity (Papernas). Visit http://papernas-international.blogspot.com.
Waves of protests against the national government’s plan to raise fuel price are intensifying. They have spread to and involved almost all popular sectors (workers, students, peasants and the urban poor).
Actions across Indonesia occurred on May 21, coordinated by the People Accuse Front (FRM) and the National Students’ League for Democracy (LMND) to protest the planned fuel price increase and to commemorate a decade since the fall of the dictator Suharto in a mass uprising.
In Jakarta, 150 FRM protesters camped on the Proclamation Monument continued their action to reject the fuel price rise, marching to the State Palace where thousands of others were already demonstrating. Police attempted to block the FRM demonstration from protesting right in front of the palace, leading to a confrontation. At the time of writing, 18 FRM activists are still detained by police.
In Bundung, in West Java, 50 LMND activists staged a protest. An LMND spokesperson stated that the government had no reason to raise fuel prices, arguing that if the world’s fuel price rocketed, Indonesia should be able to reap the windfall profit as an oil producer, if not for the fact that its oil and gas fields are controlled by foreign companies.
The spokesperson argued that the government should nationalise the mining industry for energy security and as the basis for national industralisation. Police violently dispersed the protest, injuring five LMND activists.
In Makassar, South Sulawesi, thousands of people from the FRM demonstrated in front of the house of Vice-President Jusuf Kalla. In Toraja, South Sulawesi, 600 protesters from Tana Toraja Students’ Alliance occupied the local parliament to reject the fuel price rise. Paskah Linting, LMND Tana Toraja executive member, stressed that the government must have the courage to nationalise foreign-owned mining companies and reject the payment of foreign debt.
Actions also occurred in cities across Indonesia. LMND national executive member Rudi Hartono reported on May 22 that dozens of LMND and other activists had been arrested around the country at demonstrations, with dozens wounded in clashes with police.
Activists are calling for solidarity and support. Please send messages of protest demanding the detainees be released to Indonesia National Police headquarters: fax +62 21 721 8144, SMS +62 818315 703, or email
Actions across Indonesia occurred on May 21, coordinated by the People Accuse Front (FRM) and the National Students’ League for Democracy (LMND) to protest the planned fuel price increase and to commemorate a decade since the fall of the dictator Suharto in a mass uprising.
In Jakarta, 150 FRM protesters camped on the Proclamation Monument continued their action to reject the fuel price rise, marching to the State Palace where thousands of others were already demonstrating. Police attempted to block the FRM demonstration from protesting right in front of the palace, leading to a confrontation. At the time of writing, 18 FRM activists are still detained by police.
In Bundung, in West Java, 50 LMND activists staged a protest. An LMND spokesperson stated that the government had no reason to raise fuel prices, arguing that if the world’s fuel price rocketed, Indonesia should be able to reap the windfall profit as an oil producer, if not for the fact that its oil and gas fields are controlled by foreign companies.
The spokesperson argued that the government should nationalise the mining industry for energy security and as the basis for national industralisation. Police violently dispersed the protest, injuring five LMND activists.
In Makassar, South Sulawesi, thousands of people from the FRM demonstrated in front of the house of Vice-President Jusuf Kalla. In Toraja, South Sulawesi, 600 protesters from Tana Toraja Students’ Alliance occupied the local parliament to reject the fuel price rise. Paskah Linting, LMND Tana Toraja executive member, stressed that the government must have the courage to nationalise foreign-owned mining companies and reject the payment of foreign debt.
Actions also occurred in cities across Indonesia. LMND national executive member Rudi Hartono reported on May 22 that dozens of LMND and other activists had been arrested around the country at demonstrations, with dozens wounded in clashes with police.
Activists are calling for solidarity and support. Please send messages of protest demanding the detainees be released to Indonesia National Police headquarters: fax +62 21 721 8144, SMS +62 818315 703, or email
Monday, May 26, 2008
Venezuela condemns US, Colombian violations of its territory
Stuart Munckton
According to a May 19 report by Latin American TV station Telesur, Venezuela’s defence minister Gustavo Rangel Briceno, denounced the fact that a US fighter jet violated Venezuelan airspace — around the La Orchila island, which houses a Venezuelan military base — two days earlier.
According to a May 19 report by Latin American TV station Telesur, Venezuela’s defence minister Gustavo Rangel Briceno, denounced the fact that a US fighter jet violated Venezuelan airspace — around the La Orchila island, which houses a Venezuelan military base — two days earlier.
This violation occurred just one day after Caracas had condemned an incursion into Venezuelan territory by 60 Colombian soldiers.
Rangel read out an excerpt of the conversation between the Venezuelan control tower and a US pilot, explaining that the latter was not aware he was in Venezuelan territory, according to the Telesur report.
Telesur reported: “At the same press conference, the Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nicolas Maduro, announced that he talked with his Colombian counterpart, Fernando Araujo, about the incursion of the Colombian military into Venezuelan territory. He said they both agreed on activating diplomatic mechanisms in order to settle cross-border conflicts via diplomatic means.”
According to a May 19 Venezuelanalysis.com report, Venezuelan information minister Andres Izarra had confirmed on May 18 that the government has proof that 60 Colombian troops made an illegal incursion into Venezuelan territory — in the border state of Apure — on May 16.
Colombian defence minister, Juan Manuel Santos, had initially denied the claims the following day. “We have photos and other materials that demonstrate the military incursion into our territory”, Izarra said.
Venezuela labelled the incursion “an act of provocation” that “aims to deliberately destabilise the region” and called on Colombia to immediately “cease these violations of international law and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Venezuela”, according to Venezuelanalysis.com
According to Telesur, at his press conference, Maduro announced he would arrange a meeting with US ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, to demand an explanation of the violation of Venezuelan airspace.
Venezuelanalysis.com reported on May 21 that the meeting occurred the previous day and that Maduro had declared that Venezuela was not satisfied with the explanation given by Duddy.
Maduro stated that the Venezuelan government was not satisfied because “they had no justification, Venezuelan airspace and maritime territory is sacred”, according to Venezuelanalysis.com.
Duddy argued that the violation was the result of a navigation error and assured the Venezuelan government that it would not occur again.
Rangel read out an excerpt of the conversation between the Venezuelan control tower and a US pilot, explaining that the latter was not aware he was in Venezuelan territory, according to the Telesur report.
Telesur reported: “At the same press conference, the Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nicolas Maduro, announced that he talked with his Colombian counterpart, Fernando Araujo, about the incursion of the Colombian military into Venezuelan territory. He said they both agreed on activating diplomatic mechanisms in order to settle cross-border conflicts via diplomatic means.”
According to a May 19 Venezuelanalysis.com report, Venezuelan information minister Andres Izarra had confirmed on May 18 that the government has proof that 60 Colombian troops made an illegal incursion into Venezuelan territory — in the border state of Apure — on May 16.
Colombian defence minister, Juan Manuel Santos, had initially denied the claims the following day. “We have photos and other materials that demonstrate the military incursion into our territory”, Izarra said.
Venezuela labelled the incursion “an act of provocation” that “aims to deliberately destabilise the region” and called on Colombia to immediately “cease these violations of international law and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Venezuela”, according to Venezuelanalysis.com
According to Telesur, at his press conference, Maduro announced he would arrange a meeting with US ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, to demand an explanation of the violation of Venezuelan airspace.
Venezuelanalysis.com reported on May 21 that the meeting occurred the previous day and that Maduro had declared that Venezuela was not satisfied with the explanation given by Duddy.
Maduro stated that the Venezuelan government was not satisfied because “they had no justification, Venezuelan airspace and maritime territory is sacred”, according to Venezuelanalysis.com.
Duddy argued that the violation was the result of a navigation error and assured the Venezuelan government that it would not occur again.
‘Guest workers’ or modern slavery?
Peter Boyle
A pile of bags and clothing on an old shopfront verandah on Cuff Road in Singapore’s Little India is “home” to a group of about 50 migrant workers who have been spat out by an economy that relies heavily on so-called “guest workers”.
A pile of bags and clothing on an old shopfront verandah on Cuff Road in Singapore’s Little India is “home” to a group of about 50 migrant workers who have been spat out by an economy that relies heavily on so-called “guest workers”.
All are men from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, lured to Singapore by shady labour agents who had extracted heavy fees from them.
“When they landed, some found there were no jobs waiting for them. Others, unaware of regulations here, were tricked into entering on social-visit passes, which do not allow them to work. A few workers even claimed they were met at the airport by ‘agents’, who took the return portion of their air tickets and disappeared”, the local Straits Times reported on March 18.
Others worked legally for a while, but were tossed out by their boss after incurring work injuries.
Jobless, desperate, homeless and hungry, some of them tried to work illegally and were arrested, jailed and flogged. Corporal punishment, like the death penalty, still remains a feature of modern Singapore law.
To cap it off, some of these men are not allowed to leave Singapore because the labour ministry — which administers the approximately 900,800 transient migrant workers that comprise more that 40% of the island state’s total labour force — requires them to stay to appear as witnesses in a string of court cases.
“They find themselves in a debt trap, having borrowed money to pay agency fees and plane tickets, many continue to borrow money to pay for basic necessities now”, explains Sha Najak from Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), a small charity which is helping feed the men and championing the cases.
Receiving no funds from the Singaporean government and struggling to stay afloat, TWC2 (
Some 170,000 of the nearly one million transient workers work as domestics and one of TWC2’s current campaigns is for these migrant domestic workers to be guaranteed at least one day off in a week!
Model program
Yet Singapore’s “guest worker” scheme is presented as a model for the world by some right-wing forces. An article in the January edition of the right-wing “libertarian” US magazine, Reason, supported US President George Bush’s call for a guest worker scheme that would partly legalise the exploitation of “illegal” migrant workers in the US, without ending the vulnerability and super-exploitation that arise from being denied the right to legally settle in the US.
Similar arguments are now being raised by advocates of the Rudd Labor government’s plan of continuing in substance (though under another name) the former Howard government’s notorious 457 visa regime for temporary overseas workers.
Singapore is seen as a model because it is a relatively wealthy island in South East Asia, with average incomes (adjusted for price parity) only slightly below that of the tiny oil-state of Brunei. The Reason article, by Kerry Howlett, argued that its guest worker scheme is a win-win solution.
According to a 2008 report from the Asian Development Bank: “The Singapore government estimates that foreign labour contributed 3.2 percentage points of its annual growth rate of 7.8% in the 1990s.” Singapore gets the hard and dirty jobs done and workers from poverty stricken countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh get to send money home to their families.
Across the causeway in Malaysia, the situation for “guest workers” is a lot worse, as Newsweek conceded in a March 15 article entitled “Bottom of the barrel”.
Captives
Malaysia is one of the “most notorious” host countries, according to the Newsweek article. It has an estimated 2.5 million foreign workers, many of whom fit the UN’s definition of forced laborers.
“Malaysian law effectively makes every foreign worker a captive of the company that hired him or her. In the name of immigration control, employers … are required to confiscate guest workers’ passports and report any runaways to the police.”
Newsweek cited the case of a local computer component manufacturing company — which probably made the casings for hard drives in many of the top-brand computers used around the world — which exploits a virtually enslaved migrant workforce. The article quotes a company executive pitying these workers who were “fooled hook, line and sinker” by sleazy labour brokers. They had tricked the workers into paying huge placement fees for jobs that yield a net income close to zero.
“This is the dark side of globalization: a vast work force trapped in conditions that verge on slavery. Most media coverage of human trafficking tends to focus on crime, like the recent scandals involving migrant laborers who were kidnapped and forced to work at brick kilns in China.
“And forced prostitution, of course, which accounts for roughly 2 million people worldwide, according to the United Nations’ International Labor Organization … The ILO reckons the worldwide number of forced laborers today at some 12.3 million. It’s a conservative estimate; other approximations rise as high as 27 million.”
[An article in a future issue of Green Left Weekly will look at the situation for guest workers in Australia.]
“When they landed, some found there were no jobs waiting for them. Others, unaware of regulations here, were tricked into entering on social-visit passes, which do not allow them to work. A few workers even claimed they were met at the airport by ‘agents’, who took the return portion of their air tickets and disappeared”, the local Straits Times reported on March 18.
Others worked legally for a while, but were tossed out by their boss after incurring work injuries.
Jobless, desperate, homeless and hungry, some of them tried to work illegally and were arrested, jailed and flogged. Corporal punishment, like the death penalty, still remains a feature of modern Singapore law.
To cap it off, some of these men are not allowed to leave Singapore because the labour ministry — which administers the approximately 900,800 transient migrant workers that comprise more that 40% of the island state’s total labour force — requires them to stay to appear as witnesses in a string of court cases.
“They find themselves in a debt trap, having borrowed money to pay agency fees and plane tickets, many continue to borrow money to pay for basic necessities now”, explains Sha Najak from Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), a small charity which is helping feed the men and championing the cases.
Receiving no funds from the Singaporean government and struggling to stay afloat, TWC2 (
Some 170,000 of the nearly one million transient workers work as domestics and one of TWC2’s current campaigns is for these migrant domestic workers to be guaranteed at least one day off in a week!
Model program
Yet Singapore’s “guest worker” scheme is presented as a model for the world by some right-wing forces. An article in the January edition of the right-wing “libertarian” US magazine, Reason, supported US President George Bush’s call for a guest worker scheme that would partly legalise the exploitation of “illegal” migrant workers in the US, without ending the vulnerability and super-exploitation that arise from being denied the right to legally settle in the US.
Similar arguments are now being raised by advocates of the Rudd Labor government’s plan of continuing in substance (though under another name) the former Howard government’s notorious 457 visa regime for temporary overseas workers.
Singapore is seen as a model because it is a relatively wealthy island in South East Asia, with average incomes (adjusted for price parity) only slightly below that of the tiny oil-state of Brunei. The Reason article, by Kerry Howlett, argued that its guest worker scheme is a win-win solution.
According to a 2008 report from the Asian Development Bank: “The Singapore government estimates that foreign labour contributed 3.2 percentage points of its annual growth rate of 7.8% in the 1990s.” Singapore gets the hard and dirty jobs done and workers from poverty stricken countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh get to send money home to their families.
Across the causeway in Malaysia, the situation for “guest workers” is a lot worse, as Newsweek conceded in a March 15 article entitled “Bottom of the barrel”.
Captives
Malaysia is one of the “most notorious” host countries, according to the Newsweek article. It has an estimated 2.5 million foreign workers, many of whom fit the UN’s definition of forced laborers.
“Malaysian law effectively makes every foreign worker a captive of the company that hired him or her. In the name of immigration control, employers … are required to confiscate guest workers’ passports and report any runaways to the police.”
Newsweek cited the case of a local computer component manufacturing company — which probably made the casings for hard drives in many of the top-brand computers used around the world — which exploits a virtually enslaved migrant workforce. The article quotes a company executive pitying these workers who were “fooled hook, line and sinker” by sleazy labour brokers. They had tricked the workers into paying huge placement fees for jobs that yield a net income close to zero.
“This is the dark side of globalization: a vast work force trapped in conditions that verge on slavery. Most media coverage of human trafficking tends to focus on crime, like the recent scandals involving migrant laborers who were kidnapped and forced to work at brick kilns in China.
“And forced prostitution, of course, which accounts for roughly 2 million people worldwide, according to the United Nations’ International Labor Organization … The ILO reckons the worldwide number of forced laborers today at some 12.3 million. It’s a conservative estimate; other approximations rise as high as 27 million.”
[An article in a future issue of Green Left Weekly will look at the situation for guest workers in Australia.]
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (born August 13, 1926) is a Cuban revolutionary leader who served as the country's 22nd president and led the country from January 1959 until his retirement in February 2008. Castro began his political life with nationalist critiques of Batista, and of United States political and corporate influence in Cuba. He gained an ardent, but limited, following and also drew the attention of the authorities.[2] He eventually led the failed 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks, after which he was captured, tried, incarcerated and later released. He then traveled to Mexico[3][4] to organize and train for the guerrilla invasion of Cuba that took place in December 1956.
He came to power in an armed revolution that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, and was shortly thereafter sworn in as the Prime Minister of Cuba.[5] In 1965 he became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba and led the transformation of Cuba into a one-party socialist republic. In 1976 he became President of the Council of State as well as of the Council of Ministers. He also held the supreme military rank of Comandante en Jefe ("Commander in Chief") of the Cuban armed forces.
Following intestinal surgery from an undisclosed digestive illness believed to have been diverticulitis,[6] he transferred his responsibilities to the First Vice-President, his younger brother Raúl Castro, on July 31, 2006. On February 19, 2008, five days before his mandate was to expire, he announced he would neither seek nor accept a new term as either president or commander-in-chief.[7][8] On February 24, 2008, the National Assembly elected Raúl Castro to succeed him as the President of Cuba.[1] Fidel Castro remains First Secretary of the Communist Party.
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