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From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 5 November
The bellicose rhetoric of US imperialism and its allies against Iran, which became somewhat muted during the Arab spring has now been taken up again at an even more hysterical level.
In October, the US claimed to have uncovered a failed plot on the part of Iran to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US on US soil. This alleged plot is strenuously denied by Tehran, and even most bourgeois press reports are skeptical about its likelihood.
Having mounted this absurd aunt sally, the US regime has gone on to demand that UN nuclear inspectors release classified intelligence information showing Iran is designing and experimenting with nuclear weapons technology, obviously hoping to set up another ‘weapons of mass destruction’ hue and cry (which is rich coming from a country that has been supplying the thermobaric bombs deployed in Afghanistan and Libya).
What the US expects to get from this is greater enforcement of sanctions against Iran on the part of countries desperate for trade with Iran (or anywhere else). By strict enforcement of banking transactions US imperialism hopes to bring Iran’s oil exports to a complete halt, which could cause such hardship to the people that regime change might come about through popular discontent. Failing that, tighter sanctions can be expected to weaken Iran considerably, as happened to Iraq, preparing the ground for imperialist military intervention of one kind or another.
In Britain, Ofcom has contributed to the aggression by closing down Press TV. The latest news is that “Britain’s armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran’s nuclear enrichment programme …
“The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.” (Guardian, 3 November 2011)
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From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 5 November
Having with the help of the Saudi army put down the Arab spring protests of the downtrodden masses of Bahrain, the authorities, who were clearly terrified by the popular uprising, are now turning on anti-government activists quite literally with a vengeance.
In a country whose population is only half a million, 34 people have been killed, over 1,400 have been arrested and 3,600 have been fired from their jobs. Those arrested have been subjected to torture, of which four have already died. Among those arrested were dozens of doctors and nurses from the Salmaniya Medical Complex (Bahrain’s largest public hospital), who have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment between five and 15 years for treating demonstrators wounded by violent attempts to disperse them. Eight prominent protest leaders have been sentenced to life imprisonment.
The sentencing of medical personnel is all part of a government campaign to deny medical treatment to anybody injured in the ongoing and growing protests. However, the punishment meted out to the doctors and nurses so clearly exposes the fascistic nature of a regime that western imperialism is anxious to support that pressure has been brought on the Bahraini government to back down. As a result, it has announced that the cases are to be re-tried.
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From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 5 November
Former president Yulia Tymoshenko, a leader of the Ukraine’s 2004 ‘Orange’ counter-revolution, has been jailed for seven years for exceeding her powers when in office to broker a gas deal with Russia, causing the country an estimated loss of US$200 million. Ukrainian prosecutors are also investigating allegations that she was involved in the contract killing of Yevhen Shcherban, a member of parliament, in 1996, along with Pavlo Lazarenko, who was prime minister at the time and has since been jailed in the United States for fraud and money laundering.
Naturally accusations are flying that Ukraine’s president Yanukovich has trumped up these charges in order to remove a powerful electoral rival from the scene, and Tymoshenko’s conviction has been denounced both by western imperialism and by Russia.
According to the Asia Times Online, “The majority opinion in Ukraine seems to be that the charges against the iconic figure of the ‘Orange’ revolution are probably justified. People know she is a billionaire child of the days of ‘wild capitalism’ in the 1990s when in the debris of the Soviet Union’s collapse and by exploiting the general lawlessness, Ukraine’s newly rich made fortunes out of state property – often enough off Ukraine’s import of Russian natural gas. The apathy of the people toward Tymoshenko’s fate underlines the public awareness that the ‘Orange’ revolution was not a revolution at all, but in reality a game of musical chairs between Ukrainian millionaires and billionaires.” (‘Ukraine scores own goal for Russia’ by M K Bhadrakumar, 13 October 2011)
Clearly the game continues.
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From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 5 November
The Financial Times of 21 October reported that: “The militant Basque separatist group Eta has announced the ‘definitive cessation of its military activity’ after more than 50 years of violence, in a move likely to herald the end of the only remaining sustained armed conflict in western Europe.”
Eta has in fact been calling for dialogue to end the conflict for several years, but clearly the Spanish government has now decided to abandon its traditional stance of refusing to negotiate with ‘terrorists’ and has actually welcomed Eta’s statement. The declaration followed an appeal put out by a group of informal peace negotiators, which included Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations; Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former Norwegian prime minister; Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, which has long had ties to Basque nationalist party Herri Batasuna, and Tony Blair.
With such impeccable support for a peace process, how could the Spanish government refuse? It would seem that the European authorities have decided that for the Spanish government to be spending millions of euros a year at a time of crisis merely to continue harassing an old enemy is a luxury no longer to be indulged, which all goes to prove that every cloud really does have a silver lining.
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From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 5 November
A parliamentary vote in favour of further austerity measures (154 votes to 141) on 19 October led to massive anger amongst over 100,000 workers demonstrating outside parliament.
The vote fulfilled an EU condition on Greece drawing down the next €8bn tranche of its bailout loan, but it will mean another €7.1bn of spending cuts plus tax increases, as well as deep cuts in public-sector wages and the loss of a further 30,000 public-sector jobs by the end of next month, to add to the 250,000 private-sector jobs already cut over the past two years.
Popular anger and frustration at people’s helplessness in the face of these monstrous cuts led to youths throwing hundreds of petrol bombs, burning a sentry box outside parliament and pelting the police with chunks of paving stones. The police hit back with tear gas, which eventually drove the demonstrators away, but they also took advantage of the situation to send thugs posing as ultra-revolutionaries to attack PAME and KKE militants physically.
These provocateurs assaulted the PAME/KKE contingent with Molotov cocktails, among other things, and tried to undermine the KKE’s leadership and set demonstrators against each other with virulent verbal attacks on both PAME and the KKE. In the course of these attacks, a prominent PAME militant, 53-year-old Dimitris Kotzaridis, was killed, overcome by police tear gas.
The Greek government has split against itself, with prime minister George Papandreou desperately trying to defuse the popular revolt. On 4 December he proposed putting the austerity measures to a referendum, apparently confident that the Greek public would endorse them, but the referendum was virulently opposed by Greece’s finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, and Papandreou’s confidence was clearly not shared by most others.
The idea of the referendum panicked stock markets everywhere, while international lenders indicated an intention to withhold further loans. Not only is Greece now considered likely to be forced into a disorderly default on its debts, but France and Germany have served notice on the Greek government that Greece should get out of the eurozone if it can’t manage its economic affairs as demanded.
There was speculation that Papandreou would resign as prime minister and that the Greek government would be handed over to a coalition headed by Lucas Papademos, former vice president of the European Central Bank and Bank of Greece Governor between 1994 and 2002. MIT educated, Mr Papademos taught economics at Columbia University from 1975 to 1984 and served as a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in 1980. In the end, Papandreou succumbed to pressure and withdrew the decision to hold a referendum. The pressure for him to resign, however, is still strong.
