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Via the KOE.
Athens, 29 January 2009
An Appeal for Solidarity
Dear Friends and Comrades,
We urge you to read the following information and to express your solidarity:
Konstantina Kouneva, today 44 years old, is a Bulgarian immigrant living and working in Greece in order to support her family. She worked for many years as a janitor-employee of the private firm “OIKOMET”, which rents its employees in public sector’s enterprises. This firm is owned by Mr. Ikonomakis, old cadre of the social-democratic opposition party PASOK, and its legal councillor is Mr. Tzanis, former vice-minister of Interior Affairs (when PASOK was in power). The last years, Konstantina was cleaning the installations of the “Athens Piraeus Electric Railways (ISAP)”. The sector of janitors is one of the most exploited, as many employees are immigrants and subject of blackmailing by their bosses, while the state services and the trade-union bureaucrats do nothing in order to apply even the most basic and insufficient labour legislation.
Konstantina is an immigrant; a woman; a janitor. But she is much more than that: she is also a conscious unionized worker, and she became one of the most active leaders of the All-Attica Union of Janitors. This Union is one of the most combative, despite the fact that the trade-union bureaucrats (most of them belonging to PASOK and to the actual government right-wing party) do nothing to assist them in their hard struggle for the respect of the most elementary rights of their members and of the janitors as a whole. Konstantina soon became the soul of the Union: she was always in the first line of the struggle, unionizing her colleagues and demanding the respect of the labour legislation, despite the increasing threats and discrimination against her.
Konstantina is an example to us all. She is a model unionist, a personification of workers’ dignity and of belief in the rights of the working class. Konstantina is “stubborn”: she did not yield to the bosses’ threats. She was characterized as “the epitome of cheekiness” by her employee: “How can SHE, an IMMIGRANT single mother, a JANITOR, dare to challenge the system?” The initial blackmail and the transfer to night shift (so she could not take proper care of her child) did not intimidate her. She kept on fighting. So, anonymous death threats followed. She still did not yield. Until…
On midnight of 22 December 2008, while she returned from work to her home in a poor neighborhood of Athens, Konstantina Kouneva became the victim of murderous attempt. The goons of the bosses immobilized her and threw vitriol on her face. Then, they opened her mouth and threw the acid down her throat. Since that night, Konstantina fights for her life in the Intensive Care Unit in Athens. She has lost one eye and her face is burned; but the worst is that her digestive system does not exist anymore, burned by the acid. The doctors are struggling to save her life and her condition remains very critical. Her mother and her son Emmanuel (who suffers from cardiac decompensation) survive and take courage thanks to the active solidarity of hundreds of workers.
The “justice” and the police did nothing until today in order to find the perpetrators of this murderous attack against this valiant and genuine representative of the workers. The bourgeois Media did not find time and space to report her case. But her colleagues, all the honest workers, and the Radical Left organizations, did not let this crime to be covered by the guilty alliance of government, bosses, Media and “justice”. Today, despite the imposed silence of the mainstream Media, the whole Greece knows the case of Konstantina Kouneva. Many mobilizations of solidarity with Konstantina and with the militant trade-union movement took place since 22 December, including attacks against the ISAP installations and marches with the participation of thousands of people. The militant spirit of December’s Revolt gives life to this extraordinary flow of solidarity.
The Communist Organization of Greece is active part of this movement of solidarity, which moves under the slogan “Konstantina you are not alone”. We address an appeal to all the progressive forces to express their solidarity with Konstantina Kouneva, with the All-Attica Union of Janitors, with all those most exploited and “anonymous” militant workers who save the honor of the trade-union movement and continue its best militant traditions, bravely facing the attacks of the bosses and the hostility of the state and of the “official” trade-union leaderships.
The Union of the Working People, which is active in the movement of solidarity with Konstantina, would welcome your support and the support of trade-unions from your country. Please send solidarity messages to the Union of the Working People, which will transfer it to Konstantina and to her Union: enosiergazomenon@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (please send a copy to our email too). Also, consider the possibility to address the trade-unions and other workers’ organizations in your country and ask them to contribute financially in the fund-raising organized by the Union of the Working People for Konstantina. The details of the bank account opened by the Union of Working People for Konstantina are the following:
Bank Account Number (IBAN): GR3401106640000066474762649
Bank International Code – BIC: ETHNGRAA
Bank Branch: National Bank of Greece, Branch 664
Branch Address: Spyrou Patsi 2, GR-10441 Athens, Greece
Branch Phone Nr: +30-210-5224016
Account Holder: Papageorgiou Marriana (Union of the Working People representative)
In case you participate in the fund-raising, please inform the Union of the Working People and/or KOE.
We thank you in advance for any action you may undertake in order to express your solidarity and to condemn the murderous crime against the militant worker and unionist Konstantina Kouneva, who is always fighting for her life and for the rights of the most oppressed and exploited workers!
In solidarity,
Communist Organization of Greece (KOE), International Relations Department
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View at NDFP website
24 December 2008
Central Committee
Communist Party of the Philippines
Dear Comrades
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) asks you to accept our warmest and most heartfelt revolutionary greetings on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of the Philippines on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought and in the midst of acute class struggle against imperialism, domestic reactionaries and modern revisionism at home and abroad.
The Communist Party of the Philippines is not only the tried and tested revolutionary vanguard of the Filipino proletariat and people of all nationalities, but also a stalwart champion and highly respected contingent of the international communist movement.
For the last four decades, your party has integrated the universal ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong with the concrete realities of your revolution and the needs of the changing times, has struggled heroically, in the spirit of being resolute, fearing no sacrifice and surmounting every difficulty to win victory, has persisted in the road of protracted people’s war, and has advanced wave upon wave, registering great progress towards the victory of the new democratic revolution and the seizure of power on a nationwide scale.
All these are great achievements not only of your Party but for the international communist movement, the international proletariat, and the oppressed nations and peoples as a whole. Comrades, we sincerely rejoice over them.
In greeting this significant anniversary, we extend, through you, our revolutionary greetings to all the members of your Party, to all the red commanders and fighters of the heroic New People’s Army, to the revolutionary people organised in all the mass organisations of the National Democratic Front, and to the Filipino proletariat and people as a whole. In particular, we extend our deep condolences to all the revolutionary martyrs and their steadfast families, and send our special greetings to all the imprisoned comrades and their loved ones.
Comrades, The Filipino revolution is part of the great anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America and a key link in the chain of world proletarian revolution. Our Party resolutely supports this revolution, as we once again reaffirmed in the resolution passed unanimously at our congress earlier this year, and highly values our close comradely relations with the fraternal Communist Party of the Philippines. We look forward to deepening and strengthening this relationship in the months and years to come. Our Party also seeks to further consolidate its links to proletarians of Filipino origin and other members of the Filipino community living and working in Britain as a key part of building the forces of Marxism-Leninism, of working class resistance, of anti-imperialist solidarity and of anti-racism in the imperialist heartlands.
Once again, we extend our most militant red salute to you, dear comrades, and wish you every success in advancing the Filipino revolution to victory.
LONG LIVE THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE PHILIPPINES!
LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM AND PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM!
With warmest fraternal greetings
International Secretary
On behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
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Via The Guardian.
The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush was beaten afterwards and had bruises on his face, the investigating judge in the case said today, as a senior cleric in Iran urged others to wage a “shoe intifada” against the US.
The reporter, Muntazer al-Zaidi, had bruises on his face and around his eyes, said the judge, Dhia al-Kinani said.
Zaidi was wrestled to the ground after throwing the shoes during a Sunday press conference by Bush and the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.
He remains in custody and is expected to face charges of insulting a foreign leader.
Kinani said a complaint about Zaidi’s treatment had been filed on his behalf and court officials “will watch the footage to identify those who have beaten him … He was beaten and we filed a case for that. Zaidi did not raise a complaint and he can drop this case if he wants to.”
In the Iranian capital, Tehran, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati praised what he called the “shoe intifada” at Friday prayers. Jannati proposed people in Iraq and Iran carry shoes in further anti-American demonstrations. “This should be a role model,” he said.
Yesterday, it emerged that Zaidi had asked Maliki to forgive him. In a letter, he said his “big ugly act cannot be excused”, according to Maliki’s media adviser.
In a plea for clemency, Zaidi added: “I remember in the summer of 2005, I interviewed your excellency and you told me: ‘Come in, this is your house.’ And so I appeal to your fatherly feelings to forgive me.”
The journalist called Bush a “dog” at the press conference in Baghdad and hurled both his shoes at him, forcing him to duck.
Yesterday, an Egyptian man offered his 20-year-old daughter to Zaidi as a bride. Cobblers from Turkey to Lebanon have claimed the shoes were made in their factories.
Hundreds of protesters in Iraq have rallied to the journalist’s cause and demanded his release.
Parliamentary reaction has been divided, with MPs clashing this week over whether he should be forgiven.
Zaidi’s family have said he suffered a broken arm and other injuries after he was dragged away by Iraqi security officers and US secret service agents. They said he was in hospital in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.
Zaidi was brought before a judge on Tuesday and admitted “aggression against a president” – an offence that could carry a 15-year sentence, officials said.
The journalist’s lawyer said more than 1,000 lawyers had offered to defend him. University students gathered in Falluja on Wednesday to show their support for him, raising their shoes and throwing rocks at US soldiers, who reportedly opened fire above the crowd. Protesters said one student was injured.
“We demonstrated to express our support for Muntazar al-Zaidi but we were surprised with the entrance of the US military,” said a protester, Ahmed Ismail.
“Unconsciously, we raised our shoes expressing our support for Zaidi, but they attacked us.”
The US State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, suggested that the attention to the incident was overblown. “We would hope that the fact of a US president standing next to a freely elected prime minister of Iraq who just happens to be Shia, who is governing in a multi-confessional, multiethnic democracy in the heart of the Middle East, is not overshadowed by one incident like this,” McCormack told reporters in Washington.
McCormack said he believed that in the coming years “the fact of the president making that visit under those circumstances will probably overshadow any memory of this particular gentleman and what he did.”
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Workers World article
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Fresh calls have been made for the overthrow of the elected Zimbabwe government headed by President Robert Mugabe and the Zimbabwe African National Union—Patriotic Front.
Demands for the resignation or forced removal of the government have been going on for more than a decade. The country has been under constant threat and attack since the government in this former British colony declared that it would redistribute land confiscated by the European settler class.
A current outbreak of cholera in the country, coupled with growing cases of anthrax infections in cattle, has given Britain, the U.S., European Union and their allies a false basis for plotting to engage in a western-backed regime-change project against the ZANU-PF, which fought for the national liberation of Zimbabwe during the 1970s.
Zimbabwe Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu condemned the western propaganda campaign against the government. He pointed to the years of economic blockade and disinformation as the root cause of the humanitarian crisis inside the country.
“Zimbabwe is a sovereign state, with a president elected in accordance with the constitution of Zimbabwe. No foreign leader, regardless of how powerful they are, has the right to call on him to step down on their whim,” Ndlovu told Reuters. (Dec. 8)
Leaders of the EU, meeting in Brussels on Dec. 8, made repeated calls for the overthrow of the ZANU-PF government. In a statement, EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana said, “I think the moment has arrived to put all the pressure for Mugabe to step down.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is currently the head of the EU, remarked at the summit: “I say today that President Mugabe must go. Zimbabwe has suffered enough.”
EU leaders took under consideration a proposal to add more names to a list of Zimbabwean governmental officials who are banned from traveling inside their member countries. President Mugabe and other leading Zimbabwe cabinet ministers are not allowed to visit these European countries, many of which are former slave-owning and colonial states.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told Reuters that an intervention was necessary: “Cholera is killing. We need international intervention for this matter, not a military one, but a strong intervention to stop this cholera epidemic, which could allow for other things.” (Dec. 8)
Zimbabwe has accused Britain of planning an invasion. Judging from recent statements issued by the regime of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, this, it seems, is in all likelihood in the works. British Foreign Minister David Miliband said, “There is a crying need for change in Zimbabwe.”
Other pro-western political leaders on the continent have followed the imperialist lead. Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has called upon the African Union, an organization of all independent states, to send military forces into Zimbabwe and forcefully remove the government.
This statement by Odinga comes less than one year after large-scale inter-party violence in that East African nation, stemming from disagreements over a national presidential election. Far more people died and were displaced in Kenya than have perished in Zimbabwe in the recent cholera outbreak. Odinga never called for western intervention during the Kenyan crisis of 2007-8, which required a negotiated settlement brokered by the AU and others within the international community.
Others who have called for removal of the Zimbabwe government include the pro-western Botswana Foreign Minister Phandu Skelemani. Retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has called for the forceful removal of the Mugabe government.
Government declares national emergency
The ZANU-PF government declared a national emergency on Dec. 4 as a result of the cholera outbreak.
The disease arises from the consumption of unclean drinking water. The government has stated that the imposition of sanctions and the country’s overall economic crisis has resulted in the lack of chlorine and other chemicals to purify the water systems.
The cholera outbreak had claimed 563 lives by Dec. 4. Dr. David Parirenyatwa, the minister of health and child welfare, said that problems were compounded by the crisis in the health sector. He said the hospitals were in dire need of drugs, food and medical equipment.
“Our central hospitals are literally not functioning. Our staff is demotivated and we need your support to ensure that they start coming to work and our health system is revived,” Dr. Parirenyatwa said.
The government issued an emergency appeal for the importation of medical equipment, surgical sundries, renal and laundry equipment, x-ray films and boilers. Dr. Parirenyatwa noted that shortages in medical supplies threatened to derail the country’s anti-retroviral program to HIV patients that has made some progress in recent years.
“The emergency appeal will help us reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with the current socio-economic environment by December 2009. We are hoping that within the next 12 months we would have achieved the package,” Dr. Parirenyatwa said. (Zimbabwe Herald, December 4).
The government has taken measures to reverse the situation. According to the Zimbabwe Herald: “The Government has acquired 505 tonnes of aluminum sulphate and pledged a further US$1 million a week towards the procurement of water treatment chemicals with some Harare suburbs having started receiving water supplies on December 1.” (Dec. 4)
The neighboring Republic of Namibia has been the first country to respond to the national emergency. The government of President Hifikepunye Pohamba has donated water purification chemicals, drugs and medical equipment valued at US$200,000.
According to the Herald, “Handing over the donation which included malaria treatment drugs, antibiotics, needles and drips to the Government at Manyama Airbase in Harare yesterday, Namibian Minister of Health and Social Welfare Dr. Richard Kamwi pledged more medical supplies to help in the fight against cholera.” (Dec. 8).
Dr. Kamwi said: “Namibia had been following the health situation in Zimbabwe with concern and I feel we actually delayed in responding. You (Zimbabweans) deserve this donation. This is the first consignment from our own stocks and for now, we have just brought 60 percent and we will send the remaining 40 percent in due course.”
South African health officials visited Zimbabwe on Dec. 8 to assess the situation. Health ministry spokespersons in South Africa said that eight people had died from cholera in the Limpopo province, which borders Zimbabwe. Reuters also claims that cases of cholera have been cited in Mozambique, Botswana and Zambia. (Dec. 8)
What caused the crisis?
The Zimbabwe government and other progressive forces acquainted with the region have stated in no uncertain terms that the current crisis is caused by the imposition of economic sanctions by the western imperialist countries against the ZANU-PF state.
Since the implementation of a comprehensive land redistribution program in Zimbabwe since 2000, the country has endured a blockade; the financing of a right-wing opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change; plots aimed at overthrowing the administration; as well as a well-financed media campaign designed to vilify President Robert Mugabe and the ruling party.
The ZANU-PF government has embarked upon an extensive negotiation process for the creation of a national unity government with the opposition forces. The key opposition leaders in the Movement for Democratic Change—Tsvangirai faction have refused to implement an agreement signed several months ago in Harare. The agreement would create a broader cabinet and bring in politicians who have been supported by the U.S., Britain and the EU.
A so-called “Elders Group,” which is financed by western interests including British billionaire Sir Richard Branson and rock star Peter Gabriel, has received US$18 million toward a recent effort aimed at influencing the political situation on the African continent. Led by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, retired Archbishop Tutu and Graca Machel, the group is in partnership with the Bridgeway Foundation and Humanity United.
African-American solidarity activist Obi Egbuna explains: “While the founder of Bridgeway Foundation, John Montgomery, started the group in 1993 after hearing a preacher in church discuss the work of Amnesty International, Humanity United is directly and openly affiliated with the Genocide Prevention Task Force co-chaired by former U.S. Secretary of Defence William Cohen and former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright.”
“This task force is jointly convened by the U.S. Holocaust Museum, American Academy of Diplomacy and the U.S. Institute of Peace, which is directly funded by the U.S. Congress. The timing of the ‘Elders’ decision to visit Zimbabwe and the rest of its founding membership pool should arouse suspicion [and] force the masses of Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa, who are obviously tired of the West meddling in our political affairs, not to be misled.” (Zimbabwe Herald, Dec. 8)
The Obama administration and Africa policy
This new push to overthrow the ZANU-PF government could be designed to take action prior to the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama on Jan. 20, 2009. During the early days of his campaign in 2008, Obama was criticized by African solidarity forces for making statements that were perceived as hostile to the Zimbabwe government.
Current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated in early December that it was time for President Mugabe to be overthrown. This provocative and illegal proposal represents the continuation of the hostile U.S. policy toward Zimbabwe and other states in Africa that refuse to follow Washington’s dictates.
It is important for anti-war and anti-imperialist forces in the U.S. and Western Europe to reject this new thrust aimed at regime change in Zimbabwe. In every state where the U.S., Britain and the EU have intervened, humanitarian, economic and political crises have developed which far outstrip the current situation in Zimbabwe.
In Iraq, it has been reported that more than 1 million people have died as a direct result of the U.S. occupation. In Afghanistan, resistance forces have charged the U.S./NATO forces with genocide.
Somalia—where the U.S. encouraged and financed an invasion and occupation by neighboring Ethiopia—has suffered the worse humanitarian crisis in Africa, leaving thousands dead and 2 million people displaced both internally and externally. At present the puppet government installed by the U.S. is near collapse, with Ethiopian military forces requesting approval from the U.S. to flee the country under growing attacks from the resistance forces throughout the country.
Inside the U.S. itself, working people, nationally oppressed and the poor are suffering the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. In November, more than 530,000 workers were thrown out of their jobs. Nearly 10 million workers are employed part-time because they cannot find full-time jobs. Financial institutions and industrial facilities are being propped up by the taxpayers, who are growing poorer every month.
Nearly 50 million people in the U.S. are without medical coverage. Hospitals have been closing for the last two years, while the defense budget is in excess of $720 billion.
Consequently, the U.S. and the imperialist states have no moral right to dictate policy to Zimbabwe or any other African country. Only the creation of a workers’ and peoples’ government in the U.S. can create the conditions for genuine international peace and reconciliation between the peoples of the U.S. and the global community.
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Excellent article from Stephen Gowans’ blog.
The crisis in Zimbabwe has intensified. Inflation is incalculably high. The central bank limits – to an inadequate level – the amount of money Zimbabweans can withdraw from their bank accounts daily. Unarmed soldiers riot, their guns kept under lock and key, to prevent an armed uprising. Hospital staff fail to show up for work. The water authority is short of chemicals to purify drinking water. Cholera, easily prevented and cured under normal circumstances, has broken out, leading the government to declare a humanitarian emergency.
In the West, state officials call for the country’s president, Robert Mugabe, to step down and yield power to the leader of the largest faction of the Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai. In this, the crisis is directly linked to Mugabe, its solution to Tsvangirai, but it’s never said what Mugabe has done to cause the crisis, or how Tsvangirai’s ascension to the presidency will make it go away.
The causal chain leading to the crisis can be diagrammed roughly as follows:
• In the late 90s, Mugabe’s government provokes the hostility of the West by: (1) intervening militarily in the Democratic Republic of Congo on the side of the young government of Laurent Kabila, helping to thwart an invasion by Rwandan and Ugandan forces backed by the US and Britain; (2) it rejects a pro-foreign investment economic restructuring program the IMF establishes as a condition for balance of payment support; (3) it accelerates land redistribution by seizing white-owned farms and thereby committing the ultimate affront against owners of productive property – expropriation without compensation. To governments whose foreign policy is based in large measure on protecting their nationals’ ownership rights to foreign productive assets, expropriation, and especially expropriation without compensation, is intolerable, and must be punished to deter others from doing the same.
• In response, the United States, as prime guarantor of the imperialist system, introduces the December 2001 Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act. The act instructs US representatives to international financial institutions “to oppose and vote against any extension by the respective institution of any loan, credit, or guarantee to the Government of Zimbabwe; or any cancellation or reduction of indebtedness owed by the Government of Zimbabwe to the United States or any international financial institution.”
• The act effectively deprives Zimbabwe of foreign currency required to import necessities from abroad, including chemicals to treat drinking water. Development aid from the World Bank is also cut off, denying the country access to funds to upgrade its infrastructure. The central bank takes measures to mitigate the effects of the act, creating hyper-inflation as a by-product.
The cause of the crisis, then, can be traced directly to the West. Rather than banning the export of goods to Zimbabwe, the US denied Zimbabwe the means to import goods — not trade sanctions, but an act that had the same effect. To be sure, had the Mugabe government reversed its land reform program and abided by IMF demands, the crisis would have been averted. But the trigger was pulled in Washington, London and Brussels, and it is the West, therefore, that bears the blame.
Sanctions are effectively acts of war, with often equivalent, and sometimes more devastating, consequences. More than a million Iraqis died as a result of a decade-long sanctions regime championed by the US following the 1991 Gulf War. This prompted two political scientists, John and Karl Mueller, to coin the phrase “sanctions of mass destruction.” They noted that sanctions had “contributed to more deaths in the post Cold War era than all the weapons of mass destruction in history.”
The Western media refer to sanctions on Zimbabwe as targeted – limited only to high state officials and other individuals. This ignores the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act and conceals its devastating impact, thereby shifting responsibility for the humanitarian catastrophe from the US to Mugabe.
The cholera outbreak has a parallel in the outbreak of cholera in Iraq following the Gulf War. Thomas Nagy, a business professor at George Washington University, cited declassified documents in the September 2001 issue of The Progressive magazine showing that the United States had deliberately bombed Iraq’s drinking water and sanitation facilities, recognizing that sanctions would prevent Iraq from rebuilding its water infrastructure and that epidemics of otherwise preventable diseases, cholera among them, would ensue. Washington, in other words, deliberately created a humanitarian catastrophe to achieve its goal of regime change. There is a direct parallel with Zimbabwe – the only difference is that the United States uses the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act – that is, sanctions of mass destruction – in place of bombing.
Harare’s land reform program is one of the principal reasons the United States has gone to war with Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has redistributed land previously owned by 4,000 white farmers to 300,000 previously landless families, descendants of black Africans whose land was stolen by white settlers. By contrast, South Africa’s ANC government has redistributed only four percent of the 87 percent of land forcibly seized from the indigenous population by Europeans.
In March, South Africa’s cabinet seemed ready to move ahead with a plan to accelerate agrarian reform. It would abandon the “willing seller, willing buyer” model insisted on by the West, following in the Mugabe government’s footsteps. Under the plan, thirty percent of farmland would be redistributed to black farmers by 2014. But the government has since backed away, its reluctance to move forward based on the following considerations.
1. Most black South Africans are generations removed from the land, and no longer have the skills and culture necessary to immediately farm at a high level. An accelerated land reform program would almost certainly lower production levels, as new farmers played catch up to acquire critical skills.
2. South Africa is no longer a net exporter of food. An accelerated land reform program would likely force the country, in the short term, to rely more heavily on agricultural imports, at a time food prices are rising globally.
3. There is a danger that fast-track land reform will create a crisis of capital flight.
4. The dangers of radical land reform in provoking a backlash from the West are richly evident in the example of Zimbabwe. South Africa would like to avoid becoming the next Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe’s economic crisis is accompanied by a political crisis. Talks on forming a government of national unity are stalled. Failure to strike a deal pivots on a single ministry – home affairs. In the West, failure to consolidate a deal between Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party and the two MDC factions is attributed to Mugabe’s intransigence in insisting that he control all key cabinet posts. It takes two to tango. Tsvangirai has shown little interest in striking an accord, preferring instead to raise objections to every solution to the impasse put forward by outside mediators, as Western ambassadors hover nearby. It’s as if, with the country teetering on the edge of collapse, he doesn’t want to do a deal, preferring instead to help hasten the collapse by throwing up obstacles to an accord, to clear the way for his ascension to the presidency. When the mediation of former South African president Thambo Mbeki failed, Tsvangirai asked the regional grouping, the SADC, to intervene. SADC ordered Zanu-PF and the MDC to share the home affairs ministry. Tsvangirai refused. Now he wants Mbeki replaced.
At the SADC meeting, Mugabe presented a report which alleges that MDC militias are being trained in Botswana by Britain, to be deployed to Zimbabwe early in 2009 to foment a civil war. The turmoil would be used as a pretext for outside military intervention. This would follow the model used to oust the Haitian government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Already, British officials and clergymen are calling for intervention. British prime minister Gordon Brown says the cholera outbreak makes Zimbabwe’s crisis international, because disease can cross borders. Since an international crisis is within the purview of the “international community,” the path is clear for the West and its satellites to step in to set matters straight
Botswana is decidedly hostile. The country’s foreign minister, Phando Skelemani, says that Zimbabwe’s neighbors should impose an oil blockade to bring the Mugabe government down.
Meanwhile, representatives of the elders, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Anan and Graca Machel sought to enter Zimbabwe to assess the humanitarian situation. Inasmuch as an adequate assessment could not be made on the whistle-stop tour the trio had planned, Harare barred their entry, recognizing that the trip would simply be used as a platform to declaim on the necessity of regime change. The elders’ humanitarian concern, however, didn’t stop the trio from agreeing that stepped up sanctions – more misery for the population — would be useful.
The Mugabe government’s pursuit of land reform, rejection of neo-liberal restructuring, and movement to eclipse US imperialism in southern Africa, has put Zimbabwe on the receiving end of a Western attack based on punitive financial sanctions. The intention, as is true of all Western destabilization efforts, has been to make the target country ungovernable, forcing the government to step down, clearing the way for the ascension of the West’s local errand boys. Owing to the West’s attack, Zimbabwe’s government is struggling to provide the population with basic necessities. It can no longer provide basic sanitation and access to potable water at a sufficient level to prevent the outbreak of otherwise preventable diseases.
The replacement of the Mugabe government with one led by the Movement for Democratic Change, a party created and directed by Western governments, if it happens, will lead to an improvement in the humanitarian situation. This won’t come about because the MDC is more competent at governing, but because sanctions will be lifted and access to balance of payment support and development aid will be restored. Zimbabwe will once again be able to import adequate amounts of water purification chemicals. The improving humanitarian situation will be cited as proof the West was right all along in insisting on a change of government.
The downside is that measures to indigenize the economy – to place the country’s agricultural and mineral wealth in the hands of the black majority – will be reversed. Mugabe and key members of the state will be shipped off to The Hague – or attempts will be made to ship them off – to send a message to others about what befalls those who threaten the dominant mode of property relations and challenge Western domination. Cowed by the example of Zimbabwe, Africans in other countries will back away from their own land reform and economic indigenization demands, and the continent will settle more firmly into a pattern of neo-colonial subjugation.
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For quite some time, the CPGB-ML has attempted to be included in the annual International Conference of Communist and Workers’ Parties (ICCWP), based in Athens. Our attempts in this regard have drawn a blank from the working group of the ICCWP.
This year, in response to our request and acting on behalf of the working group of the ICCWP, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) asked the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) and the New Communist Party (NCP), as the ‘recognised’ parties in Britain, to report on the eligibility of the CPGB-ML for membership of the ICCWP. In response to this request, John Foster, the International Secretary of the CPB, wrote what claims to be a report on the CPGB-ML but is in fact a sly and scurrilous attack on the latter.
We have never been asked by the working group to submit any evidence in our defence; nor have we been officially sent a copy of the CPB’s ‘report’. Fortunately, we came to have possession of a copy of this report, and we have sent our observations on it to the working party. Hitherto we have received not even an acknowledgement.
In the circumstances, we have no option but to go public and expose the arbitrary and unjust modus operandi of both the working group and the CPB. In order that nobody accuse us of misrepresenting the CPB, we are publishing that organisation’s report along with our reply.
Read the CPB’s report and our reply.
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Who can doubt it? Observers from all parts and varying shades have attended the elections in Venezuela on November 23, 2007. They have reported with absolute freedom. The oligarchy cried out like mad to the world the coarse slander that the extension of the voting hours at the polling stations, giving the citizens the possibility to cast their vote, was intended to commit fraud, even though the National Election Council had previously decided to do so and had announced it.
This is a correct measure when adopted by the United States to facilitate the indirect election of the President of that nation, which is the model for the Venezuelan oligarchy, but it is wrong in Venezuela, even though these are not presidential elections, which are direct elections, the same as all the others for executive positions.
The only thing honorable and clean to them is the contemptible submission to the empire, the flight of capital amounting to billions of dollars every year, and the prevalence of poverty, illiteracy and over 20% unemployment.
I would not dare utter an opinion with regards to any other country of this hemisphere, if I forgot that we are brothers and that Marti, who fought and died for Cuba and for Our America, said one day as he stood before the statue of the Liberator Simon Bolivar: “Venezuela only needs to tell me what to do for her, for I am her son.”
At the moment, 40 thousand highly qualified compatriots are working in that sister nation. They are willing to give their lives for Bolivar’s people with which they share the risks of an imperialist sweeping blow.
I am not an intruder giving an opinion in the country of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA).
Venezuela has the potential to become a model of socialist development with the resources formerly extracted by the multinationals from its rich nature and the efforts of it manual and intellectual workers. No foreign power shall determine its future. The people are the masters of their destiny and they march on to attain the highest levels of education, culture, health and full employment. It is an example to be pursued by other sister nations in this hemisphere and it does not give up: it does not wish to lag behind a plundering empire. Venezuela rightly claims with dignity that the UN General Assembly should design a new international financial structure, and Cuba supports it in that endeavor.
Reading the international news, it would seem that the USSR disintegrated just yesterday. As Stella Calloni would say, this Monday the media terror spin broke loose. But after the storm has passed, the truth will come up again.
Yesterday’s elections meant a qualitative step forward for the Bolivarian revolutionary process that can be measured by many aspects. It was not as the massive disinformation machinery would have it: “Castro says that the Revolution in Venezuela will continue despite the elections.” No, it’s not that! But rather that an analysis of the basic data provided by the National Election Council in its bulletins showed me clearly the great victory that has been attained.
The data were precise; an unquestionable victory of the candidates to governors in 17 of the 22 states, all of these members of the Venezuelan Socialist United Party. The voters turn out was higher than ever; 1.5 million more votes than those obtained by the opponents running for such positions, and 264 posts of mayor of the 328 up for election. There is no opposition party but a group of oppositionists with half a dozen parties, and absolute transparency. That’s why I said and now repeat that it will be very difficult to put out the flames of the Revolution in Venezuela.
Fidel Castro Ruz
November 24, 2008
6:35 p.m.
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www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3995
Three trade unionists Richard Gallardo, Luis Hernández and Carlos Requena, leaders of the pro-revolution National Union of Workers (UNT) and also members of the United Socialist Left party were shot dead late Thursday night in Aragua state, Venezuela.
The union leaders were gunned down by an armed assassin on a motorbike as they made their way home after participating that day in a labor dispute with the Colombian-owned Alpina food processing company.
There is speculation that the attack was carried out by paramilitaries hired by the Colombian company, which is reported to have utilized paramilitaries in similar disputes in its home country. Patricia Rivas writing for YKVE Mundial on November 28 pointed out that the attacks resembled a method of assassination commonly used against unionists and social movement activists in Colombia, known as sicariato, whereby hired gunmen on motorbikes carry out drive-by shootings.
However, the day before, the unionists had also been attacked by the Aragua state police aligned with outgoing opposition governor Didalco Bolivar. Bolivar, who was previously an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez but defected to the right-wing opposition in the lead up to the Constitutional reform referendum in Venezuela in 2007, has previously deployed the state police against workers in labor disputes.
In a press conference on November 27 Hernández had denounced that 400 Alpina workers had been brutally repressed by the police, “The workers were inside the factory demanding from the company that they pay, in full and quickly, the money owing, when the police unexpectedly entered the premises and in a brutal manner began to kick out the workers.”
We immediately contacted workers in the rest of the area and “in a matter of minutes the company was surrounded by workers affiliated to the National Union of Workers. Thanks to this act of solidarity we managed to recuperate control of the factory and the workers have occupied it again,” Hernandez had told the media.
Hernández, Gallardo and Requena were known as, “implacable fighters” for workers’ rights who “never bowed down in the face of constant threats by bosses, union bureaucrats and elements of the public force that are enemies of the workers,” a statement by the United Socialist Left said.
“We render tribute to our murdered comrades who showed us, by their example and behaviour, that the rights of workers must be respected. The comrades offered their life for the principle of the defence of the interests of the working class and of socialism.”
“In their name and with their example we will continue the battle for the socialist revolution, expropriating from the bosses, breaking definitively with imperialism and building a government of the workers and the people,” the statement continued.
The workers are calling for the incoming governor of Aragua Mario Isea, a member of Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and the national government to immediately carry out a full investigation.
The Attorney General’s Office responded that it has launched an investigation and assigned national public prosecutor Orlando Villamizar and Aragua state prosecutor Elas Pérez, to head up investigations.
The incident highlights the growing class conflict that has erupted across Venezuela in the aftermath of the November 23 regional elections. Numerous reports have surfaced of Venezuela’s elite, US-backed opposition launching a campaign of violence and intimidation against trade unionists, grass roots community organisations and pro-revolution social movements, particularly in the areas where they won.
In a statement in solidarity with the workers in Aragua, the Carabobo section of the UNT said the incidents are not isolated and that many cases of sicariato have occurred across the country, particularly in the construction sector, against unions in the private sector and against peasant leaders fighting for land reform in the countryside.
The statement argued that there had been no serious investigations into the many cases of sicariato and that the governmental bodies such as the police and the Attorney General’s Office had been incapable of responding to such incidents.
Stalin Perez Borges, a national coordinator of the UNT argued “President Chavez and the national government must carry out an investigation to the ultimate consequences and with mobilization we must defeat impunity.”
Perez Borges added that workers could not simply rely on the “ordinary justice” system because it often sided with the right-wing opposition and bosses against workers and instead called for the formation of a special commission comprised of workers organisations whose investigations “have the force of the law.”
“For this reason, at the same time, we convoke the immediate organisation of popular workers self-defence. The government must grant all the resources for the training and armed defence of the workers and their leaders. It will not be the corrupt police, in many cases the direct assassins, who will prevent these crimes. It will be us, the workers. We propose…our own self-defence against fascism,” he said.
Similarly, in a speech on Thursday highlighting a number of opposition attacks against Cuban doctors, education and health missions and community organisations Chavez, who described himself as a “subversive” in Miraflores presidential palace called for the “permanent mobilization” of the Venezuelan people to defend the Bolivarian revolution
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Message from the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five:
Dear friends and supporters of the Cuban Five,
Take a minute out of your busy time and send a message to newly elected
President Barack Obama. Tell him about the case of the Cuban Five by asking him
to grant visas to Olga Salanueva and Adriana Perez, wife of Rene Gonzalez and
Gerardo Hernandez respectively, who have not been able to visit their husbands
for 10 years; and to demand the immediate release of the Cuban Five.
Obama’s website is asking people in the US to write to him about any issue that
concerns them. Now is the time, even before he enters office, to let him know
about the case of the Cuban Five from as many people as possible. Ten years is
enough!!!
Spread the word and send this e-mail to all your friends.
To send the message to President Barack Obama click here:
http://change.gov/page/s/yourvision
In solidarity,
Alicia Jrapko
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five
www.thecuban5.org
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Article by James Petras; found at venezuelaanalysis.com.
The pro-Chavez United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) won 72% of the governorships in the November 23, 2008 elections and 58% of the popular vote, dumbfounding the predictions of most of the pro-capitalist pollsters and the vast majority of the mass media who favored the opposition.
PSUV candidates defeated incumbent opposition governors in three states (Guarico, Sucre, Aragua) and lost two states (Miranda and Tachira). The opposition retained the governorship in a tourist center (Nueva Esparta) and won in Tachira, a state bordering Colombia, Carabobo, and the oil state of Zulia, as well as scoring an upset victory in the populous state of Miranda and taking the mayoralty district of the capital, Caracas. The socialist victory was especially significant because the voter turnout of 65% exceeded all previous non-presidential elections. The prediction by the propaganda pollsters that a high turnout would favor the opposition also reflected wishful thinking.
The significance of the socialist victory is clear if we put it in a comparative historical context:
- Few if any government parties in Europe, North or South American have retained such high levels of popular support in free and open elections.
- The PSUV retained its high level of support in the context of several radical economic measures, including the nationalization of major cement, steel, financial and other private capitalist monopolies.
- The Socialists won despite the 70% decline in oil prices (from $140 to $52 dollars a barrel), Venezuela’s principal source of export earnings, and largely because the government maintained most of its funding for its social programs.
- The electorate was more selective in its voting decisions regarding Chavista candidates – rewarding candidates who performed adequately in providing government services and punishing those who ignored or were unresponsive to popular demands. While President Chavez campaigned for all the Socialist candidates, voters did not uniformly follow his lead where they had strong grievances against local Chavista incumbents, as was the case with outgoing Governor Diosdado Cabello of Miranda and the Mayor of the Capital District of Caracas. Socialist victories were mostly the result of a deliberate, class interest based vote and not simply a reflex identification with President Chavez.
- The decisive victory of the PSUV provides the basis for confronting the deepening collapse of world capitalism with socialist measures, instead of pouring state funds to rescue bankrupt capitalist banks, commercial and manufacturing enterprises. The collapse of capitalism facilitates the socialization of most of the key economic sectors. Most Venezuelan firms are heavily indebted to the state and local banks. The Chavez government can ask the firms to repay their debts or handover the keys – in effect bringing about a painless and eminently legal transition to socialism.
The election results point to deepening polarization between the hard right and the socialist left. The centrist social-democratic ex-Chavista governors were practically wiped from the political map. The rightist winner in Miranda State, Henrique Capriles Radonsky, had tried to burn down the Cuban embassy during the failed military coup of April 2002 and the newly elected Governor of Zulia, Pablo Perez, was the hand picked candidate of the former hard-line rightwing Governor Rosales.
While the opposition controlled state governorships and municipal mayors can provide a basis to attack the national government, the economic crisis will sharply limit the amount of resources available to maintain services and will increase their dependence on the federal government. A frontal assault on the Chavez Government spending state and local funds on partisan warfare could lead to a decline of federal welfare transfers and would provoke grassroots discontent. The rightwing won on the basis of promising to improve state and city services and end corruption and favoritism. Resorting to their past practices of crony politics and extreme obstructionism could quickly cost them popular support and undermine their hopes of transforming local gains into national power. The newly elected opposition governors and mayors need the cooperation and support of the Federal Government, especially in the context of the deepening crisis, or they will lose popular support and credibility.
Conclusion
There is no point in expecting the mass media to recognize the Socialist victory. Its effort to magnify the significance of the opposition’s 40% electoral vote and their victory in 20% of the states was predictable. In the post-election period, the Socialists, no doubt, will critically evaluate the results and hopefully re-think the selection of future candidates, emphasizing job performance on local issues over and above professed loyalty to President Chavez and ‘Socialism’. The immediate and most pressing task facing the PSUV, President Chavez, the legislators and the newly elected Chavez officials is to formulate a comprehensive socio-economic strategic plan to confront the global collapse of capitalism. This is especially critical in dealing with the sharp fall in oil prices, federal revenues, and the inevitable decline in government spending. Chavez has promised to maintain all social programs even if oil prices remain at or below $50 dollars a barrel. This is clearly a positive and defensible position if the government manages to reduce its huge subsidies to the private sector and doesn’t embark on any bailout of bankrupt or nearly bankrupt private firms. While $40 billion dollars in reserves can serve as a temporary cushion, the fact remains that the government, with the backing of its majorities in the federal legislature and at the state levels, needs to make hard choices and not simply print money, run bigger deficits, devalue the currency and exacerbate the already high rates of annual inflation (31% as of November).
The only reasonable strategy is to take control of foreign trade and directly oversee the commanding heights of the productive and distributive sectors and set priorities that defend popular living standards. To counter-act bureaucratic ineptness and neutralize lazy elected officials, effective power and control must be transferred to organized workers and autonomous consumer and neighborhood councils. The recent past reveals that merely electing socialist mayors or governors is not sufficient to ensure the implementation of progressive policies and the delivery of basic services. Liberal representative government (even with elected socialists) requires at a minimum mass popular control and mass pressure to implement the hard decisions and popular priorities in the midst of a deepening and prolonged economic crisis.
