Fight for women’s right to choose – Pro-choice rally this Saturday

Choice Ireland will hold a Pro Choice Rally at 2pm on Saturday 30th June at Central Bank Plaza, Dame St, Dublin 2. The theme of the rally is “Fight for Women’s Right to Choose”. For further information see the Choice Ireland blog.

US: Seattle students shut down school board — Demanding military recruiters out of schools

By Dylan Simpson and Marianne Mork and Philip Locker

Below is a report of an important Seattle anti-war action against military recruiters in schools, which Socialist Alternative (the CWI in the United States) played an important role in organizing.

“What do we want? Recruiters out! When do we want it? Now!” chanted over 70 antiwar protestors as we marched into to the Seattle School Board meeting Wednesday night. The spirited protest, called by Youth Against War and Racism (YAWR), demanded the school board finally take real action against military recruitment in our schools. As the local TV news King 5 said, it was “intended to be political high theatre, and it certainly was effective.” Another reporter commented: “it was the most dramatic anti-military recruitment rally to date.”

YAWR is calling for military recruiters to be banned from Seattle public schools. But to stay within the legal paramaters of the “No Child Left Behind” law, we are demanding that all recruiting be done at a district-wide recruitment fair once a semester. This would create equity between the access to students that the military, college, and job recruiters have. Currently, military recruiters have a massive budget and a huge advantage over college and job recruiters. A district-wide recruitment fair would also stop military recruiters from carrying out their predatory tactics within our schools and disproportionate targeting of schools that are predominantly made up of poor and minority students.

Student activist Kristin Ebeling said: “Our public schools should not be military recruitment stations for the Iraq war. Instead of wasting $500 billion on a war for oil and empire, we need money for jobs and education.”

High school students, teachers, parents and community activists rallied outside the school board for an hour. With the start of the meeting the rally moved inside, energetically chanting and sitting in at the front of the room. To bring the reality of the war home, some students enacted a “die-in,” lying across the floor covered in blood, while the school board politicians huddled at the side of the room.

Addressing the board and the whole room, Shanay Salas and Ramy Khalil from YAWR then explained our demands to restrict military recruiters. We urged that the board amend its agenda for 10-15 minutes to discuss our proposed policy. Unfortunately, the board refused to discuss our policy, nor would they start the meeting until we ended the sit-in and moved away from the front of the room.

Board member Darlene Flynn condescendingly lectured the students: “This is what democracy looks like, but it’s not what a school board meeting looks like, and we have to have a school board meeting.” This statement, ironically exposing the undemocratic nature of the board, brought loud jeers from the demonstrators. With the protestors holding their ground, the board hurriedly left and reconvened in a back room closed to the public.

This comes against the background of the board refusing to enforce their own policy to restrict military recruiters that was passed two years ago. After a city-wide student walkout of 800 students on April 18 to protest military recruitment, attending numerous school boards meetings and sub-committee meetings, and still having the board refuse to let us speak, we decided to take matters into our own hands and organize a sit-in. However, the meeting could have easily continued if the school board had simply been willing to grant our modest request to discuss our proposed policy at their meeting for 10-15 minutes.

Since the board refused to listen to the public, we decided to continue the meeting and took public testimony from those who had already signed up to testify. A number of school bus drivers spoke about their struggle to unionize to overcome the terrible wages and conditions they face, which the board is refusing to support. While some members of the audience complained that we had disrupted an official board meeting, an overwhelming majority of the crowd voted to support our decision to continue the meeting in defiance of the board members.

While school board members claim that they cannot implement our policy because it would mean losing $40 million a year in federal funds, the fact is that our policy was carefully constructed to remain within the legal confines of the No Child Left Behind law. By restricting military recruiters to a recruitment fair on equal grounds with college and job recruiters, this policy would have absolutely no effect on federal funding.

Wednesday’s school board action was a major success in bringing real pressure to bear on the board and raising the issue of military recruitment in the public consciousness. All the local TV news gave very prominent coverage to the protest (see list of links below). But to win we will need to keep up the pressure on the school board and build an organized, active antiwar movement. This fall YAWR is organizing a major student walkout, which we are trying to spread nationally, to show that business as usual will stop until the military is out of Iraq and out of our schools.

Get active with Youth Against War and Racism and the fight against military recruiters! Please come to the next YAWR meeting on Sunday July 1, 4-6pm, at Uptown Espresso (2504 4th Ave and Wall St.) where we will be planning our next steps.

We want to thank all the organizations that made this protest possible: Nova High School Peace and Justice, Lake Washington High School Peace Club, Renton High School Youth Against War and Racism, Seattle Central Community College Students Against the War, Team Victory, and Socialist Alternative.

Links to Mainstream Media Coverage

KOMO 4 Video coverage (click ‘Watch the Story’ below the picture)

King 5 Video coverage

Seattle Times report

Come to the Socialist Youth Resistance Forum

Dublin: Saturday, July 21st, 12am-5pm, Central Hotel, Exchequer Street, Dublin

Limerick: Saturday, July 21st, 1-5pm, Upstairs in Riddlers Bar on Sarsfield St, Limerick

Galway: Saturday, July 28th (More details soon…)

Cork: Saturday, July 28th (More details soon…)

Click here for more details

The G8 means war, poverty and environmental destruction

 

Socialist Youth leaflet – Available as PDF here.

G8 Hypocrisy

• AID: Of the $60 billion that was pledged for third world countries at the recent G8 summit only $3billion was new money pledged – These are the same leaders that spend $1 trillion annually on the arms trade.

• ENVIRONMENT: Despite the continuing destruction of our environment, the G8 said that they would only ‘consider’ reducing carbon emissions.

• FAIR TRADE: African goods still face enormous tariffs when they try to export goods to places like Europe and America.

• WAR ON IRAQ: Bush and Blair have spent billions on the war in Iraq that has resulted in the death of over 650,000 Iraqis and has forced millions to flee their homes.

G8 and capitalism mean:

• GLOBAL INEQUALITY: 1 billion people worldwide have no access to clean water while the super rich buy designer deodorants worth $30,000 a pop!

• AIDS EPIDEMIC: In some parts of Africa one third of young adults will die of the aids epidemic, major pharmaceutical companies have blocked the production of cheap generic drugs to combat aids which would reduce their cost from $10,000 to $150.

• “FREE TRADE”: In 2003 $4 billion was given to 28,000 big US cotton farmers – This is more than the GDP of the African country Burkino Faso which has 2 million cotton farmers

• ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION: The G8 leaders have failed to achieve the limited targets for cuts in carbon emissions set out by the Kyoto Treaty. One scientist has claimed it would take the equivalent of 30 Kyotos to deal with global warming!

Kevin Carter, a white South African photographer, won a Pulitzer Prize for this photo of a vulture stalking a sudanese baby during the famine. No one knows what happened the child as Carter left the place as soon as the photo was taken. Three months later, Carter committed suicide. Is any more evidence needed as to the brutal reality of capitalism?

The G8 is a club made up of the most powerful capitalist countries worldwide. Under the pressure of ordinary working and young people its leaders were forced two years ago to give commitments to resolve the desperate poverty facing Africa. 250,000 marched in Edinburgh under the slogan ‘Make Poverty History’.

However, the above facts speak for themselves. Even Bob Geldof and Bono were forced to describe the recent G8 summit in Rostock in Germany as a ‘total farce’. They have no intention of resolving the desperate problems of poverty and environmental destruction faced by the majority of the world’s population. The 80,000 people who came to protest against the G8 this time did so to oppose not only their policies but their lies and broken promises as well.

Why won’t the G8 ‘make poverty history’?

Today the top 500 companies gloablly control 70-80% of world trade. These are privately owned and controlled by those who enrich themselves with vast profits at the expense of the needs workers and poor people internationally. This capitalist system leads to war, horrific poverty and is threatening the very existence of humanity itself. G8 leaders like Bush, Blair and Putin are only interested in helping these companies exploit the resources of the‘third world’ as opposed to helping the people who live there. It is this reason and not simply because of a lack of‘political will’(as Bono and Geldof would have us believe) that explains the inaction of the G8 on issues like third world debt, fair trade and aid.

What is the socialist alternative to the capitalist profit system?

Socialist Youth and the Socialist Party participated in the recent protests against the recent G8 summit in Rostock. We reject the that idea celebrities like Bono and Geldof have put forward in the past that the G8 can be used as a force for good.

Workers and young people should be organised internationally in a movement that can oppose the attacks on their living standards and fight for a democratic socialist society. Such a society would bring into democratic public ownership and control the 500 companies that control the world economy.

On this basis it would be possible to prioritise the needs of people and end global inequality through democratic socialist planning of the economy. If you agree with our ideas then join Socialist Youth today.

Britain: Brown’s political coronation – new face, same agenda

From The Socialist (England & Wales)

London has become a tax haven for the world’s billionaires. One British hedge fund manager put it clearly: “I think the super-rich want to have two homes, one in New York and one in London, but if they’re based in New York, they would pay a lot more tax than here.”

The thousand richest people in Britain own half the country’s liquid assets. In the last five years of New Labour government they have seen their wealth increase by 79%, to an average of £70 million per head (excluding first and second homes!).

Meanwhile twelve million people live below the poverty line. Public services are being decimated.

Average mortgage payments have increased by £1,500 in the last year, while food prices increased by at least 6%. The government is demanding public-sector workers accept effective pay cuts.

No wonder Britain’s workers have the longest working hours in Europe, struggling to make ends meet while a few at the top drown in an orgy of unimaginable excess.

This is Britain under Blair. Add in the nightmarish occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and it is no wonder that New Labour were humiliated in this year’s elections and only 22% of the population believe Blair did ‘a good job’.

Millions of workers will greet his departure this week with relief.

Brown, however, will be more of the same. He has spent the last six weeks emphasising the continuity between himself and Blair; promising to increase ‘reform’ (read destruction) of public services.

As chancellor he has been directly responsible both for attacks on public sector pay and the tax-free bonanza being enjoyed by the super-rich.

Brown has also used his pre-coronation period to pose as being even tougher on ‘terror’ than Blair.

He has not, however, indicated any change in Britain’s imperialist foreign policy, which is responsible for making Britain a target.

His proposal to increase the length of time individuals can be held without charge beyond the current, already draconian, 28 days will not effectively combat terrorism, but it will further undermine democratic rights.

Undermining democratic rights

Just as was the case with the Prevention of Terrorism Act (legislation that was supposed to thwart the IRA), the vast majority arrested will be innocent. Under the PTA only 1% of those arrested were convicted of any crime.

Brown’s ‘coronation’ campaign, designed to show that he can out-Blair Blair, has had some effect.

Despite Tory attempts to portray him as a closet socialist, voters on average now consider him to be only minutely ‘left of the centre-ground’ – the ‘centre-ground’ being the standard anti-working class, pro-big business, pro-privatisation policies being pursued by all the establishment parties.

However, Blair is seen as being considerably to the right of ‘centre’.

Despite Brown’s efforts to prove otherwise, there are working-class voters hoping that Brown will act in their interests, or at least slow the pace of New Labour’s attacks. It is this that has led to the small ‘Brown bounce’, which has increased New Labour’s miserable rating by about 3%. Experience of Brown as prime minister will destroy these desperate hopes.

If a feeling rapidly develops that ‘nothing has changed’ a Brown government could quickly face an explosion of all the accumulated discontent of the working class, in the form of industrial action, which the trade union leaders would be powerless to hold back.

One factor in how rapidly events will develop is the timing of the next world economic crisis, which would be likely to hit Britain, now a giant casino for the world’s hedge fund gamblers, particularly hard. Even if the economy continues to grow for a couple more years, and it takes a bit longer for the paint to completely flake off Brown’s ‘respray’ of New Labour, he will still face an increased willingness of the working class to struggle.

New workers’ party

A foretaste of this may come within days, delivered by the postal workers, if their union, the CWU, goes ahead with a strike to defend pay and conditions.

As Brown and Cameron fight a battle to be the best representative of big business, the need for a mass party that stands up for the working class is overwhelming. Some activists continue to hope that New Labour can be ‘reclaimed’ by the working class.

Yet this is shown again to be utopian by Brown’s coronation. He was nominated by 313 of 355 MPs, with left MP John McDonnell unable to win enough parliamentary support even to get on the ballot paper.

Instead a contest is taking place for the virtually powerless position of deputy leader. Even if a left-wing candidate was elected they would be unable to do more than whisper in Brown’s ear.

However, there is no possibility of this happening. All six deputy leadership candidates nominated Brown for leader, revealing that, far from representing workers’ interests, their priorities lie first and foremost with furthering their own careers.

In the hope of winning ordinary trade unionists’ backing, some have made attacks on the obscene wealth at the top of British society.

However, even Jon Cruddas MP, who has gone furthest – stating the obvious truth that New Labour has ignored the working class and lost five million voters as a result – was quick to deny that he supported any concrete increase in taxation of the rich.

Since 1997 more than £100 million of trade union members’ money has been paid to New Labour. The majority of national trade union leaders continue to argue that this is to influence New Labour. This will be just as utopian under Brown as it was under Blair.

The majority of even those MPs directly sponsored by trade unions have voted against the most minimal of the trade unions’ demands.

A majority of them even opposed, for example, the introduction of a Trade Union Freedom Bill which would repeal some of the worst aspects of Thatcher’s anti-trade union laws.

The Campaign for a New Workers’ Party, fighting for the breaking of the link between the trade unions and New Labour, and the establishment of a new mass party of the working class, will be crucial under Brown’s reign.

Wealth gap widens

The wealth of the richest 1,000 people in Britain has more than trebled under Brown’s stewardship. They had an income between them of £360 billion in 2006, which was £59 billion more than the previous year, an increase of 20%.

Britain’s 54 billionaires last year paid only £14.7 million tax – just 0.1% of their incomes! The poorest fifth of the population pay nearly 10% of their income in direct taxes, and another 28% in indirect taxation.

Corporation tax on companies since 1997 has been cut from 33p to 28p.

Warmonger

Being known as ‘Mr Prudent’ hasn’t stopped Gordon Brown wasting £76 billion of public funds on a replacement for the Trident nuclear missile programme.

He has also dug deep (£7.4 billion up to April 2007) to finance the bloody wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Privatisation

Brown has made it absolutely clear he will continue with Blair’s privatising policies.

He will accelerate ‘reform’ in the NHS, and has earmarked another £50 million worth of public assets for privatisation.

£5 billion annually is currently handed over to private contractors, for treatment centres, GP services, etc.

Attacks on public sector

Many public-sector workers are raging at Brown’s 2% wage limit, effectively a pay cut. Other battles are looming, such as against Royal Mail plans to axe 40,000 jobs and close a further 2,500 post offices.

200,000 civil servants were forced to take strike action on 1 May against huge job cuts, privatisation and pay cuts. Brown has spear-headed the attacks on the civil service. In 2004 he announced the axing of 104,000 civil service jobs.

Public sector occupational pensions have been attacked. Many face having to work longer, pay more in contributions and receive smaller pensions.

Pensions

In 1997 Brown gave big business the green light to cut workers’ occupational pension schemes. Companies also took massive ‘pension holidays’ – they stopped paying employers’ contributions – saving them £4,000 a worker every year.

A top UK company director can retire at 60 on a final-salary pension of £3 million. Whereas a majority of UK workers face retirement at 65 or later on inadequate pensions; a single person’s state pension is a paltry £84.25 a week.

Brown’s own pension will more than double when he becomes prime minister, to £123,000 a year.

Bolivia: For the right wing, it is vital to control the universities

By Cunche Campos in Cochabamba, Bolivia

Friday 15 June was a day filled with violence at the campus of the university, Universidad Mayor de San Simon de Cochabamba.

A battle took place between the students organised in the student organisation ‘Universitarios de la Federación Universitaria Local’ (FUL) and hired thugs in the service of the office of the Prefect and a small group of right-wing students.

Why is it so important for the right wing to maintain its control of the university?

The elite needs to keep control over society and enables them to maintain the capitalist system. Education, now and in the past, is a central element in maintaining the dominance of the ruling class. The majority of people who graduate from these institutions come out ready formed and conditioned to keep on reproducing the capitalist system.

For the right wing the best way to maintain this domination is to give the impression that democracy and participation exists while the fundamental reality is totally different. But when the class struggle heats up, like is the case in Bolivia today, all the contradictions come out into the open and become more obvious. The right wing, confronted with this situation, quickly loses its democratic mask and shows its real face.

It is also true that for those who are part of the entourage around the university defending the system gives them the possibility (through corruption) to get access to enormous amounts of money which they get paid in the form of salaries or which they simply rob.

The elections for the Chancellor and vice-Chancellor are a farce.

The university administration pretends to organise democratic elections for the positions of Chancellor and vice-Chancellor of the university. In reality it is an anti-democratic election, the votes of 55 students have the same value as the vote of one lecturer, yet the administration has the nerve to label this as a democratic election. For years the students have been demanding that these weighted elections be replaced by free and democratic elections in which every vote has the same value. The university administration has simply refused to take the demands of the students into account.

Clearly the elections for the Chancellor and vice Chancellor are a farce and the only thing that the administration wants to do through these ‘elections’ is to give fake legitimacy to something which is totally anti-democratic and illegitimate. When the administration and its hangers on saw that the students would not accept these kinds of elections any longer they decided that the hour had struck to drop the democratic mask.

The hour of the thugs and of repression had arrived

The administration, together with the Prefecture (which has no business interfering at the university) prepared to impose the elections and mobilised its thugs to physically attack and beat up the students who were against the elections. The members of the FUL had no other choice than to defend themselves against this aggression, which led to a pitched battle all over the campus and in the buildings of the university.

The right wing came prepared to crush the students and brought different weapons to the campus: clubs, sticks of dynamite, firecrackers, powerful noise grenades, Molotov cocktails, bottles and stones and, as we have learned from the written press, several amongst them had fire arms. The only thing the thugs did not expect was that the students were equally prepared for a confrontation. The struggle lasted all day, from morning ‘til nightfall.

The thugs hired by the administration stripped the university bare.

Finally the students won the battle and saved the university only to discover the terrible state in which it had been left.

The offices of the students’ organisation had been totally destroyed including all that was in them: computers, photocopiers and documents. Some of the faculty building suffered the same fate which demonstrates the type of people who had been contracted by the administration and the right wing to impose its elections; these were basically thugs, thieves, gangsters and people without any morals at all.

The class struggle is becoming sharper in Bolivia

The right wing is not prepared to give up its privileges. It is hiring thugs to intimidate the social movements and put a break on their aspirations for change. The social movements thought that with the election of Evo Morales their situation would change for the better, but, until now, a bit more than a year after his elections, this has not been the case. As a consequence the contradictions are sharpening day after day.

The right wing, on the other hand, is clearly preparing and armed to defend its interests and they do not hesitate to hire gangsters and thugs to do their dirty work for them.

The necessity to organise defence committees

The events last Friday 15 June and the events on the 24 and 25 of May in the central square of Cochabamba, ‘Plaza de 14 de Septiembre’, when thugs beat up whoever opposed the policies of the right wing have demonstrated that it is urgent that all the social activists and different campaigns begin to discuss the necessity to organise Defence Committees. As the name implies these committees will have as its task to defend the social movement against the attacks from the Prefect and his hirelings.

We cannot accept the violent repression organised by the right wing and we need to continue our struggle for social change that the workers, peasants, indigenous people, the poor townspeople and students need with urgency.

Long live the struggle for a world without poverty and inequality!

Long live the struggle for Socialism.

Palestine: Hamas and Fatah go to war

By Kevin Simpson

After bloody clashes with militias linked to Fatah and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the Islamic organisation Hamas took control of the Gaza strip on Thursday 13 June.

Sensationalised media headlines across the world described this as ‘civil war’, yet the vast majority of Palestinians took no part in the clashes. Instead, this was a struggle for power between Hamas and Fatah and had little to do with ‘Palestinian national unity’, despite the claims of both sides. And as usual, it was the majority of Palestinians, the impoverished working and middle class, who suffered the consequences. On this occasion, 120 people died and there were over 500 casualties, many of them civilians.

During the Gaza fighting, Palestinian civilians faced possible death if they went out on the streets. There was no access to food and water. Gaza’s hospitals became a battleground for the two militias as their gunmen stalked the corridors and wards looking to execute their wounded opponents.

The majority of Palestinians were terrified. The latest clashes piled even more despair on a desperate population. Despite these conditions, as television footage showed, a heroic minority were prepared to come out on the streets to disarm militia men with their bare hands! If large independent Palestinian working class organisations existed in Gaza, they could have organised such actions on a mass scale which could have held back the militias from taking over the streets.

US imperialism and the regional capitalist powers have shown out-and-out hypocrisy in their response, decrying the ‘Hamas’ coup’. They rushed to defend Fatah, the same organisation which in previous years they described as ‘terrorist’. The Bush administration demanded ‘democracy’ in the Middle East. When the Palestinians elected Hamas to power in a free and fair election, US imperialism, working with the undemocratic Saudi Arabian dictatorship, did its utmost to remove it from power.

US imperialism encouraged armed clashes between Fatah and Hamas militias by providing $80 million in weapons for President Abbas’s own militia. As the recently retired UN envoy to the Middle East, Alvaro de Soto, explained in a leaked confidential report to his superiors: “The US clearly pushed for a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas, so much so that, a week before Mecca, the US envoy declared twice in an envoys meetings in Washington how much ‘I like this violence’, referring to the near civil-war that was erupting in Gaza” (Guardian, 18 June 2007).

Repercussions

The repercussions of Hamas’s defeat of Fatah in Gaza will exponentially add to tensions across the region. Western imperialism is now faced with an unfolding nightmare. US imperialism and the reactionary Arab elite in Egypt and Saudi Arabia regard Hamas’ victory as strengthening their enemies in the region: the Syrian and Iranian regimes.

Who talks of peace now? Who even remembers the Oslo peace accords signed by the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1993 and supported by the US government, which most capitalist commentators said would lead to the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? See what happens if you mention Bush’s 2003 ‘road map to peace’. Palestinians will point to the photo galleries of their young loved ones, cut down in the prime of life, casualties of the murderous, imperialist-backed occupation by the Israeli military.

Every time imperialist and regional capitalist politicians come up with a new proposal, none of the real problems of national oppression and mass poverty are actually addressed. In fact they get worse.

But these events have their roots in the Israeli ruling class’s oppression of the Palestinian people which began with the driving out of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 when Israel was created. This suffering was multiplied by the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, in the 1967 Israeli-Arab Six Day War whose fortieth anniversary passed just a few days ago.

In the intervening years, so-called ‘peace’ agreements have been designed to insitutionalise the oppression of the Palestinians. This is because capitalism cannot afford the political and financial costs of genuine Palestinian liberation. The Oslo accords which led to the formation of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) installed Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement which led the PLO into power, as the outsourced local jailers of the Palestinian people. Since Fatah’s defeat, sections of the Israeli media have described Gaza as ‘Hamastan’ and blame ‘Islamic terrorists’. But commentators conveniently forget to mention that the Israeli secret services supported Hamas after it was founded in 1987 in order to undermine its stronger rival at the time, the PLO.

Insitutionalise oppression

So-called subsequent ‘peace’ agreements have been designed to institutionalise Palestinian oppression. This is because capitalism and imperialism cannot afford the political and financial costs of genuine Palestinian liberation. The Oslo accords which led to the formation of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) installed the Yasser Arafat led PLO in power. However, the PLO leadership rapidly lost authority amongst Palestinians because of endemic corruption, spiralling poverty and no abatement of Israeli military attacks. This led to a growth in support for Hamas, which was seen as a more honest alternative to Fatah.

Despite ‘peace’ agreements, Israeli settlement of the West Bank increased by 50% from 1992-96. Palestinian areas were subdivided and separated from each other and Palestinian workers were barred from Israel, further increasing poverty. There are now 450 Israeli military roadblocks and 70 permanent checkpoints in the West Bank. This is in an area one-third the size of greater London!

Under pressure from US imperialism, Palestinian President Abbas called elections in January 2006. To the horror of the Bush regime, Hamas won as the PLO was punished for years of corruption and its inability to halt Israeli capitalism’s military onslaught.

Ever since then, US imperialism, the EU powers and Israeli capitalism have implemented collective punishment on the Palestinians for ‘voting the wrong way’. The intention was to force out the Hamas government. The Israeli regime withheld $800 million in tax receipts that were owed to the Palestinian government. The EU and US cut off economic aid. At the same time the Israeli military continued a bombardment against Gaza and the West Bank killing over 700 Palestinians.

All Hamas had to offer its electorate was anti-imperialist and anti-Fatah rhetoric, and the memory of its armed attacks on Israeli civilians. While the CWI supports the right of the Palestinians to defend themselves, we do not support military attacks on Israeli civilian workers and young people, which drive them into the arms of the most reactionary political forces in Israel.

Last year’s Palestinian public sector workers’ strike against non-payment of wages indicated the pressure on Hamas. Pressure from Arab elites in the region – from an opposite standpoint – led to the formation of a “national unity” government made up of Hamas and the PLO in February this year. But the new government solved none of the terrible problems Palestinians face daily.

Oxfam, the campaigning charity, reported on the day of the Hamas take-over that 1 family in 15 has debts greater than $25,000. A Palestinian school headmaster only earns $9,000 a year! Society is disintegrating. One of the only growth industries is kidnapping. Young people turn to crime or join the militias to survive.

Now Palestine consists of two statelets, one controlled by Hamas, in Gaza, and the other, on he West Bank, supported by Israel, the US and EU, with Fatah as the major force. Given the terrible and deteriorating social and economic situation, more conflict is on the agenda.

Abbas has dissolved the unity government, declared a ’state of emergency’ and installed Salam Fayyad, its former World Bank-trained finance minister as the new prime minister. Yet Fayyad’s party list only received 2.4% in the recent general elections. Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister has insisted that the old government will remain in power. Once again the hypocrisy of US imperialism and other western powers on the issue of ‘democracy’ is exposed for all to see, by their desire to support an unelected Fatah regime against the elected Hamas.

It is not clear whether Hamas will attempt to attack Fatah offices and leaders in the West Bank or step up rocket attacks on southern Israel. While the evidence suggests that Hamas carefully planned its takeover, as in its January 2006 election victory, its leaders were surprised by the ease with which it was accomplished.

“Dahlan Rice”

This is because many Fatah militia men were paid fighters and not ideologically motivated. During the armed confrontations Fatah organisations in Gaza fractured, with big sections going over to Hamas. Fatah fighters had no real confidence in their leaders, some of whom were renowned for their acceptance of Israeli domination, corruption and links with criminal gangs in the Strip. Principal among these was Dahlan, who many young people in Gaza nicknamed “Dahlan Rice”, after the US Secretary of State, Condolezza Rice.

Following the Hamas takeover, local Fatah leaders have announced a new interim committee to lead the organisation in Gaza, condemning the “collaborators” who used to head the organisation and claiming that Hamas would not harm “good” Fatah members. Incredibly, other Fatah hardliners have described the same individuals as part of the “mutiny trend” who capitulated to Hamas. On 18 June former Fatah secretary in Gaza Husam ‘Udwan, called for the formation of an emergency committee to punish Muhammad Dahlan for this ‘crime’.

It is not clear to what extent Hamas will apply strict Islamic law. Despite claims by Hamas spokespeople last Thursday that Gaza was an Islamic state, it is more likely that they will tread carefully.

However much the Hamas leadership boast about the ease of their victory, the measures they take will be based on how much support they think they have amongst the Palestinians people. Hamas leaders understand that this has fallen in the last few months. They are aware they do not have the same extent of grass roots support, for example, as Hezbollah does amongst the Shiah community in southern Lebanon. One initiative they could take is to strive to obtain the release of Alan Johnston, the kidnapped BBC journalist, to broaden their support.

But as is the case across the Middle East, no one force is able to determine events. Other Islamic-based militias could carry out rocket attacks on Israel, leading to a ground incursion into Gaza, or the Israeli military could carry out pre-emptive strikes. During the armed clashes between Fatah and Hamas, Israel tank fire killed five Palestinians, four of them children, east of Rafah (Ma’an News Agency, 16 June 2007).

The immediate calls for an ‘international force’ to be stationed in Gaza have evaporated into thin air. This would be a suicide mission for any country involved. It may be the case that some sort of UN force could be deployed along the Gaza-Egyptian border, but this would also be risky for the countries involved.

Tension has increased as the Israeli regime has cut off fuel supplies to all outlets except the main power station. There are press reports that the new defence minister in the Israeli government, Ehud Barak, is calling for a ground invasion of 20,000 Israeli troops to wipe out militias firing rockets on southern Israel. This is not the most likely immediate outcome, since the Israeli military want to avoid a repeat of the debacle they faced in Lebanon in Summer 2006, when they committed ground troops to “destroy Hezbollah”. They fear an “Israeli Baghdad” or as some of the Israeli press have said a “Palestinian Mogadishu”. The latter refers to the takeover of Somalia’s capital by militias in the 1990s which subsequently led to the retreat of US and Pakistani forces stationed there under a UN mandate. However, new Israeli military incursion into Gaza cannot be ruled out in the next few months, especially if rocket attacks continue.

Under these circumstances the impression is given that workers and young people across the region can do nothing. But the alternative is a further drift into bloody conflict. In fact the conditions are there for a struggle against capitalism and poverty on both sides of the national divide.

Independent working class movement

Like many Palestinians, the CWI does not support the political positions of either Fatah or Hamas leadership. Unfortunately recent developments have proved embarrassing for some left groups internationally who have supported both of these organisations over the years. Hamas’ politics, although couched in anti-imperialistic rhetoric, is hostile to the workers’ movement and socialism. Their military attacks on Israeli civilians are incorrect and counter-productive. Fatah policies have zig-zagged over the years between exerting diplomatic pressure on the imperialist powers to grant Palestinian national liberation or carrying out armed attacks against Israeli civilians. As the present situation in the Palestinian areas shows, none of these tactics has worked. Only an independent working class movement on both sides of the national divide offers a way forward for the region. If a mass movement of Palestininas had developed in Gaza and the West Bank, in opposition to the murderous tactics of the Fatah and Hamas militias and demanding fundamental social change and defending the rights of all nationalities, this would have had a massive effect in Israel.

For it is not just amongst the Palestinians that there is a deep discontent with the ruling class. The Israeli elite has never had such a lack of authority in their history. The army chief had to be replaced because of its Lebanon defeat. The finance minister faces accusations of siphoning money off from a charity which organises tours of concentration camp sites in Europe. Olmert, the prime minister, has only 1-2% support. There is unprecedented wealth polarisation in the Israeli population. Neo-liberal economic policies, including wide-scale privatisation has led to a backlash with 59% of the population now supporting a “socialist economy” (ie, in this case, a desire to return to the pre-cuts welfare state) according to a poll from the Israeli Institute for Democracy.

An opinion poll by Near East Consulting, one week before the latest Gaza clashes, showed that 50% of Palestinians trusted neither Abbas or Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister. Over 60% think that rocket attacks have no positive effects.

Imperialism has nothing to offer Palestinians and Israelis alike but more suffering. Hopes for a UN-mediated solution will be sorely disappointed. But other ‘capitalist’ solutions will also founder. Recently there have been suggestions in the Western media that perhaps a ‘three’ state solution should be put forward. Or perhaps the incorporation of the West Bank into a federation with Jordan? However, the latter has been proposed before. It would not be accepted by the Jordanian ruling elite because of the instability it would build into the foundations of the country. Neither would the Palestinians accept being swallowed up by a regime renowned for its discrimination, lack of democracy and brutality. What none of these ’solutions’ explain is how the genuine desires for a decent life for all Palestinians and genuine national liberation will be fulfilled. The failure to do this has led to decades of conflict.

The majority of Israelis and Palestinians have no trust in their ruling elites solving the present conflict. Movements based on the interests of the majority on both sides of the national divide need to be built, dedicated to the overthrow of the capitalist system that perpetuates division and conflict.

We demand

Ma’avak Sotzialisti, the Israeli section of the CWI, is helping to build such movements. They are calling for:

– An end to Israeli military operations in the West Bank and Gaza and the withdrawal of all Israeli forces from those territories.

- Stop the international embargo of the Palestinian Authority.

- For the building of direct links between community groups and workers on both sides of the national divide.

- For the building of democratic and independent workers’ parties in both Palestine and Israel.

- For the overthrow of capitalism and the building of a socialist confederation of the Middle East, with a socialist Palestine alongside a socialist Israel.

Eyewitness reports from the G8 protests in Rostock

80,000 march against the G8

By Conor Payne

Around 80,000 people from across Germany and internationally gathered in Rostock to protest against the recent G8 summit, opposing the neo-liberal agenda of the G8 leaders, which has led to massive poverty throughout the underdeveloped world, increasingly bloody occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq and a global environmental crisis.

Although the huge demonstration of 2 June consisted of a vast majority of peaceful protesters, the media focused its attention on the minor skirmishes between police and a small number of protesters. On 4 June, a protest in defence of immigrants’ rights was declared illegal by the police. Despite this, the use of disciplined tactics to defend the demonstration allowed it to go ahead. On 6 June, 10,000 protesters succeeded in breaking through police lines and blockading the G8, forcing the opening of the summit to be postponed.

The hypocrisy of the G8 leaders like Bush and Blair who are responsible for the deaths of 650,000 Iraqis was exposed at the summit when they condemned the anti-G8 protesters for being violent! The levels of police aggression against demonstrators throughout the summit were enormous, with 15,000 police being mobilised into the city and tear gas and water cannons being used against the protesters. On two occasions, the police surrounded the anti-G8 campsite to intimidate activists.

The protests against the G8 were successful in once again bringing masses of people on to the streets in opposition to capitalist policies. However, it was unfortunate that the German trade union movement did not mobilise significantly for the protests. This could have helped in showing demonstrators and the wider world, the power of working class people to challenge the policies of the G8 and to challenge the profit system.

 

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Protesting against the G8 an eyewitness report

By Paddy Meehan

ens of thousands, including a delegation from the Socialist Party in Ireland, travelled to Rostock in Germany to take part in the protests against the G8 summit. Over 80,000 people took part in the main demonstration on Saturday 2 June against the G8’s policies of racism, poverty, war and exploitation.

The Socialist Party delegation joined with members of our sister organisations in Europe in the Committee for a Workers International (CWI) contingent at the protests. The CWI was one of the most colourful and lively contingents on the main demonstrations. It included a famous German rapper who led raps against Bush and the rest of the capitalist system! Our call for a socialist alternative to the system the G8 represents was enthusiastically welcomed by nearly everyone who read our material. We pointed to an ongoing struggle by German telecommunication workers as an example of wider struggles that are now taking place against exploitation.

A few weeks before the start of the protests the police had raided a number of left wing centres and offices. This attempt to disrupt the preparations for anti-G8 protests had the opposite effect as ticket sales to Rostock increased.

Leading up to the main protests the gutter media carried sensationalist headlines of terrorist attacks and mass riots. When the vast majority of the demonstrations were peaceful, the police had to justify their heavy-handed tactics by blowing out of proportion a number of small scale clashes that took place. The use of violence by a small section of protesters was used by the state to justify further repression and try to alienate people who would have been sympathetic to the protests.

The German state utilised 16,000 police, 1,000’s of soldiers, water cannons, tear gas and a huge fence around the summit costing €12.5 million. All of these tools of repression failed miserably in the face of determined demonstrators.

More than 10,000 people managed to get past this massive police force to blockade three roads, a highway and an airport to stop the G8. After a skirmish through wheat fields and past water cannon, the CWI contingent was able to take up the front line in blockading Börgerender Street (an alternative road to the summit). The blockades were a huge embarrassment for the police and the organisers of the G8. It later spurred them on to violently break up the highway and airport blockades and ram a Greenpeace boat.

The blockades were an embarrassment to the G8 organisers and to Bush and his buddies. This was a symbolic victory against these leaders who cannot bring about any real change as they are linked by a thousand strings to the system of capitalism that allows 665,000 Iraqis to be killed in the pursuit of oil profits.

Supposedly the main issue up for discussion at the summit was climate change. Before the summit even began the Bush administration vetoed a token document on cutting carbon emissions.

Since the failure of the Make Poverty History campaign at the G8 summit in Scotland in 2005 the only people who had any illusions in the G8 were Bono and Geldof. Poverty in African countries has actually got worse since Edinburgh – as in Uganda where international “aid” was given on the proviso that the government privatise its water supplies. Only when decisions on how to use the resources of the world are taken by the people they affect and not by eight representatives of the rich and powerful behind closed doors will the real problems of this society be dealt with.

If we want to end the problems of poverty and environmental destruction, we need an alternative to the system of capitalism. At workshops and discussions hosted by the CWI, we argued for a socialist world and debated how this could be achieved in sessions ranging from events in Latin America to the ideas of Leon Trotsky. It is important to oppose the G8, but, on its own, this is not enough – we need to put forward and build support for a socialist alternative to the neo liberal agenda set out by Bush, Blair and co.

 

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Broken promises – G8 leaders have nothing to offer

By Michael O’Brien

It’s two years since Gleneagles, Scotland, where the G8 leaders went out on a limb to give the impression that they would fundamentally deal with the issue of debt and development in Africa. Some, like Bono and Bob Geldof, were happy to give Bush, Blair and friends the benefit of the doubt.

However those of us with no illusions in these war criminals have had our suspicions proven correct as less than half of what was promised in Gleneagles has been delivered. Most of what has been delivered in terms of “aid” is tied to countries in Africa putting up with disadvantaged terms of trade and opening their public services to the capitalist market. Even Bob Geldof was forced to describe this G8 gathering “a farce” after the broken promises.

The G8 leaders play fast and lose with figures, figures that add up to the lives of millions. Their promises to provide assistance to people suffering with HIV/AIDs in Africa was based on a presumption that five million are suffering from the disease in Africa whereas any aid agency will tell you that the real figure is ten million plus.

The sell out on climate change is as stark. Bush made it clear that he would not agree to any cuts in CO2 emissions that would impact on US multinational profits in the short term. In the end the G8 agreed in a “non binding communiqué” to reduce CO2 emissions by 50% by 2050. “Non binding communiqué” means that there will be no enforcement of this target and no consequences on the G8 leaders if it is not met. Even if these targets were met it would not be enough to save the planet from the irreversible effects of global warming. To do that would mean cutting CO2 emissions by something in the order of 90% by 2030.

What is clear is that the initiative for combating debt and global warming cannot be left to these leaders who only demonstrate a mock concern over these issues. The mass protests in Rostock that disrupted the G8 meeting despite the police repression shows that the Bush, Blair & Co. agenda will not go unchallenged by socialists.

North: Stop the deportation of Lordorice Djountso!

By Cassie McKeever

Lordorice Djountso, a Cameroonian asylum seeker who has been living in Belfast for two years, was this week granted another reprieve in her battle for refugee status.

Lordorice is claiming asylum based on persecution following a dispute with a chief which resulted in the murder of her brothers, her brutal rape and her family’s violent eviction. The Home Office have refused her claim, like so many others, due to a lack of evidence – despite a diagnosis of severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

A draconian new law effective from January 2005 means that her 15 month old daughter, who has never stepped foot in Cameroon, also faces deportation to the country where she is at risk of brutal practises like female genital mutilation and breast ironing.

Despite repeated attempts to illegally remove the pair without adequate vaccination, a grass-roots campaign for her return from detention has been uncommonly successful. She is, for now, back in her South Belfast home, having received widespread support from the local community, media and even establishment political parties. She faces removal in July so the campaign to have the deportation order rescinded must be stepped up.

Justice for Terence Wheelock!

From The Socialist

Over two years have now passed since the arrest and detention of 22-year-old Terence Wheelock, which led to his death. He was brought to Store Street Garda Station on 2 June 2005, and within three hours was found unconscious in his cell. He never recovered and died on 16 September.

The Gardai have claimed he hung himself, yet all the evidence suggests that this is a cover-up. The family’s demand for a public inquiry has been refused, and the internal Garda investigation is led by a Guard who worked in Store St. for 15 years.

From the moment of his death, the Gardai have consistently impeded the attempts of his family to discover what happened. It took them nine and a half minutes after his body was discovered to ring the ambulance, and Terence was moved from the cell while unconscious by the Gardai. They drove Terence’s mother to St. James’ hospital, when Terence was actually in the Mater. However, Terence’s brother went to the Mater, where he found the Gardai taking Terence’s bloodstained clothes away.

The Gardai’s claim that Terence hung himself just doesn’t stand up. Terence was by all accounts a happy individual, who loved life and was not suffering from depression.

They consistently refused to hand over Terence’s clothes for examination. A forensic pathologist from Britain, Dr. Carl Gray who has now examined the clothes has found that there’s no logical explanation for the blood on the clothing and that it wasn’t consistent with a “hanging”. Despite a court order to preserve Terence’s cell for examination, it was renovated before it could be examined.

The strong local support for the campaign for a public inquiry is clear. A protest to mark the second anniversary of his arrest was attended by over 500 people.

Terence’s tragic case yet again highlights the unaccountable nature of the Gardai. They operate as a law unto themselves, defending the interests of big business while trampling over the rights of working class people. It brings into sharp relief the need for a police force under the democratic control of the communities they’re meant to serve.