He said at least 15 shacks were burnt down in Kanana, Tembisa.

Ralidhivha, who could be heard shouting orders, said he was deploying more police officers on Saturday afternoon to respond to reports of disturbances.

He said foreigners were still "trickling into" Rabie Ridge police station in Tembisa to seek protection.

In Thokoza on the East Rand, six people were arrested on Friday night for public violence, police said. Spokesman Captain Mega Ndobe said two shacks had been burnt down and a number of people were injured in the incident.

He said at least 50 foreigners had sought refuge at Thokoza police station, but that relative calm had been restored to the area by Saturday afternoon.

Meanwhile, the situation in Diepsloot continued to be "tense and uncontrollable", police said on Saturday.

Captain Louise Reed said extensions one and six were still volatile, with residents setting alight uncollected garbage in the streets. "The residents are starting fires in the street and lighting up the garbage that has not been collected," she said.

Meanwhile, the chairperson of the Community Policing Forum, Samuel Seale, said foreigners continued to flee from Diepsloot on Friday night as residents took to the street and burnt foreigners' household goods and clothes.

However, he said the situation on Saturday morning appeared calm but he feared tensions would rise when people return from taverns in the afternoon.

Protest march
Socialist organisations said in Johannesburg on Saturday that South Africa's working class is turning its anger against immigrants instead of the "true enemy", the capitalists.

The organisations, attending a march organised by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), agreed that foreigners and South Africans should unite against the problems of underdevelopment.

About 200 people had joined Cosatu and other left-wing organisations at the Library Gardens in the Johannesburg CBD to protest against recent xenophobic attacks in Gauteng, the situation in Zimbabwe and soaring food prices.

Holding Cosatu banners saying "Africans united", protesters sang struggle songs and listened to speeches.

South African National Civics Organisation president Mlungisi Hlongwane said: "The issue of xenophobia should end and it should end now." He called for "man-made boundaries" of countries to be "demolished" to ensure all Africans free movement through the countries.

"Let us unite," he said. "African people should understand that we are all brothers and sisters."

The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) handed out pamphlets saying a divided working class would win nothing but more than exploitation and oppression. Referring to the "crisis" of housing in South Africa, the ZACF said: "A battle between South Africans and immigrants over who gets the houses will only prolong the crisis."

The organisation Keep Left blamed the government for underdevelopment, saying it has been slow to meet its promises. "If government had kept their promises to deliver houses and jobs, then no one would be fighting over this."

Keep Left said the government should have set an example "long ago" about treating immigrants as "brothers and sisters", adding: "They were not loud enough condemning police attacks on immigrants in the Johannesburg Central Methodist church."

Dissent
The organisations Spartacist, a section of the international communist league, expressed a different opinion on South Africa's underdevelopment issues.

While most organisations present at the march supported Cosatu, Spartacist characterised the union federation as "pro-capitalist misleaders" and the ANC as "bourgeois".

"It is the ANC, SACP, Cosatu tripartite alliance government that overseas neo-apartheid capitalism under which the overwhelming majority are locked in grinding poverty and black people remain at the bottom," it said in a pamphlet.

Spartacist said ANC president Jacob Zuma has cloaked the crackdown on immigrants with "empty words of sympathy", while police are regularly showing xenophobia themselves, encouraging mob attacks such as those in Alexandra this past week.

The ZACF also said police are "no friends of immigrants", referring to the Central Methodist church crackdown earlier this year, in which Zimbabwean refugees who had taken shelter at the church were arrested. Police were accused of brutality at the time.

"[The police] is the force of repression that randomly takes people of the streets ... checking for ID [identity] books and papers as they checked passes under the old regime," the organisation said.

The marchers left the Library Gardens heading for the Checkers supermarket at about noon to hand over a memorandum expressing concern about high food prices.

From there they were expected to march to the Department of Home Affairs office to hand over another memorandum supporting freedom and democracy in Zimbabwe.

After faithfully funding the war in Iraq for more than five years, the US House of Representatives voted Thursday, for the first time ever, against a so-called supplemental appropriations bill to pay for the fighting to continue.

Far from this decision signaling any Congressional rebellion against the war policy of the Bush administration, however, the bill’s defeat was—from the standpoint of the House Democratic leadership—an unanticipated and unwelcome political detour, precipitated by the Republicans.

The funding measure provided $162.5 billion to pay for the US wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan into the summer of 2009—several months after Bush leaves office and the next president takes control of the White House. When it was put to a vote, 132 Republicans sat on their hands, answering “present.” As a result, it went down to defeat by a narrow margin, with 141 voting in favor and 149 against.

Among those supporting the war-funding measure were 85 Democrats, who, together with the House Republicans, had been expected to assure its easy passage.

The vote had been elaborately and cynically choreographed by the House Democratic leadership with the aim of allowing the party’s members to register an empty protest against the war, while assuring that the money was approved to keep the war going.

Moreover, the Democratic leadership had bundled together funding for fiscal 2008 and 2009 in a single package in order to avoid another politically embarrassing vote to fund the war on the eve of the November elections.

To expedite this process, the legislation was carved into three separate measures, each to be voted on separately. The first was the war funding itself, the second a nonbinding call for US troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by December 2009, and the third a package of domestic spending proposals, including a major expansion of GI Bill benefits for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

This allowed Democrats seeking to placate the overwhelming antiwar sentiment in the American public to vote against paying for the war and for the toothless withdrawal plan, while “supporting the troops” with the GI bill measure. Moreover, they believed they could so without any fear of actually cutting off war funding, counting on a solid bloc of Republicans joined by a sufficient number of Democrats to assure passage of the funding measure.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California) was among those voting against the war funding, even after she had worked out the political mechanisms that she had counted on to get the money approved.

The House Republican leadership, however, balked at playing their assigned role in this charade. Doubtless seeking to score some political points in the wake of a string of three disastrous by-elections in which previously safe Republican congressional seats have been lost to Democrats, they decided to throw a monkey-wrench into the works.

Their abstention produced the odd spectacle of Democratic leaders denouncing the Republicans for failing to support the war.

“With today’s vote, the Republicans have shown that they are confused and are in disarray,” said an irate Speaker Pelosi. “House Republicans refused to pay for a war they support.”

“Republicans had the choice—fund the troops or don’t fund the troops. They voted present,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Democrat, Maryland).

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois sounded the same theme, stating, “You can’t say something is the critical battle of our time and vote present. Explain that to the troops.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner (Republican, Ohio) responded to the Democratic indictments. “It was a political scheme,” he said. “We wanted to expose it, and we did.”

The Republicans took their own action, confident that the Democratic-led Senate will take up the war-spending measure next week and restore the money that was voted down Thursday in the House as well as strip the nonbinding troop-withdrawal language from the legislation. A “clean” war-funding appropriations bill will then be sent back to the House, where the Republicans will vote for it.

Less clear is what will happen with the GI Bill expansion and other domestic measures that have been attached to the supplemental spending legislation. Thirty-two House Republicans joined with Democrats in a 256-166 vote to approve the measure.

The GI Bill proposal would cover costs for veterans who have served for at least three years on active duty to attend any state university, while granting an additional housing stipend. The total cost of the program has been estimated at $52 billion. The House version proposed funding this measure by imposing a surtax of less than half a percentage point on income over $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for couples.

This populist tax-the-rich proposal is almost certain to be killed in the Senate, where Democratic as well as Republican leaders have voiced objections to implementing any new taxation. “I support it personally, but that doesn’t mean it’s going anywhere,” Senator Richard Durbin, the Illinois Democrat and Minority Whip, said of the tax plan.

Other domestic measures attached to the bill include a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits as well as funding for international food aid, the rebuilding of the New Orleans levees, federal prisons and the 2010 census.

The troop withdrawal amendment to the spending measure passed by a vote of 227 to 196, largely along party lines, but with eight Republicans joining the Democratic majority.

Significantly, as with previous legislation and similar to the proposals put forward by Democratic presidential candidates Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the language provides for the continued deployment of US troops in Iraq after December 2009 for purposes of “protecting the diplomatic facilities, Armed Forces, and citizens of the United States in Iraq,” “training of, equipping, and providing logistical and intelligence support to, Iraqi security forces” and “engaging in targeted counterterrorism operations.”

Such a scheme would involve the indefinite occupation of the country by tens of thousands of American troops and the continued bombing and killing of Iraqi civilians by US forces for years to come.

Other provisions in this amendment include an anti-torture measure demanding that US intelligence agencies limit their interrogation techniques to methods authorized in the US Army Field manual. This too is expected to be removed from the version approved by the Senate, where it would almost inevitably face a Republican filibuster.

Also included are provisions limiting the length of deployments in Iraq to 365 days for members of the US Army and 210 days for members of the Marine Corps, while providing so-called dwell time outside of the combat zones of equal length between deployments.

Combined with these proposals are a series of reactionary measures that underscore the Democrats’ complicity with the dirty colonial-style war to subjugate Iraq. One prohibits the US government from negotiating any agreement that would place US military forces under the jurisdiction of Iraqi laws or courts. Others demand that the Iraqi government match “dollar-for-dollar” any US funds spent on rebuilding the war-ravaged country. One clause instructs the US Secretary of State to “work expeditiously with the Government of Iraq to establish an account within its annual budget sufficient to, at a minimum, match United States contributions.” Nothing could more clearly define the puppet status of the Iraqi regime.

Similarly, the legislation demands that Iraq sell fuel to the US occupation forces at subsidized rates.

Predictably, the antiwar protest organizations oriented to the Democratic Party hailed these reactionary developments in the House as a victory. United for Peace and Justice, for example, called the Republican-engineered scuttling of the spending measure “an amazing turn of events” and “a tremendous victory for the antiwar movement” It showed, the group said, the “need to keep up the pressure on both the House and the Senate.”

On the contrary, the cynical political maneuvering on Capitol Hill has once again exposed the futility—if not outright duplicity—of trying to base any struggle against war on an orientation to the Congress and the Democratic Party.

The proposed detention center would replace the cavernous, makeshift American prison on the Bagram military base north of Kabul, which is now typically packed with about 630 prisoners, compared with the 270 held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Until now, the Bush administration had signaled that it intended to scale back American involvement in detention operations in Afghanistan. It had planned to transfer a large majority of the prisoners to Afghan custody, in an American-financed, high-security prison outside Kabul to be guarded by Afghan soldiers.

But American officials now concede that the new Afghan-run prison cannot absorb all the Afghans now detained by the United States, much less the waves of new prisoners from the escalating fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The proposal for a new American prison at Bagram underscores the daunting scope and persistence of the United States military’s detention problem, at a time when Bush administration officials continue to say they want to close down the facility at Guantánamo Bay.

Military officials have long been aware of serious problems with the existing detention center in Afghanistan, the Bagram Theater Internment Facility. After the prison was set up in early 2002, it became a primary site for screening prisoners captured in the fighting. Harsh interrogation methods and sleep deprivation were used widely, and two Afghan detainees died there in December 2002, after being repeatedly struck by American soldiers.

Conditions and treatment have improved markedly since then, but hundreds of Afghans and other men are still held in wire-mesh pens surrounded by coils of razor wire. There are only minimal areas for the prisoners to exercise, and kitchen, shower and bathroom space is also inadequate.

Faced with that, American officials said they wanted to replace the Bagram prison, a converted aircraft hangar that still holds some of the decrepit aircraft-repair machinery left by the Soviet troops who occupied the country in the 1980s. In its place the United States will build what officials described as a more modern and humane detention center that would usually accommodate about 600 detainees — or as many as 1,100 in a surge — and cost more than $60 million.

“Our existing theater internment facility is deteriorating,” said Sandra L. Hodgkinson, the senior Pentagon official for detention policy, in a telephone interview. “It was renovated to do a temporary mission. There is a sense that this is the right time to build a new facility.”

American officials also acknowledged that there are serious health risks to detainees and American military personnel who work at the Bagram prison, because of their exposure to heavy metals from the aircraft-repair machinery and asbestos.

“It’s just not suitable,” another Pentagon official said. “At some point, you have to say, ‘That’s it. This place was not made to keep people there indefinitely.’ ”

That point came about six months ago. It became clear to Pentagon officials that the original plan of releasing some Afghan prisoners outright and transferring other detainees to Afghan custody would not come close to emptying the existing detention center.

Although a special Afghan court has been established to prosecute detainees formerly held at Bagram and Guantánamo, American officials have been hesitant to turn over those prisoners they consider most dangerous. In late February the head of detainee operations in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, traveled to Bagram to assess conditions there.

In Iraq, General Stone has encouraged prison officials to build ties to tribal leaders, families and communities, said a Congressional official who has been briefed on the general’s work. As a result, American officials are giving Iraqi detainees job training and engaging them in religious discussions to help prepare them to re-enter Iraqi society.

About 8,000 detainees have been released in Iraq since last September. Fewer than 1 percent of them have been returned to the prison, said Lt. Cmdr. K. C. Marshall, General Stone’s spokesman.

The new detention center at Bagram will incorporate some of the lessons learned by the United States in Iraq. Classrooms will be built for vocational training and religious discussion, and there will be more space for recreation and family visits, officials said. After years of entreaties by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United States recently began to allow relatives to speak with prisoners at Bagram through video hookups.

“The driving factor behind this is to ensure that in all instances we are giving the highest standards of treatment and care,” said Ms. Hodgkinson, who has briefed Senate and House officials on the construction plans.

The Pentagon is planning to use $60 million in emergency construction funds this fiscal year to build a complex of 6 to 10 semi-permanent structures resembling Quonset huts, each the size of a football field, a Defense Department official said. The structures will have more natural light, and each will have its own recreation area. There will be a half-dozen other buildings for administration, medical care and other purposes, the official said.

The new Bagram compound is expected to be built away from the existing center of operations on the base, on the other side of a long airfield from the headquarters building that now sits almost directly adjacent to the detention center, one military official said.

It will have its own perimeter security wall, and its own perimeter security guards, a change that will increase the number of soldiers required to operate the detention center.

The military plans to request $24 million in fiscal year 2009 and $7.4 million in fiscal year 2010 to pay for educational programs, job training and other parts of what American officials call a reintegration plan. After that, the Pentagon plans to pay about $7 million a year in training and operational costs.

There has been mixed support for the project on Capitol Hill. Two prominent Senate Democrats, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia and Tim Johnson of South Dakota, have been briefed on the new American-run prison, and have praised the decision to make conditions there more humane.

But the senators, in a May 15 letter to the deputy defense secretary, Gordon England, demanded that the Pentagon explain its long-term plans for detention in Afghanistan and consult the Afghan government on the project.

The population at Bagram began to swell after administration officials halted the flow of prisoners to Guantánamo in September 2004, a cutoff that largely remains in effect. At the same time, the population of detainees at Bagram also began to rise with the resurgence of the Taliban.

Military personnel who know both Bagram and Guantánamo describe the Afghan site, 40 miles north of Kabul, as far more spartan. Bagram prisoners have fewer privileges, less ability to contest their detention and no access to lawyers.

Some detainees have been held without charge for more than five years, officials said. As of April, about 10 juveniles were being held at Bagram, according to a recent American report to a United Nations committee.

An expert group of the Planning Commission establishes a strong correlation between social unrest and the spread of Naxalism and poverty, landlessness and inequitable management of natural resources

An expert group on development challenges in extremist-affected areas (read: Naxalite-affected districts) set up by the Planning Commission of India in May 2006 has submitted its report to the Commission. The still-to-be-publicised report attributes the spread of Naxalite violence -- which the prime minister has called the “biggest internal security threat India has ever had to face” -- to centralised forest management, abandonment of land reforms and the disempowerment of panchayats in tribal areas. It calls for radical changes in India’s natural resource management regime.

The 18-member expert group held extensive discussions and reviewed development programmes and socio-economic status in Naxalite-affected areas. D Bandopadhyay, Executive Chairman of the Council for Social Development, Kolkata, chaired the expert group. Interestingly, of the 18 members only one represented the Planning Commission. Members included B D Sharma, noted human rights activist, and Bela Bhatia, Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.

Terming discrimination against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes “structural violence in society”, the expert group recommends changes in the development model in Naxalite-affected districts. “While not condoning the radical violence (of Naxalite groups), an honest response to it must, therefore, begin by ameliorating the structural violence in society,” the report says.

“Encouragement of vigilante groups such as Salwa Judum and herding of hapless tribals into makeshift camps with dismal living conditions, removed from their habitat and deprived of livelihood as a strategy to counter the influence of the radical Left is not desirable. It delegitimises politics, dehumanises people, degenerates those engaged in their ‘security’, and above all represents abdication of the State itself. It should be undone immediately,” the report continues. “It should be replaced by a strategy which positions an empowered taskforce of specially picked responsive officials to execute all protection and development programmes for their benefit and redress people’s grievances,” the report adds.

The expert group’s report is currently with the Planning Commission. Officials are giving it the final touches before sending it to the prime minister’s office.

Just a few months ago another Planning Commission group -- the working group on land relations, set up to contribute to the preparation of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan -- also termed Naxalite violence a symptom of brewing socio-economic turmoil in India’s poorest areas. “They (Naxalites) are proving to the hilt the doctrine of Mao Zedong of ‘fish in water’, where fish are militants and water is the mass of disgruntled and dissatisfied peasantry and landless agricultural workers,” the report says.

The geography of poverty

Naxalite activities have spread to 16 of 28 Indian states. According to the Union home ministry, Naxalite groups have an influence in at least 165 districts out of India’s 600-plus districts. The red corridor stretches to 92,000 square kilometres, from the Nepalese border to India’s southwest coast. It is estimated that 180 million people in the country are impacted by Naxalite insurgency. That is, every sixth Indian citizen lives in the Naxalite shadow.

Since 2003, more than 2,500 people have been killed in Naxalite violence while 7,000 incidents of violence involving Naxalites have been reported. In the last four years, more and more civilians are being killed in the violence; most of them belong either to the scheduled tribes or scheduled castes. Naxalite violence and the number of casualties are the highest in Chhattisgarh. While it has declined in Andhra Pradesh, it is on the rise in Orissa. The increase in Naxalite violence in Chhattisgarh is attributed to Naxalites targeting the Salwa Judum campaign to counter the movement.

The 165 Naxalite-affected districts are among the country’s 200 poorest and most backward districts, as ranked by the Planning Commission of India. The irony of this is not lost: if you superimpose a map of India’s forests, its minerals, its watersheds, and its poorest people (specifically tribal people), you will get a map of the spread of India’s Naxalite movement. According to a research paper from the Prem Bhatia Memorial Trust, New Delhi, Naxalites control close to 19% of India’s ‘good’ forests. This is because Naxalite-affected districts account for around 40% of India’s forest areas. India’s major mineral producing districts are also its poorest and most underdeveloped districts. Forty per cent of mineral-rich districts are Naxalite-affected, says a report by the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

Reasons for the rage

The expert group compared 20 severely Naxalite-affected districts in five states -- Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa -- with 20 non-affected districts in the same states to establish a correlation between certain human development indicators and their links to social unrest. It found 10 important factors that apparently trigger the spread of Naxalism. These include a greater share of forest cover, greater share of agricultural labour in the workforce, and low per capita foodgrain production (see table below).

Identified factors which distinguish between affected and forward districts

Orissa Jharkhand Chhattisgarh Bihar Andhra Pradesh

Affected
Districts Forward
Districts Affected
Districts Forward
Districts Affected
Districts Forward
Districts Affected
Districts Forward
Districts Affected
Districts Forward
Districts
Share of
SC/ST
(%)* 65 23 45 30 69 36 19 18 26 22
Literacy rate
(%)* 44 76 40 51 50 68 46 48 56 68
Infant
Mortality
rate (%)
(1999) 123 73 n/a n/a 76 57 n/a n/a 34 28
Urbanisation
(%)* 17 23 10 37 7 29 12 8.6 24 27
Forest
Coverage
(%)** 39 15 38 16 53 28 8 1 17 14
Agricultural
Labourers
(%)* 35 25 29 20 26 34 52 46 40 51
Per capita
Foodgrain
production
(Kg)* 151 95 n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 121 293
Road length
per 100
sq.kms@ n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 44 70
Rural HH with
no Bank a/c
(%)* 81 80 77 74 83 82 83 80 69 72
Rural HH
without
specified
assets (%)* 63 37 46 36 47 31 53 50 56 41
* : Figure based 2001 census.
**: Figure based on FSI 2003.
@ : Figure based on 1996-97

Alienation from land

Bringing land reforms back onto the national agenda is the expert group’s most important recommendation. “Efforts at implementation of ceiling laws stopped about two to three decades ago. A serious effort must be made to continuously implement the land ceiling laws, so that the ceiling-surplus land obtained is made available for distribution,” the report says. Most Naxalite-affected districts have a high percentage of landless people and marginal farmers.

The country’s land reforms initiative was, in fact, a response to growing tenant unrest, and also the Naxalbari uprising. India’s land reform laws took shape in the early-1960s and 1970s, with governments affording their implementation top priority. In 1972, when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi met with chief ministers to discuss the growing Naxalite problem she brought land reforms back onto the national agenda. Then home minister Y B Chavan said: “We will not allow the green revolution to turn into a red revolution.”

During the 1980s and 1990s, however, the issue of land reforms went off the policymakers’ radar. Interestingly, this coincides with the opening up of India’s economy and liberalisation in the industrial sector. Most studies indicate that inequalities have increased rather than decreased. The number of landless labourers has gone up and the top 10% monopolise more land now than in 1951. It’s no wonder that Naxalism spread the most during this period: 120 districts out of 165 reported a Naxal presence during this period.

Over 170 million are estimated to be landless labourers in India; another 250 million own less than a fifth of a hectare.

The working group on land relations appointed by the Planning Commission called land reforms in India a “forgotten agenda”. “The policymakers are finding existing land reforms that were enacted on the basis of central guidelines of the early-’70s not only unwanted roadblocks but also obnoxious to the free play of capital in the land market,” said the group.

Land acquisition for industry and other development projects is another issue that has fuelled support for the Naxalites, says the expert group. It not only blames mindless land acquisition by the government for industry and other development works but also rejects the latest Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, 2007 as being “not effective” enough to hinder land alienation. The proposed Act is under consideration by Parliament. “Public purpose as defined in the Land Acquisition Act should be revised further and restricted to projects taken up for national security and public welfare implemented directly by the government. Public purpose should not be stretched to acquisition for companies and registered societies,” observes the expert group.

Naxalite-affected districts host close to 80% of people displaced by so-called development projects. It is no wonder that out of 250 people’s protests against land acquisition or eviction from forests, 200 took place in Naxalite-affected districts.

Of late, battles between Naxalites and the police have become more intense. This is because there has been an unprecedented increase in land acquisition in Naxalite-affected districts for the scores of industries coming up. Estimates show that Naxalite-affected districts, due to their mineral and water resources, are attracting foreign direct investments worth US$ 112 billion. For this kind of investment, governments have to acquire an estimated 50,000 ha of land. This is apart from the forestland that has to be diverted.

“It is critical for the government to recognise that dissent or expression of dissatisfaction is a positive feature of democracy, that unrest is often the only thing that actually puts pressure on the government to make things work and for the government to live up to its own promises. However the right to protest, even peacefully, is often not recognised by the authorities, and even non-violent agitations are met with severe repression,” says the report in a scathing criticism of government policy.

From margin to mainstream

Blaming the government for the sorry state of the country’s scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and other marginalised populations, the expert group recommends the re-organisation of programmes and policies concerning these groups. It finds that they have been formulated in isolation, thereby minimising their impact. It recommends widespread consultations between the parties concerned, and the launch of joint initiatives for concerted and compulsory action on the joint recommendations; this should become mandatory for all chief ministers.

The expert group identifies four instruments -- the Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act 1996, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005, the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest-Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, and the National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy 2007 (for which a Bill has been put before Parliament) -- to help build a “protective shield” for marginalised groups. It argues that effective implementation of these Acts will curb the feeling of alienation among scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other marginalised groups, thereby keeping them away from Naxalite influence.

The following are the key recommendations of the expert group:

All debt liabilities of weaker sections should be liquidated, in cases (i) wherein the debtor has paid an amount equivalent to the original principal amount, and (ii) wherein the intended benefit for which the loan was advanced has not accrued to the borrowers.
Forest produce should be provided a protective market by fixing a minimum support price for various commodities, upgrading traditional haats, and setting up modern storage facilities to avoid post-harvest losses. At the same time, the public distribution system should be specially designed for the specific needs of forest-dwellers.
Clarifications in the draft rules, circulated for the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest-Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, on June 19, 2007, for certain difficult points like “other traditional rights,” “primarily reside in and dependent on forest or forest land,” “rights to minor forest produce,” etc, which were summarily deleted in the final notification of the rules published on January 1, 2008, should be fully restored to remove ambiguity and make implementation easy.
All petty cases registered under forest-related legislation against tribals and other poor persons should be withdrawn.
Land tribunals or fast-track courts, under Article 323-B of the Constitution, should be set up for expeditious disposal of ceiling cases. Old cases should be unearthed and fresh inquiries conducted. Since landowners get a lot of time to manipulate and create false documents, no cut-off date for the re-opening of old cases should be prescribed.
The definition of land should be amplified to include government, public, forest, panchayat land and community property resources (CPRs), so that loss of use rights can be compensated.
Acquisition of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes should be kept to the minimum through a land use policy with statutory backing. Social impact assessments should be strictly carried out in all cases to ensure that the impact of the project on the affected families is assessed in a holistic and transparent manner and ameliorative measures built into the rehabilitation plan.
The Planning Commission should consider devising a programme for the restoration of common property resources to provide sustenance to poorer communities.
The government should saturate rain-fed and dry farming areas with participatory watershed development projects to help conserve soil and water and develop natural resources, with suitable changes in cropping patterns under common guidelines issued by the ministries of agriculture and rural development for national watershed development projects for rain-fed areas.
(Richard Mahapatra is based in New Delhi and writes on environment and development. In 2006 he was awarded an Infochangeindia Research Fellowship for reportage on the impact of climate change in Orissa)

InfoChange News & Features, May 2008

Over one million public sector workers went on strike, and 300,000 demonstrated in the streets in all major cities and towns in France on Thursday. The strikers were protesting government plans to eliminate 11,200 teaching positions and cut some 30,000 public service jobs.

If the government’s plans are carried out, some 80,000 teaching posts will be eliminated by 2012, the four-year course for the Bac Pro vocational diploma is to be reduced, and an intermediate qualification, the BEP, will be suppressed for some trades.

In many places high school students headed the protests, the culmination of two months of mobilisations against government attacks on education. However, the two main high school unions—the UNL (National Union of High School Students) and the FIDL (Independent Democratic Federation of High School Students)—have called off further action this school year. They have claimed as a victory, however, Education Minister Xavier Darcos’s offer of 1,500 low-paid, untrained teaching assistants in 200 of the most under-achieving high schools. He has made no retreat on the 11,200 planned cuts in teaching posts.

Around 60,000 marched in Paris; 30,000 each in Marseille and Rennes; and 15,000 in Toulouse. In Lyon and Bordeaux, 10,000 protestors were present. In Strasbourg, Lille, Le Havre and Perpignan more than 5,000 people took to the streets. The public sector workers were mobilised to denounce the dismantling of public services. In Amiens, 3.000 workers and students marched behind the call for “quality public services and more purchasing power”. High school banners denounced “inequality in education.”

A leaflet put out by Goodyear/Dunlop workers from the local tyre factory in Amiens—under threat of 402 layoffs for refusing to accept increased productivity and speed up rules—said: “The Goodyear/Dunlop group fires workers without any scruples and announces for the first quarter of 2008 profits of €100 million. And the four main directors gave themselves €20 million in salaries in 2008.”

According to government figures—generally about 20 percent lower than trade union estimates—at midday on May 15 some 34 percent of people employed in the schools were on strike, 27.3 percent in the rest of the State Civil Service, 3 percent of local government workers, and 5.8 percent of hospital staff.

The State Civil Service numbers 2.5 million people, of which one million are in the education service. There are 1.6 million in local government jobs and a million in the hospital service.

Ten percent of 288,000 post workers struck, according to the SUD (Solidarity, Unity, Democracy) post-workers union. Workers at French Telecom and those in the media also took part. Even the weather forecast centres struck, with 23.7 percent of employees in 40 centres taking part. Many centres are set for closure.

The practice of the trade unions has been to dissipate workers’ action by numerous dispersed one-day strike calls. This tactic was again on display in the unions’ deliberate decision to separate last Thursday’s strike from another on May 22 on the question of pensions.

Seven rail unions have called on their members to protest the government’s move to increase the number of years required for full pension retirement from 40 to 41.They did not mobilise for the May 15 demonstrations, however. After the rail strike that paralysed the country last year, and the unions’ “negotiated” betrayal of that struggle, the May 22 strike call rings hollow for many workers.

On the evening of the May 15 strikes, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that he would initiate legislation for a minimum service during strikes. Teachers would be obliged to give 48 hours notice of their intention to strike. Parents would have the right to demand of local authorities alternative provisions for pupils affected by the strike. Teachers’ unions have condemned this as an attack on the right to strike. All municipal councils accept those controlled by Sarkozy’s ruling UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) have said that they would refuse to provide such a service and could not be forced to do so by the central government.

The Ouest-France newspaper commented: “Mauled and destabilised in his own camp, in a difficult situation with public opinion, Nicolas Sarkozy has chosen a very ‘Sarkozyite’ way of making a come-back.” La Nouvelle République du Centre-Ouest wrote that Sarkozy was stoking up a mass movement: “The good old trial of strength, which we thought had been buried as much as the spirit of May 68, is taking on its former lustre: demonstrations against the government, the government toughening its stance. The May 22 strike is likely to be another episode of a spring trial of strength, rather tougher than expected.”

Teams of WSWS and International Students for Social Equality supporters handed out thousands of copies of an ISSE statement directed at the many thousands of high school students on the streets together with teachers, hospital workers and other public sector workers. (See “Defend public education against Sarkozy’s cuts! Unite workers and youth across Europe and internationally!”)

Many of those interviewed were familiar with the WSWS and displayed a serious attitude to the issues involved in the strike.

Referring to the determined mass movement of youth in 2005 against the First Job Contract (CPE), Lambert said, “Today’s movement is less than the one against the CPE, but today there’s a good amount of people. The different sections of the working class must unite. Against the CPE, we were united, and it worked”. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin was obliged to withdraw the CPE but left the rest of the repressive legislation of the Equal Opportunities Law intact.

Jammie, a student from Tolbiac at the University of Paris, commented on the 2007 student struggle against the Pécresse Law. The legislation was aimed at restricting access to higher education and tying the universities to big business. “We lost,” he told the WSWS. “We were walked over and beaten with batons. There was a lot of repression. L’UNEF (National Union of Students of France) supposedly negotiated, but the law is not changed.”

Jammie affirmed that the attack on rights in France “was driven by the international context. As for privatisations, Sarkozy is in line with the rest of the world. The interests of the working class and the youth are the same. If the working class is weakened, then so are the youth. Already 50 percent of students have to work, so their interests are linked.”

Jammie continued, “Sarkozy is continuing France’s imperialist policy. Sarkozy is far too pro-American and pro-Israeli. When he went to Dakar, he gave a speech telling the Africans that they lived in a backward country and a dark age!”

He said that the Socialist Party is no longer a party of the left. “It is no longer a credible alternative to capitalism. The future is sombre and despairing. The youth were repressed and clubbed and nobody reacted. So that means that now it is acceptable to beat the youth when they revolt.”

Tristan, 16, a pupil at Maurice Ravel High School in Paris, was clear that the education cuts in France were part of a worldwide development: “What we are going through is an international phenomenon, in Italy, Spain, in the Anglo-Saxon world. We’ll bring this government down—that’s what we are here for. All the sections of the working class will unite naturally. To win this struggle means overthrowing the government. After that there will be a socialist, communist government, we will see.”

He denounced French foreign policy: “It’s a scandal that France, the country of the rights of man should send its troops to Afghanistan and support Israel. We youth will soon be voting and we’ll change that.”

He pointed out that “capitalism was the problem. Wealth is unequally distributed, there’s no equality. We’ll destroy this world and build a new one.”

The new Italian government will have to solve the garbage crisis in the south of Italy. Berlusconi has even promised to run the country from Naples three times per week until all the rubbish accumulated for months has been cleared. Indeed the crisis is serious, its frightening echo resonates abroad and many claim that this is yet another billion dollar racket of organized crime, which traditionally handles garbage in Italy. But how many global market consumers know that organised crime handles our toxic waste, from old cell phones to discharged batteries, and that it ends up in the garbage dumps of the world, particularly in poor developing countries, contaminating the environment? How many know that this illegal activity is a multi-billion dollar business that involves the entire industrialised world, including our governments? Those who manage this unpleasant industry are part of a new generation of globalization outlaws: the pirates of rubbish.

Wealthy countries have said no to ‘uncomfortable’ refuse that pollutes the environment and globalization has permitted them to easily dispose of it. Cost and environment are at the root of this decision. Following the directives of the European Union, decontaminating and disposing of toxic waste costs in the West over $1000 per ton. The pirates of rubbish offer prices ten times lower including the cost of transport beyond national borders to ‘dispose’ of the waste. This explains why 47 percent of European garbage, including toxic materials such as electronic waste from old computers to medical equipment, is almost completely shipped by sea to developing countries, frequently on board pirate ships.

In order to avoid controls, pirates use ‘flags of convenience’, which frequently change en route. Although international law stipulates that the country of registry is ultimately responsible for controlling the ships’ activities, some states permit vessels to fly their flag for hundreds or a few thousand dollars without any supervisions. Amongst them is Sierra Leone, a country ruled by warlords and Uzbekistan, a landlocked country.

The toxic waste business is global. According to the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the annual global production of electronic waste ranges from 20 and 50 million tons, comprising recyclable and non-recyclable material. The former generally ends up in India or China where it is auctioned to aspiring Asian industrialists; the latter ends up in the hands of pirates.

Modern piracy presents all the characteristics of classic piracy, i.e. it bears little resemblance to the contemporary romanticized image of pirates. Forget the blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean. Picture instead, the model of organized global criminality operating on a world scale and apply it to the oceans, which cover 80 percent of the world’s surface and upon which anarchy reigns. In the last decade, marine piracy has increased 168 percent and the attacks are more and more violent, warned the transport commission of the English Parliament in July of 2006. Coincidentally, this report was released shortly after two attacks on British ships carrying aid to the tsunami victims in Indonesia. But it is the toxic waste industry that since the early 90s has been growing at a rate never seen before.

The modern day Tortuga Islands are in the Baltic and in the South China Sea. In the North the Russian mafia, which assumed control of the former Soviet fleet after the fall of the Soviet Union, runs the piracy racket. Since the early 1990s, organized crime has been roaming the Northern seas from the port of Murmansk, the pride of the Soviet fleet. Murmansk was on the Northern Sea Route, a commercial highway of about 5000 kilometres stretching from the Baltic to the nickel mines of Norilsk. At its height in 1987, more than 7 million tons of goods transited these freezing waters. Today Murmansk plays host to the outlaws of the Baltic and northern seas which handles ‘toxic’ garbage.

Twenty-first century pirates of rubbish sail all the seas. Besides the Russians, the majority of pirates operate in the Malacca Straits, an 800 kilometre long corridor separating Indonesia from Malaysia. This is where 42 percent of the world’s acts of piracy take place, as well as the Arabian Sea, the South China Sea and off the coast of West Africa. Today’s pirates have sophisticated technology at their disposal. “A pirate ship captured (in 1999) in Indonesia was equipped with false immigration stamps, instruments with which to falsify ship’s documents, sophisticated radar systems and equipment for communication and satellite positioning,” reads a report from the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Overwhelmingly, modern pirates are entrepreneurs dedicated to the international commerce of stolen merchandise, with an estimated profit of $16 billion dollars a year, and to the shipment of toxic waste.

Among their best clients is Japan, the Asian leader in the export of toxic materials. The most frequent destinations are Thailand, India, China and Hong Kong. In 2006, Chinese garbage pirates dumped more than 195 million kilos of toxic powder along the Thai coast and illegally exported to China 400 tons of toxic material which had originated in hospitals, electronic and chemical plants in Japan.

Overall, however, the most popular destination for the unwanted and undesirable refuse of rich countries is Africa. The non-governmental organization (NGO) Basel Action Network reveals that 75 percent of the electronic material that arrives in Nigeria cannot be recycled and becomes polluting agents. Somalia regularly receives tons and tons of radioactive and electronic waste. Frequently, taking advantage of the absence of a strong central government, the rubbish pirates dump their lethal cargoes at sea: some actually reappeared after the December 2005 tsunami and provoked hypocritical waves of public outrage.

Among the toxic material unveiled by the tsunami there was radioactive uranium, cadmium, mercury, lead and also highly toxic chemical, industrial and hospital materials from Europe. The shipment dated back to 1992 when a group of European companies recruited Swiss company Archair Partners and the Italian company Progresso, both specialised in the export of undesirable waste. Between 1997 and 1998, the Italian weekly Famiglia Cristiana and the Italian branch of Greenpeace denounced such business in a series of articles. Greenpeace even managed to get hold of a copy of the agreement signed by President of Somalia Ali Mahdi Mohamed, wherein he agreed to receive 10 million tons of toxic waste in exchange for $80 million. This equates to a cost of $8 per ton against a recycling and dismantling cost in Europe of 1000 dollars per ton.

Africa is the world’s garbage disposal because it is the poorest continent, and poor people are hungry. In the 90s, radioactive meat from the ex-Soviet Union was buried in Zambia after the local population had consumed some of it. Some members of the local population dug up the meat and ate it. In 2000, Zambia received, as ‘donations’ cans of contaminated meat from the Czech Republic. After this discovery the 2880 cans were buried in the village of Chongwe, east of the capital Lusaka, at a depth of 3.5 meters underground and covered with a layer of cement. Subsequently, out of hunger, the local residents did everything possible to get to the meat. Two years later a Belgian newspaper Gazet van Antwerpen reported that they had eventually succeeded in digging it up and had eaten it all.

The garbage crisis in Naples is but the tip of the iceberg of a global rogue phenomenon of which we, wealthy consumers in the global village, are unwitting business partners. We should stop ignoring this reality.

Loretta Napoleoni is the best selling author of Terror Incorporated and Insurgent Iraq. Her latest book is called Rogue Economics. An expert on financing of terrorism, she advises several governments on counter-terrorism. She is senior partner of G Risk, a London based risk agency. As Chairman of the countering terrorism financing group for the Club de Madrid, Napoleoni brought heads of state from around the world together to create a new strategy for combating the financing of terror networks. She is a Fulbright scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC. and a Rotary Scholar at the London School of Economics.

To review further articles and listen to podcasts by Loretta Napoleoni, you are invited to visit her website: *http://www.lorettanapoleoni.org*

Most recently, a Chinese court on May 14 upheld a decision by Beijing authorities to prohibit Yuan from leaving the country in August 2007 to receive an award on her husband’s behalf in the Philippines. Particularly during this pre-Olympics period, when the eyes of all the world are on China, the authorities must stop the ongoing harassment of Yuan Weijing and investigate those responsible.
— Sharon Hom, Executive Director of HRIC

The court delivered this ruling in a lawsuit brought by Yuan to challenge the decision of the Beijing authorities. When the court heard Yuan’s lawsuit on May 5, 2008, it held the hearing behind closed doors, and Yuan was unable to attend because she was confined to her home by local authorities. The court closed the hearing, sources said, on grounds that the case involved “state secrets,” including Yuan’s status as a criminal suspect, and the invalidation of her passport. Yuan plans to appeal the court ruling as well as the invalidation of her passport and her classification as a criminal suspect.

“Politicizing the law, especially by invoking the vague and broad state secrets law as the basis for targeting activists and their families, is simply unacceptable,” said Human Rights in China Executive Director Sharon Hom. “Particularly during this pre-Olympics period, when the eyes of all the world are on China, the authorities must stop the ongoing harassment of Yuan Weijing and investigate those responsible.”

“The authorities cannot deny Yuan’s right under international human rights law – including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – to freely leave and return to her country simply by labeling her a ‘criminal suspect’ without any foundation,” Hom said.

Wednesday’s ruling by the Beijing Municipal Chaoyang District People’s Court was issued in the lawsuit Yuan filed to challenge an administrative review decision by the Beijing General Station of Exit and Entry Frontier Inspection. The administrative decision had barred Yuan from going to the Philippines in August 2007 to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award on Chen’s behalf.

Chen is serving a sentence of four years and three months for “intentional damage of property” and “organizing people to block traffic.” The authorities have been harassing Yuan, a young mother, since her husband’s detention in 2006. She lives under the strict surveillance of more than 10 men, her son has been sent away to live with grandparents, and she has not been allowed to visit her husband for eight months. At the time of the 2007 decision barring her from traveling to the Philippines, she was reportedly beaten, her passport was revoked, and she was forced to return to her home in Shangdong Province.

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For more information on Yuan Weijing and Chen Guangcheng, see:
HRIC Olympics Campaign on Chen Guangcheng and lawyers in China, February 2008, http://www.ir2008.org/02/about.php;

"Joint Open Letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy," November 22, 2007, http://hrichina.org/public/contents/45671;

"Case Update: Chen Guangcheng's Wife Prevented from Seeing Dentist Again," October 29, 2007, http://hrichina.org/public/contents/45415;

"Witnesses Prevented from Appearing at Chen Guangcheng Retrial," November 27, 2006, http://hrichina.org/public/contents/31723;

"Wife of Rights Activist Chen Guangcheng Forcibly Brought in for Questioning on the Way to Her Parents’ Home for Mid-Autumn Festival," October 3, 2006, http://hrichina.org/public/contents/30792.

European history provides a showcase of human beings at their worst. Constant conflict, the two bloodiest wars ever waged, famine, brutal industrialisation, oppression of workers and women, religious strife, colonialism, fascism, communism - all these stain our past. But Europe also represents the best humankind has accomplished, giving the world the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, a constant struggle for emancipation, democracy and the separation of powers, the welfare state - not to mention universally recognised cultural contributions from Greek drama to Finnegans Wake , from the symphony orchestra to Irish folksong.

Born in the United States and a citizen of France, I am a fervent European. At this point in history, I believe only Europe can provide all its citizens with democratic government, dignified living standards, greater social equality, public services, universal healthcare and education. This small continent, with just 15 per cent of the world's people, can lead the way towards ecological sanity and a liveable planet and prove nations can overcome even the most tenacious hatreds and live together in peace. Europe can be a counter-model to the myriad brutalities, affinity for war and stupendous inequalities on display elsewhere.

For these and other reasons, I voted no to the deeply flawed, undemocratic European constitution in May 2005. Had the French government not confiscated the people's right to another referendum, I would have voted no again to the Lisbon ("Reform") Treaty - a clone of the rejected constitution, except for "cosmetic changes" making it "easier to swallow", as Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, principal author of the constitution, said. No flag, no Beethoven hymn, but the rest is there as Angela Merkel, José Manuel Barroso, Bertie Ahern and other relieved European notables all agreed.

The treaty contains no substantive changes. It's just much harder to understand, worse even than the immensely complex constitution. Now we must deal with two European treaties (Rome, 1957, and Maastricht, 1992, with their subsequent revisions) to which Lisbon adds 145 pages of amendments plus 132 more pages of 12 protocols and 51 declarations, all legally binding, all superseding every law of the 27 member states.

There is no single text - you must cut, paste and collate the hundreds of pages for yourself. The very least one should require of a treaty that will dictate at least 80 per cent of all future legislation throughout Europe is that it be comprehensible. But complexity can be an effective weapon against democracy. Let us recall what commission vice-president Gunter Verheugen said after the French and Dutch No votes: "We must not give in to blackmail." So much for universal suffrage and popular sovereignty.

There are a few beneficial changes to the defunct constitution. The new treaty gives the European Parliament, the only elected body, marginally more power to co-decide on legislation, although it still cannot initiate legislation.

However, the unelected European Commission remains all-powerful, particularly in crucial areas such as trade. A new article specifies the European goal of "integration of all countries into the world economy through the suppression of barriers to international trade". Already trade commissioner Peter Mandelson is pushing for European corporate penetration in even the poorest countries, defining "barriers" as any government measure regulating foreign investment, public procurement, environmental or consumer protection.

The European Central Bank gets an even more iron-clad statute of independence from political supervision; its mandate remains control of inflation with no mention of full employment. The "market" (63 mentions in the text) remains the supreme good and "competition" (25 mentions) the overarching rule. Public services are specifically subjected to competition: government subsidies or other forms of support will become more precarious. European-wide social policies will require unanimous approval - this is a euphemism for a race to the bottom. The Charter of Fundamental Rights is inferior to most existing European constitutions.

Common security and defence policy places Europe firmly under the tutelage of Nato "which remains the foundation of the collective defence of its members". We are signing on blindfolded for whatever Nato's future policies may be - we only know for sure the US will remain in command. The treaty also obliges members to "progressively increase their military capacities".

This Lisbon Treaty is a model of failed neo-liberal economic nostrums and misplaced confidence in the market and competition as universal panaceas. Europeans deserve better, beginning with an elected convention for drafting a constitution, time for full debate and a popular ratification process.

Europe has now surpassed the US as the wealthiest political entity. We can afford to retain and perfect the European social model, provide a decent livelihood for all and undertake a swift conversion to an ecological economy; we can afford to embody the ideal of the common good. Not to demand all this and more is a betrayal of whatever is best in our history. This may be Europe's last chance.

Susan George is a Fellow and Chair of the Board of the Transnational Institute. Her latest books are La Pensée enchaînée: Comment les droites laïque et religieuse se sont emparées de l'Amérique [Fayard, 2007], to be published in English as: Hijacking America: How the Religious and Secular Right Changed What Americans Think [Forthcoming, Polity Press 2008], and We the peoples of Europe [Pluto Press, 2008].

When tens of thousands of people staged demonstrations in Mexico last year to protest a 60 percent increase in the price of tortillas, many analysts pointed to biofuel as the culprit. Because of US government subsidies, American farmers were devoting more and more acreage to corn for ethanol than for food, which sparked a steep rise in corn prices. The diversion of corn from tortillas to biofuel was certainly one cause of skyrocketing prices, though speculation on biofuel demand by transnational middlemen may have played a bigger role. However, an intriguing question escaped many observers: how on earth did Mexicans, who live in the land where corn was domesticated, become dependent on US imports in the first place?

The Mexican food crisis cannot be fully understood without taking into account the fact that in the years preceding the tortilla crisis, the homeland of corn had been converted to a corn-importing economy by “free market” policies promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and Washington. The process began with the early 1980s debt crisis. One of the two largest developing-country debtors, Mexico was forced to beg for money from the Bank and IMF to service its debt to international commercial banks. The quid pro quo for a multibillion-dollar bailout was what a member of the World Bank executive board described as “unprecedented thoroughgoing interventionism” designed to eliminate high tariffs, state regulations and government support institutions, which neoliberal doctrine identified as barriers to economic efficiency.

Interest payments rose from 19 percent of total government expenditures in 1982 to 57 percent in 1988, while capital expenditures dropped from an already low 19.3 percent to 4.4 percent. The contraction of government spending translated into the dismantling of state credit, government-subsidized agricultural inputs, price supports, state marketing boards and extension services. Unilateral liberalization of agricultural trade pushed by the IMF and World Bank also contributed to the destabilization of peasant producers.

This blow to peasant agriculture was followed by an even larger one in 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect. Although NAFTA had a fifteen-year phaseout of tariff protection for agricultural products, including corn, highly subsidized US corn quickly flooded in, reducing prices by half and plunging the corn sector into chronic crisis. Largely as a result of this agreement, Mexico’s status as a net food importer has now been firmly established.

With the shutting down of the state marketing agency for corn, distribution of US corn imports and Mexican grain has come to be monopolized by a few transnational traders, like US-owned Cargill and partly US-owned Maseca, operating on both sides of the border. This has given them tremendous power to speculate on trade trends, so that movements in biofuel demand can be manipulated and magnified many times over. At the same time, monopoly control of domestic trade has ensured that a rise in international corn prices does not translate into significantly higher prices paid to small producers.

It has become increasingly difficult for Mexican corn farmers to avoid the fate of many of their fellow corn cultivators and other smallholders in sectors such as rice, beef, poultry and pork, who have gone under because of the advantages conferred by NAFTA on subsidized US producers. According to a 2003 Carnegie Endowment report, imports of US agricultural products threw at least 1.3 million farmers out of work — many of whom have since found their way to the United States.

Prospects are not good, since the Mexican government continues to be controlled by neoliberals who are systematically dismantling the peasant support system, a key legacy of the Mexican Revolution. As Food First executive director Eric Holt-Giménez sees it, “It will take time and effort to recover smallholder capacity, and there does not appear to be any political will for this — to say nothing of the fact that NAFTA would have to be renegotiated.”

Creating a Rice Crisis in the Philippines

That the global food crisis stems mainly from free-market restructuring of agriculture is clearer in the case of rice. Unlike corn, less than 10 percent of world rice production is traded. Moreover, there has been no diversion of rice from food consumption to biofuels. Yet this year alone, prices nearly tripled, from $380 a ton in January to more than $1,000 in April. Undoubtedly the inflation stems partly from speculation by wholesaler cartels at a time of tightening supplies. However, as with Mexico and corn, the big puzzle is why a number of formerly self-sufficient rice-consuming countries have become severely dependent on imports.

The Philippines provides a grim example of how neoliberal economic restructuring transforms a country from a net food exporter to a net food importer. The Philippines is the world’s largest importer of rice. Manila’s desperate effort to secure supplies at any price has become front-page news, and pictures of soldiers providing security for rice distribution in poor communities have become emblematic of the global crisis.

The broad contours of the Philippines story are similar to those of Mexico. Dictator Ferdinand Marcos was guilty of many crimes and misdeeds, including failure to follow through on land reform, but one thing he cannot be accused of is starving the agricultural sector. To head off peasant discontent, the regime provided farmers with subsidized fertilizer and seeds, launched credit plans and built rural infrastructure. When Marcos fled the country in 1986, there were 900,000 metric tons of rice in government warehouses.

Paradoxically, the next few years under the new democratic dispensation saw the gutting of government investment capacity. As in Mexico the World Bank and IMF, working on behalf of international creditors, pressured the Corazon Aquino administration to make repayment of the $26 billion foreign debt a priority. Aquino acquiesced, though she was warned by the country’s top economists that the “search for a recovery program that is consistent with a debt repayment schedule determined by our creditors is a futile one.” Between 1986 and 1993 8 percent to 10 percent of GDP left the Philippines yearly in debt-service payments — roughly the same proportion as in Mexico. Interest payments as a percentage of expenditures rose from 7 percent in 1980 to 28 percent in 1994; capital expenditures plunged from 26 percent to 16 percent. In short, debt servicing became the national budgetary priority.

Spending on agriculture fell by more than half. The World Bank and its local acolytes were not worried, however, since one purpose of the belt-tightening was to get the private sector to energize the countryside. But agricultural capacity quickly eroded. Irrigation stagnated, and by the end of the 1990s only 17 percent of the Philippines’ road network was paved, compared with 82 percent in Thailand and 75 percent in Malaysia. Crop yields were generally anemic, with the average rice yield way below those in China, Vietnam and Thailand, where governments actively promoted rural production. The post-Marcos agrarian reform program shriveled, deprived of funding for support services, which had been the key to successful reforms in Taiwan and South Korea. As in Mexico Filipino peasants were confronted with full-scale retreat of the state as provider of comprehensive support — a role they had come to depend on.

And the cutback in agricultural programs was followed by trade liberalization, with the Philippines’ 1995 entry into the World Trade Organization having the same effect as Mexico’s joining NAFTA. WTO membership required the Philippines to eliminate quotas on all agricultural imports except rice and allow a certain amount of each commodity to enter at low tariff rates. While the country was allowed to maintain a quota on rice imports, it nevertheless had to admit the equivalent of 1 to 4 percent of domestic consumption over the next ten years. In fact, because of gravely weakened production resulting from lack of state support, the government imported much more than that to make up for shortfalls. The massive imports depressed the price of rice, discouraging farmers and keeping growth in production at a rate far below that of the country’s two top suppliers, Thailand and Vietnam.

The consequences of the Philippines’ joining the WTO barreled through the rest of its agriculture like a super-typhoon. Swamped by cheap corn imports — much of it subsidized US grain — farmers reduced land devoted to corn from 3.1 million hectares in 1993 to 2.5 million in 2000. Massive importation of chicken parts nearly killed that industry, while surges in imports destabilized the poultry, hog and vegetable industries.

During the 1994 campaign to ratify WTO membership, government economists, coached by their World Bank handlers, promised that losses in corn and other traditional crops would be more than compensated for by the new export industry of “high-value-added” crops like cut flowers, asparagus and broccoli. Little of this materialized. Nor did many of the 500,000 agricultural jobs that were supposed to be created yearly by the magic of the market; instead, agricultural employment dropped from 11.2 million in 1994 to 10.8 million in 2001.

The one-two punch of IMF-imposed adjustment and WTO-imposed trade liberalization swiftly transformed a largely self-sufficient agricultural economy into an import-dependent one as it steadily marginalized farmers. It was a wrenching process, the pain of which was captured by a Filipino government negotiator during a WTO session in Geneva. “Our small producers,” he said, “are being slaughtered by the gross unfairness of the international trading environment.”

The Great Transformation

The experience of Mexico and the Philippines was paralleled in one country after another subjected to the ministrations of the IMF and the WTO. A study of fourteen countries by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization found that the levels of food imports in 1995-98 exceeded those in 1990-94. This was not surprising, since one of the main goals of the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture was to open up markets in developing countries so they could absorb surplus production in the North. As then-US Agriculture Secretary John Block put it in 1986, “The idea that developing countries should feed themselves is an anachronism from a bygone era. They could better ensure their food security by relying on US agricultural products, which are available in most cases at lower cost.”

What Block did not say was that the lower cost of US products stemmed from subsidies, which became more massive with each passing year despite the fact that the WTO was supposed to phase them out. From $367 billion in 1995, the total amount of agricultural subsidies provided by developed-country governments rose to $388 billion in 2004. Since the late 1990s subsidies have accounted for 40 percent of the value of agricultural production in the European Union and 25 percent in the United States.

The apostles of the free market and the defenders of dumping may seem to be at different ends of the spectrum, but the policies they advocate are bringing about the same result: a globalized capitalist industrial agriculture. Developing countries are being integrated into a system where export-oriented production of meat and grain is dominated by large industrial farms like those run by the Thai multinational CP and where technology is continually upgraded by advances in genetic engineering from firms like Monsanto. And the elimination of tariff and nontariff barriers is facilitating a global agricultural supermarket of elite and middle-class consumers serviced by grain-trading corporations like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland and transnational food retailers like the British-owned Tesco and the French-owned Carrefour.

There is little room for the hundreds of millions of rural and urban poor in this integrated global market. They are confined to giant suburban favelas, where they contend with food prices that are often much higher than the supermarket prices, or to rural reservations, where they are trapped in marginal agricultural activities and increasingly vulnerable to hunger. Indeed, within the same country, famine in the marginalized sector sometimes coexists with prosperity in the globalized sector.

This is not simply the erosion of national food self-sufficiency or food security but what Africanist Deborah Bryceson of Oxford calls “de-peasantization” — the phasing out of a mode of production to make the countryside a more congenial site for intensive capital accumulation. This transformation is a traumatic one for hundreds of millions of people, since peasant production is not simply an economic activity. It is an ancient way of life, a culture, which is one reason displaced or marginalized peasants in India have taken to committing suicide. In the state of Andhra Pradesh, farmer suicides rose from 233 in 1998 to 2,600 in 2002; in Maharashtra, suicides more than tripled, from 1,083 in 1995 to 3,926 in 2005. One estimate is that some 150,000 Indian farmers have taken their lives. Collapse of prices from trade liberalization and loss of control over seeds to biotech firms is part of a comprehensive problem, says global justice activist Vandana Shiva: “Under globalization, the farmer is losing her/his social, cultural, economic identity as a producer. A farmer is now a ‘consumer’ of costly seeds and costly chemicals sold by powerful global corporations through powerful landlords and money lenders locally.”

African Agriculture: From Compliance to Defiance

De-peasantization is at an advanced state in Latin America and Asia. And if the World Bank has its way, Africa will travel in the same direction. As Bryceson and her colleagues correctly point out in a recent article, the World Development Report for 2008, which touches extensively on agriculture in Africa, is practically a blueprint for the transformation of the continent’s peasant-based agriculture into large-scale commercial farming. However, as in many other places today, the Bank’s wards are moving from sullen resentment to outright defiance.

At the time of decolonization, in the 1960s, Africa was actually a net food exporter. Today the continent imports 25 percent of its food; almost every country is a net importer. Hunger and famine have become recurrent phenomena, with the past three years alone seeing food emergencies break out in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, and Southern and Central Africa.

Agriculture in Africa is in deep crisis, and the causes range from wars to bad governance, lack of agricultural technology and the spread of HIV/AIDS. However, as in Mexico and the Philippines, an important part of the explanation is the phasing out of government controls and support mechanisms under the IMF and World Bank structural adjustment programs imposed as the price for assistance in servicing external debt.

Structural adjustment brought about declining investment, increased unemployment, reduced social spending, reduced consumption and low output. Lifting price controls on fertilizers while simultaneously cutting back on agricultural credit systems simply led to reduced fertilizer use, lower yields and lower investment. Moreover, reality refused to conform to the doctrinal expectation that withdrawal of the state would pave the way for the market to dynamize agriculture. Instead, the private sector, which correctly saw reduced state expenditures as creating more risk, failed to step into the breach. In country after country, the departure of the state “crowded out” rather than “crowded in” private investment. Where private traders did replace the state, noted an Oxfam report, “they have sometimes done so on highly unfavorable terms for poor farmers,” leaving “farmers more food insecure, and governments reliant on unpredictable international aid flows.” The usually pro-private sector Economist agreed, admitting that “many of the private firms brought in to replace state researchers turned out to be rent-seeking monopolists.”

The support that African governments were allowed to muster was channeled by the World Bank toward export agriculture to generate foreign exchange, which states needed to service debt. But, as in Ethiopia during the 1980s famine, this led to the dedication of good land to export crops, with food crops forced into less suitable soil, thus exacerbating food insecurity. Moreover, the World Bank’s encouragement of several economies to focus on the same export crops often led to overproduction, triggering price collapses in international markets. For instance, the very success of Ghana’s expansion of cocoa production triggered a 48 percent drop in the international price between 1986 and 1989. In 2002-03 a collapse in coffee prices contributed to another food emergency in Ethiopia.

As in Mexico and the Philippines, structural adjustment in Africa was not simply about underinvestment but state divestment. But there was one major difference. In Africa the World Bank and IMF micromanaged, making decisions on how fast subsidies should be phased out, how many civil servants had to be fired and even, as in the case of Malawi, how much of the country’s grain reserve should be sold and to whom.

Compounding the negative impact of adjustment were unfair EU and US trade practices. Liberalization allowed subsidized EU beef to drive many West African and South African cattle raisers to ruin. With their subsidies legitimized by the WTO, US growers offloaded cotton on world markets at 20 percent to 55 percent of production cost, thereby bankrupting West and Central African farmers.

According to Oxfam, the number of sub-Saharan Africans living on less than a dollar a day almost doubled, to 313 million, between 1981 and 2001 — 46 percent of the whole continent. The role of structural adjustment in creating poverty was hard to deny. As the World Bank’s chief economist for Africa admitted, “We did not think that the human costs of these programs could be so great, and the economic gains would be so slow in coming.”

In 1999 the government of Malawi initiated a program to give each smallholder family a starter pack of free fertilizers and seeds. The result was a national surplus of corn. What came after is a story that should be enshrined as a classic case study of one of the greatest blunders of neoliberal economics. The World Bank and other aid donors forced the scaling down and eventual scrapping of the program, arguing that the subsidy distorted trade. Without the free packs, output plummeted. In the meantime, the IMF insisted that the government sell off a large portion of its grain reserves to enable the food reserve agency to settle its commercial debts. The government complied. When the food crisis turned into a famine in 2001-02, there were hardly any reserves left. About 1,500 people perished. The IMF was unrepentant; in fact, it suspended its disbursements on an adjustment program on the grounds that “the parastatal sector will continue to pose risks to the successful implementation of the 2002/03 budget. Government interventions in the food and other agricultural markets… [are] crowding out more productive spending.”

By the time an even worse food crisis developed in 2005, the government had had enough of World Bank/IMF stupidity. A new president reintroduced the fertilizer subsidy, enabling 2 million households to buy it at a third of the retail price and seeds at a discount. The result: bumper harvests for two years, a million-ton maize surplus and the country transformed into a supplier of corn to Southern Africa.

Malawi’s defiance of the World Bank would probably have been an act of heroic but futile resistance a decade ago. The environment is different today, since structural adjustment has been discredited throughout Africa. Even some donor governments and NGOs that used to subscribe to it have distanced themselves from the Bank. Perhaps the motivation is to prevent their influence in the continent from being further eroded by association with a failed approach and unpopular institutions when Chinese aid is emerging as an alternative to World Bank, IMF and Western government aid programs.

Food Sovereignty: An Alternative Paradigm?

It is not only defiance from governments like Malawi and dissent from their erstwhile allies that are undermining the IMF and the World Bank. Peasant organizations around the world have become increasingly militant in their resistance to the globalization of industrial agriculture. Indeed, it is because of pressure from farmers’ groups that the governments of the South have refused to grant wider access to their agricultural markets and demanded a massive slashing of US and EU agricultural subsidies, which brought the WTO’s Doha Round of negotiations to a standstill.

Farmers’ groups have networked internationally; one of the most dynamic to emerge is Via Campesina (Peasant’s Path). Via not only seeks to get “WTO out of agriculture” and opposes the paradigm of a globalized capitalist industrial agriculture; it also proposes an alternative — food sovereignty. Food sovereignty means, first of all, the right of a country to determine its production and consumption of food and the exemption of agriculture from global trade regimes like that of the WTO. It also means consolidation of a smallholder-centered agriculture via protection of the domestic market from low-priced imports; remunerative prices for farmers and fisherfolk; abolition of all direct and indirect export subsidies; and the phasing out of domestic subsidies that promote unsustainable agriculture. Via’s platform also calls for an end to the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights regime, or TRIPs, which allows corporations to patent plant seeds; opposes agro-technology based on genetic engineering; and demands land reform. In contrast to an integrated global monoculture, Via offers the vision of an international agricultural economy composed of diverse national agricultural economies trading with one another but focused primarily on domestic production.

Once regarded as relics of the pre-industrial era, peasants are now leading the opposition to a capitalist industrial agriculture that would consign them to the dustbin of history. They have become what Karl Marx described as a politically conscious “class for itself,” contradicting his predictions about their demise. With the global food crisis, they are moving to center stage — and they have allies and supporters. For as peasants refuse to go gently into that good night and fight de-peasantization, developments in the twenty-first century are revealing the panacea of globalized capitalist industrial agriculture to be a nightmare. With environmental crises multiplying, the social dysfunctions of urban-industrial life piling up and industrialized agriculture creating greater food insecurity, the farmers’ movement increasingly has relevance not only to peasants but to everyone threatened by the catastrophic consequences of global capital’s vision for organizing production, community and life itself.

Walden Bello is senior analyst at and former executive director of Focus on the Global South, a research and advocacy institute based at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. He is the author or co-author of many books on politics and economic issues in the Philippines and Asia, including, most recently, Deglobalization (Zed), and recipient of the 2003 Right Livelihood Award, also known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.” In March he was named Outstanding Public Scholar for 2008 by the International Studies Association.

Copyright © 2008 The Nation

The base, complete with extensive underground storage facilities, houses China's DF 21 Medium Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBM) that have a range of over 2,200 km and can target most cities in northern India and southern Russia. New Delhi has been keeping the base — built in the late 1970s — under regular surveillance.

Experts analysing the new satellite imagery have identified 58 launch pads, many of which have been added within the last four years. New command and control facilities and missile deployment equipment are also visible at the base.

While the upgraded base does not change the situation much for India — it has been within the reach of Chinese nuclear missiles for years — it once again brings to light that New Delhi is far from matching Beijing's growing strategic reach in the region.

"China appears to be building/ upgrading launch pads in the area, but that is to escape US and Russian counter-force targeting. India is still many years away from a counter-force capability, if it ever plans to develop one," Hans Kristensen, Director, Nuclear Information Project, Federation of American Scientists (FAS), told The Indian Express.

China has recently replaced its older generation DF 4 missiles, which needed a two-three hours preparation time before launch, at the Delingha base with the newer solid-fueled DF 21 missiles that can be launched within a few minutes of reaction time.

While the base was built in the 1970's when Russia was a major military threat to China, experts say that the missiles deployed there are likely to be targeted only against threats from India and Russia. Other traditional rivals, like Japan, Taiwan and US are out of reach from the base.

"The location was chosen back when the Soviet Union was a major concern for China. There is also another DF-21 deployment area in southern China near Kunming from where DF-21 missiles can cover parts of northern India. Yet, unlike Kunming, the Delingha deployment area can cover all of northern India. So, India and Russia are both important targets for the Delingha missiles," Kristensen said.

The upgradation of the Delingha facility and the new Hainan Island submarine base are just a few indicators of China's extensive military reforms in recent years.

The latest US Department of Defence report on China says that the country is enhancing its strategic strike capabilities by fielding a new range of missile systems and submarines that "will give China a more survivable nuclear force".

Besides cutting down its standing army to make it a leaner and meaner force, the country has also embarked on a major drive to upgrade conventional capabilities from a ground based force to an integrated service supported by "ground, naval, aviation, and missile forces".

The International Bahaii press agency announced that The six men and women, all members of the national-level group that helped see to the minimum needs of Bahá'ís in Iran, were in their homes Wednesday morning when government intelligence agents entered and spent up to five hours searching each home, before taking them away.

The seventh member of the national coordinating group was arrested in early March in Mashhad after being summoned by the Ministry of Intelligence office there on an ostensibly trivial matter.

Ms.Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Bahá'í International Community to the United Nations. condemned the detention of the Bahaiis and has said that their only crime is practicing the Bahá'í Faith.

"Especially disturbing is how this latest sweep recalls the wholesale arrest or abduction of the members of two national Iranian Bahá'í governing councils in the early 1980s -- which led to the disappearance or execution of 17 individuals," she said.

"The early morning raids on the homes of these prominent Bahá'ís were well coordinated, and it is clear they represent a high-level effort to strike again at the Bahá'ís and to intimidate the Iranian Bahá'í community at large," said Ms. Dugal.

Arrested yesterday were: Mrs. Fariba Kamalabadi, Mr. Jamaloddin Khanjani, Mr. Afif Naeimi, Mr. Saeid Rezaie, Mr. Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Mr. Vahid Tizfahm. All live in Tehran. Mrs. Kamalabadi, Mr. Khanjani, and Mr. Tavakkoli have been previously arrested and then released after periods ranging from five days to four months.

Arrested in Mashhad on 5 March 2008 was Mrs. Mahvash Sabet, who also resides in Tehran. Mrs. Sabet was summoned to Mashhad by the Ministry of Intelligence, ostensibly on the grounds that she was required to answer questions related to the burial of an individual in the Bahá'í cemetery in that city.

On 21 August 1980, all nine members of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Iran were abducted and disappeared without a trace. It is certain that they were killed.

The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Iran was reconstituted soon after that but was again ravaged by the execution of eight of its members on 27 December 1981.

The International Bahaii press agency announced that a number of members of local Bahá'í governing councils, known as local Spiritual Assemblies, were also arrested and executed in the early 1980s, before an international outcry forced the government to slow its execution of Bahá'ís. Since 1979, more than 200 Bahá'ís have been killed or executed in Iran, although none have been executed since 1998.

In 1983, the government outlawed all formal Bahá'í administrative institutions and the Iranian Bahá'í community responded by disbanding its National Spiritual Assembly, which is an elected governing council, along with some 400 local level elected governing councils. Bahá'ís throughout Iran also suspended nearly all of their regular organizational activity.

Shrii Prabhat R Sarkar

In a newly-released tape of a 2006 neocon luncheon meeting featuring former War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, attended by ex-military "message force multiplier" propaganda shills Lt. General Michael DeLong, David L. Grange, Donald W. Sheppard, James Marks, Rick Francona, Wayne Downing, Robert H. Scales and others, Rumsfeld declared that the American people lack "the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the ‘threats’" -- and need another 9/11.

When DeLong complained about a "lack of sympathetic ears" in Congress, and a lack of interest among the general American public, Rumsfeld responded, "What's to be done? The correction for that, I suppose, is another attack."

This videotape clip is part of a one-hour tape declassified by the Department of Defense in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The entire clip, and analysis of this damning new revelation, can be found here: "The Correction for that . . . is another attack" (Jason Linkins, Huffington Post, 5/13/08)

For an independent op-ed about the same information, see Rumsfeld's Mind: If 9/11 worked, why not try it again? (Op-Ed News. It was also the topic of discussion on the May 14 broadcast of Nova M Radio’s Mike Malloy Program.

In the seven years since the day, exhaustive and still growing evidence proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the US government, spearheaded by the Bush administration, planned, orchestrated and executed the 9/11 false flag operation. As openly advocated by wide swaths of elites, from the People for the New American Century (PNAC), of which Rumsfeld has been a member, to the likes of Zbigniew Brzezinski (in his The Grand Chessboard), only an attack “on the order of Pearl Harbor” would, in Brzezinski’s words, cause the American people to support an “imperial mobilization,” and a world war.

Sept. 11, and its resulting “war on terrorism” (in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, etc.), remains the Bush administration’s endless gift from hell, in large part courtesy of Rumsfeld.

Placing the new evidence against previously revealed 9/11-related acts on the part of Rumsfeld, his guilt is overt and obvious. Recall that it was Rumsfeld who enthusiastically penned the "Go Massive" memo, gleefully declaring the Bush administration finally had the green light to kill: “Not only UBL (Usama bin Laden). Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.”

As the Bush administration’s war ensued in earnest, Rumsfeld gloated to the New York Times that 9/11 provided “the kind of opportunities that World War II offered, to refashion the world.”

It is not for nothing that Donald Rumsfeld was described by legendary war criminal Henry Kissinger as “the most ruthless man I’ve ever known.”

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal

On April 6th a general strike was called in Egypt. One month later, on May 7th, another one was called in Lebanon. The causes were the same in both countries: calls for an increase in the minimum wage and improvements to workers' statutory benefits and also to protest against the neoliberal, IMF-friendly, pro-Western political attitudes of the respective governments. The responses of the Egyptian and Lebanese governments were the same, although with different results: attempts to defuse the protests with repression, confronting the people and increasing the minimum wage as a last resort. The media account of the two strikes was the same too: minimizing the effects of the protest in government and international media, while the few media that can be described as independent in these countries reflected the strike calls' success.

Egypt

Workers in Egypt have staged a series of protests against Hosni Mubarak's pro-Western, neoliberal IMF-friendly regime for a long time now. In April a general strike took place which the government tried to stop with "preventive detention" of the main labour leaders and important leaders of political organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood. The measures were accompanied by an impressive police deployment which still failed to prevent the strike holding fast for three days in places like Al-Mahallah Al-Kubra, a town located on the Nile Delta, for years the visible head of workers' protests in Egypt.

Together with the direct repression (hundreds of detainees, starting with imprisonments almost a month before the strike was held, along with police deployment in the main streets and squares of principal cities like Cairo and Alexandria) action was taken on three fronts. On the labor front, serious penalties were threatened against workers in Egypt's civil service. On the student front, universities were forced to set examinations for the day of the strike so as to weaken the street protests and stop students joining the workers. On the media front, newspapers, radio stations and government and allied television channels joined forces to slander and satirize the protest organizers.

The strike call was made by makeshift means, from traditional pamphlets via e-mails and word of mouth so as to evade repression. Few official or allied media dared to mention the demands. The protest was against the government's neoliberal, IMF policies and made clear the strike's social and political reasons. Among the main reasons, "rejection of price increases, the need for education for our children, for adequate transport, hospitals that care for our health, medicine for our infants, a fair courts system." Other demands were, "we don't want murderous police officers or police torture - no more arrests, corruption and bribery."

Despite all the Mubarak government's efforts, the strike was successful. That day, Cairo was a capital brought to a standstill. The students of at least two universities, Hilwan and Al-Azhar, refused to follow the government order. They neither attended classes nor sat exams. (1) Prestigious professional associations, like that of the lawyers, joined the protest and offered their services to the 140 people detained for participating in the strike. The Left, represented by the Movimiento Kefaya and the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood supported the strike unconditionally.

But complete success was achieved in Al-Mahallah Al-Kubra. Textile workers have been the front rank in the struggle against the Mubarak regime (2) and the government was especially anxious for the strike to fail there. (Textiles here are the most important productive activity employing 20,000 workers). Police prevented the night shift of Al-Mahallah Al-Kubra's main textile factory from leaving, so that they might continue working on the day of the 6th (strike day) without interrupting production. Police took over the area's main streets but failed to stop 6000 workers meeting and confronting the forces there to repress them. This resulted in 331 workers detained and 60 wounded. A video bears witness to the combativity of the workers and can be seen on YouTube. (3)

The success of the strike encouraged the political opposition to call another stoppage for May 4th but this did not have the same following. Along with another increase in the repression (70 groups of the Central Security Forces mobilised in the striking districts in addition to those still there from the April strike) (4), one has to include government conscience buying : they rewarded Al-Mallah Al-Kubra workers who stayed out of the April strike with a month's extra pay. Curiously, they also rewarded the workers who did go on strike, but with a fortnight's pay. For the remaining workers, right on the eve of the second strike call, a 30% rise in the minimum wage was announced.

Lebanon

Something similar to what happened in Egypt also happened in Lebanon. The General Labour Confederation called a general strike for May 7th with similar demands to those of their Egyptian colleagues. The main demand was an increase in the minimum wage. But the strike also carried a political message : the neoliberal, pro-Western, IMF-friendly government of Fouad Siniora wants to privatize a large part of the public sector (telephones, airport, water and health, among others) and that is unacceptable to Lebanese workers. The forces that support the government, grouped in the March 14th coalition, opposed it arguing that it was a political strike. The opposition forces grouped in the March 8th coalition protected it.

In January 2007 Lebanon experienced a massive general strike. On this occsaion, it has been a majority strike but not so widespread. The least biased media reckon support at 80%, with total support in main reference points like Beirut and Bekaa. The reasons : the government approved an 82% increase in the minimum wage from 300,000 Lebanese pounds to 500,000 - about 320 Euros. Companies threatened workers with dismissal if they supported the strike.(5) The March 14th political parties and their allied labour unions called on their supporters not to support the strike, arguing that its objectives had been achieved and that the strike was political. It is worth remembering that the CGT wanted the minimum wage set at 960,000 Lebanese pounds (about 610 Euros) arguing themselves that the cost of living in recent years had increased to intolerable levels for the great majority of the population, especially basic items like bread, milk, rice, sugar, meat and so on. (6)

The strategy

The success of the strike moves in Egypt and Lebanon would not have been possible without an event unimaginable until two years ago : Hizbollah's victory in the war against Israel. From the very moment that the Arab peoples, from Morocco to Iraq, realised that a political-military movement's daring and determination could breach imperialist strategy, fear began to run up the backbones of the area's regimes, making their nervousness ever more obvious to their peoples.

During that war, the streets of the Arab cities, regardless of religious or party affiliations filled with placards on which the figure of Hizbollah's Secretary General accompanied that of Nasser the former Egyptian President and Che along with a unanimous resounding cry, "No Peace without Justice!". A cry that forced the neoliberal, pro-Western, IMF-friendly Arab governments to dust off old programmes and plans with the one approved in 2002 on recognit