https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWs-Wv36_4A
Wednesday, August 12, 2020
“They are treating us all like pawns—we are the ones who suffer”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/11/heal-a11.html
Protesting health workers in UK speak to World Socialist Web Site
By our reporters
11 August 2020
Thousands of health workers took part in dozens of demonstrations and rallies in cities and towns across the UK Saturday, demanding a pay rise and adequate protection from COVID-19.
Despite years of pay cuts, the Johnson government last month excluded health workers from a miserly increase awarded to public sector workers. The decision has provoked widespread anger among workers who have risked their lives throughout the pandemic.
Saturday’s events were promoted by Keep Our NHS Public (KONP), a campaign group backed by sections of the Labour Party and trade union bureaucracy. But neither Labour Party officials nor health unions openly associated themselves with the demonstrations, which were largely coordinated via local Facebook groups.
Under ten years of Tory austerity, pay has declined by 20 percent. A long awaited 2018 pay increase of 6.5 percent over 3 years saw health workers’ pay tied to performance, slashing incremental pay progression. Enhanced pay for unsocial hours was cut and sickness payments were reduced.
Along with the dismantling and privatization of the NHS, the attacks on pay and conditions have proceeded with the tacit support of the health unions and the Labour Party. In 2016, the British Medical Association betrayed months-long industrial action, including all-out strikes, by 50,000 junior doctors against vastly inferior contracts. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his backers in the trade unions refused to mobilise in their support.
At Saturday’s protests, the same 13 health unions which promoted the 2018 rotten pay deal as the “best deal in 8 years” tried to creep into the events. Members of the pseudo-left Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Party were on hand to bolster the trade unions’ sagging credentials.
Bournemouth
More than 100 nurses and health workers rallied in Bournemouth. Most banners were homemade, with slogans hostile to politicians’ hypocritical statements during weekly “clap for carers” and “clap for the NHS” events. Placards included, “Heroes to 0%”, “Claps don't pay the bills,” “Pay NHS a fair wage—you owe us,” “Some cuts don't heal,” “Stop clapping start talking” and “A nurse is for life, not just for Covid19.”
Health workers spoke of their anger over the deaths of more than 500 of their colleagues from COVID-19 across the UK and the absence of Personal Protective Equipment, access to tests and a liveable income.
Prior to the protest, the local Unison branch sent notification to its members that they were not endorsing the event due to social distancing concerns—although the union has shown no similar concern for its members inside the hospitals.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) tried to keep its members in the dark about the protests but delivered some T-shirts and placards with the RCN logo. Hospital workers turned out in defiance of the union’s efforts at sabotage, and despite their own concerns about COVID-19.
Kevin, an NHS worker from a local day hospital, told the WSWS, “I’ve got [COVID-19] antibodies now, but I was off sick for two months. I’m well over retirement, I’m 69 now, but I love my job and care about the NHS and we’ve got to protect it as best we can. I’m here for the younger nurses because the salary is pitiful. I’ve worked for the NHS for over 21 years. I can show you my wage slip and you’ll be shocked at the rate. It’s less than £12 an hour.”
Sarah, a student nurse from Yeovil, spoke about the Tory government’s 2017 scrapping of the bursary for student nurses. “I went into nursing 20 years ago and I didn’t have fees to pay,” she said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t see it through and here I am 20 years later and looking at £60,000 of debt. They are reintroducing the £5,000 bursary, but it’s still not enough. I still have to pay over £9,000 a year in tuition fees plus maintenance loans.
“I have five children. I need to be able to feed them. I don’t want to be working alongside studying and my placement, but I might have to in order to survive and that could affect my performance on the ward. It’s a scary time and my passion is to do this, regardless of the cost, but at the same time I am going to fight for what’s fair.”
Asked about the deaths of NHS workers from COVID-19, Sarah replied, “The health worker deaths, each of the 540, physically hurt me. Wasted lives, and now their professionalism and their knowledge are lost from our NHS because our government just don’t care about people. They only care about their pockets.”
Sarah said of the ending of the national lockdown, “Yes, ‘Eat Out To Help Out’—let’s send the poor people out to the restaurants, give them discounts, and we can pay them to be guinea pigs! That’s what that is. I do not believe it’s safe to be out there yet. I know that businesses are important, but they will recover. The NHS won’t. You can’t bring back a dead NHS worker.”
Chris, who worked on a COVID-19 ward at Bournemouth Hospital said, “It was a really scary business. We had friends that had been upstairs on the ventilating machines, and we didn’t know if they’d survive or not.”
Asked whether they had enough PPE, Chris replied: “They kept changing [the advice]. At first, we had to have a new mask every time we saw a patient, and then it was, ‘You have to use your mask as much as possible as we are running out.’ We were working in extreme heat, and some patients were deaf and couldn’t hear us, so that was an added pressure. It scared a lot of older patients. They didn’t know what was going on. They’d been through wars, but this is something else. This is unprecedented.”
Speaking about the Johnson government’s response to the pandemic, Chris said, “They ignored the science. The scientists were trying to give us the message and they were just laughing at it. They are treating us all like pawns in a game because they are safe. We are the ones who suffer. Boris Johnson was laughing at it from the start, making little jokes. It’s not a joke. People are dying.”
Cambridge
Around 100 health workers protested in Cambridge. Nurses spoke from an open microphone pointing out that the police, military and MPs get pay rises all the time, but not NHS workers. Some nurses described having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from seeing their colleagues die, while they had to go on working. During a march, cars honked in support, including a couple of fire trucks. This prompted chants of “Firefighters need a pay rise too!”
Charlotte, a mental health nurse, delivered a moving speech, “For too long we have sat silently, with the government expecting that we would stay silent and complicit … Well, I say the time that ends is now.
“I vividly remember writing my whole dissertation on night shift, trying to fund my degree. And then you think that things are going to change when you qualify, and that finally that hard work, to get a decent wage, will be over. Well how wrong we were.
“Every politician, every MP that I’ve seen, spouts Agenda for Change, and that we have a pay deal. Well, no one told my bank account that I had a pay rise. It didn’t show in my pocket, it didn’t pay my rent. Many of us were worse off … I will have no increments and no raises for four years, yet I am expected to take on more and more responsibility, more and more pressure, and more and more stress.
“Too many of us have lost friends and family to COVID-19. All while we saw the government saying we have adequate PPE and how well stocked we were. How many of us sat on wards with no PPE, terrified we were going to pass something on to our family? How many of us were told how fantastic we were, and how we were heroes? We’re not heroes, we’re not something from the fairy tales, we’re nurses, and we’re people.
“And there is only so far that you can push us before we snap. Too many nurses are coming with PTSD symptoms. Too many nurses are breaking down and leaving the profession. It’s too tough for us, and I think now is the time to say that we stand, and we cannot work in these conditions any longer.”
Manchester
Up to 150 people assembled at Piccadilly Gardens in central Manchester. Calls for strike action were met with applause.
Many spoke about how hard it was to get PPE, and that migrant workers were being scapegoated during the pandemic. Some talked about doing unpaid overtime and said that if they didn’t, the NHS would collapse.
Jas, a student nurse, said she would be £60,000 in debt when she qualifies. The only protection she had at work was a mask. Both she and her partner caught COVID-19. She called the pay deal “a kick in the teeth.”
Another female student nurse said, “I will graduate in 2021. By then I will be £90k in debt as I did a degree prior to this one. My NHS student debt is £60k. I work long hours to pay my bills. Once I worked 90 hours over 9 days. I haven’t seen my family or friends since before Christmas.”
Glasgow
Hundreds of health workers and their supporters rallied in Glasgow Green. Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) member Ritchie Venton spoke from the platform, promoting the trade unions discredited 2018 “pay rise.” “This should be a platform for the intervention of the trade unions to get involved to fight for what you deserve ... I would advise you all to read the TUC policy brought out during the pandemic demanding a £2 an hour increase.”
A nurse described how the NHS was running on the goodwill of staff, arriving early and staying late without pay, forgoing breaks to care for patients, or giving up annual leave due to understaffing. During the pandemic, she would come home exhausted and numb, knowing she wasn’t able to give the care she should due to an inadequate system.
Leeds
More than 200 health workers protested in Leeds. Several health workers spoke of the decimation and privatization of the NHS. A nurse with 40 years’ service held a banner which said, "Enough is Enough."
A mental health nurse described the effects of COVID-19 restrictions on her elderly patients and said it was outrageous that mental health wards and beds were being closed during the pandemic.
Sheffield
Around 200 to 250 attended a rally and protest in Barkers Pool, in Sheffield city centre. Not a single trade union placard was present, just a few flags. Around 90 percent of placards were homemade, and these included, “You clapped for us now you crapped on us,” “Nurses are being exploited #Pay rise" and “Clapping won’t pay my bills” and “NURSE—Neglected, Underpaid, Refused, Suppressed and Exhausted.”
Representatives of pseudo-left groups spoke without identifying their political affiliations, presenting themselves as activists or union officials. They spent most of their time excusing the shameful role of the unions, including their role in delivering a rotten three-year pay deal. The unions “should” be organising national demonstrations and should “get off their knees,” declared one pseudo-left demagogue, claiming that pressure was already being productive with the unions agreeing to take up a 15 percent pay increase demand.
Two minute’s silence was held at 12 noon in memory of the 540 health care workers who have been killed by coronavirus in the UK.
11 August 2020
Thousands of health workers took part in dozens of demonstrations and rallies in cities and towns across the UK Saturday, demanding a pay rise and adequate protection from COVID-19.
Despite years of pay cuts, the Johnson government last month excluded health workers from a miserly increase awarded to public sector workers. The decision has provoked widespread anger among workers who have risked their lives throughout the pandemic.
Saturday’s events were promoted by Keep Our NHS Public (KONP), a campaign group backed by sections of the Labour Party and trade union bureaucracy. But neither Labour Party officials nor health unions openly associated themselves with the demonstrations, which were largely coordinated via local Facebook groups.
Under ten years of Tory austerity, pay has declined by 20 percent. A long awaited 2018 pay increase of 6.5 percent over 3 years saw health workers’ pay tied to performance, slashing incremental pay progression. Enhanced pay for unsocial hours was cut and sickness payments were reduced.
Along with the dismantling and privatization of the NHS, the attacks on pay and conditions have proceeded with the tacit support of the health unions and the Labour Party. In 2016, the British Medical Association betrayed months-long industrial action, including all-out strikes, by 50,000 junior doctors against vastly inferior contracts. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his backers in the trade unions refused to mobilise in their support.
At Saturday’s protests, the same 13 health unions which promoted the 2018 rotten pay deal as the “best deal in 8 years” tried to creep into the events. Members of the pseudo-left Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Party were on hand to bolster the trade unions’ sagging credentials.
Bournemouth
More than 100 nurses and health workers rallied in Bournemouth. Most banners were homemade, with slogans hostile to politicians’ hypocritical statements during weekly “clap for carers” and “clap for the NHS” events. Placards included, “Heroes to 0%”, “Claps don't pay the bills,” “Pay NHS a fair wage—you owe us,” “Some cuts don't heal,” “Stop clapping start talking” and “A nurse is for life, not just for Covid19.”
Health workers spoke of their anger over the deaths of more than 500 of their colleagues from COVID-19 across the UK and the absence of Personal Protective Equipment, access to tests and a liveable income.
Prior to the protest, the local Unison branch sent notification to its members that they were not endorsing the event due to social distancing concerns—although the union has shown no similar concern for its members inside the hospitals.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) tried to keep its members in the dark about the protests but delivered some T-shirts and placards with the RCN logo. Hospital workers turned out in defiance of the union’s efforts at sabotage, and despite their own concerns about COVID-19.
Kevin, an NHS worker from a local day hospital, told the WSWS, “I’ve got [COVID-19] antibodies now, but I was off sick for two months. I’m well over retirement, I’m 69 now, but I love my job and care about the NHS and we’ve got to protect it as best we can. I’m here for the younger nurses because the salary is pitiful. I’ve worked for the NHS for over 21 years. I can show you my wage slip and you’ll be shocked at the rate. It’s less than £12 an hour.”
Sarah, a student nurse from Yeovil, spoke about the Tory government’s 2017 scrapping of the bursary for student nurses. “I went into nursing 20 years ago and I didn’t have fees to pay,” she said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t see it through and here I am 20 years later and looking at £60,000 of debt. They are reintroducing the £5,000 bursary, but it’s still not enough. I still have to pay over £9,000 a year in tuition fees plus maintenance loans.
“I have five children. I need to be able to feed them. I don’t want to be working alongside studying and my placement, but I might have to in order to survive and that could affect my performance on the ward. It’s a scary time and my passion is to do this, regardless of the cost, but at the same time I am going to fight for what’s fair.”
Asked about the deaths of NHS workers from COVID-19, Sarah replied, “The health worker deaths, each of the 540, physically hurt me. Wasted lives, and now their professionalism and their knowledge are lost from our NHS because our government just don’t care about people. They only care about their pockets.”
Sarah said of the ending of the national lockdown, “Yes, ‘Eat Out To Help Out’—let’s send the poor people out to the restaurants, give them discounts, and we can pay them to be guinea pigs! That’s what that is. I do not believe it’s safe to be out there yet. I know that businesses are important, but they will recover. The NHS won’t. You can’t bring back a dead NHS worker.”
Chris, who worked on a COVID-19 ward at Bournemouth Hospital said, “It was a really scary business. We had friends that had been upstairs on the ventilating machines, and we didn’t know if they’d survive or not.”
Asked whether they had enough PPE, Chris replied: “They kept changing [the advice]. At first, we had to have a new mask every time we saw a patient, and then it was, ‘You have to use your mask as much as possible as we are running out.’ We were working in extreme heat, and some patients were deaf and couldn’t hear us, so that was an added pressure. It scared a lot of older patients. They didn’t know what was going on. They’d been through wars, but this is something else. This is unprecedented.”
Speaking about the Johnson government’s response to the pandemic, Chris said, “They ignored the science. The scientists were trying to give us the message and they were just laughing at it. They are treating us all like pawns in a game because they are safe. We are the ones who suffer. Boris Johnson was laughing at it from the start, making little jokes. It’s not a joke. People are dying.”
Cambridge
Around 100 health workers protested in Cambridge. Nurses spoke from an open microphone pointing out that the police, military and MPs get pay rises all the time, but not NHS workers. Some nurses described having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from seeing their colleagues die, while they had to go on working. During a march, cars honked in support, including a couple of fire trucks. This prompted chants of “Firefighters need a pay rise too!”
Charlotte, a mental health nurse, delivered a moving speech, “For too long we have sat silently, with the government expecting that we would stay silent and complicit … Well, I say the time that ends is now.
“I vividly remember writing my whole dissertation on night shift, trying to fund my degree. And then you think that things are going to change when you qualify, and that finally that hard work, to get a decent wage, will be over. Well how wrong we were.
“Every politician, every MP that I’ve seen, spouts Agenda for Change, and that we have a pay deal. Well, no one told my bank account that I had a pay rise. It didn’t show in my pocket, it didn’t pay my rent. Many of us were worse off … I will have no increments and no raises for four years, yet I am expected to take on more and more responsibility, more and more pressure, and more and more stress.
“Too many of us have lost friends and family to COVID-19. All while we saw the government saying we have adequate PPE and how well stocked we were. How many of us sat on wards with no PPE, terrified we were going to pass something on to our family? How many of us were told how fantastic we were, and how we were heroes? We’re not heroes, we’re not something from the fairy tales, we’re nurses, and we’re people.
“And there is only so far that you can push us before we snap. Too many nurses are coming with PTSD symptoms. Too many nurses are breaking down and leaving the profession. It’s too tough for us, and I think now is the time to say that we stand, and we cannot work in these conditions any longer.”
Manchester
Up to 150 people assembled at Piccadilly Gardens in central Manchester. Calls for strike action were met with applause.
Many spoke about how hard it was to get PPE, and that migrant workers were being scapegoated during the pandemic. Some talked about doing unpaid overtime and said that if they didn’t, the NHS would collapse.
Jas, a student nurse, said she would be £60,000 in debt when she qualifies. The only protection she had at work was a mask. Both she and her partner caught COVID-19. She called the pay deal “a kick in the teeth.”
Another female student nurse said, “I will graduate in 2021. By then I will be £90k in debt as I did a degree prior to this one. My NHS student debt is £60k. I work long hours to pay my bills. Once I worked 90 hours over 9 days. I haven’t seen my family or friends since before Christmas.”
Glasgow
Hundreds of health workers and their supporters rallied in Glasgow Green. Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) member Ritchie Venton spoke from the platform, promoting the trade unions discredited 2018 “pay rise.” “This should be a platform for the intervention of the trade unions to get involved to fight for what you deserve ... I would advise you all to read the TUC policy brought out during the pandemic demanding a £2 an hour increase.”
A nurse described how the NHS was running on the goodwill of staff, arriving early and staying late without pay, forgoing breaks to care for patients, or giving up annual leave due to understaffing. During the pandemic, she would come home exhausted and numb, knowing she wasn’t able to give the care she should due to an inadequate system.
Leeds
More than 200 health workers protested in Leeds. Several health workers spoke of the decimation and privatization of the NHS. A nurse with 40 years’ service held a banner which said, "Enough is Enough."
A mental health nurse described the effects of COVID-19 restrictions on her elderly patients and said it was outrageous that mental health wards and beds were being closed during the pandemic.
Sheffield
Around 200 to 250 attended a rally and protest in Barkers Pool, in Sheffield city centre. Not a single trade union placard was present, just a few flags. Around 90 percent of placards were homemade, and these included, “You clapped for us now you crapped on us,” “Nurses are being exploited #Pay rise" and “Clapping won’t pay my bills” and “NURSE—Neglected, Underpaid, Refused, Suppressed and Exhausted.”
Representatives of pseudo-left groups spoke without identifying their political affiliations, presenting themselves as activists or union officials. They spent most of their time excusing the shameful role of the unions, including their role in delivering a rotten three-year pay deal. The unions “should” be organising national demonstrations and should “get off their knees,” declared one pseudo-left demagogue, claiming that pressure was already being productive with the unions agreeing to take up a 15 percent pay increase demand.
Two minute’s silence was held at 12 noon in memory of the 540 health care workers who have been killed by coronavirus in the UK.
King Juan Carlos flees Spain to avoid corruption probe
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/11/juan-a10.html
By Alejandro López
11 August 2020
Former King Juan Carlos I de Borbón, who reigned from November 1975 until his abdication in June 2014, has fled Spain to evade investigation on charges on kickbacks and fraud.
Last week, the Royal Family posted a letter by Juan Carlos I to his son, King Felipe VI, informing him of his “well-considered decision to leave Spain”, adding: “It is a decision I take, with deep feeling but great calm. I was king of Spain for 40 years, and during all those years I have always wanted the best for Spain and the Crown.”
Now Juan Carlos has fled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he reportedly occupies an entire floor at Abu Dhabi's five-star Emirates Palace hotel, under the protection of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
Juan Carlos’ departure is a humiliation for the Spanish ruling class and comes amid mounting infighting in the European bourgeoisie. Backed by Washington and the European Union, he was promoted as a leader who led Spain from fascism to democracy after dictator Francisco Franco’s death in 1975—stopping a military coup in 1981 and serving as head of state for nearly 40 years. His decision to flee Spain like a thief, to avoid a corruption probe after Swiss and Spanish prosecutors opened an investigation of his Swiss bank accounts, exposes the entire regime.
The crisis erupted two years ago when a British conservative newspaper, the Telegraph, leaked recordings of Juan Carlos’ mistress, businesswoman Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, speaking to retired Spanish police chief José Manuel Villarejo. Villarejo is currently in jail awaiting trial over “Operation Tandem,” an investigation into two decades of illegal phone taps and other invasions of privacy on behalf of wealthy clients, corporations and banks against politicians, businessmen, judges and journalists.
Sayn-Wittgenstein claims Juan Carlos received kick-backs from commercial contracts in the Gulf States for the construction of the €6.7 billion Haramain high-speed railway in Saudi Arabia and kept the cash in a bank account in Switzerland. She also claims the head of the Spanish intelligence threatened her life and those of her children if she spoke of her ties to Juan Carlos.
The Spanish judiciary intervened to shelve the investigation. Prosecutors claimed the activities mentioned in the conversation occurred before Juan Carlos’s abdication, when he was still immune from prosecution. Almost simultaneously, Swiss prosecutors opened an investigation into a multi-million-euro donation received by Sayn-Wittgenstein from a Swiss bank account. She told investigators that the money was a donation from the former Spanish monarch.
In June 2019, Juan Carlos announced his intention to retire from public life in a letter addressed to Felipe. This was the first attempt of the Royal House to distance itself from Juan Carlos.
In March this year, as COVID-19 raged throughout Spain and Europe after decades of cuts in public health care budgets, the Telegraph reported that Felipe VI was a beneficiary with Juan Carlos of a foundation which received €65 million from Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia.
Soon after, the Royal Household issued a statement claiming that Felipe VI would renounce any inheritance from his father. The former king also reportedly lost his stipend from the State’s General Budget—another attempt by Felipe VI to publicly distance himself from Juan Carlos.
Two months ago, the public prosecutor’s office of the Spanish Supreme Court opened an investigation against Juan Carlos regarding Saudi kickbacks.
In last week’s letter, Juan Carlos makes no statement of guilt or of regret. He claims, laughably, to be fleeing Spain in order “to serve the Spanish people.” His lawyer stated that “he remains at the disposal of the Prosecutor’s Office.” Juan Carlos also reportedly refused the option of settling his back taxes, which would mean handing over 60 percent of his wealth to the state.
Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government, the Royal Household and the media have intervened to defend the former monarch and his “historical legacy”. A press release signed by Felipe VI stated: “The king wants to highlight the historical importance that his father’s reign represents, as a legacy, political work and institutional service to Spain and to democracy.”
El País, the leading pro-PSOE daily, stated in an editorial that “the former king’s disappointing and less than exemplary behavior during the last years of his reign must not make anybody forget his irreplaceable contribution to the progress and freedom of all Spaniards during nearly half a century.” It called for national unity: “It is thus irresponsible to fan the flames of this institutional crisis at a time when the country needs stability, and when everyone should come together to deal with a devastating economic crisis that’s already here, as well as with a health crisis that refuses to go away.”
Juan Carlos and Spain’s Transition from fascist to parliamentary rule
In fact, the inglorious flight of Juan Carlos exposes the rotten regime set up by the NATO imperialist powers in the 1978 Transition from the fascist Francoite regime to Spain’s current parliamentary regime.
Juan Carlos was born in Rome in 1938 to the exiled pretender to the Spanish throne amid the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) launched by the fascist coup of General Francisco Franco. During this three-year war, in which Franco allied with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, at least 200,000 people died. Another 700,000 to 1 million people passed through nearly 300 concentration camps during and after the war. Another half-million fled Spain as refugees.
Franco restored the monarchy in 1947, and Juan Carlos was groomed as his successor. In 1969, he swore loyalty to the fascist Movimiento Nacional (National Movement); he was crowned two days after Franco’s death in 1975. Amid mass strikes and revolutionary struggles in Spain and across Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, factions of the regime led by Juan Carlos worked with the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and the Stalinist Communist Party of Spain (PCE) to pilot a transition to defend the capitalist state and block a struggle of the working class for power.
The PCE played the central role in preventing a revolutionary reckoning with fascism and devising a new constitutional monarchy. Under the monarchy, Spanish fascism’s crimes were to be forgiven and forgotten, and capitalist property preserved. In 1978, a constitution was adopted that protected the king from any prosecution.
To this day, the Podemos leadership hails the leader of the Communist Party from the 1950s to the 1980s, Santiago Carrillo, for his role during the Transition. Carrillo, a mentor of Podemos General Secretary Pablo Iglesias, became close friends with Juan Carlos and a regular at his palace. The king reportedly called him “Don Santiago.”
By 1981, however, the Transition regime was already on the verge of collapse amid rising discontent in the working class. The press and sections of the ruling elite began to discuss the need for a “National Salvation” government under the premiership of General Armada, Juan Carlos’ chief mentor. This meant a supposedly non-violent removal of the democratically-elected government by the military, backed by a broad-based coalition cabinet including the PSOE.
On the evening of February 23, hundreds of Civil Guards burst into Parliament, brandishing pistols and sub-machine guns, taking the government and all 350 deputies hostage. To this day, it remains a state secret how much Juan Carlos new about the coup plotters’ intentions. The coup plotters claimed they acted in the name of the monarch. A German diplomat subsequently stated that Juan Carlos had told him he was in broad agreement with the plotters’ aims.
The PSOE, the Communist Party and its trade union, CC.OO, reacted with calculated impotence, refusing to call strikes or mobilize workers against the coup. Faced with a fascist coup, they simply called on workers to remain calm, defining the assault to parliament as an isolated event.
The coup did not succeed, however, as the majority of the bourgeoisie feared that installing another military junta would have provoked a response from the working class that had lived under fascist rule for four decades. Despite the PCE and PSOE, workers had already started organising defence committees in Andalucía and Asturias; strikes broke out in Barcelona, Madrid and other major cities. On February 26, demonstrations of more than 3 million participants, the most massive in Spain’s history, swept across the country.
Although it formally failed, the coup helped cement the post-Franco Transition regime. The PSOE won elections in 1982 with the backing of the PCE and of the forces from the post-1968 middle class student movement. Together with the right-wing Popular Party, these forces formed an entrenched pro-capitalist political duopoly committed to austerity and war.
For four decades, the Spanish population was routinely bombarded with claims that the king opposed the coup, and that his televised address calling for law and order and the continuation of the elected government—six hours after the coup began—saved democracy from fascism.
Already at this time, Juan Carlos was busy using his position to receive kickbacks. These date back to at least 1973, during the first oil crisis, when Franco sent him to Saudi Arabia to bargain with the House of Saud to cut the prices of Spain’s oil imports.
During the 1980s, Juan Carlos was known as “the king of Socialists” in the 1980s and 1990s due to his close ties to PSOE Prime Minister Felipe González. The González government let Juan Carlos continue his lucrative kickbacks and corruption deals involving the weapons trade, real estate and the arts. He also received large commissions for promoting products and tourist destinations.
His largest kickbacks came from his trips to ex-colonial countries with executives from Santander, Telefónica, BBVA, Inditex, Ibderdrola, OHL, Repsol—the biggest corporations in Spain’s Ibex-35 stock market. In these trips to promote “Spanish brands,” they struck deals worth billions of euros, looting these countries in the process. These looting operations handsomely benefited the king personally.
Podemos defends the Spanish monarchy
The crisis of the monarchy intensified particularly amid the mounting social inequality and social anger caused by deep EU austerity measures that followed the 2008 economic crash. In 2014, Juan Carlos abdicated after years of scandals, including his hunting trips worth thousands of dollars in African countries as workers in Spain and across Europe saw their jobs and meager wages slashed, or the Nóos corruption case involving his daughter, Princess Cristina.
Today, Podemos is intervening to defend the 1978 consensus and the Monarchy. Last December, Iglesias claimed that Monarchy “is not in crisis, and I speak as a republican.” He also hailed Felipe VI’s daughter, Leonor, “who aspires to be head of state, speaking in perfect Catalan.”
Now, desperately trying to cover its tracks amid rising social anger, Podemos leaders are claiming that they were not aware that the government supported the former monarch’s decision to flee, even though Iglesias is deputy Prime Minister. Their complaint is that this is an embarrassment for Spain. In words of Iglesias, the “flight” was “an unworthy attitude of a former head of state,” which Iglesias fears will leave the monarchy “in a very compromised position.”
Podemos is now flirting with calls for a referendum on the republic or a monarchy, even though the party’s parliamentary spokesperson, Jaume Asens, declared this “practically impossible” due to the opposition of the government partner of Podemos, the PSOE.
The main aim of such debates is to boost their tattering left credentials as the PSOE-Podemos government is increasingly associated with austerity, pro-militarist policies, regime change in Latin America and attacks on democratic rights.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Podemos has championed back-to-work, back-to-school and deconfinement policies. Its most recent action has been to hail the recent EU bailout funneling €750 billion to the banks and corporations. The package imposes austerity across Europe, while laying down the axes on which the European imperialist powers will pursue militarist and economic policies targeting China and the United States.
Juan Carlos’ decision to flee corruption charges in Spain only underscores the profound corruption of the entire social and political order defended by Podemos and Deputy Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias.
11 August 2020
Former King Juan Carlos I de Borbón, who reigned from November 1975 until his abdication in June 2014, has fled Spain to evade investigation on charges on kickbacks and fraud.
Last week, the Royal Family posted a letter by Juan Carlos I to his son, King Felipe VI, informing him of his “well-considered decision to leave Spain”, adding: “It is a decision I take, with deep feeling but great calm. I was king of Spain for 40 years, and during all those years I have always wanted the best for Spain and the Crown.”
Now Juan Carlos has fled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he reportedly occupies an entire floor at Abu Dhabi's five-star Emirates Palace hotel, under the protection of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
Juan Carlos’ departure is a humiliation for the Spanish ruling class and comes amid mounting infighting in the European bourgeoisie. Backed by Washington and the European Union, he was promoted as a leader who led Spain from fascism to democracy after dictator Francisco Franco’s death in 1975—stopping a military coup in 1981 and serving as head of state for nearly 40 years. His decision to flee Spain like a thief, to avoid a corruption probe after Swiss and Spanish prosecutors opened an investigation of his Swiss bank accounts, exposes the entire regime.
The crisis erupted two years ago when a British conservative newspaper, the Telegraph, leaked recordings of Juan Carlos’ mistress, businesswoman Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, speaking to retired Spanish police chief José Manuel Villarejo. Villarejo is currently in jail awaiting trial over “Operation Tandem,” an investigation into two decades of illegal phone taps and other invasions of privacy on behalf of wealthy clients, corporations and banks against politicians, businessmen, judges and journalists.
Sayn-Wittgenstein claims Juan Carlos received kick-backs from commercial contracts in the Gulf States for the construction of the €6.7 billion Haramain high-speed railway in Saudi Arabia and kept the cash in a bank account in Switzerland. She also claims the head of the Spanish intelligence threatened her life and those of her children if she spoke of her ties to Juan Carlos.
The Spanish judiciary intervened to shelve the investigation. Prosecutors claimed the activities mentioned in the conversation occurred before Juan Carlos’s abdication, when he was still immune from prosecution. Almost simultaneously, Swiss prosecutors opened an investigation into a multi-million-euro donation received by Sayn-Wittgenstein from a Swiss bank account. She told investigators that the money was a donation from the former Spanish monarch.
In June 2019, Juan Carlos announced his intention to retire from public life in a letter addressed to Felipe. This was the first attempt of the Royal House to distance itself from Juan Carlos.
In March this year, as COVID-19 raged throughout Spain and Europe after decades of cuts in public health care budgets, the Telegraph reported that Felipe VI was a beneficiary with Juan Carlos of a foundation which received €65 million from Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia.
Soon after, the Royal Household issued a statement claiming that Felipe VI would renounce any inheritance from his father. The former king also reportedly lost his stipend from the State’s General Budget—another attempt by Felipe VI to publicly distance himself from Juan Carlos.
Two months ago, the public prosecutor’s office of the Spanish Supreme Court opened an investigation against Juan Carlos regarding Saudi kickbacks.
In last week’s letter, Juan Carlos makes no statement of guilt or of regret. He claims, laughably, to be fleeing Spain in order “to serve the Spanish people.” His lawyer stated that “he remains at the disposal of the Prosecutor’s Office.” Juan Carlos also reportedly refused the option of settling his back taxes, which would mean handing over 60 percent of his wealth to the state.
Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government, the Royal Household and the media have intervened to defend the former monarch and his “historical legacy”. A press release signed by Felipe VI stated: “The king wants to highlight the historical importance that his father’s reign represents, as a legacy, political work and institutional service to Spain and to democracy.”
El País, the leading pro-PSOE daily, stated in an editorial that “the former king’s disappointing and less than exemplary behavior during the last years of his reign must not make anybody forget his irreplaceable contribution to the progress and freedom of all Spaniards during nearly half a century.” It called for national unity: “It is thus irresponsible to fan the flames of this institutional crisis at a time when the country needs stability, and when everyone should come together to deal with a devastating economic crisis that’s already here, as well as with a health crisis that refuses to go away.”
Juan Carlos and Spain’s Transition from fascist to parliamentary rule
In fact, the inglorious flight of Juan Carlos exposes the rotten regime set up by the NATO imperialist powers in the 1978 Transition from the fascist Francoite regime to Spain’s current parliamentary regime.
Juan Carlos was born in Rome in 1938 to the exiled pretender to the Spanish throne amid the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) launched by the fascist coup of General Francisco Franco. During this three-year war, in which Franco allied with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, at least 200,000 people died. Another 700,000 to 1 million people passed through nearly 300 concentration camps during and after the war. Another half-million fled Spain as refugees.
Franco restored the monarchy in 1947, and Juan Carlos was groomed as his successor. In 1969, he swore loyalty to the fascist Movimiento Nacional (National Movement); he was crowned two days after Franco’s death in 1975. Amid mass strikes and revolutionary struggles in Spain and across Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, factions of the regime led by Juan Carlos worked with the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and the Stalinist Communist Party of Spain (PCE) to pilot a transition to defend the capitalist state and block a struggle of the working class for power.
The PCE played the central role in preventing a revolutionary reckoning with fascism and devising a new constitutional monarchy. Under the monarchy, Spanish fascism’s crimes were to be forgiven and forgotten, and capitalist property preserved. In 1978, a constitution was adopted that protected the king from any prosecution.
To this day, the Podemos leadership hails the leader of the Communist Party from the 1950s to the 1980s, Santiago Carrillo, for his role during the Transition. Carrillo, a mentor of Podemos General Secretary Pablo Iglesias, became close friends with Juan Carlos and a regular at his palace. The king reportedly called him “Don Santiago.”
By 1981, however, the Transition regime was already on the verge of collapse amid rising discontent in the working class. The press and sections of the ruling elite began to discuss the need for a “National Salvation” government under the premiership of General Armada, Juan Carlos’ chief mentor. This meant a supposedly non-violent removal of the democratically-elected government by the military, backed by a broad-based coalition cabinet including the PSOE.
On the evening of February 23, hundreds of Civil Guards burst into Parliament, brandishing pistols and sub-machine guns, taking the government and all 350 deputies hostage. To this day, it remains a state secret how much Juan Carlos new about the coup plotters’ intentions. The coup plotters claimed they acted in the name of the monarch. A German diplomat subsequently stated that Juan Carlos had told him he was in broad agreement with the plotters’ aims.
The PSOE, the Communist Party and its trade union, CC.OO, reacted with calculated impotence, refusing to call strikes or mobilize workers against the coup. Faced with a fascist coup, they simply called on workers to remain calm, defining the assault to parliament as an isolated event.
The coup did not succeed, however, as the majority of the bourgeoisie feared that installing another military junta would have provoked a response from the working class that had lived under fascist rule for four decades. Despite the PCE and PSOE, workers had already started organising defence committees in Andalucía and Asturias; strikes broke out in Barcelona, Madrid and other major cities. On February 26, demonstrations of more than 3 million participants, the most massive in Spain’s history, swept across the country.
Although it formally failed, the coup helped cement the post-Franco Transition regime. The PSOE won elections in 1982 with the backing of the PCE and of the forces from the post-1968 middle class student movement. Together with the right-wing Popular Party, these forces formed an entrenched pro-capitalist political duopoly committed to austerity and war.
For four decades, the Spanish population was routinely bombarded with claims that the king opposed the coup, and that his televised address calling for law and order and the continuation of the elected government—six hours after the coup began—saved democracy from fascism.
Already at this time, Juan Carlos was busy using his position to receive kickbacks. These date back to at least 1973, during the first oil crisis, when Franco sent him to Saudi Arabia to bargain with the House of Saud to cut the prices of Spain’s oil imports.
During the 1980s, Juan Carlos was known as “the king of Socialists” in the 1980s and 1990s due to his close ties to PSOE Prime Minister Felipe González. The González government let Juan Carlos continue his lucrative kickbacks and corruption deals involving the weapons trade, real estate and the arts. He also received large commissions for promoting products and tourist destinations.
His largest kickbacks came from his trips to ex-colonial countries with executives from Santander, Telefónica, BBVA, Inditex, Ibderdrola, OHL, Repsol—the biggest corporations in Spain’s Ibex-35 stock market. In these trips to promote “Spanish brands,” they struck deals worth billions of euros, looting these countries in the process. These looting operations handsomely benefited the king personally.
Podemos defends the Spanish monarchy
The crisis of the monarchy intensified particularly amid the mounting social inequality and social anger caused by deep EU austerity measures that followed the 2008 economic crash. In 2014, Juan Carlos abdicated after years of scandals, including his hunting trips worth thousands of dollars in African countries as workers in Spain and across Europe saw their jobs and meager wages slashed, or the Nóos corruption case involving his daughter, Princess Cristina.
Today, Podemos is intervening to defend the 1978 consensus and the Monarchy. Last December, Iglesias claimed that Monarchy “is not in crisis, and I speak as a republican.” He also hailed Felipe VI’s daughter, Leonor, “who aspires to be head of state, speaking in perfect Catalan.”
Now, desperately trying to cover its tracks amid rising social anger, Podemos leaders are claiming that they were not aware that the government supported the former monarch’s decision to flee, even though Iglesias is deputy Prime Minister. Their complaint is that this is an embarrassment for Spain. In words of Iglesias, the “flight” was “an unworthy attitude of a former head of state,” which Iglesias fears will leave the monarchy “in a very compromised position.”
Podemos is now flirting with calls for a referendum on the republic or a monarchy, even though the party’s parliamentary spokesperson, Jaume Asens, declared this “practically impossible” due to the opposition of the government partner of Podemos, the PSOE.
The main aim of such debates is to boost their tattering left credentials as the PSOE-Podemos government is increasingly associated with austerity, pro-militarist policies, regime change in Latin America and attacks on democratic rights.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Podemos has championed back-to-work, back-to-school and deconfinement policies. Its most recent action has been to hail the recent EU bailout funneling €750 billion to the banks and corporations. The package imposes austerity across Europe, while laying down the axes on which the European imperialist powers will pursue militarist and economic policies targeting China and the United States.
Juan Carlos’ decision to flee corruption charges in Spain only underscores the profound corruption of the entire social and political order defended by Podemos and Deputy Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias.
Philippines not to join wargames in the South China Sea
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/11/phil-a11.html
By Joseph Santolan
11 August 2020
On August 3, Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana announced that President Rodrigo Duterte had issued a standing order that “we should not involve ourselves in exercises in the South China Sea, except in our national waters, 12 miles off our shores.” Lorenzana added that this order was given in an attempt to “keep a lid on tensions” in the region.
The announcement that the Philippines would not be joining the US war games in the disputed waters comes amid a dramatic escalation of Washington’s preparations for war with China. In an attempt to contain the explosive social crisis engendered by the US government’s criminal mishandling of the COVID-19 epidemic, Washington has brought the world to the brink of a war between two nuclear-armed powers.
The US is attempting, through military and economic measures, to prepare a regime change in Beijing. Over the past month, Washington has carried out a series of provocations, accusing China of spying, closing the Houston consulate, banning Chinese social media apps, and sending a cabinet official to Taipei.
On July 23, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States was not pursuing a policy of “containment,” indicating that the United States was pursuing a course of direct conflict with China in pursuit of regime change.
Pompeo’s statement came on the heels of his announcement on July 13 that the United States rejected all Chinese maritime claims beyond the country’s 12-nautical mile territorial limit. He denounced China’s claims in the South China Sea as “unlawful.”
Pompeo based his statement on the 2016 Arbitration ruling of the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), which rejected aspects of Beijing’s territorial claim. The case in The Hague was introduced by the Philippines under then President Benigno Aquino III, but the arguments were drawn up in Washington and were argued by US attorneys.
As the ruling was handed down in mid-July 2016, Duterte was just taking office. Looking to pursue improved economic ties with Beijing to fund his proposed infrastructural investment, he downplayed the significance of the ruling, refusing to take aggressive action against China’s claims in the South China Sea.
Washington was left with a carefully crafted legal pretext against China but without a client-state through which to pursue it.
On July 22, as Washington dismissed China’s claim as “unlawful,” the Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin referred to the South China Sea as “an avenue of cooperation” by China and the Philippines and declared that the two countries should not stumble over a territorial dispute over small marine “features,” which he characterized as a “pebble” on that avenue.
The Chinese ambassador to Manila, Huang Xiliang, issued a statement embracing Locsin’s formulation and Locsin responded by tweet, “Agree to disagree on the Arbitral Award. Civilized.”
Without explicitly naming the United States, Huang spoke of the challenges to relations between Manila and Beijing. “Glutted with cold-war mentality, some superpower is instigating the containment and oppression of China in every possible way, trying to sow discord among regional countries, and even forcing them to choose sides,” he stated.
The position taken by Manila over the past four years, completely undermines Washington’s posturing as the defender of legal norms and the “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea.
The South China Sea is one of the most heavily trafficked bodies of water in the world. The only threat to freedom of navigation in these waters is the imminent danger of war, which is a direct result of the reckless aggressiveness of Washington.
For years, Washington has presented its military maneuvers in the South China Sea, each of which has brought the world closer to a possible catastrophic war, as being in defense of “freedom” and of the rights of the smaller countries in the region.
Now, as Manila, the official legal claimant in the ITLOS case, seeks to “agree to disagree” with China, Washington announces that it does not matter what any of the involved actors want, the United States rejects China’s claim and will enforce “freedom” at gunpoint.
Over the past weeks, Washington has staged military exercises involving two aircraft carriers in the disputed South China Sea. The military preparations for war are far advanced. In July, the United States deployed 67 large reconnaissance planes to the South China Sea. Several of the US planes flew provocative reconnaissance missions along the Chinese coast.
At the same time, the Trump administration has pursued increased diplomatic ties with Taiwan, further challenging the One China policy established by Nixon and Kissinger as the bedrock for US-China relations. On Sunday, US Health Secretary Alex Azar became the first US cabinet-level official to visit Taipei since 1979.
The ruling class opposition to Duterte in the Philippines has sought over the course of several years to channel the growing levels of social unrest behind Washington’s war drive against China. They have repeatedly claimed that Duterte is a pawn of Beijing.
They have sharply escalated this rhetoric as COVID-19 ravages the country, a result of the government’s authoritarian and incompetent handling of the epidemic. Following Washington's lead, they have blamed China for the outbreak and attacked the fascistic Duterte from the right, denouncing him for being unwilling to prosecute a war with China.
Former Senator Antonio Trillanes declared that Duterte’s directive not to engage in joint exercises in the South China Sea “is a clear manifestation of Philippine support of China’s foreign policy in the West Philippine Sea.” The West Philippine Sea is the nationalist designation of the Philippine-claimed portion of the disputed South China Sea.
Trillanes continued, “the message of the Duterte government to China is unambiguous subservience.” Significantly, Trillanes was the leader of military coup attempts in 2003 and 2007.
The Philippines is Washington’s former colony. The United States has used the country and its pliant leaders to whatever geopolitical ends it desired for over a century. Hundreds of thousands of US troops were based in the country, at Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base. Washington bombed Indonesia and Vietnam from planes that were took off from the Philippines. The country figures prominently in Washington’s war plans with China. The Pentagon wants its bases back.
During his State of the Nation Address in July, Duterte stated, “I read somewhere … that the Americans intend to come back to Subic.” He announced that he would not allow a return of US military bases to the country, declaring, “If you put bases here, this will ensure if war breaks out… the extinction of the Filipino race.”
11 August 2020
On August 3, Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana announced that President Rodrigo Duterte had issued a standing order that “we should not involve ourselves in exercises in the South China Sea, except in our national waters, 12 miles off our shores.” Lorenzana added that this order was given in an attempt to “keep a lid on tensions” in the region.
The announcement that the Philippines would not be joining the US war games in the disputed waters comes amid a dramatic escalation of Washington’s preparations for war with China. In an attempt to contain the explosive social crisis engendered by the US government’s criminal mishandling of the COVID-19 epidemic, Washington has brought the world to the brink of a war between two nuclear-armed powers.
The US is attempting, through military and economic measures, to prepare a regime change in Beijing. Over the past month, Washington has carried out a series of provocations, accusing China of spying, closing the Houston consulate, banning Chinese social media apps, and sending a cabinet official to Taipei.
On July 23, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States was not pursuing a policy of “containment,” indicating that the United States was pursuing a course of direct conflict with China in pursuit of regime change.
Pompeo’s statement came on the heels of his announcement on July 13 that the United States rejected all Chinese maritime claims beyond the country’s 12-nautical mile territorial limit. He denounced China’s claims in the South China Sea as “unlawful.”
Pompeo based his statement on the 2016 Arbitration ruling of the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), which rejected aspects of Beijing’s territorial claim. The case in The Hague was introduced by the Philippines under then President Benigno Aquino III, but the arguments were drawn up in Washington and were argued by US attorneys.
As the ruling was handed down in mid-July 2016, Duterte was just taking office. Looking to pursue improved economic ties with Beijing to fund his proposed infrastructural investment, he downplayed the significance of the ruling, refusing to take aggressive action against China’s claims in the South China Sea.
Washington was left with a carefully crafted legal pretext against China but without a client-state through which to pursue it.
On July 22, as Washington dismissed China’s claim as “unlawful,” the Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin referred to the South China Sea as “an avenue of cooperation” by China and the Philippines and declared that the two countries should not stumble over a territorial dispute over small marine “features,” which he characterized as a “pebble” on that avenue.
The Chinese ambassador to Manila, Huang Xiliang, issued a statement embracing Locsin’s formulation and Locsin responded by tweet, “Agree to disagree on the Arbitral Award. Civilized.”
Without explicitly naming the United States, Huang spoke of the challenges to relations between Manila and Beijing. “Glutted with cold-war mentality, some superpower is instigating the containment and oppression of China in every possible way, trying to sow discord among regional countries, and even forcing them to choose sides,” he stated.
The position taken by Manila over the past four years, completely undermines Washington’s posturing as the defender of legal norms and the “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea.
The South China Sea is one of the most heavily trafficked bodies of water in the world. The only threat to freedom of navigation in these waters is the imminent danger of war, which is a direct result of the reckless aggressiveness of Washington.
For years, Washington has presented its military maneuvers in the South China Sea, each of which has brought the world closer to a possible catastrophic war, as being in defense of “freedom” and of the rights of the smaller countries in the region.
Now, as Manila, the official legal claimant in the ITLOS case, seeks to “agree to disagree” with China, Washington announces that it does not matter what any of the involved actors want, the United States rejects China’s claim and will enforce “freedom” at gunpoint.
Over the past weeks, Washington has staged military exercises involving two aircraft carriers in the disputed South China Sea. The military preparations for war are far advanced. In July, the United States deployed 67 large reconnaissance planes to the South China Sea. Several of the US planes flew provocative reconnaissance missions along the Chinese coast.
At the same time, the Trump administration has pursued increased diplomatic ties with Taiwan, further challenging the One China policy established by Nixon and Kissinger as the bedrock for US-China relations. On Sunday, US Health Secretary Alex Azar became the first US cabinet-level official to visit Taipei since 1979.
The ruling class opposition to Duterte in the Philippines has sought over the course of several years to channel the growing levels of social unrest behind Washington’s war drive against China. They have repeatedly claimed that Duterte is a pawn of Beijing.
They have sharply escalated this rhetoric as COVID-19 ravages the country, a result of the government’s authoritarian and incompetent handling of the epidemic. Following Washington's lead, they have blamed China for the outbreak and attacked the fascistic Duterte from the right, denouncing him for being unwilling to prosecute a war with China.
Former Senator Antonio Trillanes declared that Duterte’s directive not to engage in joint exercises in the South China Sea “is a clear manifestation of Philippine support of China’s foreign policy in the West Philippine Sea.” The West Philippine Sea is the nationalist designation of the Philippine-claimed portion of the disputed South China Sea.
Trillanes continued, “the message of the Duterte government to China is unambiguous subservience.” Significantly, Trillanes was the leader of military coup attempts in 2003 and 2007.
The Philippines is Washington’s former colony. The United States has used the country and its pliant leaders to whatever geopolitical ends it desired for over a century. Hundreds of thousands of US troops were based in the country, at Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base. Washington bombed Indonesia and Vietnam from planes that were took off from the Philippines. The country figures prominently in Washington’s war plans with China. The Pentagon wants its bases back.
During his State of the Nation Address in July, Duterte stated, “I read somewhere … that the Americans intend to come back to Subic.” He announced that he would not allow a return of US military bases to the country, declaring, “If you put bases here, this will ensure if war breaks out… the extinction of the Filipino race.”
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