https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1SBPxQ_UAE
Thursday, November 4, 2021
ECUADOR’S GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCES STATE EMERGENCY TO IMPOSE AUSTERITY
By Vijay Prashad And Taroa Zuniga Silva,
People's Dispatch.
November 3, 2021
https://popularresistance.org/ecuadors-neoliberal-government-announces-state-emergency-to-impose-austerity/
The declaration of a state of emergency by Guillermo Lasso is more likely about quelling opposition than guaranteeing security for Ecuadorians.
On October 18, 2021, Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso declared a state of emergency for 60 days. This declaration led to the constitutional rights of Ecuadorian nationals being suspended and heavily armed troops flooding the streets in Ecuador. The immediate reason for the declaration was the murder of an 11-year-old boy named Sebastián Obando, who was killed in a crossfire between “an armed robber and a police officer” on October 17 at a cafeteria and ice cream parlor in the Centenario neighborhood in Guayaquil.
The boy, who was shot three times, was shot in the heart, right arm and his back, said his father Tomás Obando. Lasso’s declaration of emergency built on the public outcry relating to this murder. The president said that he needed to suspend the constitutional rights of the people of Ecuador to confront the grip of the drug gangs on the country.
On October 19, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Quito to provide US support for Lasso. Blinken met with Lasso, affirming the close ties between the United States and Ecuador. At a press conference held by Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Mauricio Montalvo and the US Secretary of State, Blinken said, “in democracies there are times when, with exceptional circumstances, measures are necessary to deal with urgencies and urgent situations like the one Ecuador is experiencing now.”
Lasso, who was elected in April, has presided over one extraordinary moment after another. The economy of Ecuador splutters as the government struggles to respond to an increase in violent incidents in the country. In September, a prison riot in the Litoral Penitentiary (Guayaquil) resulted in the loss of 116 lives. Earlier, in February 2020, a coordinated series of riots in four prisons led to the death of 79 inmates in Ecuador. Responding to the recent incident in September, Lasso declared a state of emergency inside Ecuador’s prisons, which was a precursor to the national emergency.
Structural Problem, Not Extraordinary Moment
Lasso’s decree suggests that there is something pressing taking place in Ecuador that requires action. Nela Cedeño, a youth leader of the Citizen Revolution of Ecuador, told us that Ecuador has been in a long-term crisis. Just this year, she says, there have been 1,213 murders, many of them unrelated to the drug trade. “The decree [state of emergency] is not justified,” Cedeño said. The data shows an “increase in violence in the country over the past six years, which we understand as a structural problem and not an exceptional situation,” Cedeño added.
Out of Ecuador’s approximately 18 million people, 5.7 million live “in poverty,” and out of “these 5.7 million people, about 2.6 million” Ecuadorians are living “in extreme poverty,” according to the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses. UNICEF calculates that three out of every 10 children in Ecuador under the age of two suffer from chronic child malnutrition. “The country is the second with the highest proportion in Latin America and the Caribbean, after Guatemala,” according to UNICEF. Everyday life in Ecuador deteriorated sharply ever since the implementation of an International Monetary Fund-driven austerity program under the previous President Lenín Moreno. Moreno’s agreement with the IMF in March 2019 resulted in widespread protests across the country.
As part of Moreno’s deal with the IMF, he cut government funding for health care, including firing 3,680 health care workers. As a result, in Guayaquil—where the prison riot had taken place and where Sebastián was murdered—dead bodies were left on the streets during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic because the health care system was underfunded and overwhelmed. Guayaquil was the “epicenter of the outbreak” during April 2020 and Ecuador had one of the highest rates of COVID-19 in Latin America as a result of the broken health care system. Lasso, whose party only has 12 of 137 seats in the National Assembly, wishes to deepen the austerity program of Moreno; this program includes tax cuts for the wealthy and withdrawal of rights for workers as well as the allowance for foreign companies to continue to operate in Ecuador’s mining sector.
Lasso’s austerity agenda, Cedeño told us, does not solve the problems of the people. There is no agenda to tackle the precariousness of employment, the need for a minimum support price for farmers, the need for subsidies for fuel, the exploding social crisis in prisons, and the general problem of violence in society. The Lasso government is “politically incapable” of dealing with the real problems, so it takes refuge in the militarization of a social crisis, Cedeño said.
Militarization Of A Social Crisis
Lasso’s emergency, Cedeño said, has not calmed a “terrified and worried citizenry.” In fact, it was even more frightening when Lasso fired his Defense Minister Fernando Donoso and replaced him with a former general, Luis Hernández. Putting the military on the streets of Ecuador and pushing for laws to allow them to operate without scrutiny (and to give them immunity of action) creates the conditions for a military dictatorship with a civilian fig leaf of a government. Lasso’s emergency decree gave amnesty to the security forces who, he said, are “unjustly condemned for their work.”
Since 2019, Ecuador’s social movements, including the Indigenous movement, have frequently taken to the streets to demand an alternative path. This year, Cedeño said, “we have had several stoppages and protests against the various measures adopted by the government of Lasso. Farmers, teachers, and transportation workers have been in the lead. Teachers [even] went on hunger strike.”
The decree by Lasso came, Cedeño pointed out, just when the people’s movements gave a call for social mobilizations against the rise in fuel prices and Lasso’s austerity proposals. “It is easy for us to assume that the state of exception [was] declared at the convenience of Lasso,” to protect his policies, and “not because of the violence that plagues the country.”
Protests against the emergency decree began on October 26. Led by the United Front of Workers (FUT), the National Union of Educators (UNE), the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), and the Citizen Revolution, the protests took off in earnest. While these protests were met with stiff resistance from the armed forces, they did not fade away. Roads were blocked in key areas in the Sierra and the Amazon and mass demonstrations gathered in front of the Carondelet Palace, the seat of the president in Quito. After a few days of protest, on October 28, CONAIE leader Leonidas Iza called for their suspension to honor the Day of the Dead holidays. Iza said that the protests will start-up again after the celebrations.
November 3, 2021
https://popularresistance.org/ecuadors-neoliberal-government-announces-state-emergency-to-impose-austerity/
The declaration of a state of emergency by Guillermo Lasso is more likely about quelling opposition than guaranteeing security for Ecuadorians.
On October 18, 2021, Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso declared a state of emergency for 60 days. This declaration led to the constitutional rights of Ecuadorian nationals being suspended and heavily armed troops flooding the streets in Ecuador. The immediate reason for the declaration was the murder of an 11-year-old boy named Sebastián Obando, who was killed in a crossfire between “an armed robber and a police officer” on October 17 at a cafeteria and ice cream parlor in the Centenario neighborhood in Guayaquil.
The boy, who was shot three times, was shot in the heart, right arm and his back, said his father Tomás Obando. Lasso’s declaration of emergency built on the public outcry relating to this murder. The president said that he needed to suspend the constitutional rights of the people of Ecuador to confront the grip of the drug gangs on the country.
On October 19, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Quito to provide US support for Lasso. Blinken met with Lasso, affirming the close ties between the United States and Ecuador. At a press conference held by Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Mauricio Montalvo and the US Secretary of State, Blinken said, “in democracies there are times when, with exceptional circumstances, measures are necessary to deal with urgencies and urgent situations like the one Ecuador is experiencing now.”
Lasso, who was elected in April, has presided over one extraordinary moment after another. The economy of Ecuador splutters as the government struggles to respond to an increase in violent incidents in the country. In September, a prison riot in the Litoral Penitentiary (Guayaquil) resulted in the loss of 116 lives. Earlier, in February 2020, a coordinated series of riots in four prisons led to the death of 79 inmates in Ecuador. Responding to the recent incident in September, Lasso declared a state of emergency inside Ecuador’s prisons, which was a precursor to the national emergency.
Structural Problem, Not Extraordinary Moment
Lasso’s decree suggests that there is something pressing taking place in Ecuador that requires action. Nela Cedeño, a youth leader of the Citizen Revolution of Ecuador, told us that Ecuador has been in a long-term crisis. Just this year, she says, there have been 1,213 murders, many of them unrelated to the drug trade. “The decree [state of emergency] is not justified,” Cedeño said. The data shows an “increase in violence in the country over the past six years, which we understand as a structural problem and not an exceptional situation,” Cedeño added.
Out of Ecuador’s approximately 18 million people, 5.7 million live “in poverty,” and out of “these 5.7 million people, about 2.6 million” Ecuadorians are living “in extreme poverty,” according to the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses. UNICEF calculates that three out of every 10 children in Ecuador under the age of two suffer from chronic child malnutrition. “The country is the second with the highest proportion in Latin America and the Caribbean, after Guatemala,” according to UNICEF. Everyday life in Ecuador deteriorated sharply ever since the implementation of an International Monetary Fund-driven austerity program under the previous President Lenín Moreno. Moreno’s agreement with the IMF in March 2019 resulted in widespread protests across the country.
As part of Moreno’s deal with the IMF, he cut government funding for health care, including firing 3,680 health care workers. As a result, in Guayaquil—where the prison riot had taken place and where Sebastián was murdered—dead bodies were left on the streets during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic because the health care system was underfunded and overwhelmed. Guayaquil was the “epicenter of the outbreak” during April 2020 and Ecuador had one of the highest rates of COVID-19 in Latin America as a result of the broken health care system. Lasso, whose party only has 12 of 137 seats in the National Assembly, wishes to deepen the austerity program of Moreno; this program includes tax cuts for the wealthy and withdrawal of rights for workers as well as the allowance for foreign companies to continue to operate in Ecuador’s mining sector.
Lasso’s austerity agenda, Cedeño told us, does not solve the problems of the people. There is no agenda to tackle the precariousness of employment, the need for a minimum support price for farmers, the need for subsidies for fuel, the exploding social crisis in prisons, and the general problem of violence in society. The Lasso government is “politically incapable” of dealing with the real problems, so it takes refuge in the militarization of a social crisis, Cedeño said.
Militarization Of A Social Crisis
Lasso’s emergency, Cedeño said, has not calmed a “terrified and worried citizenry.” In fact, it was even more frightening when Lasso fired his Defense Minister Fernando Donoso and replaced him with a former general, Luis Hernández. Putting the military on the streets of Ecuador and pushing for laws to allow them to operate without scrutiny (and to give them immunity of action) creates the conditions for a military dictatorship with a civilian fig leaf of a government. Lasso’s emergency decree gave amnesty to the security forces who, he said, are “unjustly condemned for their work.”
Since 2019, Ecuador’s social movements, including the Indigenous movement, have frequently taken to the streets to demand an alternative path. This year, Cedeño said, “we have had several stoppages and protests against the various measures adopted by the government of Lasso. Farmers, teachers, and transportation workers have been in the lead. Teachers [even] went on hunger strike.”
The decree by Lasso came, Cedeño pointed out, just when the people’s movements gave a call for social mobilizations against the rise in fuel prices and Lasso’s austerity proposals. “It is easy for us to assume that the state of exception [was] declared at the convenience of Lasso,” to protect his policies, and “not because of the violence that plagues the country.”
Protests against the emergency decree began on October 26. Led by the United Front of Workers (FUT), the National Union of Educators (UNE), the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), and the Citizen Revolution, the protests took off in earnest. While these protests were met with stiff resistance from the armed forces, they did not fade away. Roads were blocked in key areas in the Sierra and the Amazon and mass demonstrations gathered in front of the Carondelet Palace, the seat of the president in Quito. After a few days of protest, on October 28, CONAIE leader Leonidas Iza called for their suspension to honor the Day of the Dead holidays. Iza said that the protests will start-up again after the celebrations.
US ‘JUSTICE’ DISMISSES 7 OF 8 CHARGES AGAINST VENEZUELAN DIPLOMAT ALEX SAAB
By
Orinoco Tribune.
November 3, 2021
https://popularresistance.org/us-justice-dismisses-7-of-8-charges-against-venezuelan-diplomat-alex-saab/
On Monday, November 1, the US Department of Justice dismissed seven charges of money laundering against Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab, leaving only one charge of conspiracy to commit that crime.
The motion was presented by the prosecutor Kurt Lunkenheimer, the day a hearing was scheduled in which the eight charges were to be read to Saab, a procedure that was postponed to next November 15, reported EFE news agency.
The request was issued because the prosecution could not find sufficient evidence to prove the accusations, as Saab’s defense team had argued. The decision aligns with the fact that the Swiss Prosecutor’s Office dismissed its own investigation early this year for lack of evidence to support Washington’s fabricated case.
“To comply with the guarantees that the US made to the Republic of Cape Verde during the extradition of the accused, Alex Nain Saab Moran, the US respectfully requests that charges 2 to 8 of the accusation against Alex Nain Saab Moran, and only of that accused, be dismissed,” stated US prosecutors—shown in the image above—in an attempt to provide some justification for the decision.
The defense stated that this motion by the prosecutions “reveals that the prosecution never materially possessed substantiating elements that linked the Venezuelan diplomat with money laundering activities, as the US claimed in its media campaign to justify the kidnapping denounced by Venezuela,” quoted the website FuserNews.
This decision was made in the absence of evidence to support the accusations used in the media to justify the kidnapping of the special envoy of the Venezuelan Government.
The only charge that Saab still faces—who was illegally extracted from Cape Verde to face US courts—is that of “conspiracy to launder money.”
The press were not provided access to Saab, through Zoom or in person, following a request from the defense, after various photos of the accused in the first hearing on October 18 were published.
JOHN DEERE WORKERS HOLD THE LINE AND VOTE DOWN SECOND CONTRACT OFFER
By Tatiana Cozzarelli,
Left Voice.
November 3, 2021
https://popularresistance.org/john-deere-workers-hold-the-line-and-vote-down-second-contract-offer/
UAW members at John Deere rejected the latest contract offer from the bosses, holding out for the wages and benefits they’ve been demanding from the beginning of their walkout.
It’s time for the entire labor movement to rally in solidarity with this strike as it continues.
Striking John Deere employees rejected a second contract offer on Tuesday. After decades of austerity contracts with cuts to pensions, healthcare, and wages, workers at the farm equipment manufacturer — members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) — are standing up and demanding more, just as the t-shirts they’ve been wearing on the picket lines put it: “Deemed essential in 2020. Prove it in 2021.”
This strike is proving it.
UAW members across Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas voted down the tentative agreement, 55 percent to 45 percent. This is a much closer vote margin than when 90 percent of union members voted down the previous contract offer in early October, which set the stage for the strike that began on October 14.
With 10,000 workers out, the John Deere strike is the biggest of the #Striketober labor movement. The workers have stood strong despite court injunctions to break up their picket lines and the company’s use of managers as scabs.
As one worker said about this latest contract offer, “This time they actually offered something.” John Deere offered to double the immediate wage increase, increase retirement benefits, and maintain pensions for any worker hired after the contract is signed.
But the workers won’t accept scraps anymore — and these are scraps. A key issue for workers was healthcare after retirement, which this latest contract offer did not provide. Further, the wage increases, while significantly more than in the initial proposal, were still meager. As *Our Quad Cities*, an Altoona, **Iowa news outlet reported, the proposal was for wages to increase by 10 percent in the first year and then by 5 percent every other year, with lump sum payments of 3 percent every year in between. Compare that to the whopping 160 percent raise that John Deere’s CEO got from 2020 to 2021. Finally, the two-tier system would remain in place for workers hired after 1997, who would not get the full pension afforded to Tier 1 employees.
The workers know that John Deere owes them much more. In August, the company made profits of between $5.7 and $5.9 billion — at least 62 percent more than in 2013.As one Waterloo, Iowa unionist explains, the workers deserve full pensions and benefits at retirement — nothing less.
The dollar figures show that it’s just not true when Deere claims this wage increase is the best the company can do. The workers deserve more and, with their vote on the tentative agreement, are showing their willingness to keep fighting for it. Without a doubt, the bosses will try to punish these workers for demanding more. Our solidarity from around the country is more essential than ever.
Hold the line. Solidarity with John Deere workers on strike!
November 3, 2021
https://popularresistance.org/john-deere-workers-hold-the-line-and-vote-down-second-contract-offer/
UAW members at John Deere rejected the latest contract offer from the bosses, holding out for the wages and benefits they’ve been demanding from the beginning of their walkout.
It’s time for the entire labor movement to rally in solidarity with this strike as it continues.
Striking John Deere employees rejected a second contract offer on Tuesday. After decades of austerity contracts with cuts to pensions, healthcare, and wages, workers at the farm equipment manufacturer — members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) — are standing up and demanding more, just as the t-shirts they’ve been wearing on the picket lines put it: “Deemed essential in 2020. Prove it in 2021.”
This strike is proving it.
UAW members across Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas voted down the tentative agreement, 55 percent to 45 percent. This is a much closer vote margin than when 90 percent of union members voted down the previous contract offer in early October, which set the stage for the strike that began on October 14.
With 10,000 workers out, the John Deere strike is the biggest of the #Striketober labor movement. The workers have stood strong despite court injunctions to break up their picket lines and the company’s use of managers as scabs.
As one worker said about this latest contract offer, “This time they actually offered something.” John Deere offered to double the immediate wage increase, increase retirement benefits, and maintain pensions for any worker hired after the contract is signed.
But the workers won’t accept scraps anymore — and these are scraps. A key issue for workers was healthcare after retirement, which this latest contract offer did not provide. Further, the wage increases, while significantly more than in the initial proposal, were still meager. As *Our Quad Cities*, an Altoona, **Iowa news outlet reported, the proposal was for wages to increase by 10 percent in the first year and then by 5 percent every other year, with lump sum payments of 3 percent every year in between. Compare that to the whopping 160 percent raise that John Deere’s CEO got from 2020 to 2021. Finally, the two-tier system would remain in place for workers hired after 1997, who would not get the full pension afforded to Tier 1 employees.
The workers know that John Deere owes them much more. In August, the company made profits of between $5.7 and $5.9 billion — at least 62 percent more than in 2013.As one Waterloo, Iowa unionist explains, the workers deserve full pensions and benefits at retirement — nothing less.
The dollar figures show that it’s just not true when Deere claims this wage increase is the best the company can do. The workers deserve more and, with their vote on the tentative agreement, are showing their willingness to keep fighting for it. Without a doubt, the bosses will try to punish these workers for demanding more. Our solidarity from around the country is more essential than ever.
Hold the line. Solidarity with John Deere workers on strike!
BREAKING: Canada to Phase Out Public Financing for Fossil Fuels
November 3, 2021
3 min read
Primary Author: Compiled by Mitchell Beer @mitchellbeer
https://www.theenergymix.com/2021/11/03/breaking-canada-to-phase-out-public-financing-for-fossil-fuels/
Canada will join a group of about 20 countries and institutions this morning to announce an end to public financing for oil, gas, and coal projects by the end of 2022, Le Devoir reported late Wednesday, putting an end to anxious speculation about whether the Trudeau government would sign on to what was seen as a pivotal pledge during this year’s United Nations climate summit, COP 26, in Glasgow.
The initiative is led by the European Investment Bank and the United Kingdom, and the United States is believed to be another key signatory whose decision to participate may have weighed on Canada’s. The joint statement was expected to commit signatories to end international public finance for unabated coal, oil, and gas by the end of next year and shift their emphasis to clean energy.
The political call on whether to join the group statement was still up in the air by early to late Wednesday evening, local time. The event was scheduled for 10:30 this morning at the UK pavilion in Glasgow, with further briefings to follow later in the day.
“To stand a chance of limiting global temperature rises to 1.5°C, governments and multilateral donors must end international public financing for fossil fuels and prioritize their support for the clean energy transition,” the UK said [pdf] in its session description for the announcement.
The event “will bring together a group of progressive first movers” to “explore the decisive role public finance can play in accelerating the global energy transition,” the brochure added.
“After a wave of commitments to end international coal finance this year, this would be the first international political commitment that also addresses public finance for oil and gas,” Oil Change International and Environmental Defence Canada said in a release last night. Most of that support comes through its export credit agency, Export Development Canada (EDC), which has an “unusual mandate” to provide domestic support to industries that is not easily separated from its international public financing.
The release identifies Enbridge, Parex Resources, ConocoPhillips, and Australia Pacific LNG among the top recipients of EDC’s largesse, with the United States, Mexico, Australia, and Colombia as the “largest destinations for Canada’s international oil and gas support” between 2018 and 2020.
Oil Change and Environmental Defence cite Japan at $10.9 billion, Korea at $10.6 billion, and China at $7.6 billion per year as major sources of international public finance that won’t be a part of this morning’s announcement.
“If confirmed, this will be one of [Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau’s only climate commitments to date that concretely addresses our risky oil and gas sector, and hopefully the beginning of many more,” said Bronwen Tucker, Oil Change’s global public finance campaign manager. “If implemented effectively, this will remove up to C$9 billion/US$7 billion a year in preferential, government-backed finance for oil and gas that Canada has been sending internationally.”
“If confirmed, we will applaud Canada for showing much-needed climate leadership by joining countries promising to shift public finance away from fossil fuels before the end of 2022,” added Julia Levin, senior climate and energy program manager at Environmental Defence. “As the worst provider of public finance in the G20, taking this important step is critical for Canada to meet its emissions target.”
Canada has had a tortuous relationship with international financing of fossil fuel projects, with EDC repeatedly flagged for supporting overseas fossil investments that don’t match up with a 1.5°C future. In early October, EIB President Werner Hoyer and UK COP 26 Envoy John Murton urged countries to chart a different course, noting that they had each already done so.
“More commitments are needed to align international public support fully with the Paris goals,” they wrote. “We can achieve the necessary solidarity by bringing governments and public finance institutions together behind a joint statement proclaiming support for clean energy and a phase-out of fossil fuels.”
Canada currently provides fossil companies with the most lavish subsidies of any G20 country, Le Devoir notes. This morning’s announcement is not expected to touch on any part of the government’s fossil industry support beyond export financing.
Cuba in the Crosshairs of Imperialism -- What’s at Stake?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyB_uTXq7w8
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)