https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agst-xoGEkI
Thursday, May 5, 2022
Protests in defense of abortion rights met with police violence in Los Angeles
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/05/abor-m05.html
Jacob Crosse
8 hours ago
In the wake of Monday’s leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade and abolish the right to an abortion, protests have been held in major cities throughout the country.
Marches and demonstrations attended by workers, students and youth took place in several cities Tuesday, including in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California; Austin and Houston, Texas; Providence, Rhode Island; New York City; Boston, Massachusetts; Denver, Colorado; Washington D.C.; and Richmond, Virginia, among other places.
Organic grassroots protests, as well as others organized by Democratic Party politicians or their appendages, such as “Women’s March” or NARAL Pro-Choice America, are planned in the coming days and weeks, with nationwide protests scheduled for May 14.
Despite the peaceful character of the protests on Tuesday, in several instances police were seen violently attacking demonstrators, press and onlookers.
In downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday, independent reporter and documentary filmmaker Vishal P. Singh filmed thousands of workers, youth and students as they chanted and marched in support of abortion rights. Protesters had earlier rallied outside the federal courthouse, carrying signs reading “abortion=healthcare” and “abortion is a human right.”
In the early evening, hundreds continued to march, leaving the courthouse and assembling at Pershing Square where they listened to speakers and chanted “legalize abortion now.”
After 8 p.m., federal agents driving Department of Homeland Security cars intervened in the protest and aggressively drove up, and into the crowd, forcing those in the path of the vehicle to move or risk being run over.
After driving into the crowd, DHS officers, wearing body armor and wielding batons, were seen shoving protesters and press alike, demanding they “back the f*ck up!”
Minutes later, Los Angeles police, wearing riot helmets and armed with shotguns, 40 millimeter “less lethal” launchers and batons, were filmed assaulting protesters.
The police riot against protesters continued. In another video, a Los Angeles cop is seen chasing and throwing a protester to the ground, causing them to almost hit a fire hydrant, while his partner viciously beat back onlookers with his baton.
Just after 9 p.m., Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore tweeted that the police “attempted to communicate, clear [sic] and provide dispersal order to the group” and that the “crowd began to throw rocks and bottles” at police.
At 9:20 p.m., Los Angeles Police declared the protest an “unlawful” assembly. However, by that point, less than 200 protesters remained, and 20 minutes later the order was lifted. Some protesters mingled past 10 p.m. It is unknown at this time if any arrests were made or how many protesters were injured by police thugs.
In downtown Austin, Texas, on Tuesday, hundreds of protesters, including many students, marched from the state Capitol to the federal courthouse against the Supreme Court’s opinion. They carried signs that read “my body my choice” and “we won’t go back.”
Despite no reports of violent activity or weapons, a video obtained by the local Fox affiliate shows an Austin police officer, seemingly for no reason, throwing a young unarmed woman protester violently to the ground.
The same cop pulled out his pepper spray and threatened the unarmed protesters to “back up!” At the same time, several other cops are seen surrounding another person who is lying on the ground.
There is overwhelming popular opposition to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which would have an immediate impact on the ability of millions of working-class Americans to access an abortion. A December 2021 report from the Guttmacher Institute found that if the Supreme Court “overturns or guts” Roe v. Wade, “26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion,” which would affect “58 percent of US women of reproductive age” in the United States, or roughly 40 million people.
In anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling, right-wing state legislatures, dominated by Republicans and conservative Democrats, enacted “a record 108 abortion restrictions in 19 states in 2021,” according to the Institute.
Nine states, including Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia and Arizona, have laws still on the book that banned abortion prior to Roe v. Wade. There are 13 states—Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Utah, the Dakotas, Missouri, Idaho and Wyoming—that have “trigger bans” in place. This means that if Roe is overturned, within as little as 10 days abortions in that state would be illegal. In almost every state mentioned, having an abortion would be a felony.
The Democrats have responded to the provocation by the extreme-right faction of the court with impotent calls to elect more Democrats in the upcoming midterm election, along with empty promises to hold votes in Congress to legislate abortion rights that they know will not pass.
The Democratic Party, a party of Wall Street and the military, has adapted to the right-wing attack on abortion rights for decades. It is opposed to any popular mobilization to defend the basic democratic right to an abortion, which would cut across its “national unity” campaign for war against Russia and threaten to develop into a broader movement against the ruling class.
As the assault on protesters in Los Angeles demonstrates, moreover, the Democrats will respond to popular opposition with police violence.
On Tuesday, the Socialist Equality Party issued a statement calling for the independent mobilization of the working class to defend the right to an abortion, connecting this struggle with a broader defense of democratic rights and opposition to the capitalist system. The statement declared:
There is a profound connection between the assault on democratic rights and the massive growth of social inequality, unrestrained militarism, and the destruction for all practical purposes of a labor movement. The abolition of the right to an abortion epitomizes the protracted disintegration of bourgeois democracy in the United States, which has become nothing more than a hollow shell.
Even the initial response to protests over the Supreme Court decision has further confirmed this fact.
Solomon Islands PM warns of invasion by Australia and US
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/05/cidf-m05.html
Mike Head, Socialist Equality Party candidate for the Senate in Queensland
6 hours ago
Responding to a series of threats of intervention by the US and Australia, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare warned on Tuesday that his small Pacific islands country was in danger of invasion by the allied powers.
Based on the ultimatums issued by the Biden administration and Australia’s Liberal-National government, backed by the opposition Australian Labor Party, Sogavare’s statement is entirely credible. His warning, and the belligerent reaction to it in Canberra, also highlights the escalating US-led war drive to confront China, even as Washington intensifies its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
In an address to parliament in defence of his government’s recent security agreement with China, Sogavare denounced the warnings issued by both the US and Australian governments that no Chinese military presence in Solomon Islands would be tolerated.
Without naming the US or Australia, Sogavare said: “We deplore the continual demonstration of lack of trust by the concerned parties, and tacit warning of military intervention in Solomon Islands if their national interest is undermined in Solomon Islands. In other words, we are threatened with invasion.”
Sogavare’s statement followed US Indo-Pacific co-ordinator Kurt Campbell’s declaration, issued on April 22 during a top-level visit to Solomons Islands, that the US would “respond accordingly” to any Chinese military presence in the country.
Campbell’s threat was swiftly echoed by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who said a Chinese base in Solomon Islands would be a “red line” for Australia, that is, a trigger for military intervention. Defence Minister Peter Dutton has accused China of “aggression” and said Australia needed to “prepare for war.”
Equally bellicose was the reaction of the Labor Party, which is using the campaign for the May 21 federal election in Australia to position itself as the most reliable and ruthless advocate of Australian and US imperialist interests.
In an election debate with Morrison, Labor leader Anthony Albanese accused the Coalition of leaving “our backyard” unsecured, allegedly by allowing China to establish a foothold in the region. Labor’s shadow foreign affair minister Penny Wong described the Solomons’ agreement with China as the “worst Australian foreign policy blunder in the Pacific since the end of World War Two.”
Wong’s statement underscores the strategic importance of the Solomons, a country of 700,000 people and hundreds of islands in the southwest Pacific, as well as the other scattered Pacific island states. These islands became key battlegrounds in the US war against Japan in World War II, including the bloody six-month 1942-43 Battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomons.
That war established US domination over the Pacific, which Washington is intent on retaining, with the assistance of Australia, as part of its drive to prevent China from posing any challenge to Washington’s global power.
Sogavare denounced the references in Australia to the Solomon Islands being in Australia’s “backyard.” He said backyards were “where rubbish is collected and burned”, and “where we relieve ourselves.”
The Solomons’ PM also condemned nations that proclaimed “Christian values” but had waged “some of the bloodiest wars in the history of our planet.” That charge certainly applies to the long history of US-led wars, not least those in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Sogavare also said there were “two sides” to the war in Ukraine, as there had been on the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The latter reference was in response to Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, who fuelled the anti-China campaign by claiming that the Solomons’ security agreement with China would result in “our own little Cuba off our coast.”
As Sogavare recounted, the Cuban crisis, which raised the immediate danger of nuclear war, was triggered by the US after Cuba invited the Soviet Union to station missiles on its territory as a deterrent against a US invasion. That followed the botched American “Bay of Pigs” invasion of Cuba in April 1961 and the stationing of US missiles in Italy and Turkey within striking distance of the Soviet Union.
Sogavare has every reason to warn of a military intervention and regime-change operation against his government. His government has been destabilised already by a right-wing separatist movement in Malaita province encouraged by Washington.
One of Sogavare’s previous administrations was ousted in 2006-07 as a result of Canberra’s machinations which were part of a protracted Australian-led military occupation of the Solomons, the 2003 to 2017 “Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands” (RAMSI).
Sogavare has denied any plan for a Chinese military base but that has not halted the threatening allegations against him. On the contrary, just-retired Australian Strategic Policy Institute head, Peter Jennings, who has close links in Washington, said Sogavare’s warning was “as unhinged as Fidel Castro’s.”
Jennings said “Sogavare should remember” that “the Cuban missile crisis ultimately left Cuba isolated from its neighbours in the Caribbean, with a mouldering economy.”
Jennings echoed the alarm in Washington that Australia had failed to prosecute US and allied strategic interests sufficiently aggressively in the Solomons.
Jennings said Sogavare’s reaction to Australian and US concerns over the China agreement showed “Australian politicians have been pandering to Pacific leaders with soft soap rhetoric about the Pacific family.” He added: “When a genuine crisis comes along sometimes we need to remind the region that Australia has security interests that need to be respected.”
Morrison confirmed today that he had not spoken to Sogavare since issuing his “red line” threat. In a bullying tone, he told reporters: “We are Solomon Islands’ primary security partner.” Morrison claimed that Sogavare had conveyed to him agreement with that proposition.
The contemptuous attitude of the US and Australia towards the Solomons’ sovereignty exposes the fraud that the US war plans against China and Russia have anything to do with defending “democracy” or “national sovereignty.”
In provoking war with Russia, Washington and Canberra have said Ukraine’s ability to join the NATO military alliance must be upheld, even if it leads to a nuclear World War III. However, with regard to the Solomons, “national sovereignty” is thrown overboard.
The Socialist Equality Party is the only party in the Australian elections opposing the US-led war drive and seeking to mobilise the working class, in Australia and internationally, against it.
Contact the SEP:
Phone: (02) 8218 3222
Email: sep@sep.org.au
Facebook: SocialistEqualityPartyAustralia
Twitter: @SEP_Australia
Instagram: socialistequalityparty_au
TikTok: @SEP_Australia
Authorised by Cheryl Crisp for the Socialist Equality Party, Suite 906, 185 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000.
The way forward for striking Sri Lankan workers
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/05/lfzo-m05.html
Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka)
8 hours ago
Millions of Sri Lankan workers will participate in the one-day general strike to be held tomorrow, following a similar strike last Thursday.
Unions have announced Friday’s action as a “hartal” (a general strike and shutdown of businesses) and called on all people to support it. Unions will call another one-day strike on May 11, as part of their efforts to deflect seething mass anger.
These strikes will embrace the entire working class while more oppressed layers of the population, including the rural and urban poor as well as small businessmen, are expected to join.
Millions are demanding the resignation of President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his government and an end to social catastrophe being heaped on them by the Rajapakse regime and the entire ruling class.
The intervention of the working class in Sri Lanka is significant and welcome. It is part of the class struggles sweeping across the globe, including in Sudan, Iran, Peru, Turkey and India to name a few countries. Strikes and protests are also emerging in major capitalist centres, including the US and Europe.
Workers in all these countries are up in arms against the assault on their living conditions with skyrocketing inflation, and the slashing of wages and jobs. The world capitalist crisis has been fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic and, has exploded to a new stage with the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.
The entry of the working class into struggle in Sri Lanka comes on top of continuing anti-government protests throughout the island that began in early April. This mass movement has not only shaken the Rajapakse government to the core but the entire ruling establishment, including the trade unions which act as vital prop for the capitalist system.
For all their militant posturing about tomorrow’s general strike, the unions are desperately seeking to apply a brake on the developing strike movement of the working class.
Ravi Kumudesh, the leader of Health Professionals Federation, declared: “We gave the government until May 6 to resign and if the government does not listen to the people, we will have to have a hartal.”
The general secretary of the Ceylon Teachers’ Union, Joseph Stalin, thundered: “If the government is not willing to leave, we will have to kick it out.”
What is the political program, however, that the unions are pushing behind this empty bombast?
All of them are seeking to divert the working class into the dead-end of parliamentary politics and into the arms of the capitalist opposition parties.
In its statement on May 1, the National Trade Union Front and Mass Organisations, listed its main demands as follows: “Resignation of discredited President and Prime Minister and the government; Allow for an interim regime for a certain period; Political stability with a small cabinet; Exercising people’s sovereignty through parliament; Establish a government after certain period of time with people’s mandate.”
The Trade Union Coordinating Committee, the other union front calling Friday’s general strike, is campaigning on the same basis.
What is the meaning of these demands? It is to replace the totally discredited Rajapakse government with an unelected interim government of opposition parties then hold elections. The purpose of the interim regime is crystal clear: to establish “political stability,” in other words to suppress the mass strike and protest movement so as to stabilize capitalist rule.
The demands of the unions are virtually identical to those of the opposition parties—the right-wing Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and Sinhala-communalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)—as well as the corporate lobby groups. “Political stability” is what is being demanded by big business as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and foreign investors.
None of the parliamentary parties—government and opposition alike—has any alternative to the austerity program currently being implemented. None has opposed the government’s decision to seek an IMF emergency bailout or explained that such a loan will inevitably mean more, not less, austerity. The SJB and JVP both have a track record of implementing pro-market restructuring.
What is being prepared is an even worse social disaster for working people. After two weeks of talks with the IMF, the finance ministry issued a statement on May 2 outlining what is being discussed as the price for a bailout.
It made clear that sweeping privatisation is on the agenda, as “investment in sectors such as education, healthcare, public transport, and service delivery,” is required. The statement bluntly declared that “a culture of unproductive government subsidisation and handouts is no longer viable,” meaning price subsidies, welfare payments and social services are to be further reduced of completely axed.
Speaking to parliament on Tuesday, Finance Minister Ali Sabry said that the country’s foreign reserves have sunk as low as $US50 million, adding: “I do not know whether these issues can be solved even in two years.” He made clear that large tax increases will be imposed, saying: “People who earn must share some money, or society will collapse. Tax revenue will have to increase by about 15 percent over the next two to three years.”
The IMF is demanding that workers and poor be compelled to pay for the already crumbling public healthcare, education of children and all other services from their meagre wages. At the same time jobs, wages and pensions will be slashed. In short, workers and poor must sacrifice for the survival of decaying capitalism.
The entire political establishment, including the opposition parties and the trade unions, knows that such austerity measures, coming on top of an already dire social crisis, cannot be implemented democratically. Behind the scenes, the security forces are being prepared for use against the protests and strikes whether by the Rajapakse regime or any capitalist government that replaces it. Already the police have opened fire without warning on protesters in Rambukkana, killing Chaminda Lakshan and wounding others.
The trade unions are playing a criminal political role. Their strikes are called not to resolve the social and economic crisis facing workers, but to let off steam and to buy time for the political establishment as it prepares its deep attacks on the working class. It is trying to hoodwink workers into believing that an “interim regime” and elections will end the social disaster they confront.
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) warns the working class the only way to defend its democratic and social rights is to mobilise its independent strength on the basis of a program that meets its urgent class needs—in other words, a socialist program.
We encourage workers everywhere—in your factories and workplaces, in the plantations, and in working-class suburbs—to form action committees independent of the unions to fight for your class interests.
To defend democratic rights, the SEP demands the immediate abolition of executive presidential system, along with all repressive legislation, including the emergency laws, the Essential Public Services Act and the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
There is no solution for working people to the spiraling price increases, shortages of essentials and creeping starvation within the capitalist system.
The SEP proposes the following demands as the basis for a political struggle by the working class through its action committees:Take the production and distribution of all essential goods and other resources critical for public lives under the democratic control of the workers!
Nationalise banks, large corporations, large estates and other major economic centres under workers’ control!
Reject the austerity demands of the IMF and the World Bank that represent the international banks and financial institutions!
Seize the enormous wealth of the billionaires and corporations!
Abolish all the debt of the poor peasants and small-business holders! Reinstate all the subsidies, including fertiliser subsidies for the peasantry!
Guarantee jobs for all with decent and safe working conditions! Index wages to the cost of living!
Repudiate all foreign loans!
By building action committees and fighting for its social rights, the working class will begin to rally to its side the rural masses who are suffering from the same attacks.
In opposition to the unions’ campaign for an interim regime and the defense of capitalism, the SEP advocates the revolutionary overthrow of the profit system and the establishment of a workers’ and peasants’ government to refashion society on a socialist basis.
In this political struggle, Sri Lankan workers need to turn to their class brothers and sisters around the world who face similar attacks and are now entering into struggle. There is no national solution in any country to the crisis created by global capitalism confronting workers.
That is why the SEP urges workers to build a network of action committees and coordinate with workers in other countries through the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), launched by the International Committee of the Fourth International.
The past month testifies the urgency of the tasks facing the working class and the need to base its political fight on the socialist and internationalist program elaborated by the SEP. Such a struggle requires revolutionary leadership. We urge workers wanting to form action committees to contact the SEP. Above all, we call on you to join the SEP and build it as a mass party.
Ukraine war begins to spill into neighboring countries
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/05/xgun-m05.html
Andrea Peters
7 hours ago
The war in Ukraine is beginning to spill over the country’s borders, threatening to light the entire region on fire. The US and NATO are funneling ungodly amounts of arms to Kiev, as more than 12 million flee the violence, with masses of people pouring into the neighboring states of Poland, Romania, Hungary, Belarus, Moldova, Slovakia and Russia.
On Tuesday, officials in Transnistria, a Russian-controlled breakaway enclave in Moldova, which borders Ukraine to the southwest, reported intercepting an unmanned vehicular drone loaded with a bomb at a radio tower. On April 26, two explosions at this and another radio transmission station in the Grigoripol district left significant damage.
Also on May 3, representatives of the region, whose independence neither Moldova nor international institutions recognize, said they foiled a planned terrorist attack on Transnistrian soil. They did not provide details, but in this and all other attacks they have blamed Ukraine. Kiev insists these are Russian false flag operations. Its military just declared that Moscow is evacuating the families of Russian servicemen and officials from Transnistria, a claim that the Kremlin has not confirmed.
The Moldovan government, which in March officially applied for EU membership, passed a law on Tuesday that authorizes the European border police and coast guard to patrol its borders. This creates conditions in which, depending on the course of the Ukraine war, EU security personnel could end up stationed directly across from Russian troops.
Charles Michel, president of the European Council, declared Wednesday following a visit to the capital city Chisinau that the EU will “significantly increase [its] support to Moldova by providing its armed forces with additional military equipment.” It will also help to beef up its logistics, cyberdefense and “military-building capacities.” In short, the EU aims to turn the tiny country of 2.6 million, which competes with Ukraine for being the continent’s poorest state, into an armed camp.
In addition, tensions are rising along Ukraine’s northern border. On Wednesday, Belarus announced it is conducting a previously unplanned review of its military readiness. It is checking both its ground and air defenses, as well as its combat plans and ability to respond to crises. Minsk, an ally of Moscow, said in February that Russian troops with which it had been conducting joint exercises would remain on its territory indefinitely.
The situation along Belarus’ western frontier is also strained, with reports of Polish border guards harassing their counterparts with floodlights and slingshots. Last year, a massive conflict erupted between the governments of Minsk and Warsaw, when refugees from the Middle East, who were attempting to cross into the EU via the Belarusian-Polish border, were beaten back with water cannons.
The most significant cross-border conflict is happening in Russia. In late April, there was a series of eruptions at military sites in three regions just to the east of Ukraine—Voronezh, Belgorod and Kursk. There have been unexplained fires at ammunitions and oil depots, as well as mid-air explosions near a military base, which the Russian government says were from their air defense systems responding to an attack. Residents of the region reported hearing fighter jets take off just after the blasts. A Ukrainian drone has also allegedly been shot down 140 miles into Russian territory.
The Zelensky government has said that it neither denies nor confirms launching attacks on Russian territory, which is simply an underhanded way of acknowledging that it is behind these events while attempting to shield itself and its backers in Washington and Brussels from their grave implications.
The weaponry, intelligence and training enabling Kiev to strike across the border all come from the United States and NATO. If Ukraine is lobbing bombs on Russia, then the American and European governments are waging an undeclared war on Moscow.
On April 30, just days after these events took place, the UK’s minister of armed forces, James Heappey, declared it was “completely legitimate” for Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia.
In response, Maria Zakharova, press secretary for Russia’s foreign ministry, said, “Do we understand correctly that for the sake of ‘disrupting the logistics of military supplies’ Russia can strike at military targets on the territory of those NATO countries that supply weapons to the Kiev regime? After all, this directly leads to death and bloodshed on the territory of Ukraine. As far as I understand, Britain is one of these countries.”
The US and the EU are consciously preparing the groundwork for a European-wide war, which will rapidly spiral into a global conflict driven by Washington’s desire to crush Russia and, above all, China.
On Wednesday, German Chancellor Olaf Schulz appealed to Kosovo to resolve its tensions with Serbia in order that “all the western Balkans” can join the EU—in other words, be completely drawn into the anti-Russian war campaign. The region, which straddles the Adriatic, Mediterranean, Aegean and Black Seas, is of major geostrategic significance.
The same day, US Admiral and Chair of the NATO Military Committee Rob Bauer said that the alliance no longer considers itself limited by the 1997 Russian-NATO Founding Act. One of the central stipulations of that agreement is that NATO cannot station atomic weapons or build nuclear arms storage facilities on the territory of countries entering the alliance after it was signed. It also prohibits both sides from deploying large numbers of nuclear weapons on their borders.
All of this is now being scrapped.
European Union calls for embargo on Russian oil
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/05/gpxp-m05.html
Alex Lantier, Johannes Stern
7 hours ago
Yesterday, at the European parliament in Strasbourg, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for an EU embargo on Russian oil to crush Russia’s financial system.
As Washington and its European NATO allies pour tens of billions of dollars of arms into Ukraine, risking total war with Russia, the EU is waging economic war on Russia and on the working class. An embargo would devastate both Europe and Russia: the EU imported $147.8 billion in energy from Russia last year, including $104.4 billion in crude and refined oil. Even if the EU successfully arranged alternative deliveries of oil, such an embargo would produce a surge in energy prices and massive job losses and economic hardship across Europe.
Von der Leyen announced multiple punitive measures. New EU sanctions target “high-ranking military officers and other individuals” including Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. The EU will ban Russian broadcasters from its airwaves and remove three Russian banks, including Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, from the SWIFT system for international dollar-denominated transactions.
The EU’s goal, von der Leyen said, is “the complete isolation of the Russian financial sector from the global system.”
She called to ban financial and public relations services to Russia: “the Kremlin relies on accountants, consultants and spin doctors from Europe. And this will now stop. We are banning those services from being provided to Russian companies.” Europe’s spin doctors, it appears, are to be employed exclusively in promoting NATO and EU policy.
On the oil embargo, she said, “it will not be easy. Some Member States are strongly dependent on Russian oil. But we simply have to work on it. … We will make sure that we phase out Russian oil in an orderly fashion, in a way that allows us and our partners to secure alternative supply routes and minimizes the impact on global markets. This is why we will phase out Russian supply of crude oil within six months and refined products by the end of the year.”
She finally called for an “ambitious recovery package” of economic reconstruction to “pave the way for Ukraine's future inside the European Union.” She ended by calling out “Slava Ukraini,” the battle cry of the Nazi-collaborationist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) during World War II and of far-right Ukrainian-nationalist militias that are fighting Russia today.
Her speech triggered a sharp rise in oil prices yesterday, up 5 percent to $107.81 per barrel in New York and $110.14 in London. Russia for its part is shipping oil to India and China and urgently building more overland pipelines to China. New projects include a pipeline from Sakhalin island via Vladivostok and the “Soyuz Vostok” pipeline viaMongolia to China. Russia is also planning inter-connector pipelines to redirect gas previouslyexported to Europe eastwards to China.
The EU oil embargo is economically suicidal, and EU officials are well aware that they are setting into motion a confrontation with the working class. In March, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck warned that the dislocation caused by an embargo would provoke mass strikes and protests. “I wouldn’t support an embargo on imports of fossil fuels from Russia,” he said. “I would even speak out against it, because we would threaten the social peace in the republic with that.”
Before von der Leyen’s speech yesterday, however, Habeck said Germany has made “great progress” in finding alternatives to Russian oil, though “other countries may need more time.”
The oil embargo, which EU member states must unanimously agree on, faces opposition. Hungary and Slovakia, both dependent on Russian energy, have warned that the one-year exemption the EU is offering them is insufficient. Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said, “We do not see any plans or guarantees on how a transition could be managed based on the current proposals, and how Hungary’s energy security would be guaranteed.”
On Tuesday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Hungary would oppose sanctions “that will make the transport of natural gas or oil from Russia to Hungary impossible. … It is currently physically impossible for Hungary and its economy to function without Russian oil.” Yesterday, however, he said he could support the embargo if Russian crude oil exports to Hungary were exempted.
Slovak Deputy Economy Minister Karol Galek supported action against Russia but asked for three years’ delay before the embargo begins. He warned that an embargo would cripple Austria, the Czech Republic and Ukraine: “This will destroy our European economy.”
Von der Leyen’s speech shows that though the embargo is economically suicidal, the leading EU powers are pushing for it. The NATO alliance is recklessly escalating conflict with Russia, with utter contempt for the lives and well-being of workers across Europe.
The EU is abandoning its concerns at war with Russia. As recently as April 22, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Der Spiegel that everything must be done “to avoid a direct military confrontation between NATO and a highly armed superpower like Russia, a nuclear power.” He said it was a matter of “preventing an escalation that would lead to a third world war.” Now, Germany and the EU are taking measures directly posing the risk of a nuclear Third World War.
The EU, which already in mid-April had pledged €1.5 billion in arms to Ukraine, is accelerating arms deliveries. Newly re-elected French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to send Caesar artillery systems and Milan anti-tank missiles.
After a two-day closed-door German government meeting in Schloss Meseberg, Chancellor Olaf Scholz boasted: “We have supplied from Bundeswehr stocks and are always looking at what else is possible … We have made sure that there is a list of arms deliveries that we have coordinated with industry.”
Against the Russian offensive in the Donbass, where “air defense now plays a role,” he added, “We have therefore said that we will supply up to 50 Gepard tanks suitable for this purpose. We've also said that we want to provide the support, together with our allies, that artillery can be deployed.”
Berlin plans to deliver Howitzer-2000s to Ukraine. German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said Berlin has “made the decision” to train Ukrainian fighters on these howitzers, which the Netherlands are supplying. A March 16 expert report from the Bundestag's Scientific Service found that training Ukrainian soldiers on German soil constitutes war participation under international law.
The EU is demanding that the billions of euros for war with Russia be taken from the workers. Speaking after the Meseberg retreat, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner left no doubt that the German and European working class is to be made to pay.
“In view of inflation,” he stressed, “we will also have to adjust questions of financial policy in Germany and Europe.” Because of what he called “the changed financial possibilities of the state,” Lindner opposed anything that could “additionally drive up prices—for example, subsidies—or curtail the European Central Bank’s scope for action, namely by placing members of the monetary union deeper in debt.”
The working class is increasingly driven into struggle by social attacks and skyrocketing energy and food prices. Recent weeks have seen warning strikes by nurses and educators in Germany, a massive truck drivers' strike in Spain, protests in France after the presidential election, and postal workers’ strikes in Britain, among others.
The decisive issue is unifying this emerging movement in the working class and forging it as a conscious, international political movement against the NATO-Russia war. Workers in the EU must unite with their class brothers and sisters in America, Ukraine, and Russia in a revolutionary offensive aimed at abolishing the cause of inequality and war—the capitalist profit system—and at building a global socialist society.
Germany’s preparations for a third world war in full swing
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/04/nctt-m04.html
Peter Schwarz
13 hours ago
The United States and its NATO allies are intensively preparing for a third world war. Looking back on the First World War, the great powers were said to have “slithered” into the war, but now they are racing open-eyed into disaster.
The claim that the Ukraine war is about defending democracy and national independence is proving more specious by the day. In reality, it is about control over Russia’s vast landmass and rich mineral resources and the redivision of the world among the major imperialist powers. The Ukraine war joins those in the Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa with which the US and its allies have tried to secure their world domination.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz visiting Japanese head of government Fumio Kishida (Photo: Bundesregierung/Bergmann)
The reactionary and short-sighted decision to attack Ukraine militarily by Russian President Vladimir Putin in response to NATO’s encirclement of his country provided the latter with the welcome—and desired—pretext for a massive military escalation.
The US is flooding Ukraine with weapons and promising that there will be no let-up until Russia is “defeated” and its “backbone broken.” Germany is using the war to remove all obstacles that previously stood in the way of unrestrained rearmament.
What was considered a “red line” one day is crossed the next. First, the German government increased the arms budget by €100 billion in one fell swoop, without prior consultation, and abandoned the principle of not supplying weapons to war zones. Ukraine was first supplied with light and then with heavy weapons. In the meantime, Ukrainian soldiers are also being trained on German soil, although according to an expert opinion by the Bundestag (parliamentary) Scientific Service, this constitutes participation in war under international law.
The German government’s preparations for a Third World War are not limited to arming the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) and providing military support to Ukraine. Economic, foreign and even climate policy are also being put at the service of war policy.
The former editor-in-chief of finance daily Handelsblatt, Gabor Steingart, speaks bluntly about this in his “Pioneer Briefing” on Tuesday. Without the slightest qualms, he discusses the question of what is required to make a world war “manageable”:
“The waging of a Third World War is not just a military issue,” he proclaims. It is “first and foremost an economic issue. For without economic disentanglement along the power and military blocs, effective warfare that can be sustained over a longer period is impossible, as we can already see from Germany’s dependence on Russian natural gas.”
“Whoever wants to make world warfare manageable must first unbundle world trade,” Steingart emphasises. “Economic independence is more important than billions more for the Bundeswehr. So, it is not only the soldiers and their military equipment that must be gathered into an offensive formation, but also economic resources.”
“Viewed with this economic eye,” he then states, “the preparations for making a Third World War manageable are in full swing.”
Unfortunately, Steingart is right about that. Although a third world war would mean the end of humanity, the German government is busily making the economic and geopolitical preparations for it, in addition to the military ones. In recent weeks, it has set a course to reorganise trade and economic relations for a war against Russia and China.
For example, in his first trip to East Asia after taking office, Chancellor Olaf Scholz made a demonstrative visit to Japan. Unlike his predecessor Angela Merkel, who paid twelve visits to China and only five to Japan during her 16 years in office, Scholz did not go to Beijing. At €246 billion, Germany’s trade volume with China is six times as high as that with Japan. The value of German direct investment in China, at €96 billion, is also many times that of Japan’s €16 billion.
But Scholz, who travelled to Tokyo accompanied by a large business delegation, wanted to demonstrate that Germany is again committed to close cooperation with Japan. He agreed on closer cooperation in the strategically important high-tech sector and in the production and supply of liquid hydrogen as an alternative energy source. Regular government consultations with Japan, previously only held with China, were also agreed.
The escalating conflicts with Russia and China played a central role in the talks conducted by Scholz and the Japanese head of government Fumio Kishida. Germany and Japan also want to cooperate more closely militarily. After the German frigate Bayern conducted exercises with Japanese forces last year, six German Eurofighters are to take part in manoeuvres in Australia this autumn, from where they will also fly to Japan.
With his orientation towards Japan, Scholz is following bad historical traditions. Japan was allied with Nazi Germany in the Second World War and, along with Italy, was one of the so-called Axis powers. While Germany waged a murderous war of extermination in the Soviet Union, Japan committed terrible war crimes in China and other Asian countries, for some of which it still denies responsibility today.
While Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democratic Party, SPD) and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) are concerned with strengthening the international war front against Russia, Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) has taken on the task of cutting off Europe from Russian energy supplies that date back to Willi Brandt’s Ostpolitik of the early 1970s.
Having already imposed an import ban on Russian coal in April, the European Union is expected to decide this week on an oil embargo as well, thanks to Habeck’s efforts. Because the share of Russian oil in Germany’s oil consumption has fallen from 36 to 12 percent, the German government has given the green light for an embargo. Countries like Hungary and Greece, which are far more dependent on Russian oil, are to be given a transitional period.
In 2021, the EU was still buying 3.4 million barrels of oil and oil products a day, about a quarter of its needs, from Russia. How these are to be replaced is not clear. Sanctions are also in place against Venezuela and Iran, two major oil producers. OPEC, of which Russia is a member, has so far refused to increase production accordingly.
It is certain that the embargo will lead to a further increase in energy prices, which are already at record levels and are among the main drivers of inflation. So, it is the population who will foot the bill. Even Habeck had to admit that such a measure would not leave Germany unscathed. However, he considers the embargo important “because we are relieving ourselves of some of the moral guilt of keeping the Putin regime alive with our payments.”
The insane policy of preparing a third world war and making it “manageable” is supported by all parties represented in the Bundestag, up to and including the Left Party, which only expresses reservations on secondary issues.
The Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU), now they are no longer in government, have lost all inhibitions. Yesterday, they published a “Cologne Declaration” advocating unbridled militarism under the title “Security in New Times.”
Germany must “urgently define its national interests against the background of the new reality” and “adopt a national show of strength to implement and safeguard them,” it says. “To meet this challenge, comprehensive military capabilities are needed, which will also entail many a sacrifice and burden.”
In addition to a “new security strategy” that addresses not only external but also internal threats—“such as targeted disinformation campaigns and all forms of extremism”—the document also advocates a “new globalisation strategy” focussing on Europe, the US and Africa and which “reassesses dependence on other states [meaning Russia and China].”
“Globalisation strategy and security strategy are two sides of the same coin and make it clear that Germany will have to assume more responsibility in the world,” it then says. Put in plain English: The global interests of German big business and the use of military means are two sides of the same coin, which Germany must use more of worldwide.
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