Gentechnik-Seilschaften: Newsletter am 28.7.2011

************www.biotech-seilschaften.de.vu**************
DARF GERNE WEITERGELEITET WERDEN ... GANZ ODER TEXTWEISE
*************Verfasst von: Jörg Bergstedt***************

Gentechnikfilz-News vom 29.7.2011
zusammengestellt in der Projektwerkstatt von Jörg Bergstedt (Autor
„Monsanto auf Deutsch“)


Hallo,
ich muss mich schon wieder melden – die Ereignisse überschlagen
sind. Schon wieder ist wohl ein Feld „befreit“ worden, diesmal das
Monsanto-Rübenfeld bei Nienburg/Saale (siehe
http://linksunten.indymedia.org/de/node/44128). Dann hat die EU eine
neue gv-Pflanze zugelassen – wieder einen Mais von Monsanto
(www.keine-gentechnik.de/news-gentechnik/news/de/24185.html). Nun
werden wir sehen, ob der Verdacht richtig war, dass der MON810 gar
nicht mehr die Traumpflanze des Konzerns war, er also nach
jahrelangem Nerven still und heimlich verschwinden wird (mit oder
ohne irreversible Spuren da draußen in der Natur) – so wie die
Amflora auch, bei der schon länger bekannt ist, dass BASF sie lieber
gestern als heute durch andere Zulassungen ersetzen will. Reichlich
dumm sieht da die Strategie von vielen Umweltverbänden und Parteien
aus, seit Jahren dem MON810 hinterherzulaufen. Das mag einige
Aufmerksamkeit in trägen Medien und manch Spende eingebracht haben –
politisch aber wäre es schlauer gewesen, Neuentwicklungen zu
attackieren mitsamt den AkteurInnen, die diese Entwicklungen
vorantreiben, finanzieren oder durchwinken.
Das Jahrestreffen der Gentechnik-Seilschaften steht vor der Tür!
Am 5. und 6. September 2011 findet am Gentechnikschaugarten Üplingen
(Börde) das wichtigste Treffen der deutschen
Agrogentechnik-Seilschaften statt. Nachdem der Schaugarten durch
eine gut organisierte Feldbefreiung schon entschärft wurde, wollen
GentechnikkritikerInnen nun auch das InnoPlanta-Forum stören. Es ist
seit Jahren das größte und auffälligste Treffen zwischen Konzernen,
Behörden, Lobbyverbänden und sogenannten ForscherInnen in der
Agro-Gentechnik Deutschlands. KWS-Chef von der Bussche war da,
ebenso führende MitarbeiterInnen von Bayer, BASF, Pioneer, Monsanto
und anderen. Matin Qaim, Stefan Rauschen und andere
WissenschaftlerInnen, die sich aus den Millionentöpfen der
Gentechnikförderung bedienen. Betagte und aktuelle JournalistInnen
aus ZDF, MDR und anderen puschten das Treffen. PolitikerInnen und
BehördenvertreterInnen aus zuständigen Ministerien in Sachsen-Anhalt
oder Mecklenburg-Vorpommern bis zu Thomas Leimbach, Chef des
Landesverwaltungsamtes, waren zugegen - letzterer hielt eine
flammende Rede für die Versuchsfelder, die seine Behörde eigentlich
überwachen soll. Rundherum gruppierten sich Geldgeber, LobbyistInnen
und VertreterInnen derer, die mit Grund und Boden die ganze Sache
unterstützten - vom Bürgermeister bis zur Stiftung Braunschweiger
Kulturbesitz (SBK). Anfang September 2011 soll es wieder soweit
sein: Am 5. (Montag Abend) und 6. (Dienstag tagsüber) lädt der
Lobbyverband InnoPlanta unter seinem Vorsitzenden Uwe Schrader (FDP)
zum Stell-Dich-Ein ins kleine Dorf Üplingen ein, wo mit
Fördermitteln der EU und der SBK ein Hofgut als Treffpunkt der
Seilschaften saniert wurde und wird. Wer denkt sich kreative
Aktionen aus? Wer organisiert gemeinsame Anfahrten aus den
verschiedenen Ecken des Landes? Wir suchen regionale
AnsprechpartnerInnen, die das für ihre Gegend übernehmen. Infoseite:
www.biotechfarm-schliessen.de.vu.


Berufung zur Feldbefreiung in Gatersleben abrupt zu Ende!
Welch böse Überraschung: Der Prozess ist zuende. Offenbar hat der
Richter die Angeklagten bzw. ihre VerteidigerInnen über den Tisch
gezogen und mit absurden Drohungen dazu gebracht, den Prozess zu
Ende zu bringen. Ich ärgere mich, dass ich diesen Tag wegen meiner
Veranstaltungsreise durch Österreich als Verteidiger eines der
Feldbefreier passen musste – mit meiner Erfahrung in Sachen
Strafrecht wäre vielleicht noch was zu machen gewesen. So kommt es
nun nicht zu weiteren ZeugInnenvernehmungen, die sicherlich weitere
Skandale, Schlampereien und Rechtsbrüche hervorgebracht hätten – so
wie die Vernehmung der Versuchsleiterin ja vorher auch schon. Eine
Revision werden wir nun noch versuchen, aber da mauern die Gerichte
sich meist ein. Mehr auf www.gendreck-weg.de.


Feldbefreiungen sind Terror?
Im letzten Newsletter hatte ich berichtet, dass sich
Gentechnik-Protagonisten mit immer absurderen Opferbildern
inszenieren – z.B. als vergleichbar Verfolgte wie die Juden im
Dritten Reich. Ähnlich triefend vor fundamentalistischer Ideologie
sind nun die Angriffe auf die unbekannten FeldbefreierInnen der
beiden Hochsicherheitsanlagen in Deutschland, dem AgroBioTechnikum
und der BioTechFarm. Der Ressortchef Wissen der ZEIT (seit langem
ein Hetzblatt pro Gentechnik) nannte solche Aktionen jetzt als
„Ökoterror“. Erinnert sich noch jemand, dass das genau dieselben
Leute sind, die GentechnikkritikerInnen immer Unsachlichkeit und
ideologische Ablehnung der Agrogentechnik nachsagen?
Längere Texte und Debatten zu den Attacken finden sich im übrigen
auf Indymedia (www.de.indymedia.org und
http://linksunten.indymedia.org), auf www.taz.de (gleich mehrere)
und in Freitag
(www.freitag.de/politik/1129-die-neue-militanz-der-gentech-gegner).


Sie wissen es selbst: Gentechnik unkontrollierbar und unnütz
Angesichts dieser Parolen sei daran erinnert, dass es über die
Agrogentechnik eigentlich gar keine Meinungsunterschiede gibt. Auch
die BefürworterInnen räumen in ihren eigenen Papieren ein, wie
nutzlos und unbeherrschbar die Agrogentechnik ist, z.B. Monsanto:
„Die Möglichkeiten, eine Pflanze durch gentechnische Veränderungen
zu verbessern, sind gering. Dies ist einer Reihe von Ursachen
geschuldet. So lassen sich die Effekte eines spezifischen Gens auf
das Wachstum der Pflanze, deren Entwicklung und Reaktionen auf die
Umwelt nicht genau vorhersagen. Dazu kommt die geringe Erfolgsrate
bei der gentechnischen Manipulation, der Mangel an präziser
Kontrolle über das Gen, sobald es in das Genom eingebaut worden ist,
und andere ungewollte Effekte, die mit dem Geschehen bei der
Gentransformation und dem Verfahren der Zellkultur zusammenhängen.“
Das Gleiche gilt für die Frage von Koexistenz und Auskreuzung – die
ProtagonistInnen der Agrogentechnik wissen genau, dass ihre bunten
Flyer, Sonntags- und Wahlkampfreden frei erfundener Unsinn sind:
„Ein Null-Prozent-Schwellenwert ist ebenso wie eine 100%ige
Produktreinheit unerreichbar“, schrieb der Bundesverband deutscher
Pflanzenzüchter, und einer der hochrangigsten Wissenschaftler, der
Ex-Forschungsgemeinschaftspräsident Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker,
ebenfalls Gentechnikbefürworter, fügte an: „Absurd sind auch die
Abstandsregelungen für Versuchsfelder etwa von MON810, denn der
Maispollen fliegt kilometerweit.“ Auch bei den Umweltauswirkungen
wissen die GentechnikstreiterInnen, was Sache ist: Uwe Schrader,
Chef des Lobbyverbandes InnoPlanta, beschrieb 1999 als Gründ für die
Ausbreitung von Gentechnik im landwirtschaftlichen Bereich "die
Aussicht, in dem stagnierenden Pflanzenschutzmittelmarkt durch
Anwendung der Pflanzenbiotechnologie Positionsverbesserungen zu
erzielen". Alle Quellen und mehr Zitate sind unter
www.biotech-seilschaften.de.vu genau zu finden.


Wieder illegales Feld in Graz entdeckt
Fast alle Forschungsfelder werden mit falschen Angaben beantragt und
genehmigt - sowohl bei der Genehmigungsbehörde wie auch bei der
Förderung. Reine Propagandafelder werden zu Forschungsarbeiten
umdeklariert, Methoden- und Produktentwicklung als
Umweltbegleitforschung ausgegeben, um an den wichtigen Geldtopf
"Biosicherheit" heranzukommen. Mitunter werden Felder sogar komplett
illegal, d.h. ohne Genehmigung angelegt, so 2009 ein
Reserve-Gengerstenfeld der Uni Gießen. Nun wurde ein Feld der
Universitäten Würzburg und Graz im Botanischen Garten der
österreichischen Stadt entdeckt – und damit war auch der Glaube, die
Alpenrepublik hätte kein Gentech-Feld, dahin. Mehr:
www.keine-gentechnik.de/news-gentechnik/news/de/24158.html.


Mal wieder Grüne an der Macht
Eine neue Tragödie grünen Versagens in der Realpolitik bahnt sich
an. Ulrike Hoefken, vormals im Bundestag für die Grünen mit dem
Thema Agro-Gentechnik befasst und dort bemerkenswert desinteressiert
an den als Forschungsfelder deklarierten Freisetzungen, verbunden
mit einer penetranten Missachtung von GentechnikgegnerInnen, die zu
diesen Feldern arbeiteten, wurde Umwelt- und
Landwirtschaftsministerin in Rheinland-Pfalz. Dort liegt die Firma
BASF - und so, also müsste Hoefken von Beginn an deutlich machen,
dass Grüne in der Regierung zu nichts taugen, ließ sie gleich
Garantien für die Firma von Stapel (Focus online am 23.7.2011 und
agrarheute, 27.7.2011): "Höfken will die Gentechnik-Forschung der
BASF in Rheinland-Pfalz nicht behindern. "Es gibt von unserer Seite
keinerlei Intention, die Forschung einzuschränken. Die Forschung ist
frei", betonte Höfken. Der Bereich Biotechnologie stehe nicht
infrage. Die Agro-Gentechnik sei nur ein winziger Teil davon."


Südtour der Veranstaltung „Monsanto auf Deutsch“ ist vorbei
Acht Tage lang bin ich durch Bayern und Österreich gefahren – und es
hat, neben der Anstrengung, jeden Abend eine zweistündige,
theatralische Ton-Bilder-Schau zu präsentieren, verdammt Spaß
gemacht. Immer wieder wurden auch gerade Berichte von direkten
Aktionen auf und an Feldern mit Szenenapplaus bedacht. Die Wut war
jeden Abend greifbar – und die LügnerInnen und BetrügerInnen unter
dem Deckmantel von Wissenschaft und Behörden müssen sich hoffentlich
immer wärmer anziehen.
Die nächsten Veranstaltungstouren sind vor dem InnoPlanta-Forum,
Anfang November in Nordrhein-Westfalen und zum Monatswechsel
November/Dezember wieder im Süden geplant. Wer da noch Interesse
hat, sollte sich melden (gerade Sachsen-Anhalt wäre noch schön
Anfang September). Im Oktober kann sogar noch eine ganze Tour durch
andere Regionen hinzukommen, Termine in Hessen sind auch
zwischendurch möglich, da die Anfahrt da nicht so lang sind.
Die bisherige Terminliste:
Samstag, 3.9., 19 Uhr in Braunschweig (voraussichtlich Brunsviga)
Sonntag, 4.9., 15 Uhr auf dem Hoffest des Biolandbetriebes Lindenhof
in Eilum östlich von Wolfenbüttel
5./6.9. in Üplingen (Bördekreis): InnoPlanta-Forum – hoffentlich mit
bunten Protesten
Freitag, 4.11. in Wuppertal (Näheres folgt)
Samstag, 5.11. in Düsseldorf auf der Jahresversammlung der
Coordination gegen Bayer-Gefahren
Sonntag, 6.11. in Düren
Montag, 7.11. um 19.30 Uhr in Köln (Ateliergemeinschaft "Irgendwas
mit Kunst", Leyendeckerstr. 16, 50825 Köln)


Und damit erstmal wieder ein herzliches „Tschüß“ - bleibt unruhig,
wütend und frech … Jörg


P.S. Wir überlegen, ob wir dieses Jahr noch ein Seminar zur
Einführung in die Gentechnikkritik, die Seilschaften und
Aktionsmöglichkeiten machen – falls an solch einer Art Grundkurs
genügend Menschen Interesse haben. Wer Lust drauf hat, sollte sich
deshalb melden ...

Wie immer das Nachwort: Von der Broschüre „Organisierte
Unveranwortlichkeit“ und dem Buch „Monsanto auf Deutsch“ sind noch
genügend Bestände vorhanden. Bestellungen über das Infoformular auf
unserer Internetseite www.biotech-seilschaften.de.vu, unter
www.aktionsversand.de.vu oder in der Projektwerkstatt. Da andere
Verlage – teilweise mit erstaunlich widerlichen Unhöflichkeiten –
die brisanten Botschaften nicht verlegen wollten, wird „Monsanto auf
Deutsch“ wohl erstmal die einzige Enzyklopädie der
Agrogentechnik“mafia“ bleiben.


--
Verfasst in der
Projektwerkstatt Saasen, 06401/90328-3, Fax -5, 01522-8728353
Ludwigstr. 11, 35447 Reiskirchen-Saasen (20 km östlich Giessen)
www.projektwerkstatt.de/saasen
++ Tagungshaus ++ politische Werkstätten ++ Archive und
Bibliotheken ++ Direct-Action-Plattform ++ Bahnanschluß ++
ReferentInnenangebote ++ Sachspenden gesucht: Was gerade fehlt,
steht immer unter www.projektwerkstatt.de/gesucht ++

Call to Action on Behalf of Leonard Peltier

Forwarded on behalf of the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee, 27 July 2011:

The Attorney General of the United States manages the Department
of Justice, of which the Bureau of Prisons is a part. For the
next two days, we ask supporters to contact Attorney General Eric
Holder. Whether for a week, a month, a year, or 10 years... Solitary
Confinement is Torture! Solitary is cruel and unusual and was
recognized as such by the U.S. Supreme Court a century ago. Express
your concern about the impact of solitary on the health of Leonard
Peltier, a 66-year-old man in poor health. Demand that Leonard
Peltier be immediately released from solitary and returned to the
general population at USP-Lewisburg.

By Mail

Correspondence to the Department, including the Attorney General,
may be sent to:

U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

By Phone

Office of the Attorney General Public Comment Line - 202-353-1555

By E-Mail

E-mails to the Department of Justice, including the Attorney General,
may be sent to AskDOJ@usdoj.gov. IMPORTANT: Address your e-mail to
Attorney General Eric Holder so that your e-mail will be forwarded
to his office.

----

Time to set him free... Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.

Friends of Peltier
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org

Forwarded on behalf of the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
on 29 Jully 2011:

While less than a week ago, the current heat index in Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania, is 100 degrees F. The prisoners in solitary confinement
at the federal penitentiary are not sheltered from the heat. The
prisoners have to sleep on the floor at night to get some semblance
of relief.

We received word today that Leonard now has to share his very small
isolation cell with another prisoner. We're told that the cell next
to Leonard's cell is currently occupied by three prisoners!

Recently, a prisoner in solitary at USP-Lewisburg attempted suicide.

The situation at USP-Lewisburg is critical. Please take action.

Amnesty International designated Leonard Peltier as a political
prisoner a long while ago. Amnesty International's Secretariat, based
in the UK, is responsible for the majority of the organization's
research and leads AI's campaigning work. Please contact AI and urge
that organization to immediately take an active hand in this crisis:

Telephone: +44-20-74135500
Fax number: +44-20-79561157 Address:
1 Easton Street
London
WC1X 0DW, UK
Web Form: http://www.amnesty.org/en/contact

The "free media" and "free elections" – reflections on Murdoch and friends

25 July 2011. A World to Win News Service. A scandal has hounded the entire British political system, exposing much of the dirtiness and the depth of the corruption of a power structure often held up as a shining example of "the free world". The British ruling class's continuing efforts to thwart the widening of that scandal is a further exposure of the ugliness of that system.



After more than five years of suspicions and accusations, it is now certain that the phones of many hundreds and possibly even thousands of people (according to the police some 4,000 phone numbers were on the main hacker's list, but some reports say up to 12,000 may be involved) have been "hacked" (their conversations and messages listened into) in order to obtain and publish embarrassing or otherwise hurtful information about them. Most were celebrities – politicians, actors and models, sports stars and the British royal family. Some were ordinary people who had the misfortune to fall victim to violent crimes and then see the media feast on their misery.



The main organisation caught so far at this trafficking in human suffering is News of the World (NOTW), a British tabloid published on Sundays, the globe's biggest-selling English-language newspaper. NOTW is part of the News International group, along with the Sun (infamous for its combination of soft-core porn and "family values"), the respected Times of London aimed at the better-off crowd and British Sky Broadcasting (the UK's biggest pay TV channel). News International is in turn the British branch of the News Corporation, the second-largest media company in the US (after Disney), owner of Fox television and several influential American dailies, including the Wall Street Journal. The main owner and chairman of News Corp is Rupert Murdoch, sometimes called "the owner of the News" because of his power over media all over the world, especially in the US, UK, Australia and South-east Asia, and now bidding to expand his business in the Middle East.



So far, the UK scandal has brought down two of the country's most powerful police officials, chief UK police officer Sir Paul Stephenson, head of the Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard), and Assistant Met Police Commissioner John Yates. It has led to the resignation and arrest of Andy Coulson, the Conservative Party's former chief spin doctor and Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman, along with the resignation and arrest of Rebekah Brooks, News International chief executive, and the arrest and even imprisonment of at least ten of the newspaper's editors and reporters. It has also jeopardised Cameron's position and the future of his coalition government, and may produce more casualties if the ruling class is not able to put an end to it.



At the beginning, there was little sign that the arrest of NOTW editor Clive Goodman and the private detective Glenn Mulcaire for what the police declared was a minor and "isolated" incident would lead to such broad and deep disgrace for so many of the country's leaders and institutions.



Goodman and Mulcaire were listening in on the phone messages of British royal family advisers, looking for hot gossip fodder (unlike some countries, UK defamation law makes it risky for the media to just invent "news"). They were caught in November 2005 when they annoyed the royals by reporting Prince William's knee injury. In January 2007 Goodman was jailed for four months. Mulcaire, after pleading guilty to actually doing the hacking, was jailed for six months.



The affair continued to flare up and then damped down. Rival news organizations revealed that a list of the names of celebrities and other well-known figures whose phones Mulcaire had hacked were found in his home – 3,000 according to a 2009 article in the Guardian. Famous people, including former Labour Party Vice Prime Minister Lord John Prescott and the British-American film star Sienna Miller, complained and/or filed charges. Finally, the police confirmed a few of these cases. The Department of Public Prosecutions refused to widen the investigation, despite an internal report that there was a "vast array" of victims. The DPP head was later hired by Murdoch.



As recently reported by The New York Times, which along with the Guardian eventually brought the facts to light, for years "senior Scotland Yard officials assured Parliament, judges, lawyers, potential hacking victims, the news media and the public that there was no evidence of widespread hacking by the tabloid. They steadfastly maintained that their original inquiry, which led to the conviction of one reporter and one private investigator, had put an end to what they called an isolated incident."



Instead of investigating, the police sat on the evidence. When the investigator Mulcaire was arrested, his home yielded up 11,000 pages of notes listing 4,000 people whose phone lines he had presumably targeted, including top politicians and police officials. They were put in rubbish bags and left in a police locker, uncatalogued, unsorted and out of sight for four years.



The UK's top cop at the time was Sir Ian Blair. Blair was the man in charge when the police, mistaking the Brazilian plumber Jean Charles de Menezes for an Arab after the 2005 London bombings, chose to gun him down while he was seated in an Underground train. Instead of assigning the investigation to the special crimes division, Blair put the counter-terrorism unit in charge. The head of that unit was the now-resigned Yates. Yates proved his mettle as the officer in charge of Scotland Yard’s response to that incident, resulting in the vindication of the police. According to a source quoted by the NYT, it was felt that with Yates the affair was in "safe hands". In defending his decision to ignore the phone hacking evidence, Yates said, "I'm not going to go down and look at bin bags." Even after the 2009 Guardian report, he refused to reopen the investigation.



A parliamentary commission was formed to investigate the issue. After interviewing current and past NOTW editors and journalists, including Prime Minister Cameron's future press secretary Coulson, in February 2010 it published a report accusing the newspaper of "collective negligence" rather than criminal activity, because, the report said, there was no evidence that any of the newspaper's officials, including Coulson, had been aware of the hacking.



This was directly refuted by a former NOTW show-business reporter in September 2010, who told The New York Times that the practice of hacking was widespread at his newspaper and that Coulson actively encouraged his staff to intercept the calls of the targeted people. Coulson "totally and utterly" denied the charges, but the reporter continued to insist on his allegations and provided more details to the BBC and the Guardian until he was found dead in his flat on 18 July 2011, just as the scandal reached its feverish height. The police immediately announced that they were not treating his death as suspicious.



Meanwhile, faced with mounting pressure, the police had relaunched their enquiry in January 2011. All hell broke lose when it was revealed that NOTW had ordered the hacking of the voice mail of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl abducted and murdered in 2002. Not only had the newspaper's private investigator Mulcaire tapped her mobile phone seeking salacious details, he had even deleted messages (he said to make space for new messages, but possibly also to keep other media outlets from following NOTW's example). This misled the girl's parents into thinking that the missing girl was still alive and using her phone.



The resulting storm of outrage – disproving the idea that Murdoch was just giving the public what it wanted – finally led to the resignations and arrests and prompted the formation of two investigating committees in the House of Commons, which questioned the police officials, Rupert Murdoch and his son James, head of the UK division of his father's empire, and others.



The cover-up continues



Now that the issue of phone hacking is no longer merely a matter of the privacy of the royal family, people are increasingly disgusted by the media's practices and even more by the involvement of the government in enabling and then covering up Murdoch's activities. At the same time, there is something of a battle going on between rival political parties, as reflected, among other ways, in the political allegiance of the two newspapers that broke the scandal.



The London-based Guardian is associated with the Labour Party, and The New York Times, itself associated with the Democratic Party in the US, has been a working partner of the Guardian in recent years. They took a joint decision to launch a full-scale crusading investigation into this affair, although they say that each paper carried out its work independently of the other. To some extent this situation is creating opportunities for different political factions to increase their share or influence in government at the expense of their rivals. However this has gone far beyond what they expected, and they are now trying hard to wrap it up and limit the damages to their system.



The ruling class and its representatives, including the Conservative-led government, the Labour Party, Parliament and the media as a whole, including even Murdoch and his corporation, are trying to reduce the issue to whether or not the law was broken by the hacking, and whether or not Coulson and other NOTW editors knew about it or authorised it. The spectre of a media empire like Murdoch's flagrantly and repeatedly flouting the law is already sufficient to outrage many – but this is far from the whole of the matter.



The role of the police in protecting Murdoch's newspaper and helping its snooping can no longer be denied. It has come out that top police and court officials have worked for NOTW and NOTW filled their ranks, that they exchanged information, and that there were long-term and very close personal relations between the leaders of the two organizations. It is now being alleged that Murdoch's editors paid individual police for information – and Rebekah Brooks already admitted as much in previous testimony, at the time she headed NOTW, though she retracted this later. But the relationship seems to have been based more on mutual strategic advantage rather than bribes. Murdoch provided the police with experienced opinion-manipulators and political cover, which they certainly needed, among other reasons because of their unrelenting brutalization and occasionally killing of protesters and other people whose rights they supposedly protect.



The links between the Murdoch family and top government officials and leaders of the Labour and now the Conservative Party have also become plain for all to see. It has been especially startling for people to learn that the Prime Minister had hired Murdoch lieutenant Coulson as his press secretary even after it had been established that at least some hacking had been going on when Coulson was at NOTW. In fact, Coulson had been a mastermind of Cameron's public relations strategy before he became PM, and it has been suggested that Cameron hired him precisely to ensure the Murdoch empire's support for the Conservative Party in the elections.



But Murdoch mud has landed on the faces of politicians of the Conservative and Labour Party leaders alike, although not everyone has taken proper notice. For instance it has come out that NOTW spied on Labour leader Gordon Brown for a decade, both when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Tony Blair and when he became Prime Minister himself. Brown suspected it all along, he now says. Murdoch's Sun even made public, to the privacy-minded Brown family's great distress, that their infant son had just been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. Yet Brown never said a word, and continued to maintain a close social relationship with Rebekah Brooks, who had been in charge of the Sun in 2006 when this incident occurred and who later became News Corp chief executive. He also continued to have close relations with the Murdoch family.



In fact, Brown and Cameron attended Brooks' 2009 wedding, and she attended the Prince of Wales' fiftieth birthday party. Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair also socialized with the Murdochs and their executives. Despite the spying on their private lives, leading figures in the power structure seemed to find Murdoch's role in society legitimate and useful.



The media in general have a very important role in forming the public opinion that the masses can supposedly freely express at election time. All the mainstream media have the financial ability to reach millions of people. By using this power and their expertise at connecting with various strata of society, they can frame the questions and problems of the day in a way that often leads people to think that the solutions posed by the ruling class are the only ones possible. They also train people in a certain mentality – and Murdoch has excelled at encouraging an unhealthy, self-centred, hypocritical and cynically exploitative outlook. In this general way, and sometimes very specifically, the "free press" help dictate to the "free people" what to think and what to do.



But at the same time the media can play an important role in the rivalry between the political representatives of different factions of the ruling class. It is important for these factions to win the support of the tabloids and other media (in the UK the print press is under fewer restrictions than broadcast media) and the business groups that own them, which in turn, of course, are generally owned by top monopoly capitalists like Murdoch.



As has been pointed out, the law, in its majestic even-handedness, permits rich and poor alike to sleep on the streets, and it also gives news peddlers and financial magnates an equal right to own media empires.



In the decades since Murdoch moved in on the British media, no party has won a general election in the UK without his support. Murdoch's support for Tony Blair in 1997 was an important advantage to the Labour Party that year. All the parties and politicians surely wanted to keep or get that support. In fact, the influence of the tabloids is so strongly felt by the politicians that Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock blamed his 1992 defeat, despite the opinion polls in his favour, on the campaign against him that Murdoch's Sun started in the days just before the election.



Tony Blair and his allies in the Labour Party had already established such a close relationship with NOTW and Murdoch with their “New Labour” project that Blair was invited to take part in the News Corporation conference in Australia in 1995. Brown appeared at Murdoch's side at the Davos World Economic Forum in 2007. The story was repeated in 2008 when the Conservatives' Cameron met Murdoch in Greece to win his support. It seemed that they reached some kind of agreement, because a month later the Sun shifted its support to the Tories (Conservatives) once again.



It has been revealed that all recent British prime ministers repeatedly met with Murdoch or one of his chief executives at Downing Street (although through the back door), the Prime Minister's residence or somewhere else. "Cameron admitted meeting Murdoch executives 26 times in 15 months – but it emerges there were more occasions, many others," Polly Toynbee wrote in the Guardian.



If the leadership of both major political parties and Murdoch got along so well together, so much so that the politicians decided to put up with the occasional stab in the back, what does that say about the supposed "choice" that these parties offer the people in the elections that are considered the ultimate definition of "freedom"?



But the relationship between the ruling class political system and the media is not limited to Murdoch. This is where rivalry between different financial and political groups seems to have played a role in this scandal, although policy differences seemed to have been largely absent in this affair despite the public controversies during this period (over the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and domestic cutbacks). Murdoch's News Corporation already owned 39 percent of B-Sky-B television, but he was planning to take complete control. This required government permission, and it would be hard to believe that Cameron and Murdoch and his executives did not discuss this during their meetings. Under questioning at an emergency House of Commons meeting Cameron was forced to admit it, though he insisted the conversations had been "appropriate".



This takeover, the most important move on News Corp's strategic agenda, would have brought Murdoch British media dominance, threatening even the position of BBC. There was opposition to this within ruling circles. Whether this played a role in encouraging the exposure and discrediting of Murdoch and his empire in the UK is not clear. But Murdoch has now withdrawn his bid.



In the end, probably for various different reasons, the British ruling class seems to have decided to try and cool down the issue in the hope of limiting further exposures. The appearance of Murdoch father and son and their top executives before the British Parliament's Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee might well be the final set piece. Contrary to the media description of Murdoch being grilled, in fact this was a tribune to allow Murdoch to deny any wrongdoing and justify his behaviour, portraying himself as a victim betrayed by a much-trusted employee, without being confronted with the more burning questions. There were no questions related to bribery, corruption and blackmail.



Like Murdoch, Cameron has refused to admit that he did anything wrong, which may very well be the case in the narrow legal terms within which both parties and the media are trying to confine the affair. He seems to have survived despite his deep involvement with Murdoch, but he does have the effective defence that all the political parties and many of the system's other pillars have been equally involved.



Opposition leader Ed Milliband might have gone a little bit further than others in his rhetoric, but he too has had to come to terms and led the parliament in taking a soft approach towards Murdoch and his gang, treating them as respected guests rather than criminals. It's worth mentioning that Murdoch supported Ed's brother David Milliband in their rivalry for Labour Party leadership, but Ed had his share of meetings with Murdoch's minions – and got caught failing to include them in his recently-released meeting log.



The House of Commons enquiry was not meant to get at the truth but on the contrary to cover up the crimes of the Murdoch empire and more importantly the complicity of a broad swath of the system's political institutions in pandering to and protecting a media empire that doesn't reflect public opinion but creates it, an empire whose goal is to delude and degrade the people, to dumb them and numb them, to spread the notion that because of elections and competing political parties, the rule of capital over the vast majority of people is somehow not a dictatorship.



This is the real picture that emerges from this scandal, and it gives the lie – or at least should – to the myth of a freely elected government and freely elected parliament, the free and fair media and the free market economy.

German tanks roll across the Mid East, thanks to Israel

18 July 2011. A World to Win News Service. Berlin's recent decision to sell 200 Leopard-2 tanks to Saudi Arabia sheds light on both Germany's active participation in repressing Arab peoples and Israel's centrality in that repression.



The sale of these tanks was supposed to be a secret. Unusually, someone in the German national security council leaked the news to Der Spiegel, which instead of ignoring it, provoked a scandal, leading some observers to believe that there is dissension in the highest circles about this issue.



These 62-tonne tanks are equipped with advanced weapons systems. Their stabilization mechanism allows them to fire their cannons with great accuracy while advancing at top speed over rough terrain. Israel used its own Merkava tanks based on earlier Leopard-2 designs and imported German components for its last invasion of Lebanon. But this particular Leopard-2 model is also equipped for use against unarmed civilians. They have plow-like "clearance blades" in front, designed to sweep away barricades, and "non-lethal" features for "crowd control".



"This would be the perfect tank to drive into Bahrain and crack down on any uprising," a researcher at the Bonn International Centre for Conversion commented to The New York Times 7 July. Last March Saudi Arabia sent tanks, armoured cars and troops into Bahrain to put down a protest movement demanding that the monarchy grant the same rights to the Shia majority as the Sunni elite. Four dozen hospital doctors and nurses are now facing prison for having treated wounded demonstrators. Many have been tortured into giving televised "confessions". Two protesters have been sentenced to death. "It's also a good tank to fight any demonstrations in Riyadh", the Saudi capital, he added.



Saudi Arabia had a causeway built to allow its armed forces to roll into the tiny neighbouring Bahrain archipelago for the same reason that it has always worked to hold sway over other neighbours, like Yemen: the Saudi royal family fear that any instability and popular stirrings would threaten their reign. Obama's apologists for the Saudi monarchy usually make the following realpolitick argument: Shia Iran is encouraging the Bahraini Shias to demand their rights as a way to threaten the Saudi rulers, who fear a revolt against their despotism by the Shia minority in Saudi Arabia. What this reasoning deliberately overlooks is the question of right and wrong. The subtext is that Shias shouldn't have equal rights because that might be bad for American interests.



German officials took a different tactic in defending these weapons sales, to the extent that they commented at all. In general, the government tried to suffocate the scandal with what some media dubbed "an iron silence" and refused to confirm or deny the reports. But a foreign policy spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union argued that the deal was morally defensible because it was meant to protect Israel.



"Every step that we take in the region we take with the condition that it promotes the security and the right to exist of Israel," Philipp Missfelder said. (NYT)



Quoting an unnamed official, the Suddeutsche Zeitung reported that Israel and the US had both backed the deal, offering as proof that neither government raised public objections even after the scandal broke.



You might ask how, and against whom, these German tanks are supposed to defend Israel. After all, even if you were to swallow the specious argument about the existential threat to Israel posed by Iran, no one claims it could take the form of Persian armies marching across the Arabian peninsula to Tel Aviv.



Those tanks have only one plausible target, and that is the people of the peninsula itself. As even the NYT went on to explain, "Once viewed by Israel as a potential threat, the government in Saudi Arabia is increasingly viewed as a guarantor of stability in a region in upheaval, as revolutionary fervour sweeps through the Middle East."



"Promoting the security and right to exist of Israel" means supplying some of the world's most modern tools for killing people to one of the world's most medieval regimes (even worse than the Islamic Republic of Iran when it comes to women's rights) to preserve "stability" – defending, from their own people, the network of reactionary and mostly US-dependent regimes that extends from Morocco to Turkey, along with defending Israel from the people who were cleared out and put down to build the Zionist state.



Germany's dedication to Israel has nothing to do with atonement for the crimes it committed against Jews, any more than those crimes justify further crimes against other people. Weapon sales to Israel played an important role in German rearmament, starting in the 1950s when German companies began building weapons for Israel that the German armed forces were not yet allowed to have under the terms of the treaty that ended World War 2. The development of arms technology and manufacturing with and for Israel (often in conjunction with the US, UK, Spain and other powers) helped Germany become the world's number three arms exporter, an industry that has been central to the wealth of its finance capitalists, and at the same time build an extraordinarily well-equipped army even as it was supposedly renouncing its wartime past.



The sale of Leopard-2 tanks to Saudi Arabia will bring in about 1.7 billion euros for leading German companies. Although the American press has criticized Germany for being "mercantilist, with a foreign policy that is, first and foremost, concerned with its own economic interests" (NYT), this rings hollow in light of the fact that "The Saudis are also in talks with US companies for 41 billion euros worth of defence equipment that would become the largest US contract ever." (Agence France Press) But this recycling of petrodollars into Western coffers goes along with much broader economic interests and a politics that represents them.



While Merkel's Social Democrat rivals have used this occasion to accuse her of "a frightening lack of judgement" (Die Welt Online), they followed the same politics when they led the government. In 2005, on its last day in office, the "red-green" coalition of Social Democrats and Greens signed a contract to sell Israel more Dolphin submarines than it could use to deploy its nuclear missiles throughout the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, aimed mainly at Iran and Pakistan, thus bringing hundreds of millions of people under the increased threat of a nuclear holocaust.



Germany's strategic alliance with Israel has been a substantial factor in enabling its monopoly capitalist rulers to once again flourish after their defeat in the world war. In fact, the domination of the Middle East for which Israel is the current linchpin has been a major factor in the prosperity of all the Western imperialist powers.



(For more on the history of German-Israeli arms cooperation, see "In the Water, on the Land, and in the Air" by Otfried Nassauer, 3 April 2009, on the bits.de Web site.)

On the US "drawdown" in Afghanistan

11 July 2011. A World to Win News Service. The US has announced it will start withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan this month and hand over the country's security to the Afghan government by the end of 2014. What is the real nature of this "drawdown"? Does it reflect success or failure for the decade-long US-led occupation of Afghanistan? In order to understand this we have to examine the American plan and the situation of the war as a whole.



President Barack Obama announced a more detailed plan for the withdrawal on 22 June. He said that 5,000 US soldiers will be pulled out by the end of this summer, when this year's "fighting season" comes to end, and another 5,000 by the end of 2011. An additional 23,000 US forces are to leave in 2012.



The US has about 110,000 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, including those assigned to Nato (which has about 50,000 soldiers in addition to those under the US flag). Withdrawing 33,000 of them by the end of 2012 will still leave almost 80,000. There are also tens of thousands of employees of private security companies in Afghanistan that are not included in this plan.



Some other Nato countries such as France and the UK have followed the US in announcing the reduction of their own forces in Afghanistan. UK Foreign Secretary William Hague announced that the UK will withdraw all its troops by 2015. However, when the details were released, it seems that the UK plans to pull out no more than 500 soldiers by the end of 2012, none of them combat forces. With 9,000 troops, the UK is the second-largest occupier after the US. Similarly, France, the third, says it will withdraw a quarter of its 4,000 soldiers by the end of 2012, but this actually postpones a planned earlier pullout.



The cost of the war that started 10 years ago has been a real burden on the imperialists, especially the US, which has recently been spending more than two billion dollars a week on the Afghan war. This will amounts to nearly 110 billion dollars a year. This has had negative effect on an economy that was already in trouble.



The Afghan war has gone through ebb and flows in the last decade. Despite their huge military advantages, the imperialists have suffered humiliating set-backs, first when their inability to deal with the situation as they had originally planned compelled the US to more than triple its forces to today's levels, and now in the increasingly public admissions from Washington and elsewhere that military victory is impossible unless the Taliban can be brought to negotiate.



Even if the invaders stick to their plan for the next year and a half, they will simply be withdrawing the forces that Obama ordered to Afghanistan in 2009. The withdrawals announced for the next 18 months would still leave the US with more than twice as many troops occupying the country as when Obama took office. The announcement that security control of Afghanistan will supposedly be handed over to Afghan forces doesn’t mean that the US will all leave Afghanistan. Although rarely mentioned, there have been well-informed reports that the US hopes "to keep upward of 25,000 American forces in Afghanistan” indefinitely, even after 2014. (The New York Times, 22 June)



This is not far from the number of invaders that first occupied all of Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban in 2001. According to this source, the US plans to keep permanent, strategic military bases in Afghanistan. They would be tasked with securing American global interests in the region, including by threatening Pakistan and if need be carrying out military action in that country.



Why the US has decided to reduce its forces at this point



The drawdown seems to represent a recognition of necessity by US imperialism, even though there are some differences within the American ruling class about the pace. The US is trying to change its war strategy and tactics in Afghanistan in order to make them more efficient and better correspond with the US's overall present situation in the region and world.



A war that was meant to increase and consolidate the global superiority of US imperialism could have the opposite effect and even has the potential to endanger America's present position if continued in the same way.



One aspect of this is the economic burden, although this doesn't seem to be the main aspect. As Obama confessed in his speech, "Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war at a time of rising debt and hard economic times."



Opposition to the war in Afghanistan is growing all over the world as well as in the US. At the same time and more importantly for US imperialism, there is a growing frustration within the American ruling class regarding the lack of success in Afghanistan.



A fear of being bogged down in Afghanistan for a long time and with little positive result for the empire is growing within the ruling class. While the spectre of Vietnam war still is most present in the minds of the US ruling class, it also cannot ignore the Soviet experience in Afghanistan.



Concentrating such a massive force in one place, with the expenses associated with that, could reduce the manoeuvrability of the US in an especially turbulent world. That is something that the US cannot afford at the present time.



Not only did the US totally fail to keep any of the promises of liberation that it made to the Afghan people at the time of the invasion, it even failed to meet its own declared war aims. It was unable to build a solid state, or reconstruct the economy of Afghanistan in accordance with its own needs and interests.



In another words, the US clearly failed in "reconstructing" a country that it had totally destroyed over the previous four decades, starting when the US backed jihadi forces in the war against the Soviet occupation, continuing with the civil war between warlords after the Soviet withdrawal and the Taliban's coming to power with US approval, and then the 2001 bombardment and invasion and the installation of the government led by Hamid Karzai, whom the US and its allies had picked out as their man to lead a motley mix of pro-US jihadist forces.



The occupiers have come up with a state, government and president that some observers believe will collapse as soon as the US and Nato forces pull out.



As the International Crisis Group report of 20 November 2010 said, "Nearly a decade after the U.S. engagement began, Afghanistan operates as a complex system of multi-layered fiefdoms in which insurgents control parallel justice and security organs in many if not most rural areas, while Kabul’s kleptocratic elites control the engines of graft and international contracts countrywide. The inflow of billions in international funds has cemented the linkages between corrupt members of the Afghan government and violent local commanders – insurgent and criminal, alike."



The "reconstruction" of Afghanistan's economy comprises little more than the destructive "aid" from the imperialist countries through government agencies and NGOs, on the one hand, and on the other the opium cultivation and drug production that procures foreign currency for the country's domestic rulers.



"Nearly a decade after the US-led military intervention began, little has been done to challenge the perverse incentives of continued conflict in Afghanistan. Insecurity and the inflow of billions of dollars in international assistance has failed to significantly strengthen the state's capacity to provide security or basic services and has instead, by progressively fusing the interests of political gatekeepers and insurgent commanders, provided new opportunities for criminals and insurgents to expand their influence inside the government. The economy as a result is increasingly dominated by a criminal oligarchy of politically connected businessmen." (ICG, Asia Report No. 207, 27 June 2011)



Another ICG report on Afghanistan shows that despite their emphasis on building an Afghan army, the US and Nato have not been successful. They might have an army of 300,000 men by the end of this year, its quality reflects the mess that the invaders have created in Afghanistan. As this ICG report put it:



"Persistent structural flaws meanwhile have undermined the military's ability to operate independently. Ethnic frictions and political factionalism among high-level players in the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the general staff have also stunted the army's growth. As a result, the army is a fragmented force, serving disparate interests, and far from attaining the unified national character needed to confront numerous security threats.



"The lack of consensus between Kabul, Washington and Brussels has hobbled the Afghan military's capacity to respond effectively to threats confronting the state. Failure to develop a sustainable, comprehensive long-term defence posture could risk the army's disintegration after the withdrawal of international forces.” (ICG report no. 190, 12 May 2010)



All this shows that the US has realized that it cannot meet the goals that it had set at the time of the invasion, for the creation of an Afghan puppet state and economic and social reform of the kind that could make American domination sustainable in the long run. Now Obama has publicly dropped some of those goals.



But the Obama government is very clear that it will not stop waging the war against the Taliban that the US still seeks to win by a combination of military and political means. It argues that what's needed is a switch in emphasis away from the use of massive numbers of occupation troops to hold ground and instead concentrating more on what it believes have been shown to be more efficient and effective tactics: spy networks, commando operations, and drone strikes to assassinate Taliban activists and leaders who are said to have been forced to move their bases into Pakistan. Obama's authorities point to the killing of Bin Laden in a compound in Abbotabad in Pakistan, as an example of how this war could be waged.



According to a report "The official made clear that the administration's primary focus now was a much larger, and more dangerous, presence of insurgents remaining in Pakistan." (NYT, 22 June)



In his speech, Obama indicated his preference for more focused covert operations of the kind that the US is conducting in Pakistan. "When threatened, we must respond with force… But when that force can be targeted, we need not deploy large armies overseas."



In other words, Obama is arguing that this is a better way to continue the war and especially to maintain US domination in Afghanistan and the region, not to end it.



In line with this, the US counting on being able to integrate an important section of the Taliban and other Islamic opposition forces into the Afghan government. The US recently officially admitted that it seeks negotiations with the Taliban and has had initial talks with them. However, some Taliban elements have already been integrated into various governmental institutions. There have been innumerable official moves by the Karzai government to please the fundamentalists, in particular by denying women's rights and maintaining other backward relations. After all, what the US is looking for in Afghanistan is not a fundamentally different world than what the Taliban are seeking, so it is not impossible for a reconciliation to take place. This issue requires a separate and more thorough examination in a future article.



So considering all the problems that the US has encountered in its drive to secure control over Afghanistan and the whole region, it has had to change its strategy and especially tactics. Some of the most important aspects of this new approach can be summarised as follows:



1) Drawdown of its forces gradually over the next three years. 2) Building permanent bases in Afghanistan and keeping around 25,000 soldiers for an indefinite period after 2014. 3) Relying on Afghan soldiers in the forefront of the war to secure the interests of US imperialism in the country and region. 4) Turning more to the assassination of activists and leaders of the opposition groups and using more drone strikes in Pakistan, while still keeping lots of "boots on the ground".



This means that the US war in Afghanistan is far from over. It will continue, even if in different ways and in accord with a changing situation. Whether or not it is successful in forcing the Taliban to enter a US-backed government – and both sides are fighting more fiercely than ever to seize a military advantageous situation from which to negotiate – the US will do its best to keep the country politically, militarily and economically at the mercy of imperialism.



Not only will the war will go on, there is no sign that the US will leave the region in the near future. Instead, it will continue to pursue regional domination in pursuit of its global interests.



Nevertheless the situation has brought to the surface some of the weaknesses and frustrations facing US imperialism.

DER SCHUTZ DES KAMPFES DURCH PAME BLOCKIERTE DEN ORGANISIERTEN PLAN DER PROVOKATION

Athen, 1. Juli 2011, KKE-Website. (auf Kommunisten-online am 4. Juli 2011) – Die Kommunistische Partei Griechenlands (KKE) prangert vor dem griechischen Volk den Plan der Provokation an, welcher den Kampf der Volksmassen auf die Probe stellte.

Wie auf der Titelseite von „Rizospastis“, dem Organ des ZK der KKE geschrieben steht: „Die Regierung benutzte die Bewegung der „empörten Bürger“ auf dem Syntagmaplatz, dem Platz der Verfassung, an welcher sich normale Menschen aus dem Volk beteiligen, als Gegenmittel zu den Streiks, die sie als gewalttätig bezeichnet, während sie „die empörten Bürger“ mit dem Etikett einer Form des friedlichen Kampfes versieht.

Der Plan war da für die Schaffung einer Situation. Dazu erhielten wir diese Information vor dem 48-Stunden-Streik. Einer Situation, wo vermummte Einzelpersonen, Gruppen organisierter Fußball-Hooligans, gedungene Schläger aus dem Rotlichtmilieu und andere Einsatzmittel in die Auseinandersetzung mit PAME kommen sollten. Dies angeblich aus ideologischen Gründen.

Auf diese Weise hätte die Polizei die Möglichkeit, unter Verweis auf diese Auseinandersetzungen als eine da „zwangsläufige“ Entscheidung das Volk mit Unterdrückung abzuschlachten. Sie wollten PAME mit dieser Gewalttätigkeit gleichsetzen und damit vorführen, dass die normalen empörten Menschen die klassenkämpferische Bewegung, die Parteien und vor allem die KKE nicht wollen.

Am 8.9.2002 veröffentlichten wir in der Sonntagsausgabe von „Rizospastis“ einen Artikel mit der Überschrift „Europas beste Praxis für den Einsatz von Informanten“. Dieser Artikel zeigte die Pläne von Europol für die Schaffung und das Unterlaufen von Demonstrationen auf Befehl hin auf. Dies gilt genauso gut für die griechische Polizei.

Enthüllende Video-Dokumente

Es muß darauf hingewiesen werden, dass die Parlamentsgruppe der KKE eine Anfrage an die Regierung richtete, die folgenden Inhalt zum Ausdruck bringt: „Es wurde ein Video in vielen Medien gezeigt. Dieses Video zeigt einzelne Personen, die mit Eisenstangen bewaffnet Auseinandersetzungen mit der Bereitschaftspolizei führen und später dann noch immer bewaffnet mit den Eisenstangen in Begleitung der Bereitschaftspolizei in den Hof des Parlamentsgebäudes gehen.

Dieses enthüllende Ereignis ist bezeichnend für die Beziehungen zwischen den Einsatzmitteln, die in den Sicherheitsdiensten und bei den Elementen mit Beteiligung bei gut bekannten Episoden wirksam werden.“

Aufgrund des oben genannten Inhalts fragen die Parlamentsmitglieder der KKE den zuständigen Minister, ob die Regierung über diesen besonderen Zwischenfall bescheid wusste, und ob sie das Parlament und das Volk dementsprechend hinsichtlich der genannten Ereignisse dahingehend informieren wird, welche Maßnahmen sei ergreifen wird, um die Tätigkeit von Unterdrückungsmechanismen gegen die organisierte Volksbewegung zu beenden.

Pressekonferenzen der Generalsekretärin des ZK der KKE

Am 30. Juni 2011 gab Genossin Aleka Papariga, Generalsekretärin des ZK der KKE, eine Pressekonferenz, wo sie u.a. folgendes äußerte:

„Wir prangern den organisierten, gut durchdachten sowohl politischen als auch operativen Einsatzplan der Regierung für diese beiden Tagen im Besonderen an. Die Generalprobe fand im Zeitraum des Memorandums statt, insbesondere für die beiden Tage des 48-Stunden-Streiks.

Was war das Ziel dieses Plans? Das politische Ziel ist einerseits ein Erschrecken der Volksmassen angesichts der unmittelbar bevorstehenden oder nicht bevorstehenden 5. Zahlungsrate aus dem Darlehen, und um auf diese Weise Angststimmung im Volk zu erzeugen, damit die Menschen jede Forderung aufgeben und nicht Widerstand leisten sollen, weil sonst Griechenland verloren wäre. Andererseits war der operative Teil dieses politischen Einsatzplans das Schaffen von Bedingungen für die Massenbewegung der Arbeiterklasse und des Volkes, um diese Massenbewegung der Arbeiterklasse und des Volkes zu zerschlagen und vor allem den Streik als eine Kampfform anzugreifen.

Wir müssen dazu sagen, dass es den Beweis und das Video gibt, mit jenen berüchtigten Provokateuren und anderen Einsatzmitteln, den Schlägern, den Gewerkschaftern von der extremen Rechten, welche von und durch Wirkmechanismen der Polizei organisiert zu sein und zu werden scheinen. Natürlich besitzt der bürgerliche Staat diese Dinge. Und er ist sich sehr bewusst des Vorhandenseins von anderen privaten Einsatzmitteln und Dienstleistungen. Es gibt da nicht nur staatliche und para-staatliche Einsatzmittel. Und der bürgerliche Staat will nicht diese anderen Einsatzmittel offenlegen. Denn wenn man so will, sind diese Einsatzmöglichkeiten für ihn nützlich.

Die Regierung machte folgendes: Sie nutzte die vieltönende und zugleich hohle Bewegung der empörten Bürger auf dem Syntagmaplatz, dem Platz der Verfassung. Natürlich ist das dort eine Veranstaltung, die ganz normale Menschen dazu trieb, sich an ihr zu beteiligen. Menschen aus dem Volk, die wirklich sehr empört sind. Die es nicht mehr aushalten können. Und sie von der Regierung benutzten diese empörten Bürger beim Vorgehen gegen die Streikdemonstrationen. Wir hörten bis zum Überdruss in diesem Zeitraum des Streiks, dass „Syntagma“ eine friedliche Kampfform darstellt, während alle anderen Kampfformen als gewalttätig betrachtet werden.

Dieser konkrete Plan, über den wir vor dem zweitägigen Streik Informationen hatten, bestand in folgendem. Im Wissen, dass am Tag des Generalstreiks die Demonstrationsmärsche alle auf dem Syntagmaplatz enden, hatte dieser Plan das folgende Ziel: Die Schaffung einer Situation, wo die „empörten Bürger“ - in Anführungszeichen - mit PAME in Konflikt geraten würden. Die vermummten Personen und die anderen Einsatzmittel, von ihnen da benutzte Gruppen von Fußball-Hooligans, gedungene Schläger aus dem Rotlichtmilieu und etliche andere Elemente sollten aus angeblich ideologischen Gründen mit PAME in Konflikt treten und auf diese Weise der Polizei die Gelegenheit verschaffen, auf den Syntagmaplatz vorzudringen, um das Volk dort abzuschlachten. Dies im Namen des Vorbeugens eines Kampfes zwischen den verschiedenen rivalisierenden Teilen. Und so, dass die Unterdrückung als etwas dargestellt werden könnte, was nicht in den Absichten der Polizei gewesen wäre, sondern eine den Einsatzkräften der Polizei aufgezwungene Entscheidung wäre.

Sie wollten PAME mit Gewalttätigkeit auf diese Art gleichsetzen und darüber hinaus zeigen, dass die normalen empörten Bürger die klassenkämpferische Bewegung, die Parteien und vor allem die KKE nicht wollen. Um im Klartext eine Auseinandersetzung zwischen den normalen empörten Bürgern und PAME vorzuführen oder gewissen linksgerichteten Intellektuellen und „Salonphilosophen“ die Möglichkeit zu geben zu schreiben, dass wenn PAME Blutvergießen vermeidet, PAME zum System gehört. Wir wussten von diesem Plan. Und wir informierten unsere Kräfte innerhalb von PAME. Und wir mussten damit umgehen. Im Grunde hatten wir zu entscheiden, ob wir das Recht für uns alle auf unser Vorhandensein auf dem Syntagmaplatz geltend machen, oder ob wir uns für den Plan der Regierung entscheiden.

Der Erfolg des Massenstreiks beginnt nicht zum Zeitpunkt der Streikmobilisierung, sondern er beginnt um Mitternacht mit den Streikposten an den Arbeitsstellen und in den Häfen. Die Massenbeteiligung und das große Ausmaß der Demonstrationen von PAME ist der beste Weg für die Arbeiterklasse, und das sage ich ganz allgemein, um zu zeigen, dass diese Massenbewegung die Stärke und die Waffen hat, und sie muß das System mit diesen Dingen bekämpfen. Mit dem Streik, der Organisiertheit, der Politisierung, und da nicht in die Falle zu gehen und die Waffen zu verwenden, welche für den Gegner nützlich sind.

Wir sagten es gestern im Parlament, und wir wiederholen es heute. Wir wissen sehr gut, wie man sich mit den Provokateuren und den Einsatzmitteln der Polizei auseinandersetzt. Wir sind alle nicht ängstlich. Aber es liegt in unserem Interesse, diese Pläne nicht zu füttern. Und natürlich werden wir mit dieser Sache weiterhin umgehen. Vor allem muß die Provokation aufgezeigt werden. Von hier aus muß das Volk selbst entscheiden, mit wem und wie jeder Mensch aus dem Volke demonstrieren will. Und dabei kann es keinerlei in Szene gesetzte „Türsteher“ geben.

Wir liefern Euch ein schriftliches Dokument als Beweis für die organisierte, geplante und einstudierte Provokation. Wir möchten mit diesem Dokument den Parteien antworten, die im Parlament, als wir die Provokationen im Jahr 2008 aufzeigten, sagten, dass wir krank wären, und dass wir überall Verschwörungen sehen würden, und dass wir die Initiative des Volkes nicht anerkennen würden, und sogar die revolutionären Rolle der Vermummten.

Am 8.9.2002 enthüllte die Sonntagsausgabe von Rizospastis ein amtliches Dokument von Europol mit dem Titel „Europas beste Praxis beim Einsatz von Informanten“, welches von „Rizospastis“ gut beschrieben wird und ein Handbuch für den Provokateur ist. In diesem Dokument wird deutlich, dass die Schaffung von Informanten und Provokateuren „legitimiert“ ist. In Griechenland sind die Informanten und die Provokateure Kommunikationskanäle selbst mit dem organisierten Verbrechen. Und in der Tat vermerkt das Dokument ganz charakteristisch: „Ein Informant ist eine einzelne Person, die ein Objekt darstellt, welches vertraulich eingesetzt wird, und welches Information liefert und/oder Hilfestellung für die zuständigen Behörden leistet.“

Ich merke an, wenn es nur dies wäre, dann könnten sie sich selbst rausreden, dass sie angeblich nur an organisiertem Verbrechen interessiert wären. Allgemein sagen sie, dass einem Informant erlaubt ist, an einem Verbrechen teilzunehmen, welches andere bereits begehen wollen. Teilzunehmen! Die Information wird nicht benutzt, um das Verbrechen zu verhindern, denn wenn man so will, dann könnte der Informant mithelfen, das Verbrechen zu verhindern. Und tatsächlich soll er dementsprechend behandelt werden, wenn er festgenommen wird. Und es gibt Polizisten mit Vermummung und mit Befehlen zum Unterlaufen. Jetzt aber, welche Beziehung hat das organisierte Verbrechen mit den Demonstrationen? Diese Beziehung scheint so weit zu reichen, wie da die Regierung betroffen ist.

Also wenn sie solche Gesetze und Durchführungsbestimmungen durchgestimmt haben, wenn solide Beweislage vorhanden ist, und wenn wir damit Erfahrung haben, - haben wir dann nicht das Recht, die Regierung anzuklagen, verantwortlich für diesen organisierten Plan zu sein? Nun denn, wenn da ein paar junge unschuldige und unerfahrene Kinder abgeführt werden, dann ist genau dies die Rolle des Provokateurs: Unschuldige Menschen in die Provokation zu verstricken, vor allem junge Menschen.

Das Volk muß sich nicht diesem Terrorismus fügen

Und von diesem Standpunkt aus rufen wir die Arbeiter dazu auf, mit allen Kampfformen weiterzumachen, weil sie es selbst begreifen. Und darüber hinaus müssen sie sich dem Terrorismus hinsichtlich des Bankrotts nicht fügen, denn der Bankrott ist auf jeden Fall bereits geschehen. Sie müssen die Verleumdungen gegen die klassenkämpferische Arbeiterbewegung nicht hinnehmen.

Jedenfalls haben wir bereits diese Einsatzmittel ganz besonders im Jahr 2008 angeprangert. Und an jenem Tag im Mai 2010, als drei unschuldige MARFIN-Beschäftigte ermordet wurden. Wir hatten den Einsatz von Gruppen von Fußball-Hooligans angeprangert, den Einsatz von rechtsextremen Elementen angeprangert, welche ihr Ziel darin hatten, die Entwicklung der Massenbewegung zu verhindern. Die KKE und jene Gewerkschaftskräfte und Gewerkschaften haben auf eine äußerst zugespitzte Weise in all diesen Jahren aufgezeigt, was die EU, Maastricht, die Krise usw. bedeutet.

Es ist offenkundig, dass es neue Gesetze und neue Maßnahmen geben wird. Die Krise wird sich vertiefen. Und was wir Bankrott nennen, wird zu 100% vom Volk gezahlt werden, wofür das Volk keine Verantwortung hat. Wir sind der Auffassung, dass das Volk bald die radikale Veränderung suchen muß, auf die Abschaffung der Macht der Monopole aus sein muß. Um das als ein Ziel zu haben, und es nicht als ein „zweites kommendes“ Ziel zu haben, legt die KKE so schnell wie möglich ihren Vorschlag vor, was allgemein von Bedeutung ist und nicht nur die Kommunisten angeht, und zwar für den Kampf der Arbeiterklasse und die Volksmacht. Diese alle sind von Bedeutung. Aber der alltägliche Kampf, der Versuch des Erkämpfens einer Errungenschaft und diesen Niedergang zu stoppen, wird nicht von einer Bewegung ohne diese Strategie erreicht werden. Sie wird sonst eine große Niederlage erleiden und in einen schwerwiegenden Rückzug laufen, welcher viele Jahre andauern wird.

In Verurteilung der Regierung muß ich sagen, dass wir überhaupt keine Hoffnungen haben, dass die Wahrheit aus den Disziplinarausschüssen usw. herauskommen wird. Weil da das Einzige, was die Regierung tun könnte, ihr Rücktritt ist. Und genau das wird sie nicht tun.

Im Gegenteil, anstatt über den Dreck zu reden, welcher innerhalb des bürgerlichen Staates existiert, ist sie interessiert daran, faule Referenden durchzuführen, um das Volk zu verspotten mit dem Gesetz über Haftbarkeit von Ministern, und mit der Verkleinerung des Parlaments. Solche Dinge, selbst wenn sie vollendet durchgeführt werden, wären nichts weiter als eine Kulisse, um dahinter den Gestank zu verbergen, der in den kommenden Jahren noch zunehmen wird.“

Quelle:

http://inter.kke.gr/News/news2011/2011-07-01-info

Paris and London conferences on prospects for revolution in the Middle East and North Africa

3 July 2011. A World to Win News Service. Following is a report by a correspondent that appeared in Revolution, newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (revcom.us), 26 June 2011.



In the wake of the unprecedented, regime-toppling uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, two conferences titled The Middle East and North Africa – Prospects for Revolution recently took place in Europe. The first was in Paris 28 May, the second in London 30 May. Some 200 people attended altogether.



It is exactly at times of such upsurge as seen in the Arab world that people search for answers to why the world is as it is, and how it can be changed. Igniting hope among many around the world, these uprisings have given heart to all who want to see a radically different one and have dealt a blow to the popular perception that the existing world is eternal.



The conference organizers represented different political forces and opinions. But they shared a felt need to deeply address critical issues and challenges raised by these recent upsurges. What has actually been achieved, and what must be achieved if the aspirations expressed in these revolts are to be fulfilled? And the conferences were seen as an important occasion for learning more about the complexity of the continuing struggles on the ground and the questions they raise, and interacting with a wider circle of revolutionary-minded and progressive people, both Arab and non-Arab.

In recent months, programs in solidarity with the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa have taken place in Europe. This has been important and must continue – and solidarity was an element of the Paris and London conferences.



But some of the organizers were aiming for something more: to stimulate a deeper level of engagement in the face of a major challenge. If these movements are left to follow their spontaneous path, then sooner or later a new version of the old order will be cemented back into place, and the window of hope opened by these struggles will be slammed shut again.



Efforts were made to frame discussion and exchange around critical questions. Is spontaneous revolt alone enough to achieve genuine liberation? What kind of revolution is needed, not only by the peoples of the Arab countries but all of humanity? Can Western-style democracy play a positive role in societies of extreme repressiveness? What about the role of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East and North Africa? Is it possible to achieve a revolution outside the framework of Western imperialist domination and the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism? What is the role of communist science and leadership in the kinds of movements and upsurges that have erupted? Can communist revolution truly transform oppressive institutions, oppressive economic and social relationships and antiquated and enslaving ideas and values?



The line-up of speakers in Paris was Salameh Kaileh, a Palestinian Marxist; Adel Thebat, a representative of the Communist Workers Party of Tunisia (PCOT); Raymond Lotta, political economist and writer for Revolution; Hassan Chatila, Syrian communist (see interview in AWTWNS110516); Shahrzad Mojab, activist, University of Toronto professor, specialist on women and the Middle East, from Iran. Lotta and Mojab went on to speak at the conference in London.



The London conference featured Nawal el Saadawi, the well-known Egyptian novelist and feminist activist, whose books include Woman at Point Zero, God Dies by the Nile, and Memoirs from the Women's Prison. Also speaking were Amir Hassanpour, University of Toronto, from Iran; Sami Ramadani, senior lecturer, London Metropolitan University, from Iraq; and Aitemad Muhanna, researcher in gender issues in Gaza, Palestine.



Several speakers analysed the situation in various countries, pointing out that each has its own particularities, as well as making more generalized comments about the nature and goals of the upsurges. There was discussion of the larger impact these upsurges have had and are having. The US-NATO intervention in Libya was widely condemned. Several speakers drew lessons from the historical experience of communist-led revolutions. At certain points in the conference, there was more direct engagement over differing views and positions. But at other times, the necessary debate over critical questions did not get as sharply focused and systematically pursued as is needed.



At the Paris conference, the PCOT representative described the continuing struggle in Tunisia. He argued that a revolution had taken place. The task now is to safeguard the gains by getting candidates into positions in parliament and to work to create more democratic space in order to achieve liberation at some time in the future, he said.



This position was sharply contested by Raymond Lotta. He argued that Tunisian society was still ruled by exploiting classes and dominated by imperialism, and that in a period of crisis and upsurge like this, the task is precisely to maximize and accelerate revolutionary preparation towards the seizure of power. To do otherwise is to squander the creative energies and heroic determination of the youth and others who took to the streets.



Hassan Chatila talked about the nature of Syrian society, highlighting the extreme oppressiveness and concentration of wealth, and also described aspects of the struggle against the regime of Bashar Assad. The regime is viciously cracking down on protesters, and leftist forces should be mobilizing and leading, but, Chatila noted, there is a shameful history of much of the organized and official Left supporting the regime.



Women made up a large percentage of those attending the conferences. At the London event, the oppression of women was a major focus of discussion.



Shahrzad Mojab spoke from what she described as a revolutionary feminist perspective. She drew out lessons from the experience of the revolutionary upsurge in Iran in 1979 and the consolidation of power by the reactionary mullahs. She pointed out that the imposition of the veil was one of the first and most serious attacks by the mullahs following the overthrow of the Shah. But at the time, progressive forces failed to fully oppose the oppression of women, and to educate and mobilize against the veil. Mojab explained that the attacks and measures against women were not only oppressive in their own right but also key elements of the broader theocratic restructuring of the Iranian state.



One young Muslim woman in the audience insisted that women today are wearing the veil by choice and for moral reasons in an increasingly decadent society. Some in the audience shared this view. Others argued strenuously that the veil is emblematic of a whole patriarchal system and ideology. Lotta raised that both the burkha and the thong symbolize and concentrate chains of oppression bound up with the enslaving forces of Western imperialism and reactionary Islamic fundamentalism, and that both of these forces and outlooks must be opposed.



Nawal el Saadawi argued that the idea of the veil as empowering is a form of brainwashing. She also spoke to the oppression of women in the world at large; she said it is an outrage that people in France are not speaking out and rallying against sexual assaults on women after the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French politician and former head of the International Monetary Fund charged with the attempted rape of a hotel worker in New York City.


There was some debate as well about whether there is a positive side to Islamic fundamentalism, since these forces have some contradictions with imperialism and some are involved in grass-roots organizing.



Issues of democracy, revolution, and communism were posed. At the London conference, Sami Ramadani put forth the position that imperialism could not tolerate any kind of democracy in the Arab world, given the Middle East's strategic importance, in terms of resources and geopolitics. Lotta argued that even in third world countries of strategic importance, imperialism can utilize multi-party elections and constitutional change to re-solidify its domination; and that if there is no revolution that expels imperialism and establishes a new state power and economy, then the military, which represents the local exploiting classes and imperialism, will continue to enforce oppressive economic and social relations.



Several speakers held that parliamentary elections and political rights are the best thing that can be achieved now, and that communism is a 20th century concept, no longer relevant. Others disagreed and spoke to the importance of clearly seeing the need for overthrowing the system and breaking free from capitalist-imperialist global relations and all forms of exploitation and oppression.



Amir Hassanpour spoke of the "daring" of going into the streets, but another kind of "daring" as well: posing a revolutionary alternative to the capitalist world order. He talked about the landmark character of the Soviet and Chinese revolutions. Yet these revolutions were defeated, and there is the task of further developing revolutionary theory. Lotta talked about how Bob Avakian has summed up the lessons of the first wave of socialist revolution of the 20th century, and that this summation and the vision Avakian is bringing forward of a vibrant and dynamic socialism marked by intellectual, artistic, and scientific ferment and pulsing with experimentation, debate, and contestation is crucial to launching a new stage of communist revolution and to achieving genuine emancipation in today's world.



Saadawi brought direct experience of the upsurge in Egypt into the proceedings. She had taken part in the protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square and has been in touch with many young activists. But she brought a wider view to bear as well. She stressed that the system we must get rid of is one that oppresses people through capitalist economics... through all forms of religion... and through patriarchy. She challenged the audience with her conviction that any movement for social change requires a spirit and practice of "dissidence and creativity".



On 1 June Saadawi and Lotta engaged in a public conversation at Goldsmiths College of the University of London.



Saadawi elaborated on the conditions in Egypt leading up to the social explosion that toppled President Hosni Mubarak. She and Lotta continued their exchange over the difference between an uprising and a revolution that breaks society out of the grip of imperialism and initiates all-around transformation, and the ways in which US imperialism is still very much in command of Egypt's economy and military. In response to comments from the audience, the two talked about the role of Israel and Zionism in the region, and the unjust, illegitimate, and immoral character of the Israeli settler colonial state. There was discussion of whether Marxism is able to deal with issues of gender. In all, it was a lively, substantive, and respectful exchange. Both speakers expressed a desire to continue their public dialogue.



While the Paris and London conferences did not fully achieve their goals in terms of attendance, and while engagement was uneven over the bigger issues at stake in the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, these events represented a necessary first step and promising beginning. Some key issues and challenges were etched out, and new channels for dialogue and debate were opened.

London meeting to oppose India's Operation Green Hunt

4 July 2011. A World to Win News Service. An important political event took place in London 12 June that has helped to strengthen the bonds of international solidarity here and support an important revolutionary struggle being fought in India. A meeting was held in the city centre, in Friends House, to oppose the vicious counterinsurgency war being waged by the Indian government, Operation Green Hunt, which has seen the deployment of large-scale paramilitary and military forces. Much of the fighting is concentrated in remote rural areas inhabited by millions of India's desperately poor tribal peoples, called adivasis, whose land is being sold off by the Indian government to large mining companies. The Indian government has declared that the war targets the revolutionary insurgency led by the Communist Party of India (Maoist), with the Prime Minister claiming that the Maoists represent the country's "number one national security threat".



Operation Green Hunt has been accompanied by a clampdown on democratic rights that has targeted civil liberties activists, revolutionaries and oppositional media throughout the country, including through a series of repressive acts whose names are very telling: the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and the Disturbed Areas Act. Unsurprisingly, the number of political prisoners in "the world's largest democracy" has been rising steeply.



The London meeting was thus an important way of rallying people in the UK to take a stand against all this, and to bring out the reality of events that have been largely hidden from view in the mainstream media around the world. The meeting hall was nearly full – the main organisers, the International Committee Against the War on People in India (ICAWPI) - report 500 people attended. Large numbers of people from London's South Asian community came out, and it also attracted activists from around northern Europe.



The programme started with a short video that had been put together by Indian film makers and musicians, which set the scene for the battle being waged in India's countryside. Then a representative of the ICAWPI provided some background and presented the speakers. Jan Myrdal, who spoke first, recently produced a work on the battle in India called Red Star over India, a title that evokes the famous account of the Chinese revolution led by Mao Tsetung, Red Star over China, which had brought that revolution to the world's attention.



Myrdal argued that the struggle in India's countryside is the most large-scale uprising of native peoples since the times of Christopher Columbus, and that its importance must not be underestimated by revolutionaries and progressive people. He gave details from recent travels in the guerrilla zones, and talked about how the insurgent forces are trying to build what he called "green infrastructures" as part of their efforts to change the world, in sharp opposition to the dynamics brought about by neocolonial relations that predominate in the Third World, and in particular India, where mining companies plunder the people and the natural resources. He also emphasised the shoots of internationalist solidarity with the struggle in India's countryside that are growing around the world.



Basanta, a leader of the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), had been scheduled to speak but was unable to make the trip, and sent a short message in which he emphasised the need to recognise that the land and resources were rightfully the property of the masses of people in these countries, and that this made it necessary to give the international solidarity campaign an anti-imperialist character, in order to unite the people against their common enemy.



The next speaker, comrade Kolash from the Nepal Solidarity Forum in Europe, spoke of the bonds that united the masses of ordinary people in both India and Nepal, and how they were facing a common enemy in Indian expansionism. He traced some of the history of India's domination of Nepal, in particular the series of unequal treaties that have enabled India to take the lion's share of the country's most important source of energy, the hydroelectric power generated by the run-off from the Himalayan mountains. He pointed out how, despite the overthrow of the monarchy in Nepal and the establishment of a parliamentary democracy, India has insisted on continuing to enforce these unequal treaties, and has also intervened repeatedly to oppose a revolutionary outcome for the political process that has been led by the Maoists there for many years now.



Between the speakers, solidarity messages were read from a number of different organisations, including from Turkey, Canada and Italy.



The final speaker had been eagerly awaited, and received an enthusiastic greeting: Arundhati Roy, the celebrated author and activist from India, who has recently released a new book, Broken Republic, that includes her recent accounts called “Walking with the Comrades”, about the three weeks she recently spent in India's forests with the Maoist guerrillas.



Roy sharply exposed what democracy in India meant for the most oppressed, including that over 400 million people are living on less than a dollar a day. She described how Indian democracy was the exclusive preserve of the high castes, the rich and powerful, and did not extend to the vast masses of poor dalits ("untouchables") and adivasis, nor to staunch opponents of the status quo. She made light of her celebrity status, remarking ironically on how many times she'd heard the phrase, “author of the Booker Prize for The God of Small Things”.



One member of the audience challenged her, arguing that in many places people are not allowed to go around criticising their country as she did India. Roy responded, that, it's true, that there are countries where she would not be allowed to write her latest work, but it's also true that if she were not Arundhati Roy, author of a Booker prize-winning novel, she would already be in jail – that many others who were doing nothing more than saying the same thing that she is saying were already there. This gave her an important opportunity and responsibility. And she herself has already come under attack: her home was pelted with stones by reactionary demonstrators angry at her statement that Kashmir, the disputed province between Pakistan and India, deserves self-determination, and the Indian government is currently weighing whether to charge her with sedition for her statements.



In regard to the Indian government's efforts to attack the Maoists as “outside agitators”, she said: "It is impossible to distinguish the Maoists from the adivasis: 90 percent of the Maoist guerrillas are adivasi, their resistance is older than the Maoist movement, but it would not be what it is today without the action of the Maoists. In turn, the Maoists are not the same as 40 years ago; they and their struggle would not be what they are today without the adivasis." She described the feelings aroused in her as she slept in the guerrilla camps, under the open sky, in what she describes as a "thousand star hotel".



One important point of controversy that came up frequently during her trip to London was the use of violence by the revolutionary forces. "I don't condemn it any more," she told the Guardian newspaper, in an interview preceding the meeting. "If you're an adivasi living in a forest village and 800 CRP [Central Reserve Police] come and surround your village and start burning it, what are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to go on hunger strike? Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience? People have the right to resist annihilation."



Roy highlighted the importance of women in the revolutionary struggle. She pointed out that many feminist organisations in India's cities work with NGOs to oppose women's oppression yet ignore what is going on in the countryside. In particular she called on them to speak out against the rape and terror that is being targeted against rural women as part of the army's counter-insurgency war.



There was a spirit of passionate debate about these and other crucial issues facing the revolutionary struggle in India, including on the part of many in the UK who opposed the support the British government is giving to the Indian state. Many issues were raised in the course of the Q&A that cried out for more examination, including in particular the role of communists and democracy. In her penultimate book, Listening to the Grasshoppers, Roy accused Mao of genocide, and one man in the audience challenged her as to how she could support Maoists while arguing that Mao committed genocide. When the questioner was met with a chorus of booing and hissing, Roy intervened and argued that this was an important issue that needed to be debated – and it does indeed, not least of all with Roy herself, as behind the young man's question lay fundamental issues of whether capitalism does need to be overthrown and whether a whole new world, free of exploitation and oppression, can ever be achieved. Ignoring these questions, in a world where communism has been the target of an intense propaganda for decades, is not an option for anyone who actually wants to do away with the source of oppression. But all in all the meeting concluded with a spirit of internationalist solidarity, and a hunger to go more deeply into the vital issues like these that had been raised.



The meeting ended with the ICAWPI representative calling on people to get involved in a series of efforts, including in a newly launched campaign to defend the Central Committee members of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) who have been imprisoned, along with other political prisoners, and an international conference that will be held soon.

Gaza flotilla blocked

4 July 2011. A World to Win News Service. The international flotilla to protest the Israeli blockade of Gaza has itself been blocked in what organizers are calling an act of "Gaza-ization" – unjust and illegal political repression whose only justification is the defense of the Jewish state.



After initially claiming that the eight ships and boats docked in Greece were being held up for inspections because of a private complaint (from an Israeli group) that the ships were unseaworthy, now the Greek government has openly banned all departures for Gaza. A ninth vessel moored in Turkey has had its propeller shaft damaged in a very similar way to what happened to another flotilla boat in Greece.



At this time, the only flotilla boat on the open seas is the French "Dignité/Karama".



The Greek government officially promulgated the departure ban 1 July. The American ship called "The Audacity of Hope", the largest ship in the flotilla with 51 passengers and crew and 11 journalists on board, left port shortly before the order took effect, but armed commandos intercepted it off shore and force it to turn back. The captain was arrested on felony charges of "endangering lives" and is still being kept in jail under reportedly harsh conditions. Before sailing he had been assaulted by a group of men on the street.



On 4 July, would-be flotilla participants began a hunger strike in front of the US Embassy in Athens to protest the role that the US and Israel played in the Greek government's decision and to demand the release of the American boat and its captain. Eight people were arrested and briefly jailed.



While the American ship took its name from a phrase associated with US President Barack Obama, apparently reflecting a hope that his government could be shamed and neutralized, American officials have repeatedly called for the flotilla to be stopped. The Quartet, a body of the world's leading imperialist powers set up to mediate an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, comprising the US, UN, European Union and Russia, issued a statement calling on governments "to use their influence to discourage additional flotillas." US officials have reportedly told American flotilla participants that they may be arrested for aiding a "terrorist" group (Hamas, the Islamic organization that governs Gaza) when they return home.



The argument given in the Quartet statement and by the Greek government is the risk of injury or death to the flotilla participants at the hands of the Israeli military, which shot and killed nine passengers on a similar flotilla a year ago. This is a morally and legally outrageous position because these same governments and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon have refused to call Israel to obey international law and refrain from harming unarmed protesters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was more honest in thanking Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and other governments for supporting Israel at this crucial moment.



Emergency rallies to support the flotilla have been reported in Greece, Canada, Belgium and the UK so far.

Two weeks in May with Spain's "Indignados"

27 June 2011. A World to Win News Service. "Homeless Jobless Futureless Fearless", "Our dreams can't fit in your ballot boxes", "System Error Message from the Spanish Revolution" these are some of the slogans of the "Indignados" ("The Outraged") movement that has swept Spain since 15 May and is continuing in various forms today. On 25 June hundreds of people set out on foot in sweltering heat from Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia, Cadiz and other cities in marches expected to converge on Madrid in July. Following are condensed excerpts from a report on the tumultuous first two weeks when the members of a young generation once considered politically indifferent and inert first forced their way onto the political stage. They have launched an intense debate previously almost forbidden by "common sense", not to mention the country's power structure, including the main left and right parties, about the desirability, possibility and modalities of radical change.
This movement shares some features with the likewise unexpected revolt in the Arab countries, which helped inspire it, most notably an often fearless rejection of the status quo coupled with the idea that democratic reforms may be able to bring about basic change without a revolutionary seizure of power. The author, Sof
ía Corral, identifies with and attempts to convey what she considers the main thrust of this movement. Her reportage is a contribution to the necessary process of a more critical analysis and conversation with this very important, contradictory and welcome phenomenon. The report originally appeared on the Web site of the Movimiento Popular Revolucionario (Revolutionary People's Movement) of Mexico (mprmexico.blogspot.com), which reminds readers that the author's views are her own.
In March, a new slogan began going around on the Net and especially the social networks: "Real democracy now!" At the same time some people in Salamanca organized State of Unrest, a group that disassociated itself from political ideologies, parties and trade unions. Its discourse, influenced by "Another world is possible" sentiments, was radically anti-system. No more than 20 people attended the first half a dozen meetings in this city.
Sunday 15 May
A call went out for the first demonstration. There were no leaflets or posters; everything was done on Facebook and Twitter. About 15,000 people went out into the streets in at least 50 Spanish cities. At that point, we were aware that a lot of people knew about the call, but we had no idea how many would actually come out. Not even the initiators were sure that people would go over from virtual to real activism.
In the Puerta del Sol [Madrid's main square, a traditional site for demonstrations], a multitude of about 25,000 appeared. By the end of the day, people all over Spain had heard about what was happening in the capital and more demonstrations were announced.
The protesters agreed to camp out in the plaza indefinitely and organize from there.
Monday 16 May
The movement called 15-M (15 May Movement) or Real Democracy Now! or Spanish Revolution [in English] began to take shape. People in the camp agreed on minimum logistical principles for how the occupation should function. This was the inception of the mass meetings and the kind of thinking that would emerge later. The mainstream media tried to hide this phenomenon that was beginning to speak for itself. Concepts circulated on the Net: revolution, crisis, system.
Tuesday 17 May
Other cities began to join 15-M. The media was forced to concede some more serious coverage. People began to organize meals and shelter. Thanks to connections between cities, the forms of activism were reproduced simultaneously, as if by giant mirrors. Initially there had been no plan to continue occupying public squares, but too much strength was accumulating to stop now.
Wednesday 18 May
Arguing that political activity is forbidden on the eve of elections, the authorities declared the camp illegal and tried to clear out the demonstrators in Madrid. Some people were beaten and their details were recorded, with the idea that they would be issued fines for "public disturbance". The same happened in the Plaza del Carmen in Granada. But people refused to abandon the camps.
Thursday 19 May
Protests began breaking out in front of Spanish embassies in other countries, such as Portugal. In Salamanca, we saw that in addition to the six cops who had been in front of the nearby government building since the beginning, now there were two police vans. The police said that they wouldn't intervene "as long as the youth don't start an altercation."
Friday 20 May
The elections were almost upon us (22 May) and tensions between the two main parties became very sharp. The 15-M movement was growing, now joined by people in Alicante, Santa Cruz, Malaga and Burgos, among other cities. The occupied public squares became the site of both artistic and political activities, and a wide variety of people came. In Salamanca, mass assemblies and commission meetings began to take place non-stop. The debates mixed questions of what to do next and what is to be done strategically. We knew that the Electoral Board had declared our sit-ins illegal, but there were no visible threats to move us out, so we relaxed.
We decided: not to ask for a permit to extend our occupation, to take down the tents for legal reasons, and to gather up all our foodstuffs and shelter material and keep them in the Youth House until 23 May, the day after the elections.
[But they didn't leave the square.]
Saturday 21 May
We received news of fresh protests and in some cases clashes in Pamplona and Cuenca in Spain, and Amsterdam, New York and Santo Domingo. The existing demonstrations got bigger. Amid the tense electoral climate we put forward the slogan "We're thinking" this is how we described what the multitudes would be doing in the 24 hours before the citizens' right to decide would be snatched away by the electoral process designed to divide the parliamentary pie between the parties. In Salamanca we founded the Commission for the Safety of the Assembly.
Sunday 22 May
The big day had arrived. The media talked about nothing but the elections. For the 15-M, this was the decisive moment to decide our political identity and stance. In this context, giving up would mean surrendering to voting, its campaigns and power. Staying in the streets would mean radicalising the discourse and broadening the target to include not only the corrupt electoral system but the decadent and unjust economic system that is its father. The Commissions continued their work. More than ever, the movement showed that the underdogs don't need politicians and elections to organize themselves. The coordination between the camp in the Plaza del Sol in Madrid and the Salamanca camp became richer than ever.
New slogans in the Sol: A more rational political organization of the country. Reconcile family life and working life. Drop the charges against the arrested comrades.
Monday 23 May
More and more we wondered, what was going to happen now that the elections were over? The debates reflected this uncertainty, but also the necessity to make a leap to new actions. The Sol demonstration began to be Webcast live around the clock. Within two days this Web TV site had five million visitors, the same number as that of unemployed people in Spain. News reports said that the rightist parties won the elections. The media now shamelessly wallowed in the results of the electoral swindle. We knew that there would be grave social consequences if we didn't make a new rupture with the electoral system.
Tuesday 24 May
The assembly in Salamanca agreed to put out an information sheet about the people in jail, to discuss holding concerts, to give control to the assembly, to discuss how to mobilize the unemployed. A message to the unemployed was read. It was decided to hold a non-violent demonstration in the city's central Plaza Mayor.
Meanwhile, in Madrid's Plaza del Sol, the main topic became how to go out to the neighbourhoods, the de-penalization of squats, subsidized housing for youth, guaranteeing the public health system, freedom of education and the abolition of the Bologna Plan (a Europe-wide initiative involving the privatization of education).
Wednesday 25 May
It was decided to hold a march leaving from the Plaza Mayor on Sunday at 6 pm in unity with protests in other cities that day. The Barcelona occupation was growing bigger and bigger. Any passer-by could tell that people in the Pla
ça Catalunya were getting better organized every day. Everyone was busily working together like thousands of worker ants. They set up army tents, tables, photocopy machines, portable toilets, vegetable gardens and solar energy panels. Giant screens projected the images of all the speakers at the assembles. The kitchen was open 24/7. There was also a library, a reading area and continuous Net access for the 700 people camped out and the 2,000 visitors every day. Meetings of the unemployed and home mortgage victims were held.
Thursday 26 May
People decided that the protest's original 16-point manifesto were too broad for everyone to agree to. Instead, a three-point minimum consensus was adopted
1) Electoral legislation reform. The current system favours the two-party system and their alternating control of the government. We demand an electoral law that guarantees the equality of every vote, independently of which party you opt for and in which region you vote
2) Participatory democracy. Democracy should not consist of giving full authority to a legislature. Citizens should be able to take part in making decisions that have a major impact on their future.
3) Zero tolerance for corruption, and political and financial transparency. We proclaim that the corruption perpetrated by the political parties has reached an intolerable level. Therefore we demand more transparency regarding political parties and institutions, and the guaranteeing of a fundamental separation of state powers.
We left the plaza to inform people in the neighbourhoods. People in San Jos
é across the river were glad to see us.
Friday 27 May
The police violently dispersed the Barcelona camp. The news immediately reached the camps in other cities. In every province people decided to suspend all planned activities and instead demonstrate in support of the Indignados in Catalunya. There a lady carrying a sheet of paper with slogans written on it stepped in front of a police vehicle to stop it. Protests tried to protect each other from club-wielding cops. The Catalan regional government argued that it emptied the camp for sanitary reasons. People replied, "There were no riots until the riot police came." Campers stood in front of and stopped the rubbish trucks, because the mass meeting had agreed on self-management of everything in the camps, including cleaning. When the people get organized they don't need trucks nor politicians nor bosses. Cleaning can't be considered more important than people's safety, and yet the Catalan police charged the people. In Salamanca we decided that we would demonstrate at 7 pm to show our rejection of the repressive forces of the state. We would carry flowers and observe three minutes of silence in solidarity with the comrades who were beaten.
Saturday 28 May
We've heard that people were seriously wounded when the police broke up the camp in Barcelona. Some people have visible bruises from police clubs and rubber bullets. The assembly there called for the camp to be rebuilt, and within a few hours the Pla
ça Catalunya was reoccupied. The people overwhelmed the regional police and stayed put, frustrating a second attempt to break up the camp.
Sunday 29 May
Today, implementing the decisions of previous mass meetings, we went out into the streets again to demand our right to occupy public squares. We put forward our three-point minimum programme. We felt that the police were likely to attack again, since the Electoral Board had again declared the camps illegal the week before and the police had tried to break up camps all over Spain. But these are the adversities that social forces would have to confront. Things are constantly getting more tense and there are increasing obstacles to overcome if we want to persist in seeking radical change. There will be more reports to come.
The 16-point manifesto
1) Change the electoral laws so that party lists are open to all to vote on in every constituency. Parliamentary seats should be proportional to the number of votes received.
2) Respect the basic rights guaranteed by the Constitution, namely the right to decent housing and the amendment of the mortgage law so that homes are turned over to the occupants and unpaid debts are cancelled, free and universal health care, free circulation of persons and the strengthening of public, secular education.
3) Abolish unjust and discriminatory laws and measures, such as the Bologna Plan and the European Space for Higher Education, the Citizenship Law and the Sinde Law
[restricting downloading on the Net].
4) Tax legislation reforms in favour of those with the lowest incomes, a reform of inheritance taxes. Implement the Tobin Tax on international financial transactions and eliminate tax havens.
5) Reform working conditions for the political class to abolish their lifetime salaries. Political programs and proposals should have a binding character.
6) We reject and condemn corruption. The electoral code should prohibit the inclusion on electoral lists of any candidate who is not clean and free of corruption charges or convictions.
7) Various measure concerning banking and financial markets to ensure compliance with Article 128 of the Constitution, which stipulates that "the country's entire wealth in whatever form and no matter who owns it is subordinated to the common good." Reduce the power of the IMF and the European Central Bank. Immediate nationalization of any banking entity that has had to be bailed out by the government. More robust safeguards on financial corporations and transactions so as to avoid abuses of any kind.
8) A real separation of Church and State, as called for by Article 16 of the Constitution.
9) Participatory and direct democracy in which citizens play an active role. People's access to the media, which should be ethical and truthful.
10) A real regularization of labour laws and state oversight of compliance.
11) Shut down all nuclear power plants and encourage renewable and free energy sources.
12) Take back privatized formerly publicly-owned companies.
13) A real separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the state.
14) Reduce military spending, immediately shut down arms factories and establish a better oversight over the State armed forces and security organs. As a non-violent movement we believe in "No to war".
15) The restoration of Spain's historic memory and the founding principles of the struggle for democracy in our state.
16) Complete transparency regarding the bank accounts and financing of the political parties as a way to control political corruption.
Electoral statistics
[Before the 22 May elections the Socialists had argued that the occupations were counter-productive because they would facilitate an electoral victory by the right. The youth stayed in the streets anyway. Here the author argues that the "party-ocracy" of the Popular Party and the Spanish Socialist Workers Party has been defeated because even adding up the votes for both, they still represent a minority of the electorate, and the number of people who didn't vote or cast blank or spoiled ballots is larger than the number of voters for either party.]
The political and ideological characteristics of this phenomenon
Over the last few days a great deal has been said about what's happening with these camps and the virtual/real movement. It has been said that this is an autonomist
[self-management] movement, an example of collective intelligence, a class revolution, a libertarian social coordination, a fashion phenomenon, a geek plot or a hacker conspiracy. What's interesting is that none of these descriptions totally excludes the others. People, interests and world outlooks (ideologies) are in motion and change. What's happening with the broad spectrum of opinion in the camps is the same thing that's happening with mentalities in general: people cross over, change their minds, come to a consensus, organize themselves and activate themselves. The identities, if there are any, go from ecologists to feminists and anarchists, etc.
People feel like they're taking part in historically far-reaching events (and they are), that they are the protagonists in a phenomenon in a special place and time, when it's urgent to make the best possible decisions and not make any mistakes, taking advantage of the strength we have accumulated, a time when people do what they say they'll do, building the future of the movement and the political life of individuals and cities.... Some people say to themselves, "I'm not doing this any more", while others keep repeating, "Let's make a revolution"...
An analysis of the radicality of this movement would be relevant if it focused on the division that really does exist between those of us who seek a change in the electoral system and those seeking to change a system that has no name. This is an effort at collectivity on a grand scale by a sector of society that has been seriously affected and enraged by the recent economic crises, non-conformists with no future. It's also an act of becoming conscious of and appropriating a cruel reality that many people, out of indifference or discomfort, did not dare to recognize or confront before. It's the multitudinous explosion of deep-down thinking that has been gestating in silent solitary discontent, by people who now see the need to connect with many others among the silenced discontented. It's a leap from solitary non-conformity to rebellion with the strength of unity...