Archives: Articles

By Professor Francis A. Boyle

Hitching back to UC north on Stoney Island
Through the Black Belt
Not very smart
But I was young,felt invulnerable, and had street smarts
A well off Black Businessman picks me up in a Lincoln
A White Boy like you should not be hitch-hiking through this Black neighborhood
Of course he was right
Maybe that’s why he picked me up
To look out for me
A Black Angel?
Said nothing in response, just smiled
Said he was a business manager for Muhamed Ali
LOL I said to myself, but just smiled and said nothing

You see that Black Fleetwood up there coming south
That’s Ali
Up pulled a Black Cadillac Limo as big as a boat
Driving it was Muhamed Ali
Champion of the World
And hell no I won’t go
A great fighter, and a great man
Simply the Greatest
He was driving with the right hand, left on the side of the car
Wearing white shirt

Young, Black, beautiful, charistmatic, dynamic

I was stunned, mouth agape
All traffic stopped on Stoney, now King
As the two of them shot the breeze
No one cared, it was Ali
Then he continued south
My driver told the truth
Shall never forget that day
When a White kid
Hitching through the Black Belt
Met Muhamed Ali
It was simply the Greatest
And he was and shall always be the Greatest.
Hell no, I wont go!
We all knew Ali was a great fighter
That made him a great man
The Greatest.

Professor Francis A. Boyle is an international law expert and served as Legal Advisor to the Palestine Liberation Organization and Yasser Arafat on the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence, as well as to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations from 1991 to 1993, where he drafted the Palestinian counter-offer to the now defunct Oslo Agreement. His books include “ Palestine, Palestinians and International Law” (2003), and “ The Palestinian Right of Return under International Law” (2010).

04 June, 2016
Countercurrents.org

By Gail Tverberg

$50 per barrel oil is clearly less impossible to live with than $30 per barrel oil, because most businesses cannot make a profit with $30 per barrel oil. But is $50 per barrel oil helpful?

I would argue that it really is not.

When oil was over $100 per barrel, human beings in many countries were getting the benefit of most of that high oil price:

◾Some of the $100 per barrel goes as wages to the employees of the oil company who extracted the oil.
◾Often, the oil company contracts with another company to do part of the oil extraction. Part of the $100 per barrel is paid as wages to employees of the subcontracting companies.
◾An oil company buys many goods, such as steel pipe, which are made by others. Part of the $100 per barrel goes to employees of the companies making the goods that the oil company buys.
◾An oil company pays taxes. These taxes are used to fund many programs, including new roads, schools, and transfer payments to the elderly and unemployed. Again, these funds go to actual people, as wages, or as transfer payments to people who cannot work.
◾An oil company pays dividends to stockholders. Some of the stockholders are individuals; others are pension funds, insurance companies, and other companies. Pension funds use the dividends to make pension payments to individuals. Insurance companies use the dividends to make insurance premiums affordable. One way or another, these dividends act to create benefits for individuals.
◾Interest payments on debt go to bondholders or to the bank making the loan. Pension plans and insurance companies often own the bonds. These interest payments go to pay pension payments of individuals or to help make insurance premiums more affordable.
◾A company may have accumulated profits that are not paid out in dividends and taxes. Typically, they are reinvested in the company, allowing more people to have jobs. In some cases, the value of the stock may rise as well.

When the price falls from $100 per barrel to $50 per barrel, the incomes of many people are adversely affected. This is a huge negative with respect to world economic growth.

If the price of oil drops from $100 per barrel to $50 per barrel, this change adversely affects the income of a large share of people who formerly benefited from the high price. Thus, the drop in oil prices affects the incomes of many of the people listed in the previous section.

Furthermore, this drop in income tends to radiate outward to the rest of the economy because each worker who is laid off is forced to purchase fewer discretionary items. These workers are also less able to take on new debt, such as to buy a new car or house. In some cases, they may even default on existing debt.

A drop in oil prices from $100+ per barrel to $50 per barrel leads to job layoffs by oil companies and their subcontractors. Oil companies and their subcontractors may even reduce dividends to shareholders.

While oil prices have recently been as low as $30 per barrel, the subsequent rise in prices to $50 per barrel is not enough to start adding new production. Prices are still far too low to encourage new development.

In 2016, other commodities besides oil have a problem with price below the cost of production.

Many commodities, including coal and natural gas, are currently affected by low prices. So are many kinds of metals, and some kinds of food commodities. Thus, there is pressure in a wide range of industries to lay off workers. There are many parts of the world now feeling recessionary forces.

As prices fall, the pressure is for high-cost producers to drop out. As this happens, the world’s ability to make goods and services falls. The size of the world economy tends to shrink. This shrinkage is clearly not good for a world economy that needs to grow in order for investors to earn a profit, and in order for debtors to repay debt with interest.

Growing demand comes from a combination of increasing wages and increasing debt.

The recent drop in oil prices from the $100+ level seems to come from inadequate demand for oil. This is equivalent to saying that oil at such a high price has not been affordable for a significant share of buyers. We can understand what might have gone wrong, by thinking about how demand for oil might be increased.

Clearly, one way of increasing demand is through increased productivity of workers. If this increased productivity allows wages to rise, this increased productivity can cycle back through the economy as increased demand for goods and services. We can think of the process as an “economic growth pump” that allows continued economic growth.

Generally, increased productivity of workers reflects the use of more capital goods, such as machines, vehicles, and buildings. These capital goods are made using energy products, and operate using energy products. Thus, energy consumption is an important part of the economic growth pump. These capital goods are frequently financed using debt, so debt is another important part of the economic growth pump.

Even apart from the debt necessary for financing capital goods, another way of increasing demand is by adding more debt. If a company adds more debt, it can often hire more workers and can add to its holdings of property. These also help raise the output of the company. As long as the output that is added is sufficiently productive that it can repay the added debt with interest, adding more debt tends to enhance the workings of the economic growth pump.

The way governments have attempted to encourage the use of increased debt in recent years is by decreasing interest rates. The reason this approach is used is because with a lower interest rate, a broader range of investments can seem to be profitable, after repaying debt with interest. Even very “iffy” investments, such as extraction of tight oil from the Bakken, can appear to be profitable.

The extent of the decrease in interest rates since 1981 has been amazingly large.

 
Since 2008, additional steps have been taken to decrease interest rates even further. One of these is the use of Quantitative Easing. Another is the recent use of negative interest rates in Europe and Japan.

Falling demand would seem to suggest that the world’s economic growth pump is no longer working properly. This is happening, even with all of post-1981 manipulations of interest rates to reduce the cost of borrowed capital, and thus reduce the required threshold for profitability of new investments.

What could cause the economic growth pump to stop working?

One possibility is that accumulated debt reaches too high a level, based on historical parameters. This seems to be happening now in many parts of the world.

Another thing that could go wrong is that the price of oil rises so high that capital goods based on oil are no longer cost effective for leveraging human labor. If this happens, manufacturing is likely to move to countries that use a cheaper mix of fuels, typically including more coal. The shift of manufacturing to China seems to reflect such a change.

A third thing that could go wrong is that pollution becomes too great a problem, forcing a country to slow down economic growth. This seems to be at least part of China’s current problem.

If oil prices drop from $100 to $50 per barrel, this has an adverse impact on debt levels.

With lower oil prices, workers are laid off, both from oil companies and from companies that provide goods and services to oil companies. These workers, in turn, are less able to take on new debt. In some cases, they may also default on their debt.

Oil companies with reduced cash flow are also less able to repay their debt. In some cases, companies may file for bankruptcy. The result is generally that existing debt is “written down.” Even if an oil company does not file for bankruptcy, it is likely to have difficulty adding new debt. The trend in the amount of debt outstanding is likely to change from increasing to decreasing.

As the amount of debt shifts from increasing to decreasing, the economy tends to shift from increasing to shrinking. Instead of adding more employees, companies tend to reduce the number of employees. If many commodities are affected, the impact can be very large.

We need oil prices to rise to $120 per barrel or more.

The current price of $50 per barrel is still way too low. A post I published in February 2014 was called Beginning of the End? Oil Companies Cut Back on Spending. In it, I talked about an analysis by Steve Kopits of Douglas-Westwood. In this analysis, Koptis points out that even at that time–which was before oil prices began dropping in mid-2014–major oil companies were beginning to cut back on spending for new production. Their cost of production was at that time typically at least $120 or $130 per barrel, if prices were to be high enough so that companies could fund new development without adding huge amounts of new debt. Oil prices could perhaps be lower if oil companies could fund their operations using large increases in debt. Company management recognized that such a funding approach would not be prudent–it could lead to unmanageable debt levels.

Today’s cost of oil production is likely to be even higher than it was when Kopits’ analysis was performed in early 2014. If we expect oil production to continue to rise, we probably need oil prices in the $120 to $150 per barrel range for several years. Prices at such a level are likely to be way too high for consumers, because wages do not rise at the same time as oil prices. Consumers find that they need to cut back on discretionary expenditures. These spending cutbacks tend to lead to recession and falling oil prices.

We can think of our economy as being like a big ball, which can be pumped up to greater and greater size with either rising productivity or rising debt.

This process can continue to work, only as long as the debt added is sufficiently productive that it is possible to repay the debt with interest. We seem to be reaching the end of the line on this process. Returns keep falling lower and lower, necessitating ever-lower interest rates.

To some extent, the pumping up of oil prices that occurs in this process represents a lie, because the energy content of a barrel of oil remains unchanged, regardless of price. In fact, the energy of coal and of natural gas per unit of production remains unchanged as well. The value of energy products to society is determined by their physical ability to leverage human labor–for example, how far diesel oil can move a truck. This ability is unchanged, regardless of how expensive that oil is to produce. This is why, at some point, we find that high-priced energy products simply don’t work in the economy. If we spend the huge amount of resources required for the production of energy products, we don’t have enough resources left over for the rest of the economy to grow.

Low oil prices, plus low commodity prices of other kinds, seem to indicate that we are reaching the end of the line in the “pump up the economy with debt” approach. We have been using this approach since 1981. At this point, we have no idea what economy growth would look like, without the stimulus of falling interest rates.

The drop in oil prices and other commodity prices since mid-2014 seems to represent a “shrinking back” of our ability to use debt to raise prices to a level sufficient to cover the cost of extraction, plus associated overhead costs, including taxes. This drop in prices should be an alarm bell that something is seriously wrong. Without continuously rising prices, to keep up with ever-rising extraction costs, fossil fuel production will at some point come to a halt. Renewables will not work well either, because prices will not be high enough for them to be competitive.

Of course, once the economy stops growing, the huge amount of debt we have amassed becomes un-payable. The whole system we have built will begin to look more and more like a Ponzi Scheme.

We are blind to the possibility that oil prices of $50 per barrel may indicate that we are reaching “the end of the line.”

The popular belief is that everything will work out fine. Oil prices will rise a bit, and somehow the economy will get along with less fossil fuel. Somehow, we will make it through this bottleneck.

If we would study history, we would discover that there have been many situations of overshoot and collapse. In fact, those situations tend to look quite a bit like the situation we are seeing today:

◾Falling resources per capita, because of rising population or exhaustion of resources
◾Falling wages of non-elite workers; greater wage disparity
◾Governments finding it increasingly difficult to fund needed programs

There is a popular belief that oil prices will rise, if there is a shortage of energy products. In prior collapses, it is not at all clear that prices have risen. We know that when ancient Babylon collapsed, demand for all products, even slaves, fell. If we are reaching collapse now, we should not be surprised if the prices of commodities, including oil, stay low. Alternatively, they might spike, but only briefly—not enough to really fix our current situation.

Too many wrong theories

Part of our problem is too much confidence that the “magic hand” of supply and demand will fix the economy. We don’t really understand how demand is tied into affordability, and how affordability is tied into wages and debt. We don’t realize that the view that oil prices can rise endlessly is more or less equivalent to the view that economic growth can continue indefinitely in a finite world.

Another part of our problem is failure to understand how the economic pump that keeps the economy operating works. Once debt rises too high, or the cost of energy extraction rises too high, we can no longer keep the system going. Price tends to fall below the cost of energy extraction. The quantity of energy products consumed cannot rise fast enough to keep the economic growth pump operating.

Clearly neoclassical economics doesn’t properly model how the economy really works. But the Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI) theory of Biophysical Economics does not model the current situation well, either. EROEI theory is generally focused on the ratio of Energy Returned by some alternative energy device to Fossil Fuel Energy Used by the same alternative energy device. This focus misses several important points:

1.The quantity of energy consumed by the economy needs to keep rising, if human productivity is to keep growing, and thus allow the economy to avoid collapsing. EROEI calculations normally have little to say about the quantity of energy products.

2.The quantity of debt required to produce a given amount of energy by an alternative energy device is very important. The more debt that is added, the worse the alternative energy device is for the economy.

3.In order for the economic growth pump to keep working, the return on human labor needs to keep rising. This is equivalent to a need for the wages of non-elite workers to keep rising. This is a requirement relating to a different kind of EROEI—energy return on human labor, leveraged with various types of supplemental energy. Today’s EROEI theorists tend to overlook this type of EROEI.

EROEI theory is a simplification that misses several important parts of the story. While a high fossil fuel EROEI is necessary for an alternative to substitute for fossil fuels, it is not sufficient. Thus, EROEI analysis tends to produce “false favorable” results.

Lining up resources in order by their EROEIs seems to be a useful exercise, but, in fact, the cut-off likely needs to be higher than most have supposed, in order to keep total costs low enough so that the economy can really afford a given energy source. In addition, resources that add heavily to debt requirements are probably unhelpful, regardless of their calculated EROEIs.

Conclusion

We are certainly at a worrying point in history. Our networked economy is more complex than most researchers have considered possible. We seem to be headed for collapse because of low prices, rather than high. The base scenario of the 1972 book “The Limits to Growth,” by Donella Meadows and others, seems to indicate that the world will likely reach limits about the current decade.

The modeling done in 1972 laid out the basic situation, but could not be expected to explain precisely how collapse would occur. Now that we are reaching the expected timeframe, we can see more clearly what seems to be happening. We need to be examining what is really happening, rather than tying ourselves to outdated ideas of how the economic system works, and thus, what symptoms we should expect as we approach limits. It may be that $50 per barrel oil is one of the signs that collapse is not far away.

Gail E. Tverberg graduated from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota in 1968 with a B.S. in Mathematics. She received a M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Illinois, Chicago in 1970. Ms. Tverberg is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries.

31 May, 2016
Ourfiniteworld.com

Press Release

https://youtu.be/mRBBPU5Sicc

https://youtu.be/N9KEmJYvnLY

World Beyond War is planning a big event in Washington, D.C., in September 2016, just after the International Day of Peace, including a conference beginning Friday afternoon September 23, running all day Saturday September 24, and with activist workshops on Sunday morning the 25th. We’re also working with Campaign Nonviolence and the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance to plan a nonviolent activism training and a nonviolent action in D.C. on Monday September 26th.

Join us to learn about and engage in working on viable alternatives to war and militarism.

To attend you must register here:

As the war system keeps societies in a state of permawar, we have reached a stage in human history at which we can say with confidence that there are better and more effective alternatives. Of course we know the question: “You say you are against war, but what’s the alternative?” This event will develop answers to that question, building on World Beyond War’s publication A Global Security System: An Alternative to War. (A second edition will be published before the conference and we welcome all input!)

American University School of International Service By William McDonough & Partners-02The event will feature sessions focused on such topics as:
◾War Isn’t Working, and It Isn’t Necessary.
◾Diplomacy, Aid, and Nonviolent Peacekeeping and Protection.
◾Disarmament, and Abolishing Nuclear Weapons.
◾Capitalism and Transition to a Peace Economy.
◾The Racism of War.
◾Closing Bases.
◾Protecting the Environment from War.
◾Changing War Culture to Peace Culture.
◾International Law.
◾Patriarchy.
◾Media and Peace Journalism.
◾Strategies for Ending War.
◾Demonstrations, Direct Action, Resistance, and Counter-Recruitment

We encourage everyone to come for as much of the conference as possible, and participate in building a broader movement to end all war.

World Beyond War is working with our allies to plan similar events focused on alternatives to war the same week in other parts of the world. Please contact us to help plan such events.

American-University-School-7Plans for Washington are still being shaped, and we’re inviting organizations and individuals to contact us with ideas and proposals. Organizations can sign on as partners by contributing financially and in working on plans, or as cosponsors by agreeing just to help promote the event.

Speakers already committed to being part of the events in Washington, D.C., include: Cynthia McKinney, Dennis Kucinich, Kathy Kelly, Miriam Pemberton, David Vine, Kozue Akibayashi, Harvey Wasserman, Jeff Bachman, Peter Kuznick, Medea Benjamin, Maurice Carney, David Swanson, Leah Bolger, David Hartsough, Pat Elder, John Dear, Mel Duncan, Kimberley Phillips, Ira Helfand, Darakshan Raja, Bill Fletcher Jr., Lindsey German, Maria Santelli, Mark Engler, Maja Groff, Robert Fantina, Barbara Wien, Jodie Evans, Odile Hugonot Haber, Gar Alperovitz,

Partners Include: Jubitz Family Foundation, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, RootsAction.org, Code Pink, International Peace Bureau, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Jane Addams Peace Association,

Co-Sponsors Include: Washington Peace Center, Pace e Bene/Campaign Nonviolence, Liberty Tree Foundation, Veterans For Peace, TheRealNews.com, United for Peace and Justice, Nonviolence International, Peace Action Montgomery, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Military Families Speak Out, Peace Action, WILPF-DC, International Movement for a Just World (JUST), Center for Bangladesh Studies, Society for Peace and Conflict Resolution at American University, Nuke Watch,

Venue: No War 2016 will be held at American University’s School of International Service, in the Founders Room and a number of other rooms in the same building. We thank Jeff Bachman for the wonderful venue!

Live Streaming: No War 2016 will be live streamed and the videos published by TheRealNews.com.

Funding: No War 2016 will be funded with help from our partners, from our speakers generously donating their time, from American University providing the venue, and primarily by generous individuals who choose to donate to World Beyond War.

We will be providing printed materials, meals, and other expensive items necessary to the event, inlcuding free copies of the new second-edition of A Global Security System: An Alternative to War which will be completed by the conference.

We ask those attending to pay what you can on a sliding scale and to sign up as early as possible to facilitate our planning:

We ask those not attending to please contribute what you are able to help cover the cost of others who can make it there. We will thank these donors unless you prefer anonymity.

27 May, 2016
Worldbeyondwar.org

By Dianne Lee

ST. LOUIS, Missouri – Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, 91, died at her home in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, on May 26, 2016. An internationally renowned, respected and admired advocate for human and civil rights, Hedy was encircled by friends who lovingly cared for her at home.

Born August 15, 1924, in the Bavarian region of Germany, her lifelong commitment to human rights was formed by the horrific experiences she and her family endured under the repressive Nazi regime.

Unable to secure travel documents for themselves, Hedy’s parents, Hugo and Ella (Eichel) Wachenheimer, arranged for 14-year-old Hedy to leave Germany on a Kindertransport. Hedy credited her parents with giving her life a second time when they sent her to England to live with kind-hearted strangers. Hedy’s parents, grandparents, and most of her aunts, uncles and cousins did not survive the Holocaust. Hedy remained in England until 1945 when she returned to Germany to work for the United States Civil Service. She joined the Nuremberg Doctors Trial prosecution in 1946 as a research analyst.

Hedy immigrated to the United States in 1948. She and her husband moved to St. Louis in the early 1960s, and shortly thereafter Hedy began working as a volunteer with the Freedom of Residence, Greater St. Louis Committee, a nonprofit organization dedicated to housing integration and advocacy for fair housing laws. Hedy worked for many years as a volunteer and board member, and ultimately served as the organization’s executive director during the mid-1970s.

During the 1980s, Hedy worked as a paralegal for Chackes and Hoare, a law firm that represented individuals in employment discrimination cases. As an advocate for equality and human rights, Hedy spoke out against the war in Vietnam, the bombing of Cambodia, and overly restrictive U.S. immigration policies. She spoke and acted in support of the Haitian boat people and women’s reproductive rights, and, following the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila, Hedy began her courageous and visionary work for peace and justice in Israel and Palestine.

During her later years, Hedy continued to advocate for a more peaceful world, and in 2002 was a founding member of the St. Louis Instead of War Coalition. Much of her later activism centered on efforts to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine. She founded the St. Louis chapter of Women in Black and co-founded the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee and the St. Louis chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. She traveled to the West Bank several times, first as a volunteer with the nonviolent International Solidarity Movement and repeatedly as a witness to advocate for Palestinian human rights. She attempted several times to go to Gaza as a passenger with the Freedom Flotilla, including as a passenger on the Audacity of Hope, and once with the Gaza Freedom March. Hedy addressed numerous groups and organizations throughout Europe and returned to Germany and her native village of Kippenheim many times.

Three days after her 90th birthday, Hedy was arrested for “failure to disperse.” She was attempting to enter Missouri Governor Jay Nixon’s St. Louis office to ask for de- escalation of police and National Guard tactics which had turned violent in response to protests following the killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Hedy was a member of the St. Louis Holocaust Museum and Learning Center’s speakers’ bureau and gave countless talks at schools and community events. She shared her Holocaust experiences with thousands of Missouri youth as a featured speaker at the Missouri Scholars Academy for more than twenty years. She ended every talk with three requests: remember the past, don’t hate, and don’t be a bystander.

Through the years, Hedy received numerous awards and honors for her compassionate service and relentless pursuit of justice.

Hedy is survived by son Howard (Terry) Epstein, and granddaughters Courtney and Kelly. She was beloved and will be truly missed by countless friends in St. Louis and around the world.

Hedy often shared her philosophy of service with these words: “If we don’t try to make a difference, if we don’t speak up, if we don’t try to right the wrong that we see, we become complicit. I don’t want to be guilty of not trying my best to make a difference.” Hedy always did her best, and the difference she made is evident in the commitment and passion of those called to continue her work. Her friends and admirers honor and salute her deep and lifelong dedication to tikkun olam, the just re-ordering of the world and promise to remember, to stay human, and to never be bystanders.

A memorial service will be held in Forest Park at a date and time to be determined. Donations in Hedy’s name may be made to Forest Park Forever to establish a permanent tribute, 5595 Grand Drive in Forest Park, St. Louis, MO 63112; American Friends Service Committee, 1501 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102; American Civil Liberties Union, 125 Broad St. 18th Floor, New York, NY 10004; and/or American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri Foundation, 454 Whittier St., St. Louis, MO 63108.

27 May, 2016
CommonDreams.org

By Asad Ismi

The Latin American revolution seemed unstoppable until recently. From El Savador in the north to Argentina in the south, leftists elected since 1998 have implemented the greatest redistribution of wealth in the region’s history, providing millions of jobs, free medical care and education, land reform and public subsidies, thereby lifting tens of millions of people out of poverty. Now, in Venezuela and Argentina, a resurgent right is using economic hardship to foment resentment and secure legislative victories.

In November 2015, after 12 years under a popular leftist government, voters in Argentina chose Mauricio Macri, right-wing former mayor of Buenos Aires, as their new president. A month later, Venezuelan voters handed 109 of 167 legislative seats to the centre-right Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mesa de la Unidad Democrática, or MUD)—the first time since 1999 that the United Socialists (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, or PSUV) have not held the assembly.

Venezuela’s angry opposition

Several factors converged to bring about the change in Venezuela. Foremost were the crash of oil prices, a campaign of economic sabotage or capital strike by local business elites (including price speculation and the hoarding of key consumer items to create scarcity) and a media war carried out by the political opposition in league with Washington. MUD picked up 2.4 million more votes in the December election than in 2010, while about two million PSUV supporters chose not to vote in protest of the government’s handling of the food shortages.

“These voters are upset by the way the government of Nicolás Maduro has handled the economy,” says Antonio Garcia, an analyst of Venezuelan and Latin American politics who recently stepped down as Venezuela’s ambassador to the European Union. “Maduro failed to effectively explain to the people how the economic sabotage against Venezuela negatively impacts them and failed to implement measures to effectively confront this economic war. The public had the perception that the Maduro government was not doing enough to counter this attack and I believe that perception did more harm to the PSUV that the economic situation itself.”

Garcia points out that the economic problem in Venezuela is not very different from what is happening in other Latin American countries, though it is felt more acutely. The Venezuelan economy, and the Bolivarian Revolution of Hugo Chávez generally, have been propped up for 15 years by high oil prices. The rout in the price of oil and other commodities has constrained state efforts to redistribute national wealth and expand equalizing social services. In Venezuela, oil revenues—which account for 95% of export earnings and 25% of GDP—have been cut by 60% in the past few years, leading to inflation of 140%, soaring food prices and currency destabilization.

According to Venezuelan-Canadian sociologist Dr. Maria Páez Victor, the fall in the price of oil “has been a godsend to the U.S. attempts to destabilize Venezuela politically and economically, which have been ongoing since 2002.” These include U.S. involvement in a military coup and economic sanctions imposed by U.S. President Obama on state-owned oil company PDVSA based on the premise that Venezuela presented an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States.

As I’ve written previously in the Monitor (April 2015), the U.S. has given anti-PSUV opposition groups more than $100 million since 2002 to undermine and overthrow the Maduro/Chavez government. Most of Venezuela’s privately owned news media are also hostile to the PSUV, and their attacks on the government are widely quoted by the international capitalist press. During the December election, the media blamed only the government for the economic crisis, mocking the possibility of a planned emergency, and repeatedly predicted the implosion of the country.

But winning one election does not mean the opposition can derail the profound progressive transformation of Venezuela that the PSUV has carried out. Paez Victor points to a survey carried out in January, by the non-partisan polling company Hinterlaces, which showed 79% approval of the socialist economic policies of the government. The MUD opposition is made up of 20 parties that are united on only one issue: the removal of Maduro from office before his term ends in 2019. It is an unlikely prospect.

While the coalition decried a supreme court decision in February to grant Maduro emergency powers to handle the economic crisis, it has no positive solutions of its own. Even the notoriously anti-Chavez New York Times was still, in March, calling for co-operation between the government and opposition rather than a complicated and potentially violent confrontation the latter cannot win.

A slick new president in Argentina

The fall in commodity prices has also affected political fortunes in Argentina where a new president is making good with Wall Street’s vulture capitalists, pulling out of Bolivarian Revolution projects like TeleSUR, and inviting the International Monetary Fund to audit the public books (read: proscribe austerity) for the first time in a decade.

From 2003 to 2015, under the leftist governments of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her husband Néstor Kirchner, the Argentine economy grew by an amazing 78%, creating one of the biggest increases in living standards in Latin America. Wealth redistribution programs reduced poverty by 70% and extreme poverty by 80%. Unemployment fell from 17.2% to 6.9%. Since 2012, however, growth has slowed to an annual average of 1.1%, inflation has been high and the fall in commodity prices, notably for cash crop soybean, has driven the country into recession. A third of Argentina’s exports are agricultural products including grain and beef.

With approval ratings above 50%, despite blurry allegations of corruption from opponents, Fernandez remained popular into October 2015, but she was constitutionally barred from running for another term. Her chosen replacement, Daniel Scioli, ran a lacklustre campaign that failed to capitalize on her reputation or emphasize the Kirchners’ impressive record. During the election, Macri took advantage of this situation by positioning himself as a “moderate” who, if elected, would continue some of Kirchner’s progressive policies, even promising “zero poverty.” He won by only 3% of the vote.

Since taking office, Macri has moved aggressively to the right, ruling by decree rather than run his policy through the left-dominated legislature. The president has devalued the national currency, the peso, by 40% (to increase exports, but with upward pressure on inflation), liberalized the financial sector by removing capital controls, lifted restrictions on imports, eliminated taxes on mining, ended subsidies for electricity, laid off thousands of civil servants, and pledged to finally pay US$4.6 billion ($6.02 billion) to the U.S. hedge funds that gamed Argentina’s 2001 bankruptcy for private gain.

For his efforts to reconnect Argentina to the neoliberal global order—Wall Street in particular—Macri got a special visit by Obama in March after the U.S. president’s official visit to Cuba. “Argentina is re-assuming its traditional leadership role in the region and around the world,” Obama said, referring endearingly to Macri as “a man in a hurry.” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde is likewise “encouraged” by the new president. The IMF will issue a series of further economic reform proposals after it concludes its audit of Argentina’s books. It is the standard “shock doctrine” at work.

“Macri is a disaster for the economy, but he is even worse for human rights,” says Argentinian-Canadian Antonio Savone, who was imprisoned and tortured by the vicious military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. The dictatorship killed 30,000 Argentines. In 2015, Savone returned to Argentina to testify against the military officers who tortured him and also in the trial of Rosa del Carmen Gomez who was raped repeatedly by officers for months in front of Savone as they shared the same prison cell.

As part of a reconciliation project, the Kirchner governments have imprisoned hundreds of military officers for murder and torture, including those in Savone’s and Carmen Gomez’s cases, in a determined effort to bring justice to a traumatized society. But Macri has dismissed the importance of continuing these trials, insisting that Argentina deal with “21st century” human rights issues instead.

According to Savone, the new president has moved to enforce a level of repression in Argentina that “has not been seen for 13 years.” This includes criminalizing demonstrations and suppressing them with tear gas and rubber bullets, and jailing Milagro Sala a prominent social activist, on charges of fraud—an act that was criticized by Pope Francis in February. Sala is the leader of the Túpac Amaruorganization in the poor province of Jujuy. The organization which is made up of 70,000 mostly Indigenous members, operates schools, health clinics, and textile factories for the poor and has built entire neighbourhoods with subsidies from the Kirchner government.

“What Sala has done is amazing,” says Savone. “Her arrest shows that Macri is set on attacking social movements.”

Macri’s shock treatment is going to fail, Savone concludes, “because Argentines are now much better organized than they were in 2001.” On February 24, tens of thousands of public sector workers launched the first national strike against Macri with massive protests against layoffs and spiralling inflation. The workers blocked the streets in front of the Argentine legislature in Buenos Aires and the police refused to face them despite the new powers that Macri has given security forces to suppress demonstrations.

“The people of Argentina have had 13 years of successful leftist government backed by powerful labour unions and they are not going to let some millionaire turn their country back into a fiefdom for the rich,” says Savone.

Asad Ismi is the CCPA Monitor’s international affairs correspondent and author of the anthologyThe Latin American Revolution which can be ordered from the CCPA by writing to <jason@policyalternatives.ca>. He is also author of the radio documentary with the same title which can be heard on his website:www.asadismi.ws.

25 May 2016

Home

By Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi

Transcript of Nahdha’president Rached Ghannouchi’s Opening Speech at the opening ceremony of the Tenth Party Congress:

In the Name of God, Most Beneficent, Most Merciful

Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds, and prayers and peace be on his messenger

Your Excellency President of the People’s Assembly

Your Excellencies,
Ministers,
Members of the diplomatic corps in Tunis,
Representatives of parties and organizations,
Dear friends and guests who have honored us by coming from abroad to attend our Congress,

Dear Guests,

Peace be upon you all.

And I also greet Nahdha’s faithful supporters – whether those inside the stadium, or the thousands more outside to whom I apologize – this opening ceremony should have been held in an open space; those who were afraid that this stadium may not be filled, are still not familiar with Nahdha.

Ladies and gentlemen, guests and delegates,

Today, we inaugurate, by God’s Grace, the tenth national party congress of Nahdha Party, the second national congress after the revolution.

Even during the most difficult periods of secret activity and police harassment under dictatorship, our Movement was committed to holding its national congress regularly, as a way of evaluating and reforming its path, reviewing its policies, and renewing its leadership. I do not believe that there is another party in the country, despite the great number of parties, that is holding its tenth party congress – which means that you are the oldest amongst political parties. Our first congress was held in 1979 – which means that in a period of around a third of a century, ten congress were held – that is an average of one congress every less than four years. That is an expression of the fact that Nahdha is run by institutions, by democracy, by consultation – an important Islamic value.

At the beginning of this occasion, we pray for the souls of the martyrs of the revolution and martyrs of the struggle against dictatorship, led by martyrs of the movement, such as student Othman Ben Mahmoud- through whom we salute Tunisia’s youth.

We also remember the martyrs of the national army and police, and victims of the war against terrorism, and victims killed by terrorism, led by martyrs Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi.

We reaffirm to all those that we remain faithful to the martyrs and that their sacrifices will not be in vain.

Our accumulated experience in the war against terrorism has struck fear into the opposite camp, which is now receding at the hands of the successful preemptive operations by our security and military forces. As we reaffirm Nahdha’s absolute support for the state in its war against ISIS and takfiri extremists, we say to them that Tunisia, despite all the sacrifices, is stronger than their hatred, and it will, God willing, defeat them. In this regard, the great city of Ben Guerdane set a living and striking example that our people will never be defeated by terrorism. A small city that refused to allow evil terrorists to settle in it – for Tunisia will not allow terrorism to triumph, thanks to its national unity and to the well-established concept of the state in this country – even if they may protest against the state or criticize it, they refuse to move from order to chaos – we salute the Tunisian state.

The path of the revolution, therefore, is one of political successes, re-establishing security, and strengthening international solidarity, culminating in Tunisia being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the National Dialogue Quartet. Tunisia remains the shining candle among countries of the Arab Spring, having sparked the revolutions, demonstrating that democracy in the Arab world is possible.

In 2011, the spark was lit. Five ships sailed, carrying the hopes of their peoples for freedom and dignity. However, sadly within two years, storms and hardships surrounded those ships – storms of conspiracies, division, ideological polarization, mutual hatred, exclusion, revenge, assassinations, and terrorism.

Some ships met with destruction; others drowned in coups, civil wars and chaos. Tunisia’s ship was the exception. It was able to overcome the storms of the counter-revolution, chaos and destruction, thanks to Tunisians adopting the principle of dialogue, acceptance of the other, and avoidance of exclusion and revenge. We were able, by God’s grace, to bring Tunisia to the shores of safety.

At the height of the acute crisis of 2013, which threatened to drown Tunisia’s ship in the swamps of division, His Excellency President Beji Caied-Essebsi invited me to a dialogue, in a historic step. I agreed, and I said to those who criticized me at the time for going to Paris to meet him, that I was ready to go anywhere for the sake of Tunisia’s interest.

As I renew Nahdha’s wholehearted support for the policy of consensus, I say today to those who seek political gain through hostility to Nahdha: Do not divide our country. Our hands are stretched out to everyone; the system of consensus accommodates everyone; Tunisia’s ship can only sail safely if it carries all Tunisians.

In this context, I would like to commend members of the outgoing Consultative Council of the Party, and Nahdha members of the National Constituent Assembly who facilitated Tunisia’s path towards social peace and consensus through their difficult and wise decisions: when they chose to preserve the first article of the Constitution of 1959, when they voted against the political exclusion law, and when they approved the national dialogue roadmap. Thus they proved that Nahdha is a national party that places Tunisia’s interest above its own. And when we were discussing stepping down from legitimate elected government, we repeatedly said: We may lose power, but Tunisia will win.

I am full of pride in our sons and daughters who were patient and persevered, and withstood the campaigns of doubt, demonization and provocation against their Party.

At this sensitive juncture, I urge them to continue in the same way, for the most important thing for us, before anything else, is our country’s stability and prosperity. We stress that Nahdha will remain a pillar of support for Tunisia’s stability. We renew our support for the government of Prime Minister Essid and our commitment to the unity of the governing coalition and to the method of consensus which created the Tunisian exception.

We, in Nahdha, are serious and sincere in our desire to learn from our shortcomings before and after the revolution. We admit them and we humbly address them through reform. In our Congress we have an “Evaluation motion” – we are a party that evolves and reforms itself, and are not afraid to admit our mistakes.

We are a party that never stopped evolving – from the seventies to this day – from an ideological movement engaged in the struggle for identity – when identity was under threat, to a comprehensive protest movement against an authoritarian regime, to a national democratic party devoted to reform, based on a national reference drawing from the values of Islam, committed to the articles of the Constitution and the spirit of our age, thus consolidating the clear and definitive line between Muslim democrats and extremist and violent trends that falsely attribute themselves to Islam.

The specialization and distinction between the political and other religious or social activities is not a sudden decision or a capitulation to temporary pressures, but rather the culmination of a historical evolution in which the political field and the social, cultural and religious field were distinct in practice in our movement.

We are keen to keep religion far from political struggles and conflicts, and we call for the complete neutrality of mosques away from political disputes and partisan utilization, so that they play a role of unification rather than division.

Yet we are astonished to see the insistence of some to exclude religion from public life, despite the fact that the leaders of the national liberation movement considered religious sentiments to be a catalyst for revolution against occupation – just as today we see the values of Islam as a catalyst for development and promoting work, sacrifice, truthfulness, and integrity, and a positive force in our war against ISIS and extremists and supporting the state’s efforts in development. Otherwise, if we do not counter ISIS – which claims to represent Islam – through using Islamic values, how can we counter it? We need scholars who champion Islamic moderation and refute extremism in the name of Islam.

Despotic regimes disfigured Nahdha’s relationship with the state, through repression, defamation and fear mongering. But they have failed, by God’s Grace, to make the state and Nahdha mutual enemies. Our experience in government after the revolution proves that Nahdha is part of the state and a source of significant support for it. Our leaving government to promote the country’s unity proves that we are not power seekers, nor after domination nor monopoly of power.

The Tunisian state is our ship, which must carry all Tunisian men and women without any exception, exclusion of marginalization.

We ask here: when will attempts to undermine the state stop? And in whose interest are these attempts to weaken it, while it is combating terrorism, and seek anarchist methods to promote breaking the law?

The time has come not only to condemn that behavior, but to consider it a crime against the nation, martyrs and future generations.

Our call for a just state becomes devoid of meaning and value if that state is not also strong, able to apply the law and the Constitution and protect freedoms, under the supervision of the legislative and judicial powers, the specialized oversight bodies, civil society and the media.

Freedom does not mean chaos, just as the state’s power does not mean repression and denial of freedoms. It is necessary for the revolution to reinstate the role of our well-established state and of its institutions and members, providing for their needs, adopting incentives that encourage productivity and eliminate the mentality of routine administration, the “come back tomorrow”, “no network connection”, and “A little something for me”.

The dignity of public administration workers is part of the state’s dignity, and no economic or social renaissance can take place without a real administrative reform that includes full digitization and elimination of paper administration. When will we be able to have an administration where a businessman or a young entrepreneur can create a company in a few hours instead of wasting his life from one department to another.

While it was one of the gains of the revolution to develop administrative working hours by adopting the five-day week, it is now necessary to accelerate the pace of reform far from slogans and political wrangling.

We are proud of our state, we demand rights from it, and we fulfill our duties towards it. Amongst the prerequisites of reinstating respect for the state is that we announce a war on corruption, and that no one should enjoy impunity that places him above the law.

I say clearly that Nahdha Party is committed to combating corruption, bribery, tax evasion and wasting of public wealth. Our call for reconciliation does not mean whitewashing corruption or justifying or recreating a new system of corruption.

Our aim is to distinguish between the majority of businessmen and the minority implicated in corruption, and giving the latter the opportunity to own up, apologize and give back that which they acquired illegally. That would help encourage free economic enterprise.

We have stressed our support for the President’s economic reconciliation initiative, while we await the discussion of its details at the Assembly of People’s Representatives.

I also stress our commitment to the Transitional Justice process. Furthermore, I call for a comprehensive national reconciliation that turns a new page and prevents the perpetuation of enmity. The comprehensive national reconciliation we all seek is not the initiative of one person or one party, but for a whole country looking forward to the future.

Thus we have said repeatedly, we are for a comprehensive national reconciliation and for cooperation and consensus-building with all those who recognize the revolution and its martyrs and respect the Constitution, a partnership with all those who regard the revolution as an opportunity for all of us – islamists, destourians, leftists, and all intellectual and political trends, so we can all go forward steadily towards a future that is free from grudges and exclusion.

Nor is it a “deal under the table” but rather a national vision of reconciliation between the state and citizens, between the state and deprived regions, between opposing political elites, between the past and the present – because Nahdha is a force of unification not one of division.

This also applies to the way we view our history, not as contradictory phases and figures – rather we see Khaireddine Al-Tounisi, Ahmed Bey, liberator of slaves, Moncef Bey, the late leader Habib Bourguiba, Farhat Hached, Abdelaziz Thaalibi, Salah Ben Youssef, Sheikh Mohamed Taher Ben Achour, and Tahar al-Haddad, God’s mercy be upon them all, all those and others, as leading symbols of our dear nation, as sources of inspiration for us all, which must all enjoy our respect. They undoubtedly had their mistakes, but we take the positives and build on them.

Tunisians are tired of politicians bickering on media debates; they are concerned about security, terrorism, the cost of living, economic development, and the struggle of vulnerable groups, the poor and deprived, and marginalized regions. You, Nahdha members and supporters, must not be drawn into the elite’s ideological battles, but should rather focus on the concerns of fellow citizens. A modern state is not run through ideologies, big slogans and political wrangling. It is guided by social and economic programs and solutions that provide security and prosperity for all.
Nahdha had evolved from defending identity, to ensuring the democratic transition, and today moves on to focus on the economic transition. The new phase is primarily about the economy.

Since liberation from colonization, Tunisia has achieved much in the fields of education, health, women’s rights, literacy and other fields of human development. We embrace and value those achievements. We commit to preserving and developing them, within the framework of the continuity of the state and our pride in the republican system and Tunisian society and its choices, as enshrined in the Tunisian Constitution.

I salute Tunisian women, in urban and rural areas, in Tunisia and abroad, in schools, universities and workplaces, in society and at home. Our movement is very proud of the gains and rights achieved by Tunisian women, and will continue to support them to guarantee further freedom and advancement in fulfilling their potential, and preserving the social fabric and the family as the source of social cohesion and unity.

We, Tunisians, are the product of the struggle of our mothers – Sheikh Abdelfattah Mourou sitting here in front of you is the fruit of a hard-working illiterate woman, who gave Tunisian such a man. My own mother was also illiterate, but while my father merely focused on teaching us the Quran, she insisted on sending me and my brothers to continue our education, and accepted to work in the field with my sisters to give the males – only unfortunately the chance to be educated. My own wife, a university graduate, devoted her life to her children’s education such that my four daughters obtained their PhDs or masters, as did our two sons who have masters in law and economics. I salute Tunisian women, who made this nation an educated developed nation.

I say to young people, torn between ambition and despair, who are disappointed in the outcome of the revolution and the political class: We hear you.

You are the future for which we work. The difficulties you face today must not be a source of pessimism or disengagement from public life. We need to overcome these challenges together, through sincere attachment to the nation, determination and persistence.

We call on the political elite to think about the youth and to provide them with the space to participate and to assume responsibility. It is high time for a national pact for youth development, so that no young man or woman is left marginalized, with no job, house, or prospects to establish a family.

Education is Tunisians’ most valued capital. Today we are required to agree on a national vision for its reform in such a way that guarantees balance between knowledge and ethics, and employability. We have to address the dangers in young people’s environment: violence, drugs, all the ways to exploit young people’s minds through terrorism’s evil plots. We have to address how education has become divorced from the job market.

We must break with ad-hoc reforms and with the search for quantity without quality. It is necessary to stress that education must be a door to work, not a bridge to unemployment.

No human development can take place without a cultural renaissance, without supporting creativity, without establishing cultural and sports activities in all regions, particularly in marginalized regions and popular urban neighborhoods. We want to see in every popular neighborhood a swimming pool, a sports centre, a cultural centre.

Strengthening the vocational training system and promoting it and reinstating its value are undoubtedly among the pillars of our reform plan.

The post-revolution state inherited an unemployment rate that was close to 14% according to official statistics in 2011, and the current rate is close to that.

Unemployment is the result of historical accumulations in the fields of education and training, the restriction of economic enterprise by laws that restrict freedom of investment, and by weak infrastructure in most regions of the country making them unattractive for economic projects.

Overcoming unemployment can only take place within a holistic economic model based on investment, which creates jobs and achieves balanced regional development and eliminates the mentality which eschews entrepreneurship and even the value of work.

We believe in the necessity of implementing the principle of positive discrimination enshrined in the Constitution for the benefit of deprived regions. We welcome and support the coming process of decentralization after the local elections, just as we support the right of the regions to a percentage of their natural resources in order to achieve regional development.

As I call upon businessmen to invest, particularly in the inner regions, I stress the necessity to lift all restrictions placed before them in this regard.

I call from this platform for an urgent economic recovery program that prioritizes reactivating obstructed production in certain strategic sectors and implementing stalled public projects. This program must adopt exceptional measures in all fields related to employment, investment and developing deprived regions, and mobilize internal financial resources and reduce dependence on external debt by encouraging national savings, reforming taxation and further simplification of the procedures for creating companies and initiating projects.

It is necessary to seek to implement a major economic project in each priority district over the next five years, to begin to distribute national lands to young entrepreneurs, to launch a legislative and administrative revolution to lift restrictions to investment and entrepreneurship, and to support the government’s work through a major economic ministry.

It is also important to stress the need to spread social welfare coverage particularly for workers in the agricultural field, and to direct subsidies to those who need them, to reinstate the culture of work and the link between fulfilling one’s duty and demanding one’s right.

As I renew my call for a social truce that preserves the rights of workers and protects economic institutions, I salute the important role played by the Tunisian General Workers’ Union, the Union of Industry, Commerce and Handicrafts, the Union of Agriculture and Fisheries and all national organizations for their role in development.

Your Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

The revolution gave Tunisians abroad for the first time the right to be part of parliament and to elect their representatives, as an integral component of Tunisia. I call for further support to them as they face a new wave of xenophobia. And I call on them to further strengthen their economic ties to their beloved homeland through increasing transfers and spending their summer holidays in Tunisian hotels, as well as investing, and it is necessary to create incentives for them to do so.

It is important in this regard to support Tunisian diplomacy in its official and cultural dimensions, and economic diplomacy in particular. I stress Nahdha’s commitment to supporting the state’s foreign policy, and Tunisia’s role in spreading peace, consensus and combating terrorism around the world. As I commend the steps made by our Libyan neighbors towards reconciliation and unity, it is our hope that the Arab world will soon inaugurate an age of peace and comprehensive reconciliation.

We also express our commitment to the Arab Maghreb Union, and we salute our neighbors Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania and Libya, and renew our commitment to strengthening our relations with our Arab, Muslim and African neighbors, and our pride in the good relations between Tunisia and Europe, the United States of America and all countries around the world.

We are proud that the Tunisian experience, which has won international acclaim, has proven that the solution to conflict is consensus-building and seeking the foundation for co-existence. We have demonstrated that democracy is possible in the Arab world, and that democracy is the solution to corruption, bribery, despotism, chaos and terrorism, and that investing in democracy is better and more effective than supporting regressive dictatorships.

The solution is reconciliation between the poor and the rich, between the north and south, between cultures and civilizations, between faiths. Our world needs mutual understanding, peace, solidarity, security and tolerance.

Your Excellencies,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Nahdha’s members, with their blood, tears and sacrifices, have gone through trials and tribulations that taught us courage to admit our errors and review our policies far from any arrogance or egoism.

Self-criticism is a condition for evolution in the modern world, and just as we have practiced it throughout our history, we will consolidate it in our Tenth Congress, for which Tunisians have many expectations.

The success of this congress is primarily about presenting a renewed united Nahdha that is able to participate in solving Tunisia’s problems, a party of national ambition, a party of objective analysis and constructive criticism that give rise to a democratic alternative, a party that is open to its environment and to all capabilities and potential, a party that is proud of its members – women and men.

Every individual in Nahdha is a story of sacrifice and heroism. Families that have been torn apart and exiled; tens of thousands of prisoners..

Nahdhaouis sacrificed a lot for the sake of Tunisia – that is why we regard Nahdha as the shared possession of Tunisia and all Tunisians, before belonging to Nahdha members and supporters. That is what strengthens our conviction that the choice of reform is our path to rising to our people’s aspirations, and that partnership and cooperation are our choice. Tunisia cannot be ruled in the coming years by the logic of majority and minority but rather by the logic of consensus and partnership.

Ladies and gentlemen,

For many years, I was banned from entering Tunisia. When I used to see Tunis Air flights at any airport around the world, I would dream of returning to my land, dreams that were then very far from reality.

Will I return home one day?

Will I once again meet our sons and daughters scattered between dozens of prisons and places of exile?

Will I ever have the right to walk the streets of my country and congratulate my fellow Tunisians, my friends and family on festivals and Eids?

That dream has become a reality, by God’s Grace. And it continues to grow inside me day by day, turning from the dream of return to the dream of building a new beginning for Tunisia.

A dream of a better Tunisia – a united Tunisia; a democratic, developed and inclusive Tunisia.

We must share this dream with all Tunisians, as we look together with optimism, determination and hope to the future, not towards the past.

It is the Tunisian dream that motivates us to work hard and sacrifice in order to turn the revolution’s dreams into reality.

You, Tunisian men and women, are stronger than all difficulties and challenges.

You, grandchildren of Hannibal, Jugurtha, Oqba, Ibn Khaldun, el-Chebbi; children of Carthage, Kairouan, Mehdia and al-Zaytouna; you are able, God willing, through your unity and solidarity, through your attachment to your beloved country and your belief in yourselves, to achieve what we aspire to, and more – to achieve the Tunisian dream, just as you created, through your consensus, the Tunisian exception; and just as you sparked, with your courage and defiance, the flame of the Arab Spring.

It is time for Tunisia’s ship to leave the shore, to sail on its journey towards development and prosperity for all its people.

By God’s grace, we inaugurate this Congress, and we ask God to guide us to choose what is best for our country and our shared future.

Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi is the President of the Nahdha Party.

20 May 2016

By Boston Globe

DONALD TRUMP HAS promised that as soon as he becomes president of the United States, he will “rip up and rescind this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal.” Hard-liners in Iran are cheering. One of their leaders, the powerful editor Hossein Shariatmadari, recently declared, “The wisest plan of crazy Trump is tearing up the nuclear deal.”

Extremists in the United States and Iran have joined to derail this 10-month-old deal. They share a horror scenario: an Iran that is successfully integrated into the Middle East and the wider world, increasingly free at home and responsible in its neighborhood. Militants in Washington fear that this would give Iran a regional role commensurate with its history, size, and power, while they wish to see it tied down forever. Militants in Tehran fear that cooperating with the outside world will erode their authority and possibly lead to collapse of the Islamic Republic. These are reasonable fears.

When debate over the nuclear deal was raging last year in Washington, opponents relentlessly repeated a potent argument. They insisted that the deal made no sense because Iran is untrustworthy and never keeps its promises. Now, a new kind of Iran-related panic has broken out in Washington. This year’s fear is the opposite of last year’s. Opponents of the deal say it must be junked because Iran is living up to it.

“Iran has complied,” the Congressional Research Service reported last month. Its conclusion is hard to dispute. Iran has dismantled more than 12,000 nuclear centrifuges, shipped 98 percent of its nuclear fuel to Russia, and poured cement into the core of its heavy-water reactor. This has set off waves of outrage in Washington and Tehran. The prospect that the nuclear deal might actually work terrifies hard-liners in both capitals.

Many in Washington portray Iran as recklessly irresponsible and a relentless enemy of the United States. Iran undermines that image by fulfilling its obligations under a major international accord. In a coordinated effort to throw the deal off course even at this late date, members of Congress have introduced a host of bills aimed at crippling it.

One of those bills would make it illegal for Americans to buy heavy water from Iran — water that Iran must sell under terms of the nuclear deal. Another would forbid the awarding of defense contracts to “any company that does business with hostile Iranian actors.” Others threaten unspecified steps to counter Iran’s “malign activities” and punish it for “conducting military operations in a manner that raises tensions.”

Members of Congress have even sent a strongly worded letter to Boeing urging that it not seek to sell civilian airliners to Iran. Boeing has pursued this deal, which could be the richest contract in aviation history, but the congressmen said that would be “placing profits over the safety and well-being of the American people.” This increases the possibility that Iran Air will buy its new fleet from Boeing’s European competitor, Airbus. Even Trump sees the illogic. “We give them the money, and we now say, ‘Go buy Airbus instead of Boeing,’ ” he reasoned. “So how stupid is that?”

The phrase “give them the money” reflects another misleading aspect of the US-Iran narrative. American banks are holding billions of dollars in Iranian money that was impounded after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Under terms of the nuclear deal, that money is supposed to be returned. Estimates of the total run from $50 billion to $150 billion. Secretary of State John Kerry sounded positively jubilant when he said in a recent Washington speech that Iran had received no more than $3 billion so far. The United States has also been exceedingly slow to lift sanctions that can be imposed on foreign companies if they do business with Iran.

“The Americans have said that they would lift sanctions, and they have actually done so on paper,” Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, complained recently, “but through other ways and methods, they are acting in a way that the result of sanctions repeal will not be witnessed at all.”

The nuclear deal is threatened not just by assaults from Congress and foot-dragging by the Obama administration. The Supreme Court has also piled on. Last month, it ruled that victims of terror attacks said to have been plotted in Iran may sue to collect up to $2 billion in impounded Iranian assets. Iran, which denies involvement in the attacks, furiously denounced this as “theft of the assets and properties of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Iranians opposed to the nuclear deal are doing all they can to make Iran look bad in the world. They are behind a new crackdown on dissent, the arrest of foreigners, continued executions, and ballistic missile tests — which they hope will turn Americans against the nuclear deal. Some in Washington are eagerly rushing into their trap.

The nuclear deal with Iran was a major advance for American and global security. It is in our interest to see the deal fully implemented. Opponents in Congress are trying to undermine it. The Obama administration, which worked mightily to secure the deal, has not worked hard enough to assure that Iranians see some benefit from it. If true sanctions relief does not begin soon, the coalition of “mad mullahs” in Tehran and Washington could succeed in killing or crippling the nuclear deal. That would be bad for everyone who seeks a freer Iran and a more peaceful Middle East.

Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

11 May 2016

 

By RT News

Secret phone recordings between Brazil’s planning minister and the former president of Transperto have revealed that the minister suggested a “change” in the government to “stop the bleeding” caused by an investigation into Petrobras.
The March conversation between Planning Minister Romero Juca and former Transperto President Sergio Machado took place just weeks before impeachment proceedings were launched against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reported.

The dialogue centered around Operation Lava Jato, a probe into allegations of corruption at the state-controlled oil company Petrobras, of which Transperto is a subsidiary. Both Machado and Juca are being investigated under the probe.

Machado mentioned a renewed drive in the investigation against Petrobras, saying that the operation was leaving “no stone unturned.”

In response, Juca said a change of government was needed to “stop the bleeding” caused by the probe.

“I think we need to articulate a political action,” Juca said, adding that a possible government with Michel Temer as president should include a national pact.

Juca’s lawyer, Antonio Carlos de Almeida Castro, said his client would “never think of doing any interference” in the investigation, and that the conversation between Juca and Machado contained no illegalities.

The minister himself denied that he had discussed Rousseff’s impeachment with Machado.

“I want to repeal the interpretation made by Folha de Sao Paulo … I was speaking of putting an end to the paralysis of Brazil, of ending the ‘bleeding’ of unemployment, separate [politicians] who are guilty and who are not,” Juca said in response to allegations, as quoted by the BBC.

The conversation took place just weeks before Rousseff was suspended from her post amid impeachment proceedings.

The leader, who is accused of illegally manipulating finances to hide a growing public deficit ahead of her 2014 re-election, was removed from office after senators voted to suspend her by 55 votes to 22 earlier this month. Her trial may last up to 180 days.

Rousseff, who denies the allegations against her, made an appeal to the Supreme Court to stop proceedings, but the move was rejected.

She told RT that the impeachment situation is a coup attempt by the old Brazilian oligarchy.

“This coup is not like usual coups in Latin America, which normally involve weapons, tanks in the streets, arrests and torture. The current coup is happening within the democratic framework, with the use of existing institutions in support of indirect elections not stipulated in the Constitution. This coup is carried out by hands tearing apart the Brazilian Constitution,” Rousseff said.

“If there is no crime, an impeachment is illegal. And since it’s illegal, it’s a serious problem for the interim government. I’m living proof of this unlawfulness and injustice,” she added.

Meanwhile, Operation Lava Jato continues, with federal authorities investigating corruption allegations at Petrobras, where it is alleged that executives accepted bribes in return for awarding contracts to construction firms at inflated prices. The operation, launched in March 2014, has resulted in more than 100 warrants for search and seizure, temporary and preventive detention, and coercive measures.
23 May 2016

Rohingya Muslims, in camps, wait for what democracy led by a Nobel peace prize winner will bring them. So far: Nothing.

By Wayne Hay

Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her “non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights”. Back then, she was a campaigner for those things, spending a total of 15 years under house arrest.

She knows what it’s like to have rights and freedom taken away.

But now that she is in perhaps the ultimate position of power in Myanmar, there is no sign that she is going to defend the rights of people who have been detained simply because of who they are.

Tens of thousands of Muslims, mainly Rohingya, have been kept in camps in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State for almost four years since their homes and communities were attacked.

They were horrific events that were fanned by a powerful, nationalist Buddhist agenda – alive and well today – and it’s a movement Aung San Suu Kyi seems afraid of upsetting.

Grim prospects for democracy

After decades of campaigning against the previous military regime, her National League for Democracy party won last November’s general election and, even though the constitution prevents her from becoming president, she made it clear that she would be in charge and gave herself the title of State Counsellor.

Her choice of Religious and Cultural Affairs Minister raised eyebrows. Thura Aung Ko is a former army general and was a deputy in the same ministry under the previous military-backed government. And, so far, the new government isn’t sending any signals that it will adopt a policy to give rights to Rohingya who, in Myanmar, are widely regarded as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.

On his first day on the job in the new administration, Thura Aung Ko gave a media interview in which he said that Muslims and Hindus were “associate citizens”, referring to the 1982 citizenship law that places people into three categories depending on their status.

He then visited leaders of a nationalist Buddhist movement who regularly spew anti-Islam rhetoric. It’s not known what was discussed at the meeting but it sent a bad message, something Aung San Suu Kyi herself has also been guilty of.

In April, the United States embassy in Yangon released a statement, offering their condolences for people who were killed when a boat sunk off Rakhine State. The people onboard were Rohingya and that’s exactly what the US statement called them.

That led to protests outside the embassy by people who refuse to recognise the term Rohingya because it’s not one of the official ethnic minority groups in Myanmar.

The response from Suu Kyi? Government officials sent a letter to the US ambassador and other diplomats urging them to refrain from using the word Rohingya.

Yes, it’s very early days in the life of the new government and there are many problems in this country to solve. Yes, the plight of the Rohingya is a very complex issue. Yes, the new government is talking about new laws to safeguard religious freedom and to get tough on hate speech.

But it’s not enough.

Here’s what we also know: Around 100,000 people have been living in squalid conditions for almost four years. They have no rights and many have died in a desperate attempt to leave. Over the past year though, the number of departures fell, partly because people wanted to see what the new government would do for them.

What Aung San Suu Kyi has at her disposal now is the power to speak out. Words can be powerful. They can offer hope. Particularly when they come from someone who built her name on a fight for freedom and rights.

But when it comes to the Rohingya, there has been nothing but silence; meaning for them, hope is already fading so early in Myanmar’s new democracy.

Wayne Hay has been covering the Asia/Pacific region since 2001, first with Television New Zealand before joining Al Jazeera English in 2006.

22 May 2016

 

By Bill Van Auken

Five years after a US-NATO war shattered Libya, Washington is preparing to send troops into the oil-rich North African nation for a “long-term mission,” the Pentagon’s top uniformed commander said Thursday.

Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters returning aboard his plane from a meeting of NATO commanders in Brussels that the new military deployment, which could involve thousands of US troops, could happen “any day.” It awaited only a formal agreement with the new government that the Western powers and the UN are attempting to set up in Tripoli, he indicated.

General Dunford told reporters that there had been “intense dialogue” and “activities under the surface” aimed at bringing about the Libya intervention. This apparently referred to efforts by the US ambassador to Libya, Peter Bodde, and the State Department’s special envoy for Libya, Jonathan Winer, to wrest a formal request for military intervention from Fayez al-Sarraj, the unelected head of the Western-backed Libyan Presidential Council.

Under UN and US tutelage, Sarraj and his allies established this council in exile in Tunisia, returning to the Libyan capital, Tripoli, at the end of March. It is obvious that this new puppet regime has been created for the sole purpose of providing a veneer of legality to another US-NATO military intervention in the devastated country.

Sarraj’s legitimacy, however, is by no means clear. His is now one of three competing regimes, including the Islamist-dominated General National Congress (GNC) in Tripoli and the House of Representatives (HoR) based in the eastern city of Tobruk, which was previously recognized by the West as the legitimate government of Libya. Neither the GNC nor the HoR have recognized the authority of Sarraj’s presidential council.

Nor is it clear what fighting force Sarraj can rely upon and the US and its allies can arm and train. It was revealed earlier this month that US Special Operations troops have been on the ground in Libya since last year attempting to contact and assess various rival militias to see which one could be employed in the service of Washington’s interests in the country.

Ostensibly, the US and its allies are intervening to counter the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) inside the country. ISIS fighters, reported to number at least 5,000, have taken control of a stretch of the Libyan Mediterranean coast. It is no accident that the center of this territory is the city of Sirte, formerly the hometown of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The city was reduced to rubble by US-NATO attacks in the days leading up to the October 2011 torture and murder of Gaddafi at the hands of US-backed Islamist militiamen.

As in Iraq and Syria, Washington is justifying this new intervention in the name of combating a force that it itself spawned. Libya’s ISIS fighters came from the Islamist militias that the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies supported and armed in the bid to oust Gaddafi in 2011. Many of them were then sent into Syria, along with large stockpiles of Libyan weapons that were shipped to that country as part of an operation run out of the secret CIA station in Benghazi. That station and a separate US consulate were overrun by Libyan Islamist militiamen in September 2011, leading to the deaths of US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

Discussions on the coming Libya intervention took place at a meeting of foreign ministers from the US, Europe and the Middle East on Monday in Vienna. Among the decisions taken was to seek exemption from an arms embargo imposed by the UN after the fall of Gaddafi so that weapons can be funneled in to forces loyal to the puppet Sarraj, though it is, as of yet, unclear who those forces are. US Secretary of State John Kerry allowed that a “delicate balance” had to be found to prevent the arms from falling into the hands of Al Qaeda-linked and ISIS elements that Washington is ostensibly fighting.

The real objective in Libya today, as in 2011, is the assertion of undisputed US-NATO hegemony over the country and its massive oil reserves, the largest on the African continent. Having turned Libya into the model of a so-called “failed state” with its first intervention, Washington appears to want to impose some kind of neocolonial regime with its pending second incursion.

The centrality of oil is manifest in the operations of the two major armed militias that are being considered for the role of Western puppet forces. The first is the so-called Libyan National Army formed under the command of Khalifa Hafter, a former Libyan army officer who became an “asset” of the CIA in the 1980s, set up near the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia and then airlifted by the Americans back into Benghazi during the 2011 war for regime change.

Hafter’s forces have been moving slowly west from Benghazi toward the ISIS center of Sirte, expending most of their energies on seizing control of some 14 oil fields along the way. The fields were taken largely from the Petroleum Facilities’ Guards (PFG), whose commander, Ibrahim Jadhran, had sworn allegiance to the US-backed regime of Sarraj after previously seeking autonomy for the east and attempting to sell oil independently of the government in Tripoli.

Meanwhile, a rival militia based in the city of Misurata in northwestern Libya has been approaching Sirte from the opposite direction with similar intentions. It is widely anticipated that these two forces, apparently the principal candidates for serving as the foundation of a Western puppet force in the country, may end up battling each other rather than ISIS.

While General Dunford predicted a US-NATO intervention was imminent, he was less forthcoming about its composition.

It had been reported initially that Italy, which exercised brutal colonial rule over Libya under the fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, would lead the mission, providing upwards of 5,000 troops. Among Rome’s principal concerns—aside from reasserting its old colonial ambitions—is securing the Libyan coast, which is expected to be the major route for refugees seeking to reach Italy, now that the EU has sealed off the so-called Balkan route.

On Monday, however, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said that Italy would not send troops into Libya. “While under pressure to intervene in Libya, we have chosen a different approach,” Renzi said in a statement.

For its part, Germany has reportedly rejected placing any of its troops in Libya, saying that it would only train Libyan forces in neighboring Tunisia.
The apparent disarray within NATO’s ranks reflects the competing interests of the US and the various European powers as the Libyan intervention escalates what is emerging as a new imperialist scramble for Africa.

As Washington prepares to launch another military intervention into a nation that it previously decimated through a war of aggression, its ongoing campaign in Iraq appears in growing danger. Baghdad was placed under military curfew Friday night after Iraqi security forces used tear gas and live fire to drive back thousands of antigovernment demonstrators who stormed the heavily fortified Green Zone, reaching the office of Iraq’s US-backed prime minister, Haider al-Abadi.
Initial reports indicated at least one civilian, and perhaps several, killed by security forces, and dozens wounded.

Protesters, including supporters of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, had stormed into the blast wall-enclosed Green Zone on April 30 to protest government corruption and failure to provide basic services and security. Anger has only deepened in the intervening weeks as the result of a series of terrorist bombings claimed by ISIS that have killed more than 150 people in Baghdad this month.

In the wake of the bloodshed in the Green Zone, there is a growing threat that an armed confrontation between government forces and armed Shia militias in the Iraqi capital could eclipse the so-called war against ISIS.

21 May, 2016
WSWS.org