samedi 31 mars 2018
jeudi 29 mars 2018
Russia’s youth are turning to the Communists, not Putin
March 27, 2018 12:17 PM CDT
By Ben Chacko
Young Communist Party supporters, both from the Russian town of Lipetsk, Vadim Putintsev, 21, and Olga Bykovskikh, 23, speak to each other during a rally protesting the alleged vote rigging in Russia's elections. | Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP
For those watching abroad, Russia’s presidential election last weekend was unexciting. Vladimir Putin, who has ruled the country for 18 years, won easily, just as he was predicted to.
His 76 percent vote share—up 13 points on 2012’s—is evidence of either his enduring popularity as the leader of a resurgent Russia or the crooked nature of the election itself, depending on who you talk to.
I talked to Dr. Vyacheslav Tetekin. The chief political adviser to Communist Party of the Russian Federation leader Gennady Zyuganov, who met me on election morning, is a veteran of multiple elections and played a key role in the party’s campaign this time around.
We spoke before voting was over and were unaware of how the communist candidate, Pavel Grudinin, would do (he ended up coming second, with 11.77 percent, or 8.7 million votes). Such a result will please him, even if it’s less than Zyuganov managed in 2012.
Tetekin is well aware that the system is stacked against them. “The Russian electoral system is based on fraud basically,” he says. “There is strong manipulation. First by the electoral commission.”
Tetekin lists a number of the ways local authority figures act to influence the vote: poorly paid public servants being offered 10,000 ruble sums for the trouble of sitting on the electoral commissions, sums they know they won’t see again if they notice anything untoward; social service workers being deployed to visit patients and offer to help them to “come and vote for our dear president;” management in private firms telling their employees to take photos of their ballot papers and bring them in the next morning to prove they voted the right way.
A media establishment in Putin’s pocket adds to the obstacles anyone running against the president faces. This is why Tetekin states frankly that he is “not very interested in the results,” a seemingly odd comment from a top adviser to the leader of the main opposition party on election day.
He even suspected that a desire to demonstrate the communists are in decline might lead to the books being cooked so they would come in third, behind Liberal Democrat leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, whose ferocious nationalist rhetoric has never stopped him voting quietly with the government “once the shouting has subsided,” as the Oxford University Russianologist Edmund Griffiths has observed.
In the event, the communist vote proved too strong for that, and Grudinin came home with more than double Zhirinovsky’s tally.
What interests Tetekin is more the story of the election campaign itself. The Communist Party, he says, has been “surprised by the level of support at the grassroots. The campaign spread like wildfire.
“People say it’s only the older generation who support the communists—the nostalgic Soviet generation who are dying out. Actually it’s the opposite. The elderly are the main bulwark of support for Putin.”
By contrast, the younger people are the communist base, and the more active they are online, the likelier they seemed to back Grudinin; many online-only polls had him with a comfortable lead over Putin, often by as much as 45 percent to 25 percent.
“Living standards are in decline. People try to explain the length of Putin’s dominance: he’s so cunning, so shrewd. Rubbish.
“The only Marxist explanation for Putin is oil prices. When he took over from [Boris] Yeltsin on January 1, 2000 it was $18 a barrel. While he was in office it rose to $120 a barrel. Much went into the pockets of his cronies, but some drops fell into the hands of ordinary people.
“When oil dropped to $40 a barrel there was panic among the ruling elite. Now it’s risen again, but not enough. Real wages have been going down for four years. People feel the decline in their pockets. Education and medical care are getting more and more expensive. There’s no end to it.”
This may be why young people are more inclined to vote for change: “The country is tired of the reign of Putin.”
This, too, influenced the Communist Party’s choice of candidate. I ask why Zyuganov didn’t stand again—he’s still the party leader, after all.
“Comrade Zyuganov has been on the political scene for 25 years,” says Tetekin. “I’m not saying he’s tired. But for five, six presidential elections, we’ve had the same faces: Putin, Zyuganov, Zhirinovsky, [Grigory] Yavlinsky. The country needs change—it needs new faces.
“Grudinin is not a member of the Communist Party” (nor is Putin a member of his own electoral vehicle, United Russia, incidentally). “But he is a committed socialist. He is younger. He has been very successful as the head of the collective farm, the Lenin Sovkhoz.”
Grudinin was Zyuganov’s preference as the candidate of the party—from two options presented to the central committee, neither of whom was a party member.
This doesn’t worry Tetekin: “Grudinin is a socialist, there is no question about that. Socialism is the first stage of communism.” He talks of the need for the communists to reach out and build a broad alliance of progressives.
“One of the base areas of support for us is actually small business,” he says. “Small businesses have been systematically destroyed in the interests of oligarchs. These are people who have learned the hard way that there is no such thing as the free market—because big monopoly capital destroys the free market.”
Listening to the anger with which Tetekin describes the impact of the Putin regime on the poor, it seems ironic that much foreign media coverage claims the Communist Party is a “fake opposition,” broadly supportive of the government (often citing its support for some of Putin’s foreign policy choices.
“Russia has played a positive role in Syria,” Tetekin says when I raise this. “No question—we have helped save that country from the savagery of Islamic State. But something should have been done a long time ago.
“We shouldn’t have allowed the destruction of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya. Not socialist countries, but independent countries. It was only when it came round to Syria that Putin realized: ‘They are depriving us of allies.’ Only after a long list of foreign policy failures did Putin finally act.
“Then there’s Crimea. But Crimea has always been part of Russia.”
The current geographical Ukraine, he notes wryly, is actually a product of the Soviet Union.
Shortly after the Russian Revolution, Lenin took the decision to reinforce the base for Bolshevism in agrarian Ukraine by adding highly industrialized areas such as the Donbass, Dnepropetrovsk, and Kharkov, which speak Russian to this day.
In 1939, Stalin added the far western edge that had previously been part of the Austrian empire and then Poland and which has been the most receptive to fascist ideas; and Crimea was transferred from Russia to Ukraine by Khrushchev in the 1950s.
Tetekin says the communists are actually “more resolute” in pressing for stronger support for the anti-fascist resistance in Ukraine and describes the Kremlin as “timid” on the matter.
He is unconvinced that Putin is behind the recent poisoning in Britain of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, either. “I’m a strong opponent of the current regime, but I’m convinced that Russia has nothing to do with it. Whose interests does it serve? Not Russia’s.
“After the doping scandal, the furor over interference in the U.S. elections, with the World Cup coming up, this is the last thing Putin wants.”
In contrast, the poisoning could be seen to serve the interests of the British establishment, he feels: A renewed fear of Russia could foster greater solidarity among EU governments, easing Brexit negotiations, while the scandal has also allowed the British press to claim Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is in Moscow’s pocket for asking subversive questions such as what the results of the police investigation are.
Russian Communist Party political advisor Vyacheslav Tetekin. | Karl Weiss / Morning Star
Double agents like Skripal, he reminds me, are always being watched by British as well as Russian intelligence.
As for the rest, he has no time for the government. When I mention that some on the left in Western countries regard Putin as an improvement on Yeltsin, he is exasperated.
“It’s the same thing as Yeltsin,” he exclaims. “The Yeltsin team is still in power. The same ideology, the same approach, often enough the same people.
“Manufacturing has been destroyed. Putin talks of new missiles. But the electronics are foreign. The machine tools are foreign. The country needs reindustrialization. It needs change,” he repeats again.
How will that change come? “People can feel there is something fundamentally wrong,” he says. “Change will come from below. We hope it will come via the ballot box.
“But if the current downward economic trend continues, the question of power will be solved in the streets.”
This article originally appeared in Morning Star.
Tags:
Communist Party
Elections
Russia
Youth
Young Communist Party supporters, both from the Russian town of Lipetsk, Vadim Putintsev, 21, and Olga Bykovskikh, 23, speak to each other during a rally protesting the alleged vote rigging in Russia's elections. | Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP
For those watching abroad, Russia’s presidential election last weekend was unexciting. Vladimir Putin, who has ruled the country for 18 years, won easily, just as he was predicted to.
His 76 percent vote share—up 13 points on 2012’s—is evidence of either his enduring popularity as the leader of a resurgent Russia or the crooked nature of the election itself, depending on who you talk to.
I talked to Dr. Vyacheslav Tetekin. The chief political adviser to Communist Party of the Russian Federation leader Gennady Zyuganov, who met me on election morning, is a veteran of multiple elections and played a key role in the party’s campaign this time around.
We spoke before voting was over and were unaware of how the communist candidate, Pavel Grudinin, would do (he ended up coming second, with 11.77 percent, or 8.7 million votes). Such a result will please him, even if it’s less than Zyuganov managed in 2012.
Tetekin is well aware that the system is stacked against them. “The Russian electoral system is based on fraud basically,” he says. “There is strong manipulation. First by the electoral commission.”
Tetekin lists a number of the ways local authority figures act to influence the vote: poorly paid public servants being offered 10,000 ruble sums for the trouble of sitting on the electoral commissions, sums they know they won’t see again if they notice anything untoward; social service workers being deployed to visit patients and offer to help them to “come and vote for our dear president;” management in private firms telling their employees to take photos of their ballot papers and bring them in the next morning to prove they voted the right way.
A media establishment in Putin’s pocket adds to the obstacles anyone running against the president faces. This is why Tetekin states frankly that he is “not very interested in the results,” a seemingly odd comment from a top adviser to the leader of the main opposition party on election day.
He even suspected that a desire to demonstrate the communists are in decline might lead to the books being cooked so they would come in third, behind Liberal Democrat leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, whose ferocious nationalist rhetoric has never stopped him voting quietly with the government “once the shouting has subsided,” as the Oxford University Russianologist Edmund Griffiths has observed.
In the event, the communist vote proved too strong for that, and Grudinin came home with more than double Zhirinovsky’s tally.
What interests Tetekin is more the story of the election campaign itself. The Communist Party, he says, has been “surprised by the level of support at the grassroots. The campaign spread like wildfire.
“People say it’s only the older generation who support the communists—the nostalgic Soviet generation who are dying out. Actually it’s the opposite. The elderly are the main bulwark of support for Putin.”
By contrast, the younger people are the communist base, and the more active they are online, the likelier they seemed to back Grudinin; many online-only polls had him with a comfortable lead over Putin, often by as much as 45 percent to 25 percent.
“Living standards are in decline. People try to explain the length of Putin’s dominance: he’s so cunning, so shrewd. Rubbish.
“The only Marxist explanation for Putin is oil prices. When he took over from [Boris] Yeltsin on January 1, 2000 it was $18 a barrel. While he was in office it rose to $120 a barrel. Much went into the pockets of his cronies, but some drops fell into the hands of ordinary people.
“When oil dropped to $40 a barrel there was panic among the ruling elite. Now it’s risen again, but not enough. Real wages have been going down for four years. People feel the decline in their pockets. Education and medical care are getting more and more expensive. There’s no end to it.”
This may be why young people are more inclined to vote for change: “The country is tired of the reign of Putin.”
This, too, influenced the Communist Party’s choice of candidate. I ask why Zyuganov didn’t stand again—he’s still the party leader, after all.
“Comrade Zyuganov has been on the political scene for 25 years,” says Tetekin. “I’m not saying he’s tired. But for five, six presidential elections, we’ve had the same faces: Putin, Zyuganov, Zhirinovsky, [Grigory] Yavlinsky. The country needs change—it needs new faces.
“Grudinin is not a member of the Communist Party” (nor is Putin a member of his own electoral vehicle, United Russia, incidentally). “But he is a committed socialist. He is younger. He has been very successful as the head of the collective farm, the Lenin Sovkhoz.”
Grudinin was Zyuganov’s preference as the candidate of the party—from two options presented to the central committee, neither of whom was a party member.
This doesn’t worry Tetekin: “Grudinin is a socialist, there is no question about that. Socialism is the first stage of communism.” He talks of the need for the communists to reach out and build a broad alliance of progressives.
“One of the base areas of support for us is actually small business,” he says. “Small businesses have been systematically destroyed in the interests of oligarchs. These are people who have learned the hard way that there is no such thing as the free market—because big monopoly capital destroys the free market.”
Listening to the anger with which Tetekin describes the impact of the Putin regime on the poor, it seems ironic that much foreign media coverage claims the Communist Party is a “fake opposition,” broadly supportive of the government (often citing its support for some of Putin’s foreign policy choices.
“Russia has played a positive role in Syria,” Tetekin says when I raise this. “No question—we have helped save that country from the savagery of Islamic State. But something should have been done a long time ago.
“We shouldn’t have allowed the destruction of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya. Not socialist countries, but independent countries. It was only when it came round to Syria that Putin realized: ‘They are depriving us of allies.’ Only after a long list of foreign policy failures did Putin finally act.
“Then there’s Crimea. But Crimea has always been part of Russia.”
The current geographical Ukraine, he notes wryly, is actually a product of the Soviet Union.
Shortly after the Russian Revolution, Lenin took the decision to reinforce the base for Bolshevism in agrarian Ukraine by adding highly industrialized areas such as the Donbass, Dnepropetrovsk, and Kharkov, which speak Russian to this day.
In 1939, Stalin added the far western edge that had previously been part of the Austrian empire and then Poland and which has been the most receptive to fascist ideas; and Crimea was transferred from Russia to Ukraine by Khrushchev in the 1950s.
Tetekin says the communists are actually “more resolute” in pressing for stronger support for the anti-fascist resistance in Ukraine and describes the Kremlin as “timid” on the matter.
He is unconvinced that Putin is behind the recent poisoning in Britain of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, either. “I’m a strong opponent of the current regime, but I’m convinced that Russia has nothing to do with it. Whose interests does it serve? Not Russia’s.
“After the doping scandal, the furor over interference in the U.S. elections, with the World Cup coming up, this is the last thing Putin wants.”
In contrast, the poisoning could be seen to serve the interests of the British establishment, he feels: A renewed fear of Russia could foster greater solidarity among EU governments, easing Brexit negotiations, while the scandal has also allowed the British press to claim Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is in Moscow’s pocket for asking subversive questions such as what the results of the police investigation are.
Russian Communist Party political advisor Vyacheslav Tetekin. | Karl Weiss / Morning Star Double agents like Skripal, he reminds me, are always being watched by British as well as Russian intelligence.
As for the rest, he has no time for the government. When I mention that some on the left in Western countries regard Putin as an improvement on Yeltsin, he is exasperated.
“It’s the same thing as Yeltsin,” he exclaims. “The Yeltsin team is still in power. The same ideology, the same approach, often enough the same people.
“Manufacturing has been destroyed. Putin talks of new missiles. But the electronics are foreign. The machine tools are foreign. The country needs reindustrialization. It needs change,” he repeats again.
How will that change come? “People can feel there is something fundamentally wrong,” he says. “Change will come from below. We hope it will come via the ballot box.
“But if the current downward economic trend continues, the question of power will be solved in the streets.”
This article originally appeared in Morning Star.
Tags:
Communist Party
Elections
Russia
Youth
mercredi 28 mars 2018
Descubren los restos de una momia de 2.500 años en un ataúd que se creía vacío (VIDEO)
Publicado: 28 mar 2018 15:21 GMT | Última actualización: 28 mar 2018 19:16 GMT
El sarcófago y su contenido fueron escaneados con láser para crear modelos 3D y luego sometidos a una tomografía computarizada.
Facebook / @NicholsonMuseumUoS
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Después de 150 años almacenado en las instalaciones de la Universidad de Sídney (Australia), un ataúd egipcio que se creía vacio reveló contener los restos de una momia de 2.500 años de antigüedad, informa ABC News.
Arqueólogos del Museo Nicholson, perteneciente a esa universidad —que alberga la mayor colección de antigüedades de Australia—, fueron testigos del asombroso hallazgo luego de inspeccionar detalladamente su contenido tras décadas sin ser tomado en cuenta. Sin embargo, la momia no se encuentra intacta y los restos al parecer fueron alterados.
De acuerdo con los jeroglíficos que presenta el féretro, se sabía que este había pertenecido a una sacerdotisa llamada Mer-Neith-it-es. Pero no siempre esos ataúdes contienen los restos para los que estaban originalmente destinados: a menudo las momias eran retiradas de su sarcófago para volver a usarlo posteriormente. Además, los vendedores de antigüedades egipcias solían colocar otros cuerpos momificados dentro, si un cliente lo solicitaba.
Como parte del esfuerzo por descifrar la identidad de la momia, el ataúd y su contenido fueron escaneados con láser para crear modelos 3D, y luego sometidos a una tomografía computarizada. El radiólogo y profesor universitario John Magnussen aseguró que, a pesar de que los restos habían sido alterados, todavía hay suficientes pistas para resolver el misterio.
"Es más viejo" de lo que se creía, sentenció. "Tiene algunos cambios degenerativos tempranos y el sacro está fusionado, por lo que sabemos definitivamente que es un adulto", agregó Magnussen, y precisó que el escaneo permitió determinar que se trataba de un individuo de más de 30 años.
La exploración también reveló que los pies y los huesos del tobillo estaban en gran parte intactos. "Las uñas de los pies son fantásticas para la datación por radiocarbono", aseguró por su parte la egiptóloga Connie Lord.
La experta destacó la similitud entre la resina utilizada para rellenar la cavidad craneana y evitar su deterioro —tras la extracción del cerebro— y aquella encontrada en el sarcófago de la momia más famosa jamás descubierta: la de Tutankamón.
"Podría decirnos mucho. Es un descubrimiento increíble. No recuerdo que alguien haya encontrado algo como esto. Podría ser muy raro", aseveró Lord.
Los estudios para identificar los restos podrían llevar meses o incluso años. El ataúd de Mer-Neith-it-es será exhibido en un nuevo museo que se inaugurará en 2020 en los terrenos de la universidad.
Tema: Arqueología
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Canada’s entry into Mali strife: Another Afghanistan fiasco
Mar 282018
The March 19 announcement that Canada will send “peacekeepers” to the west African country of Mali is an ominous signal that under Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, Canada is increasing its role in dirty wars intended to make the world safe for imperialist exploitation. The deepening crisis in Mali has its origins in a variety of factors, from the history of intervention by French imperialism, to the overthrow of Libya’s Col. Gaddafi, and the scramble for hydrocarbons and uranium wealth by western-based corporate interests.
The resource-rich Sahel desert area, which spans Africa from west to east below the Sahara, has been devastated by the 2011 NATO war in Libya and the resulting French imperialist intervention in Mali. Violence across the region has escalated since a 2012 coup in Mali ousted a central government which had opposed French pressures to establish military bases in the country. According to the UN, 5 million people have fled their homes and 24 million people need humanitarian assistance in the region.
France currently has 4,000 soldiers in Mali. Under “Operation Barkhane”, 1,000 French troops are to be stationed in Mali indefinitely, ready to make a “rapid and efficient intervention in the event of a crisis” in the words of former French president Francois Hollande. Since his election as President last May, Emmanuel Macron has pushed to intensify the imperialist war launched by Hollande in France’s former colonial empire.
The European Union is preparing to double its funding for the G5 Sahel force, set up by Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger to fight Islamist jihadist forces. The G5 operates in coordination with French troops and the MINUSMA, the 12,000-strong UN “peacekeeping” force, fighting Tuareg fighters objectively allied with islamist forces such as AQMI (Al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb) or Ançar Dine, groups that flourished as a result of the destruction of Libya. To date, 162 UN troops have been killed in Mali, many of them the victims of explosive devices, similar to the long war in Afghanistan.
The situation has resulted in growing tensions between Europe, the United States, and China, which is an increasingly influential economic power in Africa. Although Macron says that French troops are engaged in Mali to “fight terrorism as long as it takes,” it appears that this military presence is mainly intended to protect imperialist interests.
The G5 force will cost an estimated 423 million euros in its first year alone, and Macron has called for huge new military spending increases. The impoverished Sahel countries under French domination are expected to provide most of the cannon fodder in this “anti-terrorist” war, and France has been forced to seek financial help from the EU, and also from key imperialist allies such as Germany and the United States. But Washington has declined to finance the G5, and it now appears that Canada’s initial contribution of “non-combat” troops to this imperialist misadventure is Justin Trudeau’s way of fulfilling his pledge to send “peacekeepers” into African conflicts. The government is tentatively sending two transport helicopters and four attack helicopters, for medical evacuations. But Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance warns that this number could change. The financial and human costs of a growing military mission in Mali will inevitably rise, and Canadian troops will sooner or later be involved in combat operations causing civilian casualties. If the Libyan disaster is any indication, the outcome can only be more chaos and destruction.
The Communist Party of Canada condemns this mission, which has nothing to do with keeping the peace, but does embroil Canada in a complex regional conflict involving militias, terrorist groups, and a weak central government which controls only the south of Mali. We demand that no Canadian troops should be sent to defend French imperialist interests in Africa, and that the fun
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Canada’s entry into Mali strife: Another Afghanistan fiasco
Mar
28
2018
The March 19 announcement that Canada will send “peacekeepers” to the west African country of Mali is an ominous signal that under Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, Canada is increasing its role in dirty wars intended to make the world safe for imperialist exploitation.
The deepening crisis in Mali has its origins in a variety of factors, from the history of intervention by French imperialism, to the overthrow of Libya’s Col. Gaddafi, and the scramble for hydrocarbons and uranium wealth by western-based corporate interests.
The resource-rich Sahel desert area, which spans Africa from west to east below the Sahara, has been devastated by the 2011 NATO war in Libya and the resulting French imperialist intervention in Mali. Violence across the region has escalated since a 2012 coup in Mali ousted a central government which had opposed French pressures to establish military bases in the country. According to the UN, 5 million people have fled their homes and 24 million people need humanitarian assistance in the region.
France currently has 4,000 soldiers in Mali. Under “Operation Barkhane”, 1,000 French troops are to be stationed in Mali indefinitely, ready to make a “rapid and efficient intervention in the event of a crisis” in the words of former French president Francois Hollande. Since his election as President last May, Emmanuel Macron has pushed to intensify the imperialist war launched by Hollande in France’s former colonial empire.
The European Union is preparing to double its funding for the G5 Sahel force, set up by Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger to fight Islamist jihadist forces. The G5 operates in coordination with French troops and the MINUSMA, the 12,000-strong UN “peacekeeping” force, fighting Tuareg fighters objectively allied with islamist forces such as AQMI (Al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb) or Ançar Dine, groups that flourished as a result of the destruction of Libya. To date, 162 UN troops have been killed in Mali, many of them the victims of explosive devices, similar to the long war in Afghanistan.
The situation has resulted in growing tensions between Europe, the United States, and China, which is an increasingly influential economic power in Africa. Although Macron says that French troops are engaged in Mali to “fight terrorism as long as it takes,” it appears that this military presence is mainly intended to protect imperialist interests.
The G5 force will cost an estimated 423 million euros in its first year alone, and Macron has called for huge new military spending increases. The impoverished Sahel countries under French domination are expected to provide most of the cannon fodder in this “anti-terrorist” war, and France has been forced to seek financial help from the EU, and also from key imperialist allies such as Germany and the United States. But Washington has declined to finance the G5, and it now appears that Canada’s initial contribution of “non-combat” troops to this imperialist misadventure is Justin Trudeau’s way of fulfilling his pledge to send “peacekeepers” into African conflicts. The government is tentatively sending two transport helicopters and four attack helicopters, for medical evacuations. But Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance warns that this number could change. The financial and human costs of a growing military mission in Mali will inevitably rise, and Canadian troops will sooner or later be involved in combat operations causing civilian casualties. If the Libyan disaster is any indication, the outcome can only be more chaos and destruction.
The Communist Party of Canada condemns this mission, which has nothing to do with keeping the peace, but does embroil Canada in a complex regional conflict involving militias, terrorist groups, and a weak central government which controls only the south of Mali. We demand that no Canadian troops should be sent to defend French imperialist interests in Africa, and that the funds earmarked for this mission should instead be devoted to non-military humanitarian aid projects which can benefit the people of Mali and the rest of the Sahel.
Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canadads earmarked for this mission should instead be devoted to non-military humanitarian aid projects which can benefit the people of Mali and the rest of the Sahel.
Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada
Canada’s entry into Mali strife: Another Afghanistan fiasco
Mar 282018
The March 19 announcement that Canada will send “peacekeepers” to the west African country of Mali is an ominous signal that under Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, Canada is increasing its role in dirty wars intended to make the world safe for imperialist exploitation. The deepening crisis in Mali has its origins in a variety of factors, from the history of intervention by French imperialism, to the overthrow of Libya’s Col. Gaddafi, and the scramble for hydrocarbons and uranium wealth by western-based corporate interests.
The resource-rich Sahel desert area, which spans Africa from west to east below the Sahara, has been devastated by the 2011 NATO war in Libya and the resulting French imperialist intervention in Mali. Violence across the region has escalated since a 2012 coup in Mali ousted a central government which had opposed French pressures to establish military bases in the country. According to the UN, 5 million people have fled their homes and 24 million people need humanitarian assistance in the region.
France currently has 4,000 soldiers in Mali. Under “Operation Barkhane”, 1,000 French troops are to be stationed in Mali indefinitely, ready to make a “rapid and efficient intervention in the event of a crisis” in the words of former French president Francois Hollande. Since his election as President last May, Emmanuel Macron has pushed to intensify the imperialist war launched by Hollande in France’s former colonial empire.
The European Union is preparing to double its funding for the G5 Sahel force, set up by Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger to fight Islamist jihadist forces. The G5 operates in coordination with French troops and the MINUSMA, the 12,000-strong UN “peacekeeping” force, fighting Tuareg fighters objectively allied with islamist forces such as AQMI (Al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb) or Ançar Dine, groups that flourished as a result of the destruction of Libya. To date, 162 UN troops have been killed in Mali, many of them the victims of explosive devices, similar to the long war in Afghanistan.
The situation has resulted in growing tensions between Europe, the United States, and China, which is an increasingly influential economic power in Africa. Although Macron says that French troops are engaged in Mali to “fight terrorism as long as it takes,” it appears that this military presence is mainly intended to protect imperialist interests.
The G5 force will cost an estimated 423 million euros in its first year alone, and Macron has called for huge new military spending increases. The impoverished Sahel countries under French domination are expected to provide most of the cannon fodder in this “anti-terrorist” war, and France has been forced to seek financial help from the EU, and also from key imperialist allies such as Germany and the United States. But Washington has declined to finance the G5, and it now appears that Canada’s initial contribution of “non-combat” troops to this imperialist misadventure is Justin Trudeau’s way of fulfilling his pledge to send “peacekeepers” into African conflicts. The government is tentatively sending two transport helicopters and four attack helicopters, for medical evacuations. But Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance warns that this number could change. The financial and human costs of a growing military mission in Mali will inevitably rise, and Canadian troops will sooner or later be involved in combat operations causing civilian casualties. If the Libyan disaster is any indication, the outcome can only be more chaos and destruction.
The Communist Party of Canada condemns this mission, which has nothing to do with keeping the peace, but does embroil Canada in a complex regional conflict involving militias, terrorist groups, and a weak central government which controls only the south of Mali. We demand that no Canadian troops should be sent to defend French imperialist interests in Africa, and that the funds earmarked for this mission should instead be devoted to non-military humanitarian aid projects which can benefit the people of Mali and the rest of the Sahel.
Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada
mardi 27 mars 2018
The Book on Lenin That Bhagat Singh Was Reading Before Hanging Is More Relevant Today http://peoplesvoice.ca/…/the-book-on-lenin-that-bhagat-sin…/
Lenin stood for values that are despised by the Hindu Right under BJP. Rather than learning from Lenin and acknowledging the role he played in inspiring the revolutionaries who died fighting for India’s freedom, the BJP supporters are recklessly trying to destroy Leninism by targeting his statues, without realizing that Lenin is beyond these icons and continues to rule the hearts of the people everywhere. You can break his statues in pieces, but you cannot kill Lenin, who symbolizes an ideology that is much greater in size than the politics of hate preached and practiced by the BJP.
The Book on Lenin That Bhagat Singh Was Reading Before Hanging Is More Relevant Today http://peoplesvoice.ca/…/the-book-on-lenin-that-bhagat-sin…/
Lenin stood for values that are despised by the Hindu Right under BJP. Rather than learning from Lenin and acknowledging the role he played in inspiring the revolutionaries who died fighting for India’s freedom, the BJP supporters are recklessly trying to destroy Leninism by targeting his statues, without realizing that Lenin is beyond these icons and continues to rule the hearts of the people everywhere. You can break his statues in pieces, but you cannot kill Lenin, who symbolizes an ideology that is much greater in size than the politics of hate preached and practiced by the BJP.
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