May 2 Protest at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Hosted by Odessa Solidarity Campaign

See event on Facebook

Thursday at 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EDT

At 3350 M St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20007

May 2, 2019, will mark the 5th anniversary of the right-wing mob attack on the House of Trade Unions in Odessa, Ukraine. At least 42 people were murdered when the building was set on fire, with many more injured. This attack took place just months after the U.S-backed coup that brought a right-wing government to power in Ukraine.

Every May 2 since the massacre, the people of Odessa have braved fascist thugs to come out and memorialize those who died and demand an international investigation into the killings. And every year on May 2, people around the world hold actions in solidarity with Odessa.

The Odessa Solidarity Campaign was founded in 2016 after a group of U.S. antiwar activists traveled to Odessa to attend the 2nd anniversary memorial. Our purpose is to support the demand for an international investigation and to demand an end to the repression of the victims’ relatives and of journalists trying to uncover the truth about who was responsible for the massacre.

Join us on May 2 from noon to 1 pm in front of the Ukrainian Embassy as we remind the U.S. and Ukrainian governments that the world will never forget what happened five years ago. We demand Accountability and Justice!

For more information, please see: www.odessasolidaritycampaign.org

ALSO, APRIL 12 in NEW YORK CITY: A PUBLIC MEETING
https://www.facebook.com/events/310413196262478/

There are few things that illustrate the ethical bankruptcy of capitalism as much as Jeff Bezos’ obscene amassed wealth. Bezos is the richest person in the world, raking in $236 million a minute, with a net worth of $153-plus billion. His world empire is built on the backs of a brutally exploited workforce, wrested from the communities in which Amazon operates.

To put this into context: it would take $20 billion to end homelessness; $30 billion to end world hunger. If Jeff Bezos had $50 billion less, he would still have another $100 billion. The question is, how many pairs of shoes can one wear, how many yachts can one sail on, how many houses can one person live in? The absurdity is obvious.

If you think that Bezos’ wealth trickles down in the form of taxes that provide services, note that this year Amazon paid $0 on $11.2 billion in profits and received a $129 million dollar return.  

How do we fight back?

No one can deny that it has been a difficult period for working-class struggle. Workers are forced to compete with each other globally, which has lowered wages and disempowered workers. If autoworkers complain in Detroit, auto bosses threaten to move to Mexico or to some other place where labor costs are lower. To make matters worse, giants like Walmart, FedEx and Amazon seem to have endless resources to thwart unionization.

We have also seen decades of defeats for unions to the point that union membership has dwindled to 10.7 percent, with the private sector dropping to 6.4 percent, leaving younger workers with little understanding of what being organized means.

As painful as this is, we shouldn’t despair, as these same dynamics have opened up incredible opportunities. We should look at the opportunities.

There are now approximately 351,000 Amazon workers worldwide and 280,000 in the U.S. alone. These figures are growing every day and are already out of date.

There are thousands of Amazon warehouse workers laboring under one roof, part of the logistics supply chain, making the power potential enormous. The “just-in-time” and “lean production” methods that now dominate the supply chain can give us the upper hand.

While technology has created a global working class, it has also opened up the means to organize and communicate worker-to-worker on a worldwide basis.

That process is beginning.

Amazon is unionized in many of the European countries, and workers’ strikes and struggles crossed borders in this past year. On Nov. 23, 2018, “Black Friday,” Amazon warehouse workers went on strike and held protests in Germany, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom under the slogan of “We are not robots.” Amazon workers from Poland have organized with German workers.

The following are modest proposals:

National Union Coordinating Council for Amazon Workers

There are many unions, which to their credit are looking at unionizing or representing Amazon workers, including the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, the Teamsters, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, the Service Employees International Union, the American Postal Workers Union and the Communication Workers of America. (There may be others that I have left off or some on this list who are not currently actively engaged.)

What’s needed is a “National Union Coordinating Council” that includes all interested unions and the AFL-CIO leadership. Sectarian interests have to be set aside so that those who are committed can share resources, build adequate funds, engage in public campaigns and work jointly both nationally and locally.

An organized Amazon could revive the union movement and reverberate in all sectors, and no one union, whatever its size, can do it alone.

It’s a big job for those of us who are community members and Amazon workers to convince the unions, but it’s an important challenge.

Organize “Workers and Community Unions”

While the traditional trade union movement remains an important tool for workers, we should look for every avenue possible to advance workers’ power.

The Somalian workers demanding justice in Shakopee, Minn., outside of Minneapolis, are an exciting example. Through the Atwood Center, which represents East African workers, and with community support, they staged protests and successfully forced concessions from Amazon. The workers and the Center have led several protests and more recently, on March 10, 2019, a three-hour strike of workers in the stow department.

This was preceded by campaigns in Seattle, which set the stage for public pressure, most notably by Bernie Sanders, that led to Bezos’ announcement of raising wages to $15 an hour. Recently, widespread community protests in New York City against the building of a second Amazon headquarters forced Bezos to cancel the plans. Protests were aimed at making Amazon accountable to the community.

What are some of the concrete challenges in the Baltimore warehouses? Why would a community approach that is aimed at these workers be helpful, maybe more than any other at this point?

First, Amazon is largely a revolving door when it comes to workers; thousands of its workers are precarious, cycled back and forth between the community and seasonal work. You can ask almost any working-class family in Baltimore, and they have a relative or know someone who has worked at Amazon or is working there now.

At one warehouse, high school students worked the all-night shift, so that they could attend school during the day. The work is brutal, and it’s also common for people to work several months or even less before being forced to quit. Write-ups for failure to make production rates are done to weed out slower workers.

It makes exploitation at Amazon a community affair. The advantage of communitywide organizing is three fold: one, it serves as general education and organization; two, it provides the necessary rock-solid support that can encourage struggle inside (We’ve got your back!); and three, it harnesses broader working-class power against Amazon.

Finally, it may just be this kind of experimentation that revives a new chapter in working-class organizing in the U.S. Remember the heroic “Rising of 20,000” young women garment workers in 1909. Before this general strike, it was thought that women were incapable of being organized. And don’t forget the sit-down strikes, a new tactic that turned the labor movement upside down and paved the way for industrial worker organizing.

My appeal to youth

There is a whole new generation of youth who have turned against capitalism as a viable system precisely because it has offered them nothing. Many of them see themselves as socialists and some as revolutionaries.

Think of getting a job at Amazon!

If you can commit to staying and doing the patient work of organizing even better. But at a minimum, an Amazon warehouse job will give you the kind of education and understanding of exploitation that’s better than any textbook can do alone. It will increase your ability to empathize with and understand other workers. It will teach patience, humility and respect.

There are lots of mistakes that we will all make, of that I’m sure, but there is no simple road to changing the world and no way to do it without the working class.

• Part 1: Robotics on steroids
• Part 2: 21st century exploitation

The series “Eyewitness Amazon” was written by Sharon Black, a former Amazon worker.  The series began while the author was working but the conclusion was written after she was forced to resign as a result of several write-ups for failure to make production quotas in the “picker department.”

This spring, extreme weather devastated reservations in several Midwest states. Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Cheyenne River, Ponca, Standing Rock and several more reservations were all impacted by blizzards and flooding.

While farming and other communities in the region have been hard-hit, already strapped reservations — and, in particular, Pine Ridge in South Dakota — are bearing the greatest burden from the record flooding.

On Pine Ridge, home of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Nation, families were stranded for weeks as already poor roads became and stayed impassable. More than 1,500 people were displaced, and it will take millions of dollars to repair the damaged infrastructure. Hundreds of people ran out of food and drinking water while waiting for help.

Four deaths that occurred as a result of the flooding have now been confirmed on Pine Ridge.

Pine Ridge tribal chair Julian Bear Runner as well as the state of South Dakota pleaded for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide help. “Rather than declaring emergencies that don’t exist, President Trump needs to pay attention to the ones that do,” said Oglala Tribal Chair Julian Bear Runner, in a statement referencing Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the U.S. border with Mexico. “I call upon him to send us help before lives are further disrupted.”

But the U.S. government refused to declare a state of disaster, just as they had failed to help Pine Ridge after a destructive July 2018 hailstorm that brought tornado-like winds and hailstones the size of softballs, damaging about 550 houses there.

The Oglala Lakota of Pine Ridge did not sit idly by awaiting help from an uncaring government. “Rez aid” — sometimes jokingly referred to as “Rez Cross” — was in high gear, with Native people and others working round the clock for weeks to deliver water, food and other desperately needed items on foot, on horseback, on farm equipment and any way they could get to some of the most heavily flooded areas.

Puerto Rico, New Orleans, Haiti and other places have also been devastated as a result of climate change, and the U.S. government has largely turned its face away from their suffering, too — the same U.S. government that has money to support Zionist repression of Palestinians and money to rebuild a Catholic church in France.

One effect of this has been to increase solidarity among the many impacted communities. For instance, during a national news appearance, San Juan’s mayor, Carmen Yulín Cruz, referenced the situation at Pine Ridge and FEMA’s failure to provide for communities of color.

On the front lines resisting pipelines

In the midst of the flooding crisis, Trump issued a presidential permit to allow the Keystone XL pipeline (“KXL”) to cross the Canadian border into the U.S. “Trump’s decision to ram KXL through while our families suffer feels like being kicked while we’re down,” Bear Runner said.

The Trump administration is doing its best to increase the impact of climate change, grabbing lands wholesale for exploitation and ramming through multiple pipeline projects. Vulnerable communities in the U.S. and worldwide are directly impacted by climate collapse. The massive use and extraction of fossil fuels directly link to the flooding, droughts and other extreme weather that are felt broadly.

Attorney Chase Iron Eyes, public relations director for the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said that “Trump’s insistence on circumventing court decisions designed to reign in oil pipeline development on, or near, Sioux tribal land is particularly egregious given our current suffering.” He continued, “Mr. Trump apparently has no respect for scientific or Indigenous perspectives on what is causing these super storms, and he has no respect for the rule of law.”

Indigenous people — at the front lines of the resistance to pipelines — are particularly targeted everywhere. In the U.S., corporations do not want to see a recurrence of the type of resistance that occurred at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline, where thousands joined to protect the water and more than 800 people were arrested, with the stiffest sentences imposed on Indigenous water protectors such as Red Fawn Fallis.

The energy corporations have directly colluded with police forces and private security firms as well as legislators and regulators. According to In These Times, energy companies have sponsored bills in at least seven states to criminalize resistance to their corporate terrorism, and at least eleven more such bills have been introduced.

In South Dakota, while Oglala homelands were still underwater, Gov. Kristi Noem signed into law two bills designed to help the state government police what are expected to be massive, Indigenous-led demonstrations against KXL construction. One of the laws creates new civil penalties for “riot boosting,” which would apply not only to so-called “riot” participants but to anyone who “directs, advises, encourages, or solicits other persons participating in the riot to acts of force or violence.”

On April 11, British police dragged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had lived and worked for nearly seven years, after the turncoat government of President Lenín Moreno revoked his political asylum.

A “bail jumping” charge used to arrest Assange was merely a pretext for the U.S.-ordered assault.

“The U.K. has no sovereignty! The U.K. must resist this attempt by the Trump administration!” Assange yelled out as he was removed from the embassy. Only one TV camera was present for the arrest — from the Russian RT news service. British and U.S. media, many of whom used WikiLeaks revelations when it suited them to do so, stayed conspicuously away.

As soon as Assange was in custody, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed its indictment of Assange and requested his extradition. The Trump administration charged him with helping Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who downloaded damning evidence of U.S. war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo, and made it public through WikiLeaks.

The charges listed in the extradition request carry a maximum prison term of five years. But it is widely believed that once Assange is on U.S. soil, he will be charged with additional crimes under the Espionage Act — which carries punishments up to and including the death penalty. Legally, Britain could not extradite Assange if it knew he might face capital punishment.

James Goodale, an attorney for the New York Times during the 1971 Pentagon Papers case, called the indictment “a snare and a delusion” by the U.S. government to divert attention from what is really an attack on all journalists.

Meanwhile, Assange is being held in London’s maximum security Belmarsh Prison, known as “Britain’s Guantánamo” for its role following the Sept. 11, 2001, attack in New York. The overcrowded prison includes more than 100 people being held “indefinitely,” according to a 2018 commission that investigated conditions inside the facility.

Daily protests are being held outside Belmarsh demanding Assange’s release and no extradition to the U.S. Protests have also been held at U.S., British and Ecuadorian sites worldwide.

Exposing imperialist crimes

While the corporate media and Washington officials promote the lie that Assange “hacked” Pentagon computers, the actual indictment only spells out that he helped Manning cover her digital tracks to avoid detection — something covered by the First Amendment right of journalists to protect their sources.

Manning, the heroic trans veteran who spent seven years in military prison under President Obama, was thrown back in jail in March when she refused to testify before a grand jury that was fishing for material to use against Assange. This was the tipoff that an attack on the WikiLeaks founder was fast approaching.

Manning spent almost a month in solitary confinement before protests finally won her release into the general population at the Truesdale Detention Center in Virginia on April 4. But she is still jailed and could be held up to 18 months.

For more than a decade, WikiLeaks has been a vital source for exposing U.S. and Western imperialist crimes against the peoples of the world and here at home. To give just one example, a leaked Pentagon guidebook on “unconventional warfare” published by the site exposed some of the ways U.S.-dominated international bodies like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are used in these operations.

Just days after his detention, Assange received the European Parliament group European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) 2019 Award for Journalists, Whistleblowers and Defenders of the Right to Information.

WikiLeaks also published leaked emails from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election campaign that showed how Clinton’s team conspired to steal primary election victories from Bernie Sanders. Enraged Democratic Party leaders tried to tie these exposures to the now-debunked “Russiagate” conspiracy theory and the Mueller investigation of President Donald Trump’s alleged collaboration with the Russian government.

Since Assange’s arrest, Wall Street hacks like Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York continue pushing the lie that he is a “Russian agent.” Hillary Clinton, who as secretary of state oversaw murderous regime change operations from Libya to Honduras, said that Assange must “answer for what he has done.”

While campaigning for president, Trump was happy to use WikiLeaks’ revelations for his own political gain. But that changed the moment he assumed power and his own regime’s crimes might be exposed. Trump’s CIA director, Mike Pompeo, declared WikiLeaks an enemy of the U.S. “akin to a hostile foreign intelligence service,” and the administration turned up the heat on Ecuador to hand over Assange.

Expressing the united contempt of the Trump regime and the Republican and Democratic establishment, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin told CNN that Assange is “our property and we can get the facts and truth from him.”

Manchin’s arrogant statement revealed more than he intended. He and the capitalist class he represents believe that not only Assange but all workers and oppressed people are their “property” and that it is their right to withhold the truth about their crimes from the people.

Worldwide solidarity

Assange’s arrest and the threat of extradition have prompted protests and solidarity from progressive and revolutionary organizations worldwide, as well as whistleblowers, independent journalists, artists and political prisoners.

The people of Ecuador were especially outraged by the Moreno government’s capitulation to U.S. imperialism. On April 16-17, protesters fought running battles with police in the streets of Quito as they denounced the handover of Assange.

Former President Rafael Correa, a close ally of Venezuela and Cuba who granted asylum to Assange, declared Moreno “the greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history. Moreno is a corrupt man, but what he has done is a crime that humanity will never forget.”

Alicia Castro, former Argentinian ambassador to Britain, wrote a statement called “My Friend Julian Assange.” Castro explained, “Unlike other platforms, WikiLeaks does not reveal information related to a certain political affiliation, but publishes the information it receives, once it is accurately deciphered and checked, and without revealing the source. It has published more than 10 million classified documents revealing the secrets that once belonged to a small elite linked to the military-industrial complex.”

Cuban 5 hero Gerardo Hernández, who spent 16 years in U.S. prisons for defending his socialist homeland from right-wing terrorists, told Trabajadores newspaper: “I think what is happening to Assange is a shame. We live in a world where people spread lies, half-truths, fake news. Assange and his group disclosed factual information that exposed the global interests of the powers that be, and now they are punishing him for it. His crime is finding the truth and revealing it.”

Hernández, now a deputy of the Cuban National Assembly, said his own experience taught him the dangers that Assange faces if he is extradited to the U.S. “We witnessed how they were always trying to distort the truth as a way of demonizing us.”

British singer-songwriter Roger Waters explained that Washington and London want to hush up “matters of torture or incarceration of innocent people. And also, what they’re doing — Trump and the rest of them, and Theresa May — is to try to frighten would-be Julian Assanges who may provide this incredibly important service for the rest of us in the future.”

It will take a hard fight to stop Julian Assange’s extradition and win freedom for him and Chelsea Manning, just as today the hard fight to liberate Mumia Abu-Jamal and other truth-telling political prisoners continues. It will be crucial to reach out to the workers of this country and confront them with the question: “Do you have the right to know what Trump, Clinton and their ilk do in your name?”

Today, April 17, is the anniversary of the United State’s 1961 military invasion at Playa Girón. The Cuban people’s resolute response in defense of the Revolution and socialism, within only 72 hours, produced the first military defeat of imperialism in America

Author: Granma | internet@granma.cu

April 18, 2019 13:04:42

Revolutionary Government Declaration

Today, April 17, is the anniversary of the launching of the United State’s 1961 military invasion at Playa Girón. (Bay of Pigs) The Cuban people’s resolute response in defense of the Revolution and socialism, within only 72 hours, produced the first military defeat of imperialism in America.

Strangely, the date was chosen by the current U.S. government to announce new aggressive measures against Cuba and to reinforce their implementation of the Monroe Doctrine.

The Revolutionary Government rejects, in the strongest terms possible, the decision to now allow action to be taken in U.S. courts against Cuban and foreign entities, and to aggravate impediments to entering the United States faced by leaders and families of companies that legitimately invest in Cuba, in properties that were nationalized. These are actions established in the Helms-Burton Ac,t which was denounced long ago by the international community, and which the Cuban nation has repudiated since its promulgation and implementation in 1996, with the fundamental goal of imposing colonial tutelage on our country.

We repudiate, as well, the decision to reinstate limits on remittances that Cuban residents in the U.S. send to their families and friends, to further restrict travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba, and impose additional financial sanctions.

We strongly denounce references that attacks against U.S. diplomats have occurred in Cuba.

They attempt to justify their actions, as is customary, with lies and coercion.

Army General Raúl Castro stated this past April 10: “Cuba is blamed for all evils, using lies in the worst style of Hitler’s propaganda.”

The U.S. government resorts to slander, to cover up and justify the obvious failure of its sinister coup maneuver, designating in Washington an impostor “President” for Venezuela,

They accuse Cuba of being responsible for the strength and determination shown by the Bolivarian Chavista government, the country’s people, and the civic-military union defending their nation’s sovereignty. They lie shamelessly, alleging that Cuba has thousands of military and security troops in Venezuela, wielding influence, and determining what happens in this sister country.

They have the cynicism to blame Cuba for the economic and social situation Venezuela is facing after years of brutal economic sanctions, conceived and implemented by the United States and their allies, precisely to economically asphyxiate the country and cause suffering within the population.

Washington goes so far as to pressure governments in other countries to attempt to persuade Cuba to withdraw this unlikely supposed military and security aid, and even to stop lending support and solidarity to Venezuela.

The current U.S. government is well-known, within the country itself and internationally, for its unscrupulous use of lies as a tool in domestic and foreign policy. This is an old habit among imperialism’s practices.

The images are still fresh of President George W. Bush, with the support of current National Security John Bolton, indecently lying about supposed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a lie that served as the pretext to invade this Middle Eastern country.

Recorded in history, as well, are the bombing of the Maine anchored in Havana, and the self-inflicted Gulf of Tonkin incident, episodes that served as pretexts to unleash brutal wars in Cuba and Vietnam.

We cannot forget that the United States used fake insignia painted on the planes that carried out bombings here as a prelude to the Playa Girón invasion, to hide the fact that they were U.S. aircraft.

It should be clear that the U.S. slanders are based on an absolute, deliberate lie. Their intelligence agencies have more than enough evidence, surely more than any other state, to know that Cuba has no troops in Venezuela, and does not participate in military or security operations, even though it is the sovereign right of independent countries to determine how they cooperate in the area of defense, which is not a U.S. prerogative to question.

Those making this accusation have more than 250,000 soldiers and 800 military bases abroad, some of them in our hemisphere.

This government also knows, as Cuba has repeatedly stated publicly, that the more than 20,000 Cuban collaborators, more than 60% women, are undertaking in this South American country the same work currently being done by another 11,000 professionals from our country in 83 nations; contributing to the provision of social basic services, fundamentally in healthcare, which has been recognized by the international community.

It should also be absolutely clear that our firm solidarity with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is Cuba’s right as a sovereign state, and also a duty that is part of our tradition and among the irrevocable principles of the Cuban Revolution’s foreign policy.

No threat of reprisal against Cuba, no ultimatum or pressure on the part of the current U.S. government will dissuade the Cuban nation’s internationalist vocation, despite the devastating human and economic damage caused by the genocidal blockade to our people.

It is worth remembering that thuggish threats and ultimatums have been used in the past, when Cuba’s internationalists supported liberation movements in Africa, while the United States supported the opprobrious apartheid regime. Cuba was expected to renounce its solidarity commitments with the peoples of Africa in exchange for a promise of forgiveness, as if the Revolution needed to be pardoned by imperialism.

At that time, Cuba rejected the pressure, as we reject it today, with the greatest disdain.

Army General Raúl Castro recalled this past April 10, “Over 60 years, facing aggression and threats, Cubans have shown the iron will to resist and overcome the most difficult circumstances. Despite its immense power, imperialism does not possess the capacity to break the dignity of a united people, proud of its history and of the freedom conquered with so much sacrifice.”

The Cuban government calls on all members of the international community and U.S. citizens to put an end this irrational escalation and the hostile, aggressive policy of the Donald Trump government. Member states of the United Nations rightly demand, year after year almost unanimously, an end to this economic war. The peoples and governments of our region must ensure that the principles of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace prevail, for the benefit of all.

The President of the Councils of State and Ministers Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez declared this past April 13, “Cuba continues to have confidence in its strengths, its dignity, and also in the strength and dignity of other sovereign, independent nations. But Cuba also continues to believe in the people of the United States, the homeland of Lincoln, who are ashamed of those who act beyond the boundaries of universal law, in the name of the entire nation.”

Once again, Cuba repudiates the lies and the threats, and reiterates that its sovereignty, independence, and commitment to the cause of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, are not negotiable.

Two days before the commemoration of the 58th anniversary of the victory at Playa Girón, a historic site within our national territory, where mercenary forces backed by imperialism bit the dust of defeat, the Cuban Revolution reiterates its resolute determination to confront the aggressive escalation of the United States, and prevail.

Havana, April 17, 2019.

In early April, longstanding governments were toppled by protest movements and military coups in the North African countries of Algeria and Sudan.

The contradictions of these governments are real. That must be acknowledged. What must also be acknowledged is that, even if it seems apparent in the corporate media that the protests are a genuine reflection of anger and frustration by the people, it doesn’t answer important questions like: Which class forces are the primary engines of these events? How much influence is coming from the United States and other Western imperialist powers?

Even many progressive media outlets and left organizations reported uncritically on these events, despite the fact that both countries have been frequent targets of Western aggression and “regime change” threats.

Which begs other questions like: What is Washington’s role? Do these changes benefit the oppressed workers of the region, or shift the balance of power further in favor of the U.S. and other imperialist countries? Is there an increased danger of Western intervention, military or otherwise?

Asking these questions does not deny a people’s right to self-determination, but it must be determined if these protests are a reflection of that pursuit or an attempt by bourgeois forces at denying self-determination in favor of imperialism.

A second Arab Spring?

Corporate media, including the Washington Post, have asked if the protests in Sudan and Algeria herald the beginning of a second “Arab Spring.” But the events commonly grouped under that term were very contradictory.

In Egypt and Tunisia, the Arab Spring described genuine popular uprisings against repressive regimes aligned with global imperialism and the Israeli settler state.

But in Syria and Libya, the same slogan served as a cover for counterrevolutionary, pro-imperialist movements, in which Washington and its allies intervened to overthrow governments resistant to U.S. domination.

It should be clear that when the Post, the New York Times, the Guardian, CNN and their like wish for a new Arab Spring, it is the latter version they’re banking on.

Even as events unfold in Sudan and Algeria, a war between rival armies to dominate Libya’s capital, Tripoli, is intensifying — nearly eight years since NATO’s destruction of the country’s central government. The U.S. now has three military bases in Libya.

There are many examples of so-called “color revolutions” — from Yugoslavia in 2000 to Ukraine in 2014 to the ongoing counterrevolutionary attempts in Venezuela today — in which anti-people forces, aided by the U.S., promote an image of popular rebellion to lay the groundwork for an imperialist takeover of a country’s wealth, labor and resources.

These movements rely on misdirecting popular anger over the suffering caused by Western economic warfare into destroying governments that, to one degree or another, have resisted U.S. domination.

It’s important for revolutionary Marxists to look at these movements critically in their historical development. It would be wrong to assume without investigation that a seemingly popular uprising against oppression and injustice is false. But it’s equally wrong to assume without investigation that it is completely progressive — especially when it is praised by the same politicians and media who never fail to denounce fightback movements of workers and oppressed people here at home.

Algeria

The protest movement in Algeria began on Feb. 22, when ailing President Abdelaziz Boutefilka announced plans to run for a fifth term. Underlying the current unrest is high unemployment for college-educated young people, forcing many professionals to emigrate in search of work.

Algeria is one of the world’s major oil producers and is third in the world among natural gas producers. It ranks number 16 in the world in proven oil reserves. State-owned oil company Sonatrach is the largest company in Africa. Algeria’s oil and gas were nationalized after the country’s hard-won independence from France, led by the National Liberation Front (FLN).

Control of its oil wealth allowed Algeria to maintain a degree of independence in its relationship to world imperialism. For example, the FLN-led government, along with Syria, voted against the Arab League’s endorsement of NATO’s “no-fly zone” over Libya in March 2011.

As Reuters noted on April 3, “[Algeria] has almost no foreign debt burden but its hard currency reserves have halved to $70 billion since 2014 due to a slide in volatile oil and gas prices.” Falling oil prices have increased the vulnerability of several countries targeted by the U.S., including Venezuela, Iran and Russia.

President Boutefilka resigned on April 2 after the FLN and Algerian military withdrew support for his administration under pressure from the protest movement. A caretaker government headed by Interim President Abdelkader Bensalah has called new elections for July 4.

Reuters reported that on April 12, following Boutefilka’s resignation, Chevron said it had bought Anadarko Petroleum Corp, which is the biggest foreign firm in terms of oil output in Algeria. This was followed by an announcement by the Algerian state oil firm Sonatrach that it has opened partnership talks with Chevron.

Protests have continued, with some forces demanding the removal of FLN loyalists from government and military posts.

Sudan

In 1989, a coup led by Omar al-Bashir deposed a military dictatorship subordinate to Washington and formed an alliance with Iran. Sudan has been in the gun sights of U.S. imperialism ever since.

By some estimates, before the country’s division in 2011, Sudan may have oil reserves equal to Saudi Arabia — the country with the second-largest proven oil reserves. Sudan also has large deposits of natural gas, high-purity uranium and copper. China has long been Sudan’s top trading partner, helping the country develop its oil and gas infrastructure even while the country was under attack by the West.

President Bill Clinton bombed the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum in 1998. The George W. Bush administration, aided by U.S.-based fundamentalist Christian groups, inflamed a civil war between the predominantly Christian south and the Muslim north. This policy continued under Barack Obama.

Washington gave weapons and money to rebel groups in southern Sudan while carrying out a sophisticated campaign to demonize President al-Bashir’s government, using charges of genocide in the country’s Darfur region. Hollywood stars and pro-imperialist “human rights” groups collaborated to build public opinion for Western-led intervention.

As a result, the imperialist-controlled International Criminal Court in The Hague indicted al-Bashir for crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. The ICC has outstanding “arrest warrants” for al-Bashir.

In 2005, Washington succeeded in dispatching a 10,000-strong United Nations “peacekeeping” force to Sudan. This occupation provided the basis for South Sudan to declare independence in 2011. South Sudan took with it the bulk of Sudan’s oil reserves, precipitating an economic crisis that helped spark today’s protest movement.

It was in this context that al-Bashir’s government attempted to make an accommodation with the U.S., most notably by breaking off its longtime relations with Iran and sending troops to participate in the U.S.-Saudi war against Yemen. “Sudan has at least 3,000 ground troops and several fighter jets fighting in Yemen as part of the Saudi-led alliance,” reported Reuters in 2018. “Dozens of Sudanese soldiers have been killed on key coastal battlefronts.”

Al-Bashir’s attempt to reach an accommodation with the West wasn’t unique. For the sake of survival, both Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Bashar al-Assad in Syria made similar efforts in the early 2000s. That didn’t save either country or its leaders from attack, since the U.S. “has no permanent friends, only permanent interests.”

Protesters and military

A Jan. 24 New York Times article, “On Sudan’s Streets, Young Professionals Protest Against an Autocrat,” drew an interesting connection between the current protest movement and imperialist efforts to break up and dominate the country:

“Demonstrations that started on Dec. 19 as a howl against soaring bread prices in the city of Atbara have snowballed into a nationwide movement, driven by daily protests calling for the president’s ouster. They hope to succeed where international efforts failed; Mr. Bashir’s autocratic rule has endured despite American missile attacks, war crimes indictments, international condemnation, economic sanctions, and a momentous 2011 split that led to the creation of South Sudan.

“‘Just fall, that is all!’ cry protesters who mass in the streets of Khartoum nearly every day, often in an effort to reach the National Assembly building on the banks of the Nile. The security forces beat them back with tear gas and live gunfire. …

“The revolt, which has spread from Khartoum to 35 cities in 15 of Sudan’s 18 provinces, is led by disgruntled young professionals from the classes that were long tolerant of Mr. Bashir’s iron-fisted rule. Speaking by phone, a dozen protesters, weary of economic decay and international isolation, said they hoped the government’s panicky reaction signaled that Mr. Bashir’s rule was grinding toward its end.”

Mint Press News reports that the National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency for International Development began major funding for “democracy promotion” in Sudan starting in 2011 — a strategy used in many U.S.-backed “color revolutions.” Also of note, given recent events in Venezuela, is that Sudan suffered a complete electricity outage just days before the military coup.

A military junta deposed President al-Bashir on April 11, placing him under house arrest at an undisclosed location. Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Awad Mohamed Ahmed Ibn Auf announced the formation of a transitional military council to rule the country during a two-year transition to civilian rule. The next day he resigned, appointing Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan as his successor.

Leaders of the protest movement reportedly thought Ibn Auf was too close to al-Bashir’s inner circle, but that al-Burhan was someone they could work with. He had previously made overtures to the protesters.

Al-Akhbar, a Lebanese Marxist publication, reported on April 15 that al-Burhan and his deputy have close ties to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and other regional monarchies strongly opposed to Iran.

“It appeared striking that the first to meet with [al-Burhan] was the U.S. charge d’affaires in Khartoum, Stephen Kotsis,” Al-Akhbar said. “This increasing ‘identity’ raises many questions about what dialogue between the military junta and representatives of the protesters can lead to.” Al-Burhan was quick to reassure Saudi Arabia that Sudan would continue to participate in the anti-Yemen military coalition.

At this writing, the Sudan Professionals Association and its Alliance for Freedom and Change continue their sit-in surrounding the military headquarters in Khartoum, calling for an immediate handover of government control to civilian forces.

The demands advanced by the SPA and AFC do not touch on class and social questions that address the economic crisis of the Sudanese workers and peasants, such as demanding a moratorium on debt service to Western banks or reparations for imperialism’s long war against Sudan. Instead they are based on generalities like civilian rule, ending corruption, dismantling al-Bashir’s National Congress Party and seizing its assets.

“The ongoing demonstration comes as the transitional military council continues to arrest former regime officials,” CNN reported on April 15. “Among them are Bashir, his former interior minister Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein, and former head of the ruling party Ahmed Haroun, who will be charged with corruption and the death of protesters.” So far the military has rejected calls to turn over al-Bashir to the ICC.

Straddle fence between basic classes

The contradictory nature of governments like those in Algeria, Sudan and Syria is not well understood, even in the communist and socialist movement. These governments emerged from anti-imperialist struggles of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, when there was tremendous mass pressure to find a path to independence from imperialism, but a workers’ party fighting for socialist revolution was either absent or repressed.

Discussing this phenomenon in relation to the Saddam Hussein government of Iraq in 1991, Marxist leader Sam Marcy explained: “The problem in the Middle East from the viewpoint of socialism is that in all the political overturns, all the struggles to rid the region of imperialism, none went beyond the level of the February Revolution in Russia. The most profound revolution, that in Egypt led by Nasser, shows the limits of what can be achieved if the revolution stops at the bourgeois-democratic level. …

“These progressive, anti-imperialist revolutions were unable to achieve a transition to a socialist revolution, one that overturns the basic relations of property between the working class and peasants on the one side, and the bourgeoisie on the other, between oppressors and oppressed. …

“Mere nationalization of industry, even of oil, does not in itself lay the basis for socialism. The nationalization retains within itself the growth of the bourgeoisie. While the level of economic well being can be on a much higher level than in a non-oil-producing country, the retention of the bourgeoisie leads to gross social inequality. …

“A characteristic feature of such a regime is that it straddles the fence between the working class and peasants on the one hand, and the bourgeoisie. The severe pressure of imperialism has produced the phenomenon of military rule and a number of coups d’etat.

“In the struggle against imperialism, it leans heavily on the workers and peasants as its fundamental social support. At the same time, the pressure of bourgeois social forces continually pushes it in an adverse direction.”

It’s important to understand the dual character of these governments — a phenomenon known to Marxists as “bonapartism” — because it helps to answer a crucial question. Absent a  working-class upsurge with a revolutionary socialist perspective, what does the destruction of these anti-imperialist regimes lead to: liberation — or unbridled imperialist domination?

As events in North Africa continue to rapidly unfold, it is crucial for anti-war and anti-imperialist activists in the U.S. and Europe to expose the past and current crimes of the imperialists, and be vigilant to oppose any moves by the ruling classes here to further intervene through military force, sanctions, seizure of resources and other means that deepen the oppression of the region’s peoples.

Black August 1619-2019

Compiled and edited by Gloria Verdieu

Contributors include M. Matsemela-Ali Odom, Zola Fish, Carl Muhammad, Mary Lou Finley, Dennis Childs, Eusi Kwayana, Sylvia Cameron Telafaro, Curtis Howard, Mumia Abu-Jamal

“Black August” commemorates 400 years of Black freedom struggle in British North America, this book examines the construction of a racial capitalist venture – slavery – where the histories of African, Native and working people overlapped.“Black August” especially celebrates the legacy and accomplishments of Black women.The book is dedicated to Black, Brown, oppressed, and poor people who have been imprisoned and killed by the the U.S. criminal justice system.

Hundreds of people marched down Harlem’s Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. on April 11 in a Moral March for Housing. They shouted, “Housing is a Right! Fight! Fight! Fight!” and “Get up! Get down! There’s a housing crisis in this town!” They also chanted “¡Aquí estamos y no nos vamos!” (We are here and we’re not going away!), and other slogans in Spanish.

The marchers were Asian, Black, Latinx and white. They represented every family and individual who have been rent gouged.

While Andrew Cuomo has been the state’s governor, evictions have rocketed from 4 to 104 every single day.

Evictions can mean death. Sixty-six-year-old Black grandmother Eleanor Bumpurs was killed by two shotgun blasts fired by policeman Stephen Sullivan on Oct. 29, 1984, during an eviction in the Bronx.

Rally at Abyssinian Baptist Church

Police forced marchers off the street, but the people refused to be intimidated. They ended up at the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Harlem State Office Building on 125th Street, where a rally was held.

Marchers had departed from the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church, where at least a thousand people had gathered for housing justice. Tenant organizers, members of the clergy and elected officials spoke out against the massive ethnic cleansing that has driven hundreds of thousands out of New York City.

According to the Institute for Children Poverty and Homelessness, 28 percent of New York City’s tenants pay at least half of their income in rent. Behind even the biggest landlords are the banks and insurance companies that own the mortgages.

In the capital of capitalism, where a hedge fund billionaire recently bought a penthouse overlooking Central Park for $238 million, over 22,000 children sleep every night in homeless shelters.

Tenants and their supporters are demanding that nine laws be passed by the New York state Legislature to fight massive rent increases. Among these needed measures is universal rent control throughout New York State.

For fifty years, the number of rent controlled apartments in New York City has sharply declined through legal schemes to benefit the rent collectors.

At least 167,000 apartments have been removed from rent control by so-called Individual Apartment Improvements. Landlords will neglect a building, refusing to make necessary repairs. Then, they get state approval for a rent hike because the building needs repairs.

Building owners can also raise rents by 20 percent when a tenant leaves or is pushed out of a rent-controlled apartment. And when the rent rises to $2,775 per month, the unit can be taken completely out of rent control compliance.    

The Kushner family is among the big landlords that use these laws to drive out rent regulated tenants. One of the family members is Jared Kushner, a son-in-law of Donald Trump.

Many groups and neighborhoods represented

The rally at Abyssinian Baptist Church was like a people’s congress of tenants. People had come from throughout New York City and surrounding communities as well. Speakers addressed listeners in English, Spanish and Chinese.

Among the groups represented were the Metropolitan Council on Housing; the New York State Tenants and Neighbors Coalition; Woodside on the Move; the MinKwon Center for Community Action; the North West Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition; the Riverside Edgecombe Neighborhood Association; the Morningside Heights Multicultural Tenant Organization; New York Communities for Change; St. Nick’s Alliance; and the West Side Neighborhood Alliance.

Tenants and their supporters have been betrayed over and over again by politicians in both New York City and the state capital in Albany. The Empire State’s politics are dominated by the banks and interconnected real estate interests.

But tenants have had enough! People are refusing to be pushed out of New York City. A mighty movement can sweep away every obstacle.

That’s what happened in Cuba and Venezuela. One of the first legislative acts of the Cuban Revolution was to limit rent and utility payment to no more than 10 percent of a family’s income.

The Bolivarian Revolution has built over two million homes for poor and working people in Venezuela. That’s another reason for all the Trumps and Kushners to try to overthrow the democratically elected Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro Moros.

People are planning to go to Albany on May 14 to confront the landlords and their stooges. Power to the tenants!

Talk given by Cheryl LaBash at the “Unity for Socialism and Revolution” conference in Los Angeles on March 16.

The U.S. blockade was imposed on Cuba in 1960, just after the revolution, to try and starve the people of Cuba into submission, into selling their sovereignty and going back to capitalism. But the Cuban people have been absolutely resolute. They’ve refused.

They’ve beaten back military attacks. They’ve withstood virtual starvation. They found a way to develop medicines, so that the blockade doesn’t impact the health care of the people of Cuba.

I think everybody knows someone who has diabetes. It’s very common. We know people who’ve had amputations because of it. Cuba has a medicine and a treatment that prevents 70 percent of diabetic foot amputations. But it’s not used here in the U.S.

Cuba has a vaccine that very successfully treats lung cancer. It prevents the growth of the tumor and extends the life and the quality of life for people who have lung cancer. It’s being studied in Buffalo, N.Y., at the Roswell Park Institute. But again, it’s not available to people in the U.S., at least not yet.

We have an internationalist responsibility to fight against the blockade. It’s the same kind of blockade that U.S. imperialism is putting on Venezuela. It’s the same kind of unilateral sanctions put on Syria and Iran. The U.S. government uses the fact that the dollar is the international currency for trade to damage the economies of people who want to have sovereignty in their own countries.

There’s a question I think that we all have, because we’re here fighting for unity, for socialism, for revolution in this country. How is it that Cuba has survived? How have they held up over these past 60 years? What’s the secret?

The Cubans will tell you that the secret is unity. Finding what you can agree on in principle, and putting secondary issues aside.

Cuba just approved a new constitution. The new constitution updates the one written in 1976 to reflect the development of Cuban society. And part of the discussion on that constitution was about changing the definition of a marriage, from between a man and a woman to between two people. Marriage in Cuba doesn’t carry any special material benefit like it does in the U.S. where, for example, an unmarried partner can be prevented from visiting a loved one in a hospital.  

Now, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have equal rights in Cuba. The socialist medical system even includes gender-reassignment surgery free of charge.

By upending capitalist relations that thrive and profit from prejudice and divisions, Cuba has advanced in 60 short years. Cuba’s educational campaign in unions, among educators, has lifted consciousness. The slogan for Cuba’s national celebration of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia — to be celebrated for the 12th year — is “I’m included!”

The concept is “everybody in, nobody out.” Have everyone come together. Nobody is excluded. Not because of skin tone, gender, gender identity, sexuality or anything else. And that’s what they’ve been working on. That kind of unity has been the key to the Cuban Revolution being able to withstand the tremendous hardships imposed by the U.S. economic, financial and commercial blockade.

It’s something that’s not easy to do, especially here in the U.S., where often organizations define themselves by their differences with others. It’s okay to have differences. But we need to find what we agree on and find a way to work together. That’s a priority. Every issue that’s been raised here is everyone’s issue.

To a large extent, I think that’s what this conference is about: Talking about it, figuring it out and moving forward with that idea that we’re going to find what we can agree on and go forward on that. And what we can’t agree on, we’ll wait and deal with that another day.

On to building a revolutionary working-class country where the most oppressed are the leaders!