Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of several French cities on Saturday, September 7, to protest against what has been dubbed as “electoral theft” committed by President Emmanuel Macron, who appointed far-right Michel Barnier as the prime minister of the country despite the fact that Barnier’s party won on;y 5% of the vote in the latest general elections.

The protests were called by the center-left coalition New Popular Front (NFP) in more than 150 cities across France.

The protests were organized in opposition to Macron‘s appointment of Les Républiques party’s Michel Barnier as prime minister, a decision that has been widely criticized by the French left, which has called it a coup against the people’s will, as it was the NFP that had received the maximum number of seats in the July 7 parliamentary elections but had failed to win an absolute majority.

Michel Barnier, 73, is a veteran of French and European politics, historically associated with the right-wing Les Républiques party. With a career spanning more than four decades, Barnier has held senior positions both in France and Brussels (European Union).

Demonstrations have been going on in several cities across the country. In Paris, the iconic Bastille Square has been the epicenter of the protests, from where thousands marched towards the Place de la Nation.

“We will not give up until he is removed from office,” said Andy Kerbrat, a member of parliament for the NFP, who took part in a huge rally in Nantes, a city in western France.

Although the protest is supported by La France Insoumise (LFI), the French Communist Party (PCF) and the ecologists, the Socialist Party (PS) has decided not to officially participate. However, some local sections of the party have joined the demonstrations.

The General Confederation of Labour (CGT) has also distanced itself from this mobilization, concentrating its efforts on a labor strike planned for October.

In addition to the protests, the NFP has launched impeachment proceedings against Macron in parliament, arguing that Barnier’s appointment does not recognize the results of the legislative elections, where the NFP emerged as the largest bloc with 182 seats.

Macron’s party came in second with 168 seats, and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally won 143.

The discontent is emerging in a context of deep polarization in France. Latest opinion polls show that 74% of the French population believes that Macron has not respected the will of the people expressed in the ballots.

Amid political uncertainty, new Prime Minister Michel Barnier faces the challenge of forming a government and presenting a finance bill before October, all under the threat of censure by the opposition. The next few weeks will be decisive for France’s political future.

(La Radio del Sur) by Magdalena Valdez

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

Argentina woke up on September 2 with the University of the Mothers (UNMA) fenced off and surrounded by members of the national police, who prevented workers from accessing the center.

The Argentine President, Javier Milei, since his arrival to the Government, started a crusade against public education -which he accuses of ‘indoctrinating’- which implied hard cuts to the economic means for its own development, among many other coercive measures. Meanwhile, he favors teaching in private centers, in his opinion, they are much more ‘objective’ in their curricula.

The Mothers’ University, formerly the Popular University of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, was founded by the homonymous association that was born on April 30, 1977, when 14 women marched in front of the Executive to demand the dictator Jorge Rafael Videla to know the whereabouts of their disappeared children.

Beyond the current Argentine president’s war against the public, we must add the fight against memory. In this sense, the persecution against the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo has not only been limited to trying to destroy academic institutions but to also erase the atrocities of the military dictatorship of the 1970’s as well.

At the end of February 2024, the new authorities of Argentine public television excluded from its programming ‘Mothers of the Plaza’, a program broadcast since 2008, which served to denounce the cases of forced disappearances of the dictatorship.

In this process of dememory, furthermore, after the commemoration of the Day of Memory, Truth and Justice on March 24, the authorities carried out actions in response. Thus, painted over handkerchiefs of the Mothers, located in front of the headquarters of the Comando Monte XII, in Misiones, were covered; and the monument in homage to those same women, in the municipality of Marcos Juarez in Cordoba, was removed.

Last Monday’s picture serves to visualize, in its symbolic and practical expression, something even more terrifying.

The Argentine dictatorship was part of what is known as Plan Condor, which led to the creation of dictatorial regimes – under the umbrella of Washington and the Latin American national oligarchies – in countries such as Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil and Uruguay, as well as the persecution and murder of more than 100,000 people.

The context was the Cold War and, under the protection of the anti-communist Truman Doctrine -a conjunctural update of the Monroe Doctrine-, the US justified its interference in what it still considers its “backyard”.

The consequences included the staging of various coups d’état, the financing of armed counterrevolutionary groups, the persecution of leftists and even the physical disappearance of their militants, as well as the creation of regimes in line with its interests. At the same time, it also served as a test laboratory for the implementation of the neoliberal model, whose main reference will always be Augusto Pinochet’s Chile.

The Latin American oligarchies and their political-partisan manifestations have developed based on a model of dependency, where they act as ‘viceroys’ at the service of the metropolis and at the expense of their peoples. The strongly reactionary and lackey character of these oligarchies is in conflict, in a natural way, with any process of popular and national emancipation in the region.

However, they are fundamental in a general scenario of geopolitical struggle, where the U.S. needs to maintain control in Latin America. All this, favored, in turn, by an organizational advance of the extreme right at the international level, which also attends to this rising conflict.

The strongly reactionary and lackey character of the oligarchies to external interests naturally conflicts with any process of popular and national emancipation in the region.
In 2021, the former president of Bolivia Evo Morales denounced the implementation of a ‘ Plan Condor 2’ in the region, after it was made public the shipment of weapons, military and anti-riot material, by the Argentine government, then led by Mauricio Macri, during the coup d’état in Bolivia, in 2019.

In recent weeks, we have witnessed a new offensive against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which has manifested itself in different spheres: the non-recognition of its political system, its institutions and its sovereignty; cyber attacks and power cuts; and the hijacking, in collusion with the authorities of the Dominican Republic, of a Venezuelan presidential plane.

In parallel, the pressure against other States has been manifested in the interference attempts of U.S. diplomats in Mexico and Honduras, which, in the end, have been failures due to the forceful response of sovereign defense implemented by their leaders.

Meanwhile, the government of Ecuador, which violated the sovereignty of Mexico with the illegal kidnapping of Jorge Glas in the Mexican Embassy a few months ago, in a macabre staging of irony, signed new agreements with the U.S. Southern Command focused on “the implementation and promotion of human rights”.

Similarly, Gabriel Boric, who has stood out as a leader against Venezuelan sovereignty in recent weeks, followed this same script. The Southern Command and the Chilean Navy, on September 2, kicked off, the Multinational Naval Exercise UNITAS 2024, making this the second time, in less than a month, that the Chilean government has participated in naval exercises in the Pacific Ocean together with the US.

“Why is this region so important? With all its rich resources and rare earth elements, you have the lithium triangle, which is necessary for today’s technology. Sixty percent of the world’s lithium is in the lithium triangle: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile. You have the largest oil reserves, light sweet crude discovered in Guyana more than a year ago. You have the resources of Venezuela as well, with oil, copper, gold. We have the lungs of the world, the Amazon. We also have 31% of the world’s fresh water in this region. I mean, it’s out of the ordinary. We have a lot to do. This region matters. It has a lot to do with our national security and we have to step up our game,” declared Laura Richardson, head of Southern Command, in late January 2023.

However, Richardson is wrong: they do not, and will not, have all those resources. But that is why we are seeing new versions of Videla, Banzer or Pinochet walking around Latin America, once again on the arm of the United States of America.

Source: Cuba en Resumen

‘We Bolivarians make cosmic dust of the Monroe Doctrine. That is our victory, Mr. Blinken,” Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said.

Sept. 9 – On Sunday, Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Yvan Gil said that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is seeking to publicize a coup d’état in the South American country through social media.

“Their plans were dismantled through voting and civic-military-police unity and mobilization,” the Bolivarian diplomat said, asking the U.S. government to accept the results of the July 28 presidential elections issued by the National Electoral Council and ratified by the Supreme Court of Justice.

In that democratic process, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was re-elected for the 2025-2031 period, defeating far-right politician Edmundo Gonzalez, who is currently in Spain after the Bolivarian government granted him a safe-conduct to leave the country.

“We Bolivarians make cosmic dust of the Monroe Doctrine. That is our victory, Mr. Blinken,” the Foreign Affairs Minister said in response to a post by Blinken on the social network X in which the Secretary of State encourages a coup in Venezuela with the justification that citizens voted for a change.

In his message, Blinken claims without evidence that the Government of Venezuela “has killed or imprisoned thousands of people.” Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said that the statements of the U.S. high official are part of a new U.S. strategy and emphasized to Blinken that his objectives failed.

Source: teleSUR

Nigeria is experiencing its worst economic crisis in a generation. Annual inflation stands at more than 30%. Prices for food like yams, a staple food, are almost four times higher than last year.

New protests against the recent fuel hikes began the first week of September.

Protests, inspired by the protests in Kenya against IMF-imposed austerity, pushing poverty, encouraged protests to demand an end to the Nigerian President’s “shock doctrine.” The so-called shock therapies that the Nigerian president is currently using include the reduction of gas subsidies higher electrical costs, and the devaluing of the currency, which is like a pay cut for workers. That austerity allowed Nigeria to get a $2.25 billion loan from the World Bank and the austerity is celebrated by the banks. But not celebrated by the victims of the imperialist’s financial and economic war on the people.

Ten people who took part in last month’s protests across Nigeria have been charged with treason and other serious offenses at the federal high court in the capital, Abuja.

All of the accused pleaded not guilty. The charges of treason look very similar to the charges by the U.S. federal government against the three members of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement in Florida – serious charges that break down into criminalizing speech.

Amnesty International has labeled the ongoing trials in Nigeria as a “sham.”

We are honored to present this report by Nigerian journalist and President of Society of International Awareness (SIRA) Owei Lamkefa.

– John Parker

Democratizing treasonable felony and deregulating intelligence failure

ADEYEMI Abayomi Abiodun is a respectful, hard-working and dedicated youth. At 6 p.m. Monday, August 26, 2024, he was picked up by the Nigeria Police Force, NPF. He is a staff member of the Iva Valley Bookshop located at the headquarters of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC. His employment by the bookshop means he is guilty by association.

The police had raided the bookshop in the night of August 7, 2024, in search of Drew Povey, the bookshop owner. The NPF claims that Povey, a Briton, is the prime suspect “in numerous criminal activities across Nigeria and other African countries.”

Apparently, Abayomi could not help the police in their investigations nor implicate himself as a sponsor of protests in the country. Those who saw him three days later in police custody said he was in chains and had evidently been badly tortured.

Povey had returned to the United Kingdom on a scheduled trip three days before the police raid, so there was no way Abayomi could produce him.

Povey’s immediate family was in a similar dilemma. So members have suffered visitations by security agents. These include visits to the Stars of Nations Schools, which the family runs and where Povey’s wife, Helen Batubo, is principal. On August 21, 2024, her home at Serenity Estate, Karshi, in Nasarawa State, was raided.

Povey also claims the police raided his personal home: “The police smashed in the front gate and the back door of my house. They turned everything upside down and stole our television and my granddaughter’s bike. They then left the house unlocked for anyone to enter. Later, police were seen returning to try and trap my family.” He also claimed that in the various raids, the NPF had seized his books, photocopier, and car.

Ms. Batubo herself was invited and interrogated by the NPF on allegations of “criminal conspiracy, terrorism financing, treasonable felony, subversion, and cyber crime.” These allegations carry a life sentence.

The interrogations reveal that the main claim against Povey is that he is one of the foreign sponsors of protests in the country. Snippets also indicate that he is suspected of sponsoring the ongoing civil war in Sudan, which has claimed some 15, 000 lives, 33,000 injured, with at least 10 million persons displaced or becoming refugees.

When in a phone interview, the National Record Newspapers asked Povey about the allegation of sponsoring the Sudanese conflict, he responded: “It is true that I worked as a secondary school teacher in what is now Sudan for a year. But this was 45 years ago and I have not visited the country since then.”

Povey has lived on and off Nigeria for about a quarter of a century now and what struck me about him is that he seems a conscientious investor who is committed to Nigeria. I reached this conclusion based on his investment in education, marriage to a Nigerian, which technically should earn him citizenship, and, of course, in running the Iva Valley Bookshop and Business Center.

I am not surprised he is of interest to the security services given the fact that he is an enthusiastic leftist with an undisguised aversion to international agencies like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These agencies have, since 1986, virtually dictated the economic direction of the country. This may make Povey appear like an enemy of the state.

I also find interesting the fact that he named his seven-year bookshop, Iva Valley. That is the coal mine where, on Friday, November 18, 1949, British colonialists opened fire on striking coal miners. Twenty-one miners were killed and 51 others injured in the shootings. This became known as the Iva Valley Massacre. Apart from the international outcry it elicited, that event became the rallying point for nationalists.

Since independence, the political elites have tried to downplay that massacre and its significance in the anti-colonial struggles. Comrade Ola Oni, an outstanding radical, mentor of youths and conscientious intellectual, had tried to keep it alive by naming his popular bookshop in Bodija, Ibadan, Iva Valey Bookshop. But that seems to have collapsed after he passed away on December 22, 1999.

The last time I met Povey and Abayomi at a public function was on July 19, 2024, when the proactive Political Science Department of Bingham University organized a symposium to commemorate 50 years of the famous book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, written by the intellectual giant and political activist, Walter Rodney.

A salutary contribution by the duo on that occasion was to make the book available to all those who wanted copies. The price was low, as are most books the bookshop sells.

Let me add that it is not just Povey, Batubo, and Abayomi that are being accused of these serious crimes. Others, like Comrade Joe Ajaero, President of the NLC, are similarly accused. Also, six Polish students and a lecturer were arrested for allegedly taking part in the ‘End Hunger Protests’ in Kano and waving Russian flags while doing so. I felt ashamed that our security agents did not have the most basic knowledge of international relations. If their leaders did, they would have known how weird it is to accuse the Polish of carrying Russian flags. Good sense prevailed, and the Polish were released after some weeks.

This liberal democratization of these crimes reminds me of the Abacha junta. In those days, any seeming dissident earned you an allegation of being “an accessory after the fact of treason”, and you are off to life in jail. When the then Publisher of The Sunday Magazine, TSM, said she doubted the veracity of an alleged coup by Colonel Lawan Gwadabe, she was sentenced to life.

When TheNews magazine reported that the Military Tribunal was setting some of the accused coup plotters free, one of its Editors, Kunle Ajibade, was tried as an accessory and received life sentence. Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti, the leader of the Pro-Democracy Movement, was suspected of being in possession of the defense statement of coup suspect, Colonel Bello Fadile. For this, he was tried as an accessory to treason and sentenced to life.

The security agencies should not return the country to those Babangida and Abacha junta days. They need to concentrate on the rampant cases of banditry, terrorism, and kidnappings that have seized the country. They also need to win the trust of the citizenry, especially the youth, who can assist in fighting the true enemies of the state and ensure the protection of the country.

Let me draw the government’s attention to a reality. While it is dissipating energy searching universities, bookshops, and bus stops, and accusing Poles, Britons, Nigeriens, and Nigerians in the Diaspora of sponsoring the protests, hunger, the real sponsor, is hiding in plain sight.

The Haitian State is repressing Haiti’s masses by importing foreign military occupation troops, called the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS), to reinforce the Haitian National Police (PNH), the traditional counterinsurgency force deployed by the international and local ruling classes.

The State is also looking to bolster the Armed Forces of Haiti (FAdH), which has historically been the ruling classes’ principal hammer to keep the masses down. Although disbanded in 1995, the force was relaunched in 2017.

But the puppet government of de facto Prime Minister Garry Conille and the nine-member Transitional Presidential Council (CPT) are also using what could be called economic or financial repression.

The MSS has not been going well. It is plagued by low morale and shortages and delays in the delivery equipment and ammunition as well as the deployment of forces. Blessed by the UN Security Council (with Russia and China abstaining) on Oct. 2, 2023, its first 200 Kenyan troops could not deploy in Haiti until Jun. 25, 2024. Another 200 Kenyans arrived on Jul. 16, three weeks later, bringing the MSS current force strength to a mere 400 Kenyans, who have spent most of their time in their U.S.-built base. The MSS is supposed to eventually amount to over 2,500 soldiers from 10 nations.

The main problem is money. “While the United States has contributed $369 million in money, equipment and services, a UN fund [for the MSS] only has about $68 million, leaving it over $150 million short of the estimated $589 million needed for the first year’s operations,” Reuters reports.

Too make matters worse, those 400 deployed Kenyans are discouraged by bait-and-switch salary tactics. “For those already in Haiti, uncertainty around pay has weighed on morale,” Reuters explained. “The officers were told in Kenya that they would receive monthly bonuses of around $1,500, several times their regular salaries, two officers said, adding they never signed contracts and were not told when they would be paid… [On Sep. 2], some officers had received [bonuses] while others had not, three officers said. But they said they were given no explanation for how their pay was calculated, with some only receiving about $750.”

“It is very demoralizing,” a senior officer told Reuters.

Rank-and-file soldiers were already disgruntled about their much lower pay, Haïti Liberté reported in July.

Meanwhile, PNH cops are still being sent out with hardly any ammunition, a trusted source says. Some six million rounds of 9mm, .762, and .556 ammo bound for Haiti have been sitting since last year on palettes at AmeriJet’s hangar in Miami, all due to corruption and incompetence in both the PNH bureaucracy and that of the U.S. Embassy’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) unit.

Faced with these problems in both the MSS and PNH, the Conille government aims to beef up the FAdH. According to the National Defense Ministry’s website, some 4,981 signed up to take the “intellectual exams” on Sep. 1 to become soldiers in the force which now numbers between only 1,500 to 2,000.

“Thousands of young Haitians are jumping at the chance to become soldiers as widespread gang violence creates a rare job opportunity in a deeply impoverished country where work is scarce,” the Associated Press reported this week.

Ironically, the need for military repression is being fueled by the Haitian government’s just unveiled austerity budget, an expression of economic repression.

According to economist Simone Wapler, financial repression is “an arsenal of measures that allow States to reduce the cost of their debts by manipulating the markets and their citizens.” In Haiti, the anti-national State has taken a whole series of economic measures to maintain the proletarian masses in living conditions that border on slavery.

These include: setting interest rates at almost zero to lend money to bankers, financiers, and other business sector groups; paying remittances from Haitians living abroad in the local currency, the gourde; increasing the value added tax (VAT); and promoting the increase in the prices of basic necessities.

Indeed, according to the Haitian Institute of Statistics and Information’s (IHSI) latest report in July 2024, the general consumer price index (CPI) has maintained its inflationary progression from 317.9 in July 2023 to 413.3 in July 2024, an annual increase of 30%.

No public investment to improve the living conditions of Haiti’s impoverished masses is planned in the 2023-2024 “rectified” budget published last week in Le Moniteur. It only contained the same old tricks which promote corruption, cost overruns, and the embezzlement of public funds through bogus programs which will not lift the national economy by increasing state tax revenues or national production. The construction of new irrigation systems should have been the priority, since such labor-intensive works create economic benefits like increased tax revenues while facilitating the revival of national food production, which would address the dire food insecurity crisis faced by nearly half a million Haitians.

Instead, the Haitian State has chosen to hand out cash willy-nilly to random categories of people.

On what criteria will the Haiti’s State choose the beneficiaries of the cash transfer to more than 25,000 households in Haiti’s ten geographical departments, or 2,500 households on average per department? On what criteria will the government choose the 35,000 assembly factory employees for financial support? On what criteria will it grant a targeted subsidy to 25,000 public transport operators? How will the State proceed with giving money to more than 280,000 parents of schoolchildren in national schools in seven of Haiti’s geographical departments, i.e. 40,000 parents on average per department?

On the basis of what criteria and how will the public treasury distribute 61,230 “solidarity baskets” to vulnerable households through the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development, in addition to installing 400 “community restaurants” throughout the country?

Donations from the Food Shock Window (FSW) program of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be squandered like the millions of dollars for reconstruction after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake and the development funds borrowed from oil sales under the the PetroCaribe program. The masses’ impoverishment will grow without a revolutionary government’s program of real economic and social development that would transform today’s economic system into a socialist economy, based on the formula: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

The annual inflation rate of 30% constitutes a crime against Haiti’s masses, a form of economic repression, coupled with tax repression where the masses pay more taxes than the more privileged layers of Haitian society, where the private sector benefits from all tax and commercial advantages in addition to their practice of tax evasion (smuggling) and corruption (overcharging), while the Catholic Church is subsidized by the State.

The prices of food products and non-alcoholic beverages increased by 42.3% over the period from July 2023 to July 2024; clothing and footwear items shot up 22.2%; housing, water, gas, electricity, and other fuels increased by 18.7%.

The economic repression is deepened when the two cellphone monopolies, Digicel and Natcom, without improving their technical service, have increased the price of communication in Haiti by 42.2% in one year.

Meanwhile, importers, in complete freedom and without worry, despite the stability of the gourde against the U.S. dollar, increased the price of rice by 55.9%, corn by 48.7%, millet by 50.1%, meat by 41.7%, fresh fish by 44.3%, herring by 41.6%, edible oil by 44%, lemons by 90.7%, bananas by 44.2%, fabrics by 23.1%, dresses by 24.2%, tights by 24.5%, suits and universal jackets by 23.6%, housing rent by 18.9%, charcoal by 27.5%, propane gas by 24.2%, meals consumed outside by 30.5%. All this inflation in a country where unemployment is raging and formally affects 16% of the active population in Haiti.

Even the prices of local products have increased by 29.7% to reinforce the economic repression on the Haitian masses.

The least affected regions in Haiti, according to the IHSI, were the departments of the Center and Artibonite with an increase of 28.5%, and the “Great North” (the North, Northeast, and Northwest departments) with an inflationary increase of 28.1%.

Since founding father Jean-Jacques Dessalines’ assassination on Oct. 17, 1806, this is the somber scenario that Haitians have endured: political repression and exclusion of the masses, economic repression for the benefit of local importers and their foreign masters, commercial repression made of economic and commercial monopolies, tax repression where the masses pay the largest share of the national tax base, financial repression where the popular masses pay the highest interest rate on borrowing and earn the lowest interest rate on savings.

Haitian progressives, let us unite to carry out a national liberation struggle for Haiti.

Notes:

1) Simone Wapler is a journalist and economic author. She was long-time editor-in-chief of Agora Publications, paid newsletters specializing in financial analysis and advice founded by Bill Bonner.

2) Data taken from Table 1: Evolution of the Consumer Price Index of the IHSI Monthly Bulletin, JULY 2024.

3) Unemployment rate reference: World Food Programme, Country Strategic Plan, Haiti 2024-2028 Analysis of the country situation, page 7 no 23.

Source: Haïti Liberté

Statement from the Central Organizing Committee of the Communist Party of Kenya (CPK)

Comrade Booker’s Illegal Arrest: A Cowardly Attack by a Regime in Fear

Fellow Kenyans, comrades, and the international community, we come to you in a state of fury and defiance after the illegal and politically motivated arrest of our National Vice Chairperson, Booker Ngesa Omole, on the 7th of September, 2024.

This regime has once again shown its true colors—an administration of fear, repression, and state-sponsored harassment against those who dare challenge its authority. Booker was on an official assignment for the Communist Party of Kenya, en route to China, a country with which Kenya has ongoing diplomatic relations. In a shocking display of abuse of power, Booker was arrested aboard a Qatar Airways flight bound for Beijing via Doha. The immigration police at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) acted on a stop order with no basis in law, detaining him for six hours before handing him over to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI). The state is desperately trying to silence the leaders of the revolutionary movement. What was the basis of Booker’s arrest? Incitement to violence—an outrageous and baseless charge meant to humiliate and intimidate. The arresting officer even mocked him of competing with the president by thinking he can travel to Beijing when the head of state has just concluded his visit to China. The absurdity of this explanation exposes the fragile paranoia gripping this regime. The Kenyan government is willing to expend more resources chasing after revolutionaries than addressing the real criminals plundering our country. We must ask ourselves: why is this government so afraid of Booker’s trip to China?

What truths does he carry that they fear? Let it be known: there is nothing illegal about Booker’s travel! The same President who continues runs from the truth in Kenya only visits China to peddle lies and more lies. The hypocrisy is staggering.

Booker was taken from JKIA to Central Police Station under the cover of night, where he was locked up for two hours. It was only due to public pressure and multiple calls to the Inspector General that he was released at 11 p.m. But the damage had been done.

His travel documents—passport, yellow fever card, and boarding pass—were confiscated, and to this moment, the state has yet to return them. Let this be clear: the charges of incitement and the use of Section 56 of the Police Act are relics of colonial rule, unconstitutional and out of place in post-2010 Kenya. These laws must be quashed from our penal co de, and we demand their immediate abolition. This harassment will not deter us. The Kenya Kwanza regime, led by the dictator William Ruto, must return Booker’s travel documents immediately and cease this state-sponsored witch hunt. They can try to harass us, intimidate us, and fabricate charges, but the truth is on our side. The only criminals here are the ones sitting in power, auctioning off our country to imperialists and multinational corporations.

Ruto shall not change. He is beyond reform. Every act of repression only cements what we have long known: the only solution for this nation is to remove him from power once and for all. The Kenyan people deserve leadership that fights for them, not against them.

The Communist Party of Kenya, alongside all revolutionaries and patriots, will continue the struggle for justice, freedom, and dignity. To the Kenyan people, rise up! Let this illegal arrest serve as a reminder of the lengths this regime will go to maintain its grip on power.

We shall not be silenced. Ruto and his cronies have no future in a free and just Kenya. The people shall prevail. The revolution will triumph. Return Booker’s documents! Stop the witch hunt! Ruto must go!

Signed, The Central Organizing Committee of the Communist Party of Kenya In solidarity with the oppressed masses of Kenya

Source: Friends of Socialist China

At the beginning of August, leaders of North America’s largest dockworkers’ union, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), sent the employer association, USMX, a strike notice that federal law requires 60 days before a strike. 

When ILA delegates met on Sept. 4 and 5, they reported that union members voiced unanimous support for a strike. As delegates discussed the demands and a strike strategy, ILA  president Harold Daggett told the ILA members they must be prepared “to hit the streets at 12:01 on Tuesday, Oct. 1.”

Longshore workers on the West Coast are in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). They deal with the country’s biggest container volume. On the East Coast, the five busiest ports are covered by the ILA contract agreement with USMX: New York/New Jersey, Savannah, Houston, Virginia, and Charleston.

A strike by the ILA, which moves the trade at the ports along the East Coast, Gulf Coast, and Puerto Rico, would impact 43% of all U.S. imports and billions of dollars in trade every month. 

Contract negotiations between the ILA and USMX began in 2022. The ILA demands are a wage increase, greater management contributions to retirement benefits, larger employer contributions to local benefits, higher starting pay, and a continuation of existing health care coverage.

The Real Story

On July 20, in an “Open Letter to the Public: The Real Story Behind Our Fight,” Dennis Daggett, the son of Harold Daggett and the ILA Executive Vice President, told members that a priority in the negotiations is the demand for the retention of existing technology language that created a framework on how to modernize and improve efficiency while protecting jobs and hours.

The leadership of ILA has long been considered more conservative than the ILWU on the West Coast. The ILA says they have not been on strike in half a century since 1977. Faced with the pressures of globalization, imperialist wars, and climate change conditions, such as the drought threatening the Panama Canal, the leadership appears to be becoming more active by calling on the members to take defensive action.

In his open letter, Daggett, who is also a representative of the International Dockworkers Council (IDC), wrote:

“Over the past few years, the shipping industry has undergone a significant transformation. Many private equity firms like BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, which now own 88% of the companies on the S&P 500, have started to infiltrate our industry. Firms like BlackRock, focused solely on profits and return on investment, have partnered with companies like Mediterranean Shipping Company’s subsidiary, Terminal Investment Logistics (TIL), and others to acquire and build terminals worldwide. Their influence is growing, and it poses a direct threat to our livelihoods. 

“A decade ago, ocean carriers decided to exit the terminal operating business to concentrate on their steamship lines and logistics. But now, in the aftermath of the pandemic, they are reclaiming control over terminals. This shift isn’t just about business strategy – it’s about controlling where and when they can place their cargo without dealing with third parties.

“For them, it’s about power and profits. For us, it’s about our jobs and the future of our families.

“BlackRock and other private equity firms don’t care about workers. They care about their bottom lines. They see automation as a way to increase profits, even if it means eliminating jobs historically performed by human beings. For the past two years, the ILA has been fighting to secure a new contract for our members, with our current contract expiring on Oct. 1, 2024. We know what we’re up against, and we’re ready to fight to protect and preserve our jobs and our industry. 

“We’ve been paying close attention to the enormous profits ocean carriers, and terminal operators have made in recent years. … These companies have raised rates on their customers to keep their profits soaring, but they refuse to share this wealth with the workers who helped them achieve these profits. Instead, they aim to cut costs further by eliminating jobs and attempting to automate our work.”

Will Biden issue strike-breaking Taft-Hartley order?

When ILA president Harold Daggett spoke to the members in a video during the September delegates meeting, he said they were bargaining in good faith. He threatened a worker slowdown if the Biden administration forced the union workers back to the docks using the Taft-Hartley Act.

“Taft-Hartley means I have to go back to work [for 80 days] after a cooling off period,” said Daggett. “What do you think when I go back after those [80 days], that those men are going to go back to work on that pier? It’s going to cost them money. They’re going to be like this,” he said, making a gesture of putting his hands around his throat in a choke hold. The company’s money to pay their salaries while they go from 30 [container] moves an hour maybe to eight?” he said. “You’re better off sitting down and let’s get a contract, and let’s move on with this.”

During ILWU contract negotiations on the West Coast in 2023, longshore workers worked at a rate that created a logjam of trucking and rail containers. Union actions in recent years have impacted the global supply chain.

Intervening on behalf of the distribution companies, governments have been forcing union workers off the picket line and back onto the job. 

The Canadian government intervened in contract negotiations this August. Trade between Canada and the U.S. was disrupted after Canadian freight rail workers, represented by the Teamsters, were locked out during contract negotiations by Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City.   

The Canadian Teamsters issued a statement saying: “By resorting to binding arbitration, the government has allowed CN and CPKC to sidestep a union determined to protect rail safety. Despite claiming to value and honor the collective bargaining process, the federal government quickly used its authority to suspend it, mere hours after an employer-imposed work stoppage. This action mirrors their earlier interference this year, where they used the CIRB to stifle bargaining for months.”

Despite his claim to be “union-friendly,” U.S. President Joe Biden called on Congress to intervene in the stalled talks between railroads and some of the rail industry’s major unions. Congress passed legislation on Nov. 30, 2022, that enforced a rail labor agreement and blocked the workers’ right to strike. 

Reflecting the pressure of the upcoming election and in a naked distortion of the truth, the Biden administration told CNBC during the first week of September, “We’ve never invoked Taft-Hartley to break a strike and are not considering doing so now.” 

An ILA strike on Oct. 1 would impact not only the U.S. economy but the U.S. elections as well. It may be a bargaining chip in the union’s favor.

Around 5,000 tons of aid bound for Gaza has been blocked by Turkish authorities, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition has said, with one of the group’s vessels stranded in the port town of Haydarpaşa and waiting for approval to head to the besieged enclave.

Freedom Flotilla Coalition has been confined to the Turkish port for more than 45 days, despite passing all the necessary checks to depart for Gaza, the group has said.

The aim of the flotilla is not only to deliver desperately needed aid to Gaza but also to raise awareness about the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave which is on the verge of famine.

“As human beings, we have a duty to stop this genocide committed by Israel and its collaborators. We have prepared ships to break the blockade and carry humanitarian aid and these ships need to be allowed to sail,” said Beheşti İsmail, a Steering Committee member of the Freedom Flotilla.

“As we approach the one-year marker of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, we speak not only to the Turkish government but every member of every political establishment around the globe when we say: any political obstacles placed in our path are walls that must be overcome and torn down,” İsmail said, adding: “Those who build these walls will not be able to account for their actions before the conscience of the world.”

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause throughout the 11-month war on Gaza and before, making him a key target of the Israeli political establishment.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was also invited to address the Turkish parliament last month where, wearing a Turkey-Palestine scarf, he gave a defiant speech about the war on Gaza.

Erdogan has also been applying pressure on Israel and its allies to end the war, Ankara has said, where he even threatened in July to send Turkish troops to Israel if the offensive on Palestinians continues or an invasion of Lebanon takes place.

The coalition attempted to send a humanitarian vessel to Gaza in April but was blocked due to “Israeli tactics“.

In 2010, a flotilla to Gaza led by Turkish activists was subject to a brutal assault by Israeli special forces, resulting in the massacre of 10 unarmed people.

Gaza has been subject to a crippling blockade by Israel since 2007, which has intensified during October with the UN warning of famine due to a lack of essential supplies.

Source: The New Arab

Tampa, Fla., Sept. 5 – This morning the U.S. government will continue presenting their “evidence” which may conclude the prosecution portion of the trial as early as Monday. 

The U.S. government is attempting to criminalize international solidarity but has come up against a solid and growing wall of support for the Uhuru 3 when their federal trial opened Sept. 3 here in Tampa. Collectively known as the Uhuru 3 — Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party, Penny Hess, Chair of the African People’s Solidarity Committee, and Jesse Nevel, Chair of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement — are falsely accused of being pawns of a foreign government. And, of course, that foreign government would need to be Russia to justify spending so much on the investigation and what, at the outset, looked like a lengthy trial.

The proverbial election interference elephant in the room is undoubtedly AIPAC and “Israel” that get a free pass. Not to mention the holier-than-thou U.S. government interventions on every continent, “color” revolutions like the one preceding the war in Ukraine.

What an indictment of the U.S. government that it would even suggest that an African freedom organization with a 50-year history would need a foreign power to instruct them to fight for reparations.

But, as Yeshitela was quoted in the New York Times this week, “We’re just a vehicle that’s being used to assault free speech.” And — as the Black Alliance for Peace included in their support statement — association, information, and political dissent. The Times article’s condescending attitude to the historic struggle for Black and African self-determination and dignity focused instead on what it described as a “low tech” approach for gaining “influence” in the U.S. – solidarity.

An hour before the trial began on Tuesday, Sept. 3, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, former New York City Councilperson Charles Barron, Jaqueline Luqman representing Black Alliance for Peace chair Ajamu Baraka arrived later, Benjamin Prado from Union del Barrio, Pam Africa, the heart of the movement to Free Mumia, and others spoke at the press conference across the street from the Federal Court in downtown Tampa.

Sister Pam declared, “We are not coming here looking for justice, we are coming here to expose injustice. This is not something they thought out very well. They’ve given our brother, the Uhuru organization, each and every last freedom fighter out here, an international platform to expose exactly what these people do and the extent to which they do it.”

Rev. Edward Pinkney and Mrs. Dorothy Pinkney traveled from Michigan. Pinkney is a long-time community organizer who has led resistance in Benton Harbor, Michigan, a predominantly African-American community, to a government subservient to the Benton Harbor-based Whirlpool corporation. He suffered unjust imprisonment by a vindictive and racist capitalist power structure until a relentless international solidarity movement prevailed.

Many solidarity movements are watching this trial carefully. Nesbit Crutchfield from the Venceremos Brigade and this writer who is a Co-chair of the National Network on Cuba represented the Cuba solidarity movement in the U.S. 

Everyone who can come to Tampa next week, do come. Volunteer to help the campaign and follow HandsOffUhuru.org. Watch the daily livestream from 8 a.m. – 1 p.m. Eastern at youtube.com/UhuruTV or facebook.com/handsoffuhuru.