Māori MP Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke captured global attention with a powerful haka performed to protest the controversial Treaty Principles Bill

On Nov. 14, 22-year-old Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke made global headlines when she performed a powerful haka, a Māori war cry, in New Zealand’s Parliament, tearing a copy of a controversial bill as part of her protest. A TikTok video of the moment, posted by Māori Television, has since been viewed over 200 million times and has garnered over 25 million likes in just three days. Online pundits have debated the effectiveness of the theatrical protest, but the bigger questions remain: Who is this young lawmaker? Why did she perform this haka? And what impact is her action likely to have on the broader movement for Māori sovereignty? Here are ten things you should know about Hana’s haka.

Hana’s election victory

Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke was elected to Parliament at just 21 years old, making her New Zealand’s youngest Member of Parliament in 170 years. Her victory was surprising—not because of her age, but because she unseated one of the country’s most seasoned politicians, Nanaia Mahuta, to win the Hauraki-Waikato Māori electorate seat.

Mahuta, a long-serving Labour MP, was widely considered certain to retain her seat. In 2017, experienced tribal leader Rāhui Papa had contested the seat against Mahuta with the full backing of the Māori King, only to suffer a crushing defeat in a race that seemed to solidify Mahuta’s unshakeable hold on the electorate.

Hana’s rise in popularity

So how did Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke secure her historic election victory against such a formidable opponent? Part of the shift in voter preference can be attributed to declining support for the Labour Party, which, despite two terms in power, had delivered little for Māori. In contrast, the Māori Party’s popularity had been rising since it secured two seats in the 2020 election with its campaign to be “unapologetically Māori.”

A key factor in Hana’s rise was the series of threats she faced in the lead-up to the election—including home invasions, vandalism, and a threatening letter. When asked if these attacks had intimidated her, Hana responded with resolve: “Don’t be scared, because the Kohanga Reo generation is here,” referring to the generation of Māori educated in Māori language immersion schooling from an early age. Rather than weaken her campaign, Hana’s steadfastness in the face of these threats only secured greater support.

Why Hana performed a haka

Hana performed the haka Ka Mate during Parliament’s first reading of the controversial Treaty Principles Bill—an attempt by the far-right coalition government to strip Māori of their Treaty rights. The bill is widely regarded as one of the most egregious measures in a series of legislative changes pushed by the government, which Māori view as direct attacks on their health, language, culture, and land rights.

A 9-day nationwide hīkoi (protest march), beginning at the northern tip of New Zealand’s North Island, was planned to arrive at Parliament on the day of the bill’s first reading. However, with just two days’ notice, the government moved the first reading forward, scheduling it for a date just four days into the hīkoi—when the marchers had only reached the Waikato region. This move was widely perceived as a cynical, anti-democratic attempt to stifle debate and avoid the pressure of Māori exercising their right to protest. By performing the haka, Hana disrupted parliamentary proceedings as the votes were being counted.

What Hana said in Parliament

Hana began by calmly stating in her native language, “Six votes opposed.” She then performed a pao—an impromptu song—reminding members of Parliament of their place within the country: “Government! You were made a guest by me!” Despite Speaker of the House Gerry Brownlee’s attempt to interrupt, Hana launched into the iconic haka Ka Mate. She was joined by members of her own party, Māori MPs from Labour and the Greens, and a packed public gallery.

The haka Ka Mate was composed in 1820 by celebrated Māori leader Te Rauparaha of the Ngāti Toa Rangatira tribe. It speaks to moments of “life or death” and celebrates the triumph of surviving seemingly insurmountable odds, making it an apt protest against the controversial bill.

Hīkoi as a tactic in Māori activism

Hīkoi is a Māori word meaning “walk,” but as a form of activism, it has taken on a deeper significance and played a central role in the Māori sovereignty movement. The tactic was famously used in the 1975 Land March to oppose the theft of Māori land and again in 2004 to protest the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

The latest hīkoi was led by Toitū Te Tiriti, a group with strong ties to Hana’s political party. It began at Te Rerenga Wairua, the northernmost point of New Zealand, and involved relay teams physically traversing the land, accompanied by car convoys traveling between protest action points. In this way, the land was symbolically and physically reclaimed, while momentum built as the hīkoi progressed toward Parliament. On Tuesday, November 19, the hīkoi reached Wellington, where the march on Parliament was one of the largest in the nation’s history.

Hana’s role in the hīkoi

While Hana has received widespread praise for her haka, less attention has been given to her earlier work that day in the Waikato region, 550km north of Parliament. Hana met the hīkoi in her hometown and completed a 16km relay leg through her electorate. There, she delivered a speech and expressed a mix of weariness and hope, saying, “I’m sick of fighting.” She urged Māori to update the rallying cry, Ka whawhai tonu mātou! Ake! Ake! Ake! (We will fight forever and ever and ever), to Ka ora tonu mātou! Ake! Ake! Ake! (We will live and be well forever and ever and ever).

Hana’s international recognition

Despite being only one year into her political career, Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke has already received international recognition. This year, Time magazine named her as a ‘next generation leader’, and she was one of four people to be awarded the ‘One Young World Politician of the Year’.

Hana’s view of the world

Hana is a member of Te Pāti Māori (The Māori Party), which currently holds six seats in Parliament and has been vocal in its criticism of New Zealand’s foreign policy. In a statement on Gaza, the party condemned the government for “turning a blind eye to genocide” and urged New Zealand to end its role in “providing political cover for US-funded imperialism” and “acting as a Pacific spy base for the Five Eyes Alliance.” The party also demanded “an immediate ceasefire in Gaza” and called for New Zealand to “expel the Israeli and United States ambassadors” until a ceasefire is achieved.

Reactions to Hana’s haka

The viral video of Hana’s haka has sparked online debate about the effectiveness of using haka as a protest tactic, particularly when performed by a member of Parliament. Critics who argue that a haka alone won’t achieve meaningful change often fail to acknowledge the broader context of the concurrent mass mobilization. Meanwhile, those who label Hana’s haka as “uncivilized” can be dismissed as racist.

Some critiques, however, have raised important points—ones that those within the Māori protest movement are acutely aware of. Protest movements should be led by the people, not politicians. Yet, the group leading the recent hīkoi has become closely associated with Hana’s Māori Party, creating a contradiction: the type of transformative change needed cannot be achieved through electoral politics alone. A broader political solution, such as constitutional transformation, is essential. Māori must remain vigilant to ensure the movement for constitutional justice is not co-opted for electoral gains within the settler government framework.

Additionally, hīkoi as a tactic alone would be insufficient unless it is clear that the mass mobilization is prepared to escalate if their demands are not met. Hana hinted at this potential, stating that if the government continues to push the bill, “honestly, it’s going to cause riots.”

Hana’s own reaction to her haka

After halting proceedings with her haka, Hana exited the House, where she was immediately surrounded by reporters asking why she had performed the haka. Hana casually responded that she was simply being Māori, as that’s all she knows. Her words reflected those of the late Māori King, Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII, who addressed legislative attacks on Māori at a gathering earlier this year. In August, he said:

“The best protest we can make right now is being Māori. Be who we are. Live our values. Speak our reo. Care for our mokopuna, our awa, our maunga. Just be Māori. Be Māori all day, every day. We are here. We are strong.”

Upholding Te Tiriti

On Tuesday, November 19, the hīkoi arrived at Parliament. While the Treaty Principles Bill is unlikely to pass its second reading, there remains the possibility of a citizen-initiated referendum on the bill. If this occurs, Māori—who make up 17.8% of New Zealand’s population—could face the tyranny of the majority, similar to what happened during Australia’s Voice to Parliament referendum.

However, the hīkoi has always been about more than the Treaty Principles Bill. The Toitū te Tiriti hīkoi is a movement to uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi—the true Treaty, written in Māori. If fully honored, the Treaty calls for radical constitutional change in Aotearoa. While the current far-right government’s attacks on Māori have been distressing, they have also served to unite, galvanize, and radicalize the community. As Hana herself put it:

“Why are they [the Crown] consistently dictating over us when that’s not what the Treaty says? That is not what our founding document says. It says, you look after your people, we’ll look after our people, and we can get along. It does not say you govern over us. And that’s the bigger question that we’re starting to ask ourselves now.”

Dr. Arama Rata is a Māori independent researcher in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Source: Peoples Dispatch

[Editor’s note: Aotearoa is the Māori-language name for New Zealand.]

There is a common thread that runs through all of this week’s events for whānau Māori — from the final words of the last surviving Māori Battalion veteran, to the abuse in care apology, to the hīkoi for Te Tiriti and the introduction of the bill that seeks to undermine it. Jamie Tahana explains.

Sometimes significant events seem to erupt like a geyser. A deluge in which an entire year seems to happen in just a few days. Bubbling away beneath the surface, these events build over time before blowing at once in a vent of awesome fury. This week was certainly one of them.

It started in the steaming village of Ōhinemutu, its waters simmering on the shores of Lake Rotorua, where thousands gathered to farewell Tā Robert “Bom” Gillies, the last surviving member of the Māori Battalion, who died at 99. Shy and reluctant, he’d stepped into prominence in his later years as the final rangatira of that great battalion, laying a wero for both the Crown and Māori to carry the mauri of what they stood for.

As he departed, he would have passed the flags and placards fluttering in the hands of those gathered in the morning mist at Te Rerenga Wairua, huddled together to take their first steps down State Highway One.

From the country’s northernmost tip, the hīkoi followed a well-trodden path to Parliament. Thousands of people — both Māori and Pākehā, young and old — joined that initial crowd in defence of Te Tiriti.

Day after day, clips and pictures showed town and city streets filled with the red, white and black of tino rangatiratanga. In Auckland, they flooded across the Harbour Bridge waving their signs: “Toitū Te Tiriti”, “Whaka Round and Find Out”.

Then came word that Ricky Mitai, the esteemed rangatira tāne of Ōpōtiki Mai Tawhiti, had died. Only 36, he was already a leader, a passionate advocate for te reo and tikanga Māori, whose early loss was keenly felt. Hundreds took a side trip to his tangi in the eastern Bay of Plenty, as the hīkoi continued to work its way down Te Ika a Māui and up Te Waipounamu.

In Rotorua, Tā Bom’s hometown, tamariki carried his portrait at the head of a phalanx of 10,000 people. Horses clopped down the wide boulevard of Fenton Street alongside bare-chested warriors who, chests high and movements staunch, formed a defensive wall, taiaha in hand.

The ongoing hīkoi was a response and challenge to what was finally tabled on Thursday. Parliament fired up as Act leader David Seymour introduced his Treaty Principles Bill, the source of so much angst this past year, but also the source of much of the kotahitanga seen by many Māori, who rallied against an attempt to redefine the country’s founding document and its promises.

A bill the Waitangi Tribunal said would, if passed, “be the worst, most comprehensive breach of the Treaty/te Tiriti in modern times.” A bill that was developed in a way that “deliberately excluded any consultation with the Māori Treaty/te Tiriti partner.”

Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, 22, in announcing Te Pāti Māori’s six votes against the bill, started a rendition of the Ngāti Toa haka Ka Mate that had opposition parties and the public gallery on their feet. The bewildered speaker, Gerry Brownlee, briefly suspended the House, later censuring Maipi-Clarke as he described her conduct as “appallingly disrespectful” and “grossly disorderly”.

In Wellington, politicians and the press gallery were distracted debating decorum while the hīkoi marched on. Ngāti Toa, however, said it was an entirely appropriate use of haka. Helmut Modlik said the bill had put Māori self-determination at risk —“ka mate, ka mate” — and Māori were reclaiming that — “ka ora, ka ora”.

A former National prime minister, Jenny Shipley, said “the voices of this week were completely and utterly appropriate.” The current prime minister, Christopher Luxon, was not there, again insisting National will not support the bill beyond a first reading, calling it “simplistic”.

In the House, his MPs spoke against the bill before voting for it. The government might struggle to honour one agreement, the Treaty, but at least it held strong in honouring another, the coalition agreement. A former National attorney-general, Christopher Finlayson, spoke out to say the bill would greatly damage the party’s relationship with Māori.

But the cat is already out of the bag, the damage already done. The Treaty Principles Bill may be a lame duck without National and New Zealand First’s continued support, but te iwi Māori have already stirred in a way not seen in at least 20 years.

The Clark Labour government and its ministers are forever stained by the Foreshore and Seabed Act of 2004 and the Tūhoe terror raids. It would be a miracle for the Luxon government to not be similarly stained by the furore of ‘24.

And let us not forget the omnibus of other laws that have specifically targeted Māori and Te Tiriti in the past year. The Treaty Principles Bill may be dead on arrival, but the principles are still being examined and possibly written out of existing legislation. The government has already started its targeting of the Waitangi Tribunal, while criticising the courts over Te Tiriti.

Sadly, the introduction of the bill had been brought forward by a week, and Thursday’s pantomime overshadowed an event at parliament that was decades in the making. On Tuesday, thousands of morehu came together to hear the words it’s taken successive governments generations to say: Sorry.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care’s final reports, released earlier this year, make for harrowing reading. An estimated 200,000 people endured abuse in state- and faith-based care between 1950 and 2019 which, in many cases, amounted to torture. The vast majority of these victims were Māori.

The odious history of abuse in care is a national disgrace where, over decades, children were stripped from their whānau and identities and placed into institutions or foster homes where they were physically, mentally and sexually abused while the state did nothing to help. Instead, it often moved to bury the evidence and protect itself.

Over the years, I’ve done a few stories — nothing compared to the incredible work of the likes of Aaron Smale and others — but I’ve spent time with survivors, and sat through some of the Royal Commission hearings, in marae, on Zoom during Covid, and in the sterile makeshift courtroom above an Irish bar in Newmarket.

The testimony and stories are painful, from people whose entire lives were torn to shreds before they’d even started.

There were stories of people who, as babies, were taken from whānau, split from siblings, and placed with strangers. Others were held in state or church institutions where they endured physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. Young people who were locked in solitary confinement for weeks, in boys’ and girls’ homes that were nothing more than gang recruitment centres. Tamariki Māori who were shipped to remote farms and made to work as slave labour; who were rendered invisible.

When they tried to tell someone, they were only met with the callous indifference of bureaucracy. When they tried to run away, they were picked up by the police and returned to the centres that tortured them, and punished even more harshly.

At the long-abandoned site of the Kohitere Boys’ Home, on the windswept plains near Levin, there remains the skeleton of a concrete building, set away and obscured by trees. It was known as “the block” by those who were there. Inside were concrete cells, where young boys would spend 23 hours a day in solitary confinement. No bed sheets, no toys, no natural light. Nothing to do but sit and stew.

Just as violence was meted out to erase te reo in schools, state care was a tool of assimilation in the 20th century.

The Royal Commission heard from many people whose Māori names were taken away because they were too hard for Pākehā to pronounce. At one boys’ home, a child was struck around the head for saying “kia ora”. Others were belittled for being Māori, discouraged from any cultural practice, denied knowledge of their ancestry, and written off for any education because of who they were.

The only education they got was an induction into a world of crime, a preparatory course for prison. It was the experience of Dr Rawiri Waretini-Karena, whom I spoke to in 2022, when he recalled arriving in prison in the 1980s. “You go out into the yard for the first time and you actually know about 80 percent of the people there [from the boys’ home].” Another ran away from an abusive foster home, stole several bottles of liquor, then drank himself into a stupor in the urupa. It was the only way he could speak to his dead mother. No one else would listen.

It always requires a certain courage to speak the unspeakable. To have the courage and the fortitude to fight the machinery of the state and its army of servants, just for the truth to finally be acknowledged.

The men and women who spoke of the sexual, physical and emotional abuse they suffered refused to back down for decades as the state refused to listen, hold an inquiry, or admit that it was systemic. They fought for decades to hear a prime minister admit that the state committed these heinous acts.

Luxon’s apology on Tuesday was powerful, and I have no doubt he was sincere in his apology. But the dignity and mana with which ngā morehu have carried (and continue to carry) themselves should never be forgotten.

However, they’re also right to be sceptical. There is still no appropriate redress system, and some fear they will die before it finally happens.

Too often for the Crown, sorry seems to be the easiest word, and the risk that this apology rings hollow is huge.

In 2021, Jacinda Ardern apologised for the racist, bipartisan Dawn Raids of the 1970s, which targeted tangata Moana. (Many Māori were targeted by police too, assumed to be Pacific Islanders by officers who were racially profiling.) But the very morning of the apology, immigration officers were conducting raids at dawn.

For more than 30 years now, iwi and hapū have also been hearing the Crown say sorry for its breaches of Te Tiriti, for failing to act in partnership, for its acts of stripping land, lives, culture and power, and for promising to restore its honour as it finally acts as a Treaty partner.

This week has shown those apologies might be hollow, too.

Because an apology is made good not through words, but action. And, so far, the signs have not been promising, as the survivors also made clear on Tuesday. “We’ve heard those words from the state before, and they are meaningless because they have not resulted in change or progress,” Keith Wiffin told Newsroom.

Across decades, officialdom has obfuscated, fabricated and blocked any redress to this history of shame in a series of moves that, with the light of day, look morally reprehensible. The Solicitor General, Una Jagose, who in previous roles at Crown Law played a part in aggressively stymying survivors’ legal claims, gave a tepid apology littered with qualifications. She was heckled and jeered by survivors, but still insists she’s the right person for the job.

The government has also promised to ensure this never happens again while at the same time stripping the legal provisions that ensure Oranga Tamaraki upholds Te Tiriti and keeps tamaraki connected to their whakapapa. It has also announced plans to expand the number of youth detention facilities, and re-introduced boot camps.

It promises things will be different this time, though. As the survivors said this week, they’re sceptical of that.

The thread that runs through all of this week’s events for Māori is the context and history of colonisation and its continuing consequences. It’s the assumption and presumption that the Crown can usurp its Treaty promises, impose its values and institutions, and make unilateral decisions for whānau, iwi and hapū, often with damaging and devastating consequences.

In parliament this week, we saw survivors of abuse in care say “no more”, just as we also saw thousands take to the street to also say “no more”.

Not long before he passed, Bom Gillies wrote a brief of evidence for the Waitangi Tribunal’s ongoing veterans’ inquiry.

“I had served for a country that had not, and still does not, respect me as a Māori,” he wrote. “I look back and I ask: ‘Was it worth it’? The cream of our race lie overseas while we continue to struggle against the Crown to this very day.”

Jamie Tahana (Ngāti Pikiao/Ngāti Makino/Tapuika) is a journalist and broadcaster who has worked in both Aotearoa and the Pacific. He grew up between his Dutch mother in the Hutt, Wellington, and his Te Arawa dad in Rotorua, going on to qualify with a master’s degree at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University. He was Māori News Editor at RNZ until May 2023, and is now working in London.

Source: E-Tangata

On October 15, data from the Election Commission of Sri Lanka showed that the National People’s Power (NPP) coalition scored a decisive victory in Sri Lanka’s first general election since defaulting on its external debt.

With 61.56 percent of the popular vote, the NPP won 159 seats in Parliament. This gave President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) a supermajority in parliament and the power to make constitutional amendments.

The NPP won a majority of the popular vote in 21 out of 22 electoral districts in the country. In the southern district of Hambantota, a traditionally left-wing Sinhala nationalist constituency that was the stronghold of the Rajapaksa family, the NPP secured 66.38 percent of the vote.

In the central Nuwaraeliya district, where many of the voters are Tamil-speaking workers in tea estates, the NPP secured a 41.57 percent plurality of the vote. In the northern Jaffna district, a stronghold of conservative Tamil nationalist parties, the NPP secured a plurality, with 24.85 percent of the popular vote.

This is a significant turnaround for the NPP, as during the presidential election, AKD polled poorly in both the north and in the central tea estate regions.

These developments may indicate that traditional identity-based parties are undergoing a significant crisis of legitimacy, as economic grievances and bitterness toward the established political elite take center stage.

They also indicate the success of the NPP in driving a grassroots campaign that emphasized national unity, or in their words, “a national renaissance.”

Several parliamentarians who were a mainstay in electoral politics for decades lost their seats entirely. The disintegration of the two great poles of Sri Lankan electoral politics—the center-right United National Party (UNP) and its breakaway Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), and the center-left Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and its breakaway Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP)—continued.

Sajith Premadasa’s SJB, with just 17.66 percent of the vote, will sit in opposition. Namal Rajapaksa’s SLPP secured just 3.14 percent of the vote. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s new alliance, the New Democratic Front, secured just 4.49 percent of the vote.

Importantly, voter turnout declined from 79.46 percent in the September presidential election to 68.93 percent—the lowest turnout for an election since 2010. This likely played some role in boosting pro-incumbent bias as disenchanted voters of parties other than the NPP chose to stay at home.

Challenges ahead

In the realm of economic policy, the new NPP government is sitting on the ticking time bomb that is Sri Lanka’s 17th IMF program and its accompanying debt restructuring deal, sealed by AKD’s predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghe. One of AKD’s key campaign promises was to conduct an independent debt sustainability analysis and renegotiate this deal. This will be much easier said than done.

The debt restructuring deal negotiated by Wickremesinghe includes novel instruments such as “governance-linked bonds” which link interest rates to the government’s willingness to pass “anti-corruption” legislation—corruption being a dog whistle reserved for countries in the Global South that are insufficiently subordinated to the neoliberal paradigm.

The deal also includes “macro-linked bonds” which have no upside for Sri Lanka. According to these, higher GDP growth rates in the country will be met with higher interest payments to private bondholders, like BlackRock, who own the largest share of Sri Lanka’s debt.

Some analysts predict an economic meltdown starting in 2027 when Sri Lanka will have to begin repaying its external debt, likely running down its foreign currency reserves and forcing it to borrow again from international bond markets. In order to deliver on its campaign promise of system change, the NPP will have to put an end to this debt spiral and begin to industrialize the country.

In the realm of foreign policy, the NPP will have to navigate the recently elected Trump administration, which is likely to double down on the Indo-Pacific Strategy to contain China. Following the end of Sri Lanka’s Civil War in 2009, the U.S. has applied increasing pressure on the country, often leveraging human rights issues to push through a combination of economic and governance reforms.

In the past decade, the U.S. has attempted to push through economic agreements like the Millennium Challenge Compact which contained provisions to privatize land. It has also promoted military agreements like the Status of Forces Agreement and the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement, both of which aimed to improve interoperability between the U.S. and Sri Lankan military in order to draw the latter into the United States’ New Cold War on China.

Should it choose to take on these tasks, the NPP will have to tap into the insurgent multipolar movement in the Global South in order to build a united front against debt and imperialism. They will need to rekindle the Bandung Spirit and restore Sri Lanka’s leading position in the Non-Aligned Movement. Time will tell if the NPP is up to this task.

Internal contradictions

A decisive factor in the next four years will be how the internal balance of forces plays out within the NPP coalition, where the biggest party is the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). Many of the NPP’s new parliamentarians are young and inexperienced and have few links with the old JVP. The latter was modeled on a Marxist-Leninist cadre-based party.

The ideological makeup of the NPP is therefore eclectic, including many middle-class professionals, academics, artists, and political activists. Some have a markedly liberal cosmopolitan character that is in stark contrast to the old JVP’s base of mainly rural cadres known for their militancy and patriotism. Managing this dialectic of old and new will be another challenge for AKD.

Meanwhile, the shock of an electoral wipe may force the right-wing forces, namely the UNP and SJB, to regroup. They will take every opportunity to evoke a red scare and paint even the most moderate reform as a communist takeover. They will use their links with imperialists in the West to do this.

Finally, there is the traditional nationalist camp which includes the Rajapaksas, various splinters of the Old Left, and Sinhala nationalists. It is clear that it is primarily the disenchanted voters of this bloc that form the bedrock of support for the NPP. Therefore, there will likely be much pressure on the NPP to live up to the populist and patriotic traditions of southern Sri Lanka.

This article was produced by Globetrotter. Shiran Illanperuma is a Sri Lankan political economist and writer. He is a researcher and editor at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He holds an MSc in economic policy from SOAS University of London. His research interests include industrial policy and structural transformation.

Aboubakar Alassane of the West Africa Peoples Organization (WAPO) explains how Nigeriens are enduring the consequences of unprecedented floods that devastated their economy already crippled by sanctions.

In the aftermath of devastation left behind in the wake of unprecedented floods, Nigeriens are rebuilding their livelihoods and economy with the help of the several relief measures instituted by the government to drastically cut prices of essential commodities and services.

The Sahel-wide flooding between June and October has exacted a particularly high toll on the people of Niger, destroying crops, cattle, houses and infrastructure in one of the world’s poorest countries whose economy had already been strangled by the seven month-long sanctions.

By late September, at least 339 were killed, many more injured, and 1.1 million people displaced by the floods caused by unprecedented rain affecting almost 190,000 hectares of cultivated agricultural land in a country with one of the highest child malnutrition rates.

Maradi region, the agricultural hub of south-central Niger, was the worst affected, with “the equivalent of an entire month’s worth of rain falling in a day,” said Aboubakar Alassane, a member of the coordination council of West Africa Peoples Organization (WAPO).

Masses of livestock, which is also one of the most important sources of foreign exchange in Niger, were washed away in the Agadez region in the Sahara desert in central-north Niger, destroying the sole livelihood of nomadic communities.

The floods have further eroded the food supply that had already been dwindling, with agricultural land and pastures shrinking due to deficit rainfall over the five years before this deluge.

This climate catastrophe took place as Niger was already suffering under the harsh sanctions imposed by the regional bloc Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), egged on by France, following the ouster of the regime of Mohamed Bazoum, perceived domestically as a puppet of France.

Mass protests against the military deployment and economic domination of the country by its former colonizer culminated in a coup led by the head of his presidential guard, General Abdourahamane Tchiani, removing Bazoum on July 26, 2023. A military government called the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) was formed.

Sanctions followed on July 30, without any notice period. State assets were frozen. A no-fly zone was imposed. The borders of this landlocked country were closed immediately. Even those trucks that had already cleared the paperwork were halted at the borders. Between July 30 and October 31 that year, 42,037 tons of various goods worth over 23 million US dollars were prevented from crossing into Niger.

Alassane recounted that immediately after the sanctions were imposed, the price of a 25 kg bag of rice nearly doubled from 12,000 to 21,000 CFA Franc, a colonial currency through which France continues to exert monetary control over its former colonies in West Africa.

A 75 kg bag of corn, “which had never exceeded 23,000 CFA, was selling at 40,000. Millet prices rose similarly, with niébé beans reaching 47,000 CFA, up from 20,000-25,000 before sanctions. Within a week, people were forced to line up in long queues before stores” to buy the limited supplies of food items that had to be rationed, he added.

The foreign market for onions, one of Niger’s main irrigated crops over 90% of which used to be exported, was cut-off. Hundreds of thousands of farmers were unable to sell their produce. Many more involved in its supply chain and export lost their livelihoods. The government is still struggling to resolve the disputes that arose between farmers, transporters and exporters due to the sudden inability to make payments.

Neighboring Nigeria, on which Niger depended for 70% of its electricity supply while its Uranium powered France’s nuclear plants, cut-off power in violation of the bilateral agreements. “Electricity was rationed to 4 hours per neighborhood in Niamey. Dosso and Tillaberi only had electricity for 6 to 8 hours, when the old thermal generators, purchased in the 1980s, did not break down,” he added. Students were not able to study after dark.

Desperation and misery increased amongst the poorest as a consequence of the economic devastation caused by the sanctions, ostensibly imposed to ‘restore democracy’.

Sanctions have only served to consolidate popular support of the military government

Be it “Cuba, Russia, DPR Korea, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Libya, Mali, Burkina Faso and now Niger”, sanctions have always been imposed to make the people suffer “to turn them against their governments.” However, like in all these countries, it has “had the opposite effect,” maintains Alassane.

In the immediate aftermath of the coup removing Bazoum, Niger was divided between those who supported the coup and those who opposed it, he explained. It was amid this confrontation tearing Niger’s political fabric two ways, that the ECOWAS imposed sanctions and threatened war with the backing of France.

“We had never given anyone the mandate to kill us because a president was deposed by a coup,” Alassane protested. He described what followed as a “patriotic surge” that united the country behind the CNSP, which consolidated its popular support by ordering the French troops out of the country and demonstrating its commitment to implement the popular will.

France refused to withdraw its troops, provoking mass demonstrations outside its military base and embassy in Niamey. “The march amid the pouring rain on September 2, 2023 was an unprecedented display of popular strength in the history of Niger, Alassane said. “Some even say that the proclamation of the country’s independence did not draw as large a crowd proportionally to the population.”

Later that month, neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso vowed to defend Niger if attacked, having also suffered sanctions after similar popularly supported coups in recent years removed French-backed regimes and forced its troops out of the two countries. The trio came together to form the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

ECOWAS, on the other hand, was a divided bloc, with its member states facing domestic opposition to the war from popular movements and opposition parties. France announced retreat in late-September and completed the withdrawal of its troops by the year-end.

In January 2024, the AES states announced their decision to withdraw from ECOWAS, threatening to halve its geographical expanse and disrupt the 15-member bloc’s trade and service flows worth almost USD 150 million annually. Amid this existential crisis looming over ECOWAS, its leaders met in late February and lifted the economic sanctions “on purely humanitarian grounds.”

However, “we still feel the effects,” Alassane said. With no confidence in the economy which suffered missed deadlines for payments due to a freeze on transactions due to sanctions, “businesses are closing one after another.”

“Spare parts for vehicles and other mechanical equipment are slow to arrive. We are forced to repair using second-hand parts, which are often defective. The automobile fleet, which is essential for a landlocked country, is shrinking more and more. Every day, we see people struggling with old broken vehicles.”

Niger relies on the port of Cotonou in Benin for most of its imports of machines, spare parts, equipment, and food essentials, while exporting cash crops, uranium and other minerals. Although the sanctions imposing border closure were lifted, Alassane said that the CNSP has been forced to keep the border closed from Niger’s side due to threats of terror attacks.

The official reasons stated by France for stationing its troops in its former colonies in this region was to fight these terror groups it had helped spawn across the Sahel with its participation in the war destroying Libya. During its nearly decade-long troop deployment, terror attacks only increased.

After being compelled to withdraw, France is accused of aiding these terror groups to destabilize these AES states. “France has set up new military bases on the Beninese side of the border to train terrorists to carry out attacks on Niger and Burkina Faso,” Alassane said, explaining Niger’s compulsion to close the Beninese border despite the consequent shortages.

Already reeling under the pressure of this economic crisis, the Nigerien people were additionally hit by the country-wide floods this monsoon. Although floods in this season are common in the region where even the deficit rains pour heavily in short bursts, the scale of devastation left in its wake this year is “unprecedented”.

Relief measures

The CNSP has taken several measures to provide relief, including “a 50% reduction in the cost of medical procedures, examinations, and other services in public hospitals and health centers,”  Alassane said. To increase domestic food availability, the CNSP has banned exports of cereals and pulses outside the AES countries.

Despite being heavily reliant on imports for its own food needs, “more than 50% of the harvest were exported to Nigeria” over the last years because farmers could not find remunerative prices in the local market, he explained.

To mitigate this problem, the CNSP has launched a campaign to provide remuneration to the farmers by purchasing their produce above the market price, while making it available for the domestic consumers at a subsidized rate.

80% of the farming is done on high lands which escaped the devastating impact of the floods, Alassane added. In fact, the yield has been “excellent” due to above-average rain. The government is prioritizing securing this harvest. All these measures have “drastically” dropped the prices of cereals, he said. The price of a 75 kg sack of millet is now down by about 45% since July.

With the price of cement slashed by 50% through waiver on certain taxes on the commodity and exemption of its inputs from taxation, “new construction projects are visible in capital Niamey and other main cities”.

Despite all these travails the Nigeriens have endured in the crosshairs of climate catastrophe and sanctions, at no point did it undermine the popular support for the CNSP, Alassane insists. “As proof” he points out “each time the CNSP announces the holding of the National Consultative Council” under the pressure of the ECOWAS, France and its Western allies, it has been forced to backtrack due to popular opposition.

This council, he added. “is set up every time there is a coup d’état to declare” that the military is only ruling as a “transitional government” whose decisions will be reviewed by the Council until a new constitution is drafted and power is ceded to a civilian government after an election. Mali and Burkina Faso have constituted such councils.

However, Nigeriens do not want this council. Every time there has been a coup in the past, the Council has served as “a door for Western imperialism” to intervene, be it through NGOs or other blocs of civil society, to ensure that another French puppet takes power when the transitional period comes to close, Alassane explained.

Source: Peoples Dispatch

Joint statement of revolutionary organizations in Russia:

Comrades! Today, we stand together against the capitalist system, for the conquest of power by the workers and for the deprivation of this power from the bourgeois exploiting class. The reference point and beacon for us in this struggle, the best proof of the rightness and necessity of our cause, is the main event of the 20th Century – the October Socialist Revolution of 1917.

Great October is already 107 years old, but since this event is epochal, determining the main vector of development of human history for centuries to come, it is not subject to any aging. Let us repeat what is well-known and obvious to everyone who looks at the process of world development objectively and does not distort it to please the bourgeois class.

The significance of October is that for the first time in history, power was taken by the oppressed and exploited, workers and peasants, dispelling the myth that only representatives of the propertied classes could rule. This became possible thanks to the revolution carried out under the leadership of a proletarian party seasoned in class battles — the Bolshevik Party.

The immediate consequence of the seizure of power by the workers was the construction of a socialist state. In this state, thanks to the liberation of labor from the yoke of capital, there was an unusually rapid and comprehensive rise in productive forces, which made the economically and politically backward country the flagship of world development. A socialist society was created — a society of people of high culture, high level of education, high civic morality. This is the basis on which the Soviet people were able to achieve the Great Victory over fascism. They were able to be the first in space and nuclear energy. They were able to ensure peace for the world in the period after the Second World War.

The bourgeois counterrevolution of the late 1980s – early 1990s destroyed all these achievements, destroying the socialist social system, the socialist state — the USSR — and demonstratively shooting the remnants of Soviet power in 1993. Bourgeois propagandists today are trying to prove that the counterrevolution took place due to the unviability of socialism. Lies! The bourgeois revolution became possible as a result of the ruling CPSU ceasing to express the interests of the working class and all workers, and stooping to accepting and implementing the restoration of capitalism under the guise of “perestroika” and the “market” course.

The list of bitter and gloomy things capitalism has brought to our land and lives is endless. Suffice it to say that it has created a monstrous stratification between rich and poor, made people’s position in society and their very lives (medicine is now paid for!) directly dependent on the thickness of their wallets, deprived the workers of all rights and all opportunities to influence the fate of their country.

Capitalism has literally showered us with the most disgusting vices of bourgeois society and also drawn us into an endless series of conflicts and bloody wars on national grounds, the largest of which, the current war with the Nazi regime in Ukraine (and that regime arose only thanks to capitalism), is unfolding before our eyes.

The longer this goes on, the more obvious it becomes that the only way out for the workers is to achieve a new socialist path of development, to break the bourgeois system. No reforms or elections will change anything here. And so our eyes are turned to the example of the Great October.

The bourgeois government understands all this very well and strives to nip any movement toward a new revolution in the bud. Repressions against activists follow, bans on peaceful public events under a variety of pretexts, as well as any manifestations of protest in general. There is a desire to ban the very political literacy of the opponents of the bourgeois regime — the teachings of Marxism-Leninism — equating it with “terrorist” and “extremist” ideologies. But we know from the experience of the 1917 revolution that the thicker the lid that the bourgeoisie tries to push on the cauldron of workers’ protests, the stronger the explosion will be.

Long live the 107th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution!
Long live the coming October!
Happy Revolution Day!

Central Committee of the Russian Communist Workers’ Party (RKRP-CPSU)
Presidium of the Central Committee of the United Communist Party (OKP)
Central Committee of the ROT FRONT
Executive Committee of the Labor Russia movement

Translated by Melinda Butterfield

In Nigeria, 29 children aged 14 to 17 could face the death penalty after being arraigned in Abuja on Nov. 1 with 76 others for participating in protests against the country’s severe cost-of-living crisis. 

The children were charged with multiple felonies, including treason and public disturbance, despite Nigeria’s Child Rights Act, which prohibits criminal proceedings against children or sentencing them to death. Bail was set at an impossible 10 million naira ($5,900) per defendant; some have endured 90 days in detention without adequate food.

Four children collapsed in court from exhaustion. They should be freed and allowed to unite with their families.

Nigeria, one of Africa’s top oil producers, continues to struggle with extreme poverty, rampant corruption, and high inflation. A significant portion of its 210 million people face food insecurity, and the inflation rate is at a 28-year high. Meanwhile, the government has implemented austerity measures at the behest of the World Bank, which is dominated by the U.S.

Africa says no to economic terrorism

Since 2001, Zimbabwe has lost more than $150 billion from the sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union, according to the country’s Vice President Constantino Chiwenga.

That’s around $9,000 stolen from each of the African nation’s 17 million citizens. Just the higher bank fees and interest rates that result from these sanctions cost Zimbabwe a billion dollars per year. 

As Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa noted, “It is the ordinary people, particularly the vulnerable, who bear the brunt of these heinous and inhumane measures, which also stifle economic and social progress in Zimbabwe.”

What crime did Zimbabwe commit to earn such severe punishment? Is it accused of laundering money for the drug cartels, like TD Bank did? No.

The Canadian bank with over 1,100 branches in the United States just paid a $3 billion fine after it confessed to funneling drug profits. Meanwhile, Canada, along with Australia, still sanctions Zimbabwe.

The great offense that Zimbabwe’s people committed — in the eyes of the wealthy and powerful — was that they took back their land. After being colonized by British settlers for 90 years, Africans said their time was up.

Cecil Rhodes’ British South African Company invaded Zimbabwe in the late 1880s. The obscenely rich diamond king modestly proclaimed the country “Rhodesia” after himself. The Rhodes scholarships are named after this war criminal.

Freedom fighters including the woman resistance leader Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana were hanged. 

Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, was so impressed by the stealing of African land that he wrote to Cecil Rhodes asking for his support. Since Zimbabwe won independence, hundreds of white settlers have moved to the Zionist state.

“Israel” — which is really occupied Palestine — will be wiped off the map just like “Rhodesia” was.

Anti-Sanctions Day backed by millions

The cruel sanctions against Zimbabwe have been protested by the 16 countries belonging to the Southern African Development Community. More than 384 million people live in these countries.

Since 2019, SADC has designated Oct. 25 as anti-sanctions day. This year, SADC’s chairperson is Zimbabwe President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa.

President Mnangagwa is the world’s only head of state to have been on death row. As a teenage freedom fighter, his life was spared, but the future president spent 10 years in prison.

Zimbabwe’s president spoke to thousands in Bulawayo, the country’s second-largest city, on Oct. 25, denouncing the sanctions. Also speaking in Zimbabwe was December 12th Movement chairperson Omowale Clay.

The December 12th Movement held a meeting on Anti-Sanctions Day at Sistas’ Place in Brooklyn, New York. D12 member Colette Pean chaired the event. Videos were shown, including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa denouncing the sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Pean described how the European settlers seized Zimbabwe’s land. Cecil Rhodes allowed them to grab as much land as could be ridden around by a horse.

Yet the U.S. and European capitalist governments are howling about the righteous farm seizures by the African inhabitants!

The vicious sanctions were meant to break Zimbabwe, but the country is moving forward. Colette Pean explained how Zimbabwe has one of Africa’s two highest literacy rates.

Hospitals are being built, and drought-resistant crops are being developed. Zimbabwe’s “Look East” policy has greatly increased trade with China and other Asian countries.

Minister Plenipotentiary Donald L. Charumbira, a member of Zimbabwe’s mission to the United Nations, was the special guest. He said that 80% of manufactured goods are domestically produced despite the sanctions.

The diplomat described how British Prime Minister Tony Blair double-crossed Zimbabwe when he refused the promised compensation for the white farmers. This necessitated the farm takeovers, many of which were led by veterans of Zimbabwe’s liberation war, called the Chimurenga.

Blair also refused to reveal where the body of Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi was buried. The freedom fighter, a leader of Kenya’s Land and Freedom army — which the corporate media called the Mau Mau — was hanged by the British on Feb. 18, 1957.

Dedan Kimathi was avenged every time a white farm was seized in Zimbabwe.

Rosemari Mealy brought greetings from the Cuban solidarity movement. The Caribbean nation has been sanctioned by the United States for over 60 years.

Sanctions are a war crime and must be stopped.

The Network of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Humanity (REDH) rejects the decision of the Government of Brazil to veto the incorporation of Venezuela as a partner country to the BRICS bloc.

We consider that this decision delays the progress of the project of integration and resistance of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean with the rest of the nations of the Global South, to confront the neocolonial policies of U.S. and European imperialism, as well as the risks implied by the warlike and unpunished actions of NATO.

In this sense, Brazil’s veto against Venezuela implies the existence of a despicable mechanism of pressure by the U.S. and its international partners on the Brazilian government in office, showing the extreme fragility or complicity of that government before the internal conservative forces, which leads it to act according to the dictates of the national and international right wing.

The veto against Venezuela indicates that the Brazilian government not only yields to Washington’s pressures to exclude Venezuela from an international articulation that would link it, in a coordinated and programmatic way, to a sphere of power of alternative forces, determined to organize and make possible a new world order and balance, but also demonstrates its disagreement with the rest of the founding powers of the BRICS with respect to Venezuela.

With this hostile position towards Venezuela, Brazil goes against its own statement issued in the videoconference for the BRICS on October 23, 2024 where it was expressed that one of the priorities would be the strengthening of the Global South. Now, vetoing the inclusion in the BRICS of the country that has the largest oil reserves in the world and a set of coherent policies and programs that make up the Bolivarian Revolution, starkly contradicts the position of being in favor of strengthening the Global South.

The same statement also claims the installation of financial policies that will allow for a decrease in the weight of the dollar in the world economy, as well as its use as a financial weapon of war against countries; being that Venezuela, victim of the unilateral coercive measures (economic war) imposed by the US government and its allies, is among the countries most affected by this modality of aggression. Why then prohibit Venezuela from having the historical opportunity of a coordination with a policy of confronting the dictatorial financial effects of unilateralism?

The Brazilian foreign policy registers conflicts, discrepancies and differences with several countries in the international scenario, even with some of the BRICS countries, which makes even more absurd a selective veto against Venezuela and also against Nicaragua, another country that also deserved from the Brazilian government a persecutory action, with the expulsion of the Sandinista ambassador from Brasilia, which generates additional conflicts with countries that, in Latin America, have a heroic and coherent resistance to the aggressions programmed by the US.

For all of the above, we call on the government of Brazil to rectify a course of action that only benefits U.S. imperialism and its associates, and not to continue joining the international campaign of defamation and isolation against Bolivarian Venezuela.

For more than two decades, Venezuela has been a key player in the struggle for a multipolar world, possessing strategic natural resources and one of the countries most attacked by unilateral logic. The creation of CELAC, UNASUR and ALBA cannot be understood without its leadership.

Venezuela plays a fundamental role in the integration of the Global South and is a major geopolitical actor that can and should play a leading role in the construction of a new multipolar world. To this end, its entry into the BRICS is a fundamental step.

Our America, October 26, 2024.

Source: Cuba en Resumen / Resumen LatinoAmericano English

Petition

Sign this petition at MesOpinions

From: “The Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine” and the “International Antifascist Solidarity with Ukraine” (IUAFS)

We call for the cessation of arms deliveries from the United States, France, Great Britain, Germany, and other NATO members to the illegitimate Zelensky regime in Kiev and for an end to requests for deep missile strikes on Russian territory!

We also demand an end to the current attacks against Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran!

The world is currently facing the possibility of two major regional wars: one in Europe, between Russia and Ukraine, and the other between Israel and several Middle Eastern states.

These wars are the result of years of aggression and expansion by NATO members and their client states.

The French and British governments and other NATO members in their “free” media have not informed their residents that missile strikes “Storm Shadow” from Ukrainian territory were to be coordinated by French and British military personnel on the ground in Ukraine, which de facto leads the armed forces of these countries into a state of war with Russia.

Furthermore, the French government and other NATO member states authorize and organize the ever-increasing dispatch of mercenaries from France, Poland, Latin America, and other countries to the combat zone of the Ukrainian conflict and organize terrorist activities in Africa, in the Sahel region. Groups of these mercenaries are already actively participating in the escalation of the conflict on the territory of the Russian Federation.

They have not told the people of France and Britain that the only thing preventing these countries from the madness of “acting alone” by launching missile strikes against Russia is that they need authorization from the United States, which controls the satellite data and software used by the Storm Shadow and Scalp missiles.

Most Western governments (France,  Britain, and the USA) refused to (officially) condemn the genocide of civilians in Gaza, and for ten years almost completely ignored the thousands of victims of bombing, starvation and disease in Yemen. We haven’t seen open doors and red carpets for Palestinian or Yemeni refugees! The Kiev regime and Israel enjoy the support of France, Britain and the USA, as well as almost all NATO members, who have branded the enemies of the Kiev authorities and Israel as “terrorists.”

They are now covering up the deaths of thousands of civilians in Lebanon, and have declared the assassination of the leaders of what is called the “Axis of Resistance” a success in the fight against “terrorism.”

We call on everyone to join us in demanding an end to this madness and the establishment of ceasefires and genuine peace agreements in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Ukraine and Myanmar!

We demand:

1. Oppose the war in Europe and plans to deploy long-range hypersonic weapons like the Dark Eagle in Germany by 2026, which can reach targets deep within Russia. This could lead to a nuclear war between Russia and NATO!

2. Immediately end the war that could engulf the entire Middle East due to Israel’s ruthless aggression!

3. Stop sending mercenaries and NATO military personnel from France and the EU to the conflict zones!

4. We support the Sahel Alliance countries of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, which have recently freed themselves from the French neocolonial yoke!

We call for immediate peace negotiations in all conflict zones!

Source: https://www.mesopinions.com/petition/politique/liban-gaza-ukraine-fourniture-armes-envoi/234480

Abuja, Nigeria, Oct. 3 — Detained End Bad Governance protesters released on bail after spending 59 days in detention are shown in this video.

This movement began on July 29 of this year using the hashtags #EndBadGovernance and #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria in response to worsening conditions in the country. 

President Bola Tinubu’s government has implemented austerity measures (cutting social services and fuel subsidies, etc.) at the direction of the neocolonial World Bank, dominated by the U.S. and its imperialist junior partners like the U.K., Germany, and Japan.   

As of Oct. 16, Nigeria’s inflation rate was 32.70% based on the Consumer Price Index. 

The World Food Program says that in June-August, 26.5 million Nigerians faced acute hunger, up from 18.16 million at the end of 2023, an increase of 31.5%. 

Instead of working to meet the needs of the people, the government has responded to the protests with repression. State security forces killed at least 21 people and arrested over 1,000. 

The working-class people of the U.S. have more in common with the struggling Nigerian people than we do with Trump and Harris or any billionaire. 

Solidarity with the people of Nigeria!