Basque leaders convicted in political trial

The Spanish Supreme Court has confirmed the prison sentence against five Basque citizens for their public political activity, which they consider "belonging to ETA". 

The sentence, which only mustered three supports of the five members of the tribunal, sentences Arnaldo Otegi (former speaker of Batasuna party), Rafa Díez (former secretary general of LAB union), Arkaitz Rodríguez, Sonia Jacinto and Miren Zabaleta to prison sentences between 6 and 7 and half years and a ban from holding public office of ten years after that. 

Two members of the high court issued particular votes: one asks the invalidation of the whole trial because the president of the original court, Ángela Murillo, was extremely partial, causing indefension, the other agrees but anyhow considers that there is not a single piece of evidence allowing for conviction and asks for acquittal instead.

The sentence is obviously political because it is just unthinkable that the judges are not following political directions from the Spanish government in this case (as in others) and therefore it means a further blow to the peace process impelled precisely by the people today convicted in Madrid. 

The five of Zutik Euskal Herria (Stand Up Basque Nation) are being punished precisely for impelling this, so far unilateral, peace process, for persuading ETA to cease all armed actions. 

Consequently I must understand this sentence, together with a total lack of negotiation or compromise of any sort from the Spanish side, as another unilateral attempt from the side of the Spanish State to destroy the peace process and force ETA or whoever else in the Basque society to take up arms again against the Spanish occupation. 

It seems that they will fail again. But one wonders: for how long will the Basque patience and determination hold in light of such continuous insults and aggressions?

Ref. Gara[es].

'Poor Little Haiti to be Fleeced of its Riches' (Dady Chery at BAR)

Haiti’s mineral wealth is marked for super-exploitation by a Canadian corporation that has already wreaked havoc in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Mining companies claim the gold and silver reserves were only recently discovered, but “the story could just as well be that the mining executives were biding their time and waiting for a non-nationalistic government to take effect before initiating their projects.” The operation requires construction of a deep-water port in Haiti’s northeast, threatening the country’s marine ecosystems.

Poor Little Haiti to be Fleeced of its Riches

 by Dady Chery

“This mining plan will permanently strip the country of much of its mineral, cultural, and ecological wealth.”

Show me a corporate boss who calls Haiti the “poorest country in the western hemisphere,” and I’ll show you a con artist preparing to fleece Haiti. Likewise, show me a western technocrat who bemoans Haiti’s “dramatic deforestation due to charcoal production” and I’ll show a bio-pirate or vandal preparing to wreck Haiti’s remaining cloud-forest and mangrove-forest ecosystems. 

It turns out that the real plan for Haiti’s northeastern region — especially the Caracol Bay area — is one that was hatched by Canadian mining corporations, with the U.S and South Korean sweatshop zone being a side project and distraction. If this mining plan is given a green light while Haiti is under foreign occupation, it will permanently strip the country of much of its mineral, cultural, and ecological wealth. 

In a recent interview with Canada’s Financial Post, Majescor Resources CEO Dan Hachey was effusive about Michel Martelly’s installment as president because he expects Martelly’s policy of mimicking the Dominican Republic (DR) to be a boon to the mining sector. 

... full story at Black Agenda Report.

 

Video evidence of the police attack against Xuban Nafarrate

The family of Xuban Nafarrate, severely injured in the head by a rubber bullet, tired of the lies of the (undemocratically imposed) Councilor of Interior Rodolfo Ares, has made public a short video that is evidence in the trial and that shows, albeit at some distance and low resolution, the exact moment of the aggression:

It is clear (notice the sketch at 0:22) that Xuban falls down in the exact moment in which the unmistakable sound of a rubber bullet shot is heard. In case you have any doubts the sequence is repeated several times. 

The shameless Mr. Ares claims that Xuban hit something with the head and fell down for that reason. A new version of the old story of "he jumped off the window", "he threw himself through the stairs' central void" or "those are not torture marks but self-produced injuries".

In this case there's no just a video that allows little room for misinterpretation but also nothing against what Xuban could have hit himself (he was about to jump a low fence in his runaway attempt).

The context of this police attack was to "protect" a mafioso fascist commercial center (El Corte Inglés: boycott!) from an information picket which demanded that workers be allowed to strike (the company is so mafioso that they don't allow their workers even basic rights, yet they muzzle the media with massive advertisement expenditure).

Source: Sare Antifaxista[es].

Remembering Iñigo

As you may know, just weeks later, another person, a random football aficionado named Iñigo Cabacas, Pitu, was shot in an even less justified police intervention with another rubber bullet causing him death (after several days in coma). 

His acquaintances have today called for another demo as a whole month has passed since his pointless murder.

Today is also a day that Iñigo would have surely enjoyed a lot because his beloved team Athletic Bilbao is playing the final of the Euroleague in Bucharest and has high hopes of victory.

Source: Sare Antifaxista[es].

"After The Media Has Gone: Fukushima, Suicide and the Legacy of 3.11" (M. Segawa at TAPJ)

After The Media Has Gone: Fukushima, Suicide and the Legacy of 3.11 

Makiko SEGAWA

For the media, time is of the essence in a news story.  The March 11, 2011 disaster attracted thousands of reporters and photographers from around the world.  There was a brief deluge of Japanese and international media coverage on the first anniversary, this spring.  Now the journalists have packed up and gone and by accident or design Japan’s government seems to be mobilizing its agenda, aware that it is under less scrutiny.

The press pack has disappeared like a ghost since this April.  The influx of foreign media has suddenly stopped, as I can attest since I worked as a translator and aid to many foreign journalists in the year up to the 3.11 anniversary in 2012.  Using the keywords ‘Fukushima’ and ‘nuclear plant’ in Japanese to scour the Nikkei TELECOM 21 search engine shows 9,981 domestic news items in April 2012, just over half the 17,272 stories the previous month.

As if to take advantage of the precise timing of the media evacuation, the municipal government of Minami-soma city, Fukushima Prefecture began implementing a blueprint planned some time earlier.  In the dead of night on Monday April 16th, the city lifted the no-entry regulations and changed evacuation zone designations that had stood since March 12, 2011.  The decision allowed people to return to the district of Odaka and some parts of the Haramachi district.

... full story at The Asia-Pacific Journal.

Greece: Anarchist prisoner on hunger strike against being tortured with isolation for a month

Rami Syrianos, Anarchist political prisoner in Nigrita Prison (Serres, Greece) has initiated a hunger strike against the arbitrary punishment/torture of being held in isolation for a whole month. 

Syrianos, whose trial is to be held (after several postponements) on May 21st. After the last postponement, when he was moved between prisons, he rejected the humiliating strip and anal search, and he was punished with isolation and then with "disciplinary prison transfer" to take place on March 28th. 

While legally the isolation cannot be held for more than 10 days, in Syrianos' case he's been isolated for a whole month already, reason why he has initiated the hunger strike in protest. 

A social prisoner by the initials C.D., has joined him in solidarity against these abuses. He was punished with isolation for a night and threatened with further penalties, threats that did not materialize.

Syrianos, who is on trial for the blurry case of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, has not been able to walk outside his confinement cell, except for brief 30 mins corridor strolls, in all this time. 

Source: Contra Info.

Atomic guitars

Some curious music performed by... decaying atoms!

The artist behind the atoms is Fuyuki Yamakawa.

From Ex-SKF, a very interesting blog mostly on the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe.

Some further remarks on the Greek election

I already discussed, very broadly, the electoral results HERE but today A. Cuesta has a nice review at Gara[es], some of whose observations I think are worth repeating here.

First of all, abstention has been massive: 34.9%, more than one of each three Greeks did no go to vote in spite of the severity of the situation. Some may be anarchists (a major force in real Greek politics even if out of parliament) who hope to make a revolution in part by denying the bourgeois representative system its legitimacy but many others are surely just fed up and do not see in the political options available any hope of real change. 

Of those (65.1%) who voted, 2.4% did so as null or blank (protest vote), but almost one in five (19%) voted for lists that did not make it to parliament, a much larger figure than in any previous election, a clear sign of electoral experimentation and discontent.

Never before the winning list had collected so little support, not even by far: the New Democracy (conservative party) "winners" mustered 18.9% of votes, what is a quite pitiful figure but, once we consider abstention, they are revealed as representing only 12.0% of the Greek citizenry. In other words only 3 of each 25 Greek citizens support the winning party ND, which anyhow managed to collect more than 1/3 of Parliament thanks to an electoral law that is now revealed as clearly flawed. 

In this regard, the leader of the second most voted option, the Coalition of the Radical Left, SYRIZA, A. Tsipras criticized the absurd gift of 50 seats to the most voted option as undemocratic and as something that now has become an obstacle in the search of majorities. Guess that he has in mind that the overall sociological Left, including the more than dubious PASOK, have a clear majority of votes and would have one of seats would not be for that shocking bonus of 1/6 of Parliament to the first force. 

However appealing now to the unity of the Left seems as utopic of more as the impossible task for the conservative technical winners, who can't rally the forces of the right, the center or anything around them and their IMF-prescribed collective suicide. The KKE has rejected even a meeting, while the rightist breakaway force DIMAR demands SYRIZA to clarify their position on the euro, what is a bit sarcastic coming from a list that collapsed, after rising many hopes, when they accepted with formal reluctance the Troika-imposed pacts of the PASOK-ND coalition.

Meanwhile Germany dares to "demand", after being the cause number one of this political implosion, the formation of a "reasonable government" that keeps paying the tithes to Berlin and Paris, no matter how many Greek untermenschen have to die for it. 

The German authorities, who already succeeded in the recent past to thwart the proposed referendum on the Troika impositions fear that the dissident forces will be reinforced if new elections take place, so they seem to hope that an ND-PASOK-DIMAR coalition (or something of the like) is formed. This will not happen most likely and, if it happens, it will be extremely unstable and can only delay new elections for a few months and erode even more the legitimacy of the lackey parties.

Austerity bollocks! €7 billion public money for bank paying dividends

The Spanish conservative government is already showing who is the austerity for: only for the poor and weak. The bank of their friend Rodrigo Rato (former Minister of Economy and IMF head) Bankia is being bailed out with a public money injection of nothing less than €5 billion and maybe as much as €10 billion! However the most mentioned figure is €7 bllion.

Meanwhile neither the salaries of the directives nor the dividends of stockholders have been affected at all: the bank, which oddly enough still has benefits, is giving €152 millions in dividends. 

Earlier in the year the same government cut public budget by €27 billion (mostly in education, healthcare, public works, social benefits but not a cent in police, military, royal house or politicians' salaries). 

Worst of all is watching the President of the Government (Prime Minister) Mariano Rajoy answering to journalists once and again Galician style. It's said half-jokingly that  if you meet a Galician at the stairs you will not be able to find if he goes up or down... the reason seems to be that socio-economic oppression in that country caused people to learn to speak ambiguously so they would not get into trouble. But what is a somewhat silly ethnic joke becomes political absurdity, true esperpento (another Galician creation) when the leader of a major state establishes his policies that way: you either don't know what he's going to do, or you do know because you outsmart his stupid game of ambiguity (most do, it's not that difficult) and he looks like unable to speak clearly, what is not considered a virtue even in Galicia - I bet. 

But in any case it seems that Mariano will give his friends' bank €7 billion (or maybe more) of our money just because, while the bank gives away nothing less than €152 million in dividends. 

Additionally, Rodrigo Rato, whose career has been going downhill since he was minister no more, blamed in part for the current economic global crisis because he was unable or unwilling to act as head of the IMF, and now involved in this pathetic robbery of public money, has decided to resign. Instead a Basque oligarch, José Ignacio Goirigoizarri, who is already getting three millions for life as former councilor of the BBVA, will be appointed as new CEO. 

Source: Tercera Información[es].

Honduran politician and journalist murdered

Erick Martínez Ávila, 32 (pictured), was found death on May 7th at a roadside between Olancho and Tegucigalpa. He had been reported missing two days before. 

The body presented no obvious injuries, reason why it is speculated that he might have been killed by drowning. However nobody seems to doubt that he must have been murdered, considering the violently repressive Honduran context since the 2009 coup, which often ends in political murders, and the open and ample activist of the victim. 

Erick Martínez was member of the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP) and pre-candidate by its electoral formation the Freedom and Refounding Party (LIBRE). He was also journalist, officer of the LGTB association Kukulcán, co-founder of the Movement for Diversity and Resistance (MDR) and activist of the political association Los Necios (The Fools).

Source: LINyM[es].

Guatemala: Army attacks Maya community: Gas Natural Fenosa, La Caixa, Repsol behind

Huehuetenango department highlighted

State of siege is a variant of the state of emergency that exists in Latin cultures and laws of military meaning: it implies the suspension of human and political rights and a totalitarian military administration (punctual localized fascism by other name).

The Guatemalan President, retired general Otto Pérez, decreed the state of siege in Santa Cruz Barillas (Huehuetenango) five days ago in support of Spanish energy multinational Unión Fenosa, owner of both the Guatemalan electricity companies, against the community opposing the construction of a reservoir.

Some 12 people have been arrested, of which two only have been named (Carmelina López Miranda, 43, and Esperanza Herrera Serrano, 74). Apparently the women were captured because the troops did not find their husbands at home in a clear violation of all human rights and common sense.

A phone call by a local resident going by the name Aurora declared: I am hidden, hungry and very worried.

The Maya communities of this area suffered massively in the civil war in the 1980s, when the military massacred the communities. Aurora recalled all that:

The military killed our parents, we are living with much sadness and terror, very specially the women with their children, please end the state of siege.

On April 13th 298 out of 305 communities confirmed their rejection to the construction. On May 2nd, Andrés Francisco Miguel, Pablo Antonio Pablo and Esteban Bernabé were ambushed by security guards of the ad hoc construction company Hidro Santa Cruz, killing the first one and injuring the others.

The murder triggered massive protests, some of which ended in destruction of property of the criminal company. This was used as pretext to impose the state of siege. 

This military intervention is similar to others executed in the recent past in various localities in support of the Spanish mafioso multinational Gas Natural Fenosa, which holds the energy monopoly in the Central American country. 

Gas Natural Fenosa is owned by La Caixa (the largest Spanish bank, partly owned by Catalan elect institutions) and Repsol (the only relevant Spanish energy corporation, still a monopoly in many sectors, even against EU directives and a major neo-colonialist enterprise in Latin America).

Source: LINyM[es].

Greek Parliament 'hung' among seven parties

I'm following The Guardian here (or more exactly Graphic.gr, which provides them). Please understand that it's not official results and that one or more seats may still swap sides. 

The seven parties are (updated at 99.6% of scrutiny):

1. New Democracy (ND, conservatives): 1,188,396 votes (18.9%) - 58 rightful seats + 50 extra seats for being the first party = 108 seats
2. Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA): 1,056,852 votes (16.8%) - 52 seats
3. Pan-Hellenic Socialist Party (PASOK): 830,797 votes (13.2%) - 41 seats
4. Independent Greeks (conservative dissidents): 668,149 votes (10.6%) - 33 seats
5. Communist Party of Greece (KKE): 534,119 votes (8.5%) - 26 votes
6. Golden Dawn (Nazis): 439,259 votes (7.0%) - 21 seats
7. Democratic Left (DIMAR): 384,599 votes (6.1%) - 19 seats

All other parties have not reached the 3% threshold and will therefore be out of Parliament, notably the Ecologist Greens (2.9%), who have grown but not enough to retain their representation, and the far-right LAOS (Christian-Fascism, 2.9%) who are paying for their error of being part of the Papademos great coalition ECB-IMF government, even if briefly. 

Another clear failure was ANTARSYA, the Front of the Greek Anticapitalist Left, which hoped to grow among discontent but only got 1.2% of votes.

Actually all the Left except SYRIZA have performed not as well as expected. Not long ago opinion polls gave the KKE and DIMAR hopes of being above the 12% but they have ended clearly much lower. The KKE barely grows a percentile point and DIMAR has totally failed to scrap most of the votes lost by the suicidal PASOK.

Well, that is unless you consider that the PASOK is still at the left (what I do not see any single reason to). In that case, we must admit that they have not collapsed as badly as expected, somehow managing to survive the worst expectations of 8% of vote.

But the clear winner in the Left and in general is SYRIZA, which, against all expectations (just months ago they were struggling for a 12% in the opinion polls) have become the second party, or more exactly coalition, in the Greek political landscape, stepping on the very heels of the conservatives. 

This Communist-Ecologist coalition is articulated around the Coalition of the Left Movements and Ecology (Synaspismos, technically a single party in spite of the name),  which is the non-Stalinist byproduct of the purges inside the KKE and allies. Other smaller parties (ecologists, Trotskyists and KKE dissidents) have rallied around them in the SYRIZA larger coalition. 

Why does ND get more than double seats than SYRIZA when it only has a small advantage?

Don't ask me but it seems that the electoral system strongly favors those who get first position in each district. SYRIZA may have got a lot of votes but won mostly in Greater Athens and other key areas (Central Greece, Thessaloníki, Achaea, etc.), while ND has managed to be the first, even if by little, in most of the countryside.

That's what I gather. I see no other explanation.

Update: I have been told (h/t to Guy Herbert) that I was wrong: the reason is that the party in the nationwide first position gets 50 extra seats just because, the reasoning being that it helps to form solid governments. 

So ND only has 58 legitimate seats and then the extra 50 ones... I wonder what would have happened if SYRIZA won first position (it was really close). Hmmm... 102+26+19=147, just four seats short of a majority for the left at the left of the PASOK. But of course if they would have won, they would have got a few apportioned seats more... it would have been interesting and it may still happen if a new election has to be called.

Pluralities by district: ND, SYRIZA, PASOK, KKE

The leading party ND has performed quite poorly specially in Central Greece, Thessaloníki, and Crete, where it does not reach the 15% of vote in any case and sometimes fall under the 10% psychological barrier.

The second bloc, SYRIZA, courts the 20% of voter support in Central Greece (mostly above 19%) but actually reaches it in some specific areas: Athens-B, Achaea, Artas and Ksanthis.

The great loser, PASOK, actually falls well under 10% in Central Greece and Magnesia (Volos), but retains some support in the countryside. 

The main support for the KKE is in the islands (Samos, Lesbos, Ionian islands) and to a lesser extent in the urban areas and the rural North and West.

The Independent Greeks get scattered support with some emphasis in the Dodecanese (Rhodes) and Western and Northern mainland non-urban areas.

The Nazis have got its greatest support in Corinth and Laconia (Sparta), with worrying presence also in some other districts like Attica (not in urban Athens though).

What governments can result from this situation?

Probably no government. If last minute seats jump favorably to the ruling grand coalition, the twin party bloc could muster a single seat majority of 151 votes but this would be extremely unstable. It has yet to happen in any case: at the moment ND-PASOK only gather 149 seats (updated), not enough. 

The Right, including the Nazis, could muster a majority but not only the inclusion of the extremist right would be a major issue but also it's difficult to see how the pro-BCE New Democracy and their anti-austerity dissidents, the Independent Greeks, can come together on the key issue of applying the IMF poisonous "medicine". They also lack a clear voter support (36.5% only): they could muster a technical majority but lack a popular one, what should be a major legitimacy issue.

While the Left, including PASOK, has a majority in the popular vote (44.6%), they can't muster enough MPs to form government and they are anyhow most unlikely to come together after what PASOK has done to the Greek popular classes in the last year and half.

Greek elections: polls place the Coalition of the Radical Left struggling for first place

A. Tsipras, leader of SYRIZA

Although SYRIZA will most likely end up second, that is already a huge victory, and one rather unexpected as pre-election polls forecast less optimal results. 

Instead the twin-party ND-PASOK collapses, together not reaching 40% (rather like not even 35%) of the vote. They will not be able to govern even with support of the far right most probably. 

The kingmaker position is likely to be held by DIMAR, a self-styled democratic socialist new party that is a schism of SYRIZA by the right. However at this moment I have no idea how many votes they have been able to collect. 

The Communist Party of Greece (KKE, neo-Stalinists) seem to have performed slightly under expectations (probably losing voters to SYRIZA).

I have never before followed with any interest a Greek election so I have no idea when we will have some clear results. It may well be later in the night. 

In any case, the system has been turned upside down, with the traditional twin-party system being completely displaced as result of their sell-off to the banksters of the World. 


Update: exit poll (Megat TV, from Keep Talking Greece):

1. Nea Dimokratia (New Democracy, conservatives): 17-20%
2. SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left): 15.5-18.5%
3. PASOK (social-democrats): 14-17%
4. Independent Greeks (conservative dissidents): 10-12%
5. KKE (Communist Party): 7.5-9.5%
6. Golden Dawn (Nazis): 6-8%
7. DIMAR (Democratic Left): 4.5-6.5%
8. LAOS (Christian-Fascists): c. 3%
9. Greens: c. 3%
10. Democratic Alliance (liberals): 2.5%

Under 3% of national vote no representation is achieved. Otherwise, the exact representation will be mostly determined by local performance in the various constituencies (although 12 seats are elected at national level). The Hellenic Parliament has a single house with 300 seats.

Other European elections

As you probably know by now, all the dirty jobs, the pseudo-Napoleonic imperialism nor the pointless anger and arrogance have not served Sarkozy to get a second term as president of which is still probably the key European power. His flirting with the Fascists only served in the end to give centrist votes to his opponent. 

Results are not official yet but everyone gives as granted that it is François Hollande the new President of the French Republic. His discourse has been quite moderate and nobody knows well what to expect but what may have been critical in getting him the support of many voters was his only clear line: austerity is not enough, stimulus is necessary. 

We'll see what is left after the vote. 

Meanwhile Merkel and her lackeys of the FDP have lost Schleswig-Holstein to the other face of the twin-party the red-green coalition.

Also in Italy municipal and regional elections (continuing tomorrow Monday) will serve to gauge the public mood for the first time since the technocrat Monti was appointed almost directly by the IMF.

Basque Country: state "administration" leaves desolation in illegally closed newspaper

On July 15th 1998 the infamous judge Baltasar Garzón closed the newspaper Egin (and the radio of the same name), which had been improving in quality through the years and became important in socio-political criticism and investigative journalism. They were accused of "being ETA", a magic-hat legal trick that has been used once and again in the last decade and half to persecute every other Basque person or enterprise, including which was the only Basque-language diary back in the day, Egunkaria, political parties, solidarity movements, cultural associations and a too long etcetera. 

But maybe it is the closure of newspapers and the torture of journalists what more clearly evidenced the mad repressive spiral in which the Spanish residual empire had fallen in order to repress the Basque defiance. 

Eleven years later the tribunals declared that closure illegal. Now finally representatives of the editorial company that owned Egin, Orain S.A., have been able to access what was once a rotative where a much loved newspaper was edited and printed. It has been under state "administration" all this time and all what is left are images of destruction and abandonment:

The destruction was already apparent in 2003, when representatives of the company could for the first time access the building, which had been under strict police occupation for all those years (agents almost "lived" there): disorder, dirt, water leaks, lost equipment, destroyed machines... 

Nothing has improved since then. All the opposite: even more equipment, nearly all cables and even the frames of the doors, has been robbed, mold and mud are all pervading, rubble everywhere, collapsed ceilings...

Will the state assume the responsibility for this devastation? Sadly, we do know the answer: it should but it will not.

Ref. Gara[es].

England: Nazi demo at Luton costs the state a million pounds

The Breivik-akin Neonazi party of Britain, the English Defense League (EDL) organized yesterday a hatred demonstration against Muslims in Luton. They only gathered some three thousand Nazis but the state deployed 1500 police agents with all the equipment in prevention of clashes.

They could not avoid that some stuff (bottles, smoke bombs) was thrown and had to arrest two people (unclear of which side) but the astonishing figure is that the police deployment demo cost even more than police protection for the whole European Central Bank clique just a few days ago in Barcelona. Then the deployment was much larger (8000 agents) but the costs (even if scandalous and very much criticized) were lower: €900,000.

This deployment at Luton cost the British budget a million pounds, the equivalent of €1.2 million.

Aren't British cops a tad too expensive? Wouldn't be cheaper to just arm the communities for self defense? I would gladly take part on anti-Nazi raids for no salary as long as I'm authorized to kill - just saying.

Ref. Sare Antifaxista[es] (includes two videos of mostly prancing ponies, so to say).

An Australian example of the radical injustice of (late) Capitalism

Real wages growth (1978-present): x1.2


Productivity growth (1978-present): x1.7

Corporate benefits' growth (1980-present): x14!!!

Conclusion: even in a well-performing economy like that of Australia, Capitalism sucks.

Source: The Other School of Economics.

Basque citizen chains himself to ruling twin-party office to cause his arrest

Igor Katxorro was sentenced to two years of prison and a fine of €12,000 for alleged urban guerrilla. He proclaims himself innocent and claims vulneration of his right to defense.

In order to denounce the injustice, just one of many in a totalitarian legal system that takes policemen's word as "evidence" and your version is by default considered a lie, more so if you happen to be young and Basque, Igor chained himself to the see of the Socialist Party (PSOE), one of two brands of the twin party system that rules Spain and the other countries annexed to Castile, some of whose members have also been appointed to rule as proconsuls in the Western Basque Country against the will of the people.

This tactic of choosing the time and place of your arrest was used decades ago with great success by the antimilitarist movement. It helps to evidence the injustice and commonality of repression, specially because you can get the press and supporters to be there with advance notice.

Source: La Haine[es].

Japan turns off its last operating nuclear power plant

Iori Mochizuki wonders at his Fukushima Diary: has anyone ever died for lack of nuclear power? 

67th anniversary of the liberation of Mauthausen

The Mauthausen-Gusen death camp, built under Nazi command in Austria, was intended for political prisoners. Some 200,000 people were murdered there (120-320,000), all them committed antifascists from all Europe. 

The camp was abandoned by the SS guards on May 3rd and reached by US troops on May 5th. 

Banner reads (in Spanish): The Spanish Antifascist welcome the liberation troops

Let's not forget because the ghost of fascism has arisen from its ill-sealed tomb and threatens Europe and the World again, fed by its Capitalist masters. 

Ref. Sare Antifaxista[es], Wikipedia.

Quebec student unions claim success based on being 'inherently political' and directly democratic

Students in Quebec have been striking and mobilizing huge numbers for two months now (even if the mainstream media has been censoring them).

The Real News interviews some Quebecois student leaders:

 Found via Naked Capitalism.

Egypt: 1 killed, hundreds injured as Junta attempts to stay in power

Egyptian Revolution act 2 is happening these days and weeks: 

The Military Junta lead by Gral. Tantawi (SCAF) attacked protesters who were besieging the Ministry of Defense and may have tried to storm it, causing one dead and some 400 injured. The Army claims "self-defense".

There are presidential elections scheduled for May 23-24 but several candidates have been vetoed by the Junta, including a fundamentalist leader on grounds that some of his grandparents are not Egyptian but North American.

But the main problem seems to be that the Junta has shown no interest in actually handling power to elect officers, for which there is only one remedy: that the people forces them to do it by any means necessary. 

Source: Al Jazeera.

Nepal: Maoists demand resignation of President, Chancellor at May 1st

The schism within the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) seems to grow by the day: while President Pushpa Kamal Dahan 'Prachandra' and his Prime Minister, Baburam Bhattarai, are negotiating a surrender of the People's Army and a an accommodation to bourgeois institutions and economy that is an even a greater degree of surrender, much of the movement on which their power lays on demands their immediate resignation and accuses them of treason. 

On May 1st the Vice-Chairman of the UCPN(M), Mohan Baidya 'Kiran', a historical Maoist leader, declared his former brother of arms a deceiver and a puppet of foreign powers:

“Our leader Prachanda has deceived us who has waged and lead the People’s war, turned into puppet of foreign powers (...) We have to united for the people’s rights and if only people’s power has been ensured we’ll be united.”

Meanwhile another high profile figure, General Secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa ‘Badal’ has denounced PM Bhattarai for sending security personnel to beat him at a rally against the current power clique. 

Bhattarai has rejected the calls for his resignation, pretends that the attack was done by criminal elements and is using it as pretext to increase the power of armed bodies under his control.

Source: Revolution in South Asia, The Red Star.

Greek state in Nazi-like attack against prostitutes

From the Greek Streets reports how the Greek authorities, in the latest show of their lack of ethics or even a varnish of hypocrisy that could pass for it, have been persecuting prostitutes, forcing them to have HIV tests and exposing publicly, with the help of the mainstream media, their names and photos in what they claim to be a campaign for the protection of Greek households. 

Just in case some reader does not understand how serious this is: 

1. About men who go whoring:
1. Real proud men don't do that.
2. If you do, use a damn fucking condom!
3. These men are, if anyone, the criminals and never the victims: they are taking advantage of women pushed by Capitalism and Patriarchy to have to sell their dignity for survival or similar reason.
2. Prostitutes are essentially the victims of the system: sometimes pushed to do a demeaning but highly demanded job for economic reasons or in other cases, way too often, even forced to their condition by direct violence of criminal gangs, who trade and exploit them as slaves. 

By acting the way they do, the infamous Goldman-Sachs-IMF-ECB-Merkozy-Papademos  government is implying that customers of prostitution mafias are "victims" (instead of the selfish criminal accomplices they actually are) and that sex-workers (slaves?) are "criminals" of sorts for having the disgrace of being forced to have sex without condom by pimps and customers.

As in the infamous surgery-religious nonsense that sells circumcision as a false "prevention" against AIDS, the whole discourse is brutally male-centric and misogynistic: while in heterosexual intercourse women have all the tickets to get infected and males only now and then do (the virus travels in the direction of fluids indeed), the discourse only attempts to help (???) promiscuous men, often whore-goers or even rapists, totally disregarding the health and safety of women who are misleadingly portrayed as mere vehicle of contagion, just as in the old Judeo-Christiano-Muslim junk of women being the source of all sins and what not. 

It sucks and must be denounced as the fascist totalitarian unacceptable abuse it is. 

Not just that, the culprits of these Nazi abuses must be sent to jail or equivalent: they must not be left at large or we risk Europe decaying into the worst Neonazi nightmare. We must react and we must make these Nazi criminals pay for their arrogant crimes against human dignity, freedom and against workers' rights. 

A million euros to protect ECB mafiosi

The Spanish and Catalan authorities have thrown down the toilet nothing less than a million euros to "protect" and "overprotect" and what not the handful Goldman Sachs old boys' club of mafiosi that is the European Central Bank in a silly useless meeting that they could have done anywhere else and that nobody really cared about. 

Nobody but themselves. In case we might not have noticed that our bankster overlords were having dinner with our money, the Spanish state and its Catalan vassal deployed thousands of police agents all around Barcelona, arresting 31 people (but in TV they say that only "one identification") and restricting the free movement of 56 European citizens, who were arbitrarily retained at the border in an equally absurd suspension of Schengen free transit rules.

Only the brutal deployment of the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan autonomous police) costed €500,000, money that will be discounted from your pension, as well as that of the cost of the dinner... Or did you think they're paying from their ample pockets.

Draghi: hang yourself. We're tired of bloodsuckers!

(image source: Zero Hedge)

Ref.: Sare Antifaxista[es]


Update (May 5): Also from SA, some have found quite ironic that two policemen were required to protect each trash container of central Barcelona. Of course not one was burned:

It reads:

IN ORDER TO MAKE SURE THAT IN THE E.C.B. SUMMIT SCENES LIKE THIS ONE COULD NOT HAPPEN:

(image of burned trash container)

WE HAVE ADOPTED PREVENTIVE MEASURES:

POLICE AGENTS 8,000

CONTAINERS IN CENTRAL BARCELONA: 4,600

EFFECTIVELY TWO POLICE AGENTS PER CONTAINER

VISIT BARCELONA

THE SAFEST TRASH CONTAINERS OF ALL EUROPE

'NYPD: Sexual Assault As Police Tactic' (D. Graebber at Kasama)

NYPD: Sexual Assault As Police Tactic

This comes from naked capitalism.

Arbitrary violence is nothing new. The apparently systematic use of sexual assault against women protestors is new. I’m not aware of any reports of police intentionally grabbing women’s breasts before March 17, but on March 17 there were numerous reported cases, and in later nightly evictions from Union Square, the practice became so systematic that at least one woman told me her breasts were grabbed by five different police officers on a single night (in one case, while another one was blowing kisses.) The tactic appeared so abruptly, is so obviously a violation of any sort of police protocol or standard of legality, that it is hard to imagine it is anything but an intentional policy.

David Graeber: New Police Strategy in New York – Sexual Assault Against Peaceful Protestors 

 A few weeks ago I was with a few companions from Occupy Wall Street in Union Square when an old friend — I’ll call her Eileen — passed through, her hand in a cast. 

“What happened to you?” I asked. 

“Oh, this?” she held it up. “I was in Liberty Park on the 17th [the Six Month Anniversary of the Occupation]. When the cops were pushing us out the park, one of them yanked at my breast.” 

“Again?” someone said. We had all been hearing stories like this. In fact, there had been continual reports of police officers groping women during the nightly evictions from Union Square itself over the previous two weeks. 

 “Yeah so I screamed at the guy, I said, ‘you grabbed my boob! what are you, some kind of fucking pervert?’ So they took me behind the lines and broke my wrists.” 

... read full story at Kasama or at Naked Capitalism.

You can vote but you can't work (Vijay Prashad at BAR)

You Can Vote, But You Can't Work

by Vijay Prashad

This article previously appeared on Counterpunch.

“A weakened State and a national economy convulsed by the domination of finance would not be able to guarantee the civil rights of the people.”

In August 1964, Malcolm X spent several weeks in Egypt. While in Cairo, he wrote an essay in the Egypt Gazette entitled “Racism: the Cancer that is Destroying America.” Here, Malcolm X noted, “The common goal of 22 million Afro-Americans is respect and HUMAN RIGHTS….We can never get civil rights in America until our HUMAN RIGHTS are first restored.” The distinction is essential. Civil Rights are earned through the State form. They are historically specific to the modern world, and came onto the agenda of the modern State only because of the struggles of ordinary people to move the ideals of the early modern era into the realm of legality. These are Civil Rights.

Human Rights, Malcolm notes, are to be restored. They are innate, the essence of our species being, the way in which we as social actors want to see ourselves, and how our best instincts force us to see each other. These are innate, but they are not always enacted, for human history is as much a struggle of ordinary people for justice (civil rights) as it is the march of dehumanization. The dance between human rights, our rights as people in society, and civil rights, our rights as citizens in states, is a fundamental part of the grammar of modern politics. To believe that to win civil rights from the state is sufficient is what constitutes modern liberalism: legal provisions for equality are enough for it. That is why it celebrates the US Civil Rights Act of 1964 as its highest achievement. After that, modern liberalism sees that the task is to tinker with reality, not to fundamentally transform it.

Malcolm X looked through and beyond modern liberalism. Of course civil rights in the state are necessary, but these are not sufficient. More is required.

... continue reading at Black Agenda Report. 

Basque Country: even more arrests in Pamplona for March 29th general strike

Ateak Ireki[es] reports today that some other five people have been arrested overnight on unclear accusations of strike-related activities dating to March 29th. There seems to be some judge with particular passion for repressing labor-unionists because this is not happening anywhere else (except in Barcelona where police creates riots each time there is a class demo - but it seems a police management issue not a judicial one). 

The exact accusations are "public disorders" and "vulneration of the right to work", very generic minor accusations that normally would not merit arrest at all. 

Ainhoa Etxaide (pictured) declared to Info Sazpi Irratia[es] that with the only goal of these arrests is to criminalize social mobilization.

Police control on top of a mountain

In a distinct incident that anyhow emphasizes the state of generic repressive madness that Spain imposes to the Basque Nation, a Guardia Civil cell set up camp atop of mountain Adarra, near Urnieta, and forced mountaineers to show identification (under Spanish law if don't carry it you can be arrested and certainly fined, just like in Apartheid South Africa). The previous day they did the same on the nearby mountain Oini. (Source SA[es]).

The worrying map of Fascism in France

Sare Antifaxista publishes today a map showing where the Neonazi party National Front has obtained greatest support:

I think it is very much worrisome that in countries like Provence, Champagne or Picardie about one of every four people is a Nazi (if you vote Nazi, you are a Nazi: no questions about that). Also Corsica but this one is less of a surprise as it was massively colonized with the so-called Pied Noirs: the million-so French-Algerians who were evacuated from North Africa in the 1960s and who are almost always quite fascist. 

Even in the rather optimistically painted green less fascist areas you are way too likely to meet a Nazi or more at the bakery when you shop. 

USA: FBI agent provocateur gets activists into terrorism, meanwhile Obama proclaims May Day as Imperial Loyalty Day

Three Detroit activists who were initially planning to use some smoke bombs to cover themselves up while damaging bank signs in what seems a Greenpeace type of protest, were manipulated by an FBI officer into bombing a bridge (in a federal stretch of land, so the crime could be prosecuted in all the USA - and some vassals like Colombia or Britain). The FBI provided the explosives themselves and, according to their words:

The public was never in danger from the explosive devices, which were controlled by an undercover F.B.I. employee.

The three activists (Douglas L. Wright, 26, Brandon L. Baxter, 20, and Anthony Hayne, 35) have been identified by police as Anarchists and were arrested on Monday and charged with attempted use of explosive materials to damage physical property affecting interstate commerce.

Other two people arrested in the same set-up operation were Connor C. Stevens, 20, and Joshua S. Stafford, 23. 

(Source: Kasama).

Update (May 4): Kasama has now a more detailed article on the profile of the agent provocateur Shaquille Azir.

This story is totally comparable to  Orwell's 1984 nightmarish dystopia and paranoia where the police, aka miniluv (Newspeak for Ministry of Love), controlled the so-called "Resistance" and gradually set up dissidents into confessing, if not committing, to the most heinous crimes out of their hatred for tyranny.

Instead the next story seems more properly taken from the most delirious mock-ups of Star Wars (although it would also fit well in Orwell's clear-sighted warning):

Imperial President Barack Obama has declared that from yesterday on, May Day will be politically enforced as Loyalty Day, in what seems an obvious attempt to counter the mild but meaningful gains of class consciousness in North America in the last year or so. 

In order to recognize the American spirit of loyalty and the sacrifices that so many have made for our Nation, the Congress, by Public Law 85-529 as amended, has designated May 1 of each year as "Loyalty Day." On this day, let us reaffirm our allegiance to the United States of America, our Constitution, and our founding values.

In such a new fascist celebration people, specially schoolchildren I presume, will be coerced to show displays of loyalty for the Capitalist twin-party regime. Those who attempt to remind that May 1st is celebrated as International Workers' Day precisely because of the crimes of the Capitalist regime that so fascistly imposes this new brainwashing gimmick, who executed several striking workers in Chicago in 1886 after a never clarified bomb attack, will be wooed by the adepts to the regime.

They were striking for the eight hours' journey, something still not always granted in this system where you are repeatedly blackmailed into de facto slavery.

(Sources: Kasama, White House)

May Day photos

< Gasteiz - Basque Country

Source: Berria

New York City >

Source: Occupy Wall Street

< Barcelona

Source: Kaos en la Red, which also reports of important police repression











Venezuela, demanding a revolutionary work code:

Source: Tercera Información

< Madrid

Source: La Haine














Quebec >

Source: The Commune

< Nicaragua

Floating the memory of comandante Borge

Source: LINyM

Bogotá (Colombia) > 

Source: Contra Info

< Athens

Source: Indymedia Athens
















And so many others... 

May Day!

In most of Earth May Day, the International Day of the Working Class, is a holiday. But there are some places where it is not: one of them is Saudi Arabia, another one is the Vatican and then there is the USA. 

This May Day has particular relevance in this last country because the North American Working Class has been awakening and there are efforts to celebrate May Day with class-conscious protests in line with last year's Occupy movement which has made a major and widespread call for a general strike on this day.

There are surely other actions called for around North America but I do not know them at the moment. The causes for anger are the same as before the winter: nothing has changed but there has been a period of inactivity and the organization is probably not too strong. The fact that, after so many decades of apathy and lack of consciousness, North Americans have began to mobilize as a working class society and even form a movement is a very important sign. I do expect at least some meaningful mobilization today north of Río Grande. 

Elsewhere I also expect some action. Even if May Day has become sort of an institutionalized holiday, the class struggle ambient has been growing a lot these last months and years and people is very angry in places like Europe, North Africa or India. I do expect at least some heat in some places even if The RevolutionTM is scheduled for today nowhere that I know of.

But these things are never properly scheduled, you know, they have the bad custom of coalescing unexpectedly under the pavement and invite you to the party when it's almost over. So be aware, be ready to fight and have a happy and radical May Day wherever you are.

Obituary: Comandante Tomás Borge (1930-2012)

Tomás Borge Martínez (pictured) is one of the giants of the 21st century even if his influence was exerted mostly in and through that small but proud Central American country that we all admire: Nicaragua. 

Tomás Borge Martínez died tonight at the venerable age of 82 years in the eve of yet another May Day. 

Borge founded along with other Nicaraguan patriots and revolutionaries the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) which struggled for years against one of the most corrupt dictatorships of America, a puppet regime of the Pentagon, and won, establishing a democracy with socialist outlook that inspired the World in the 1980s as they had to fight with large terrorist fascist organizations (the Contra) financed by the most powerful empire of our time: the United States of America of Ronald Reagan. 

In that time Tomás Borge was Minister of Interior a charge that never eroded his popularity nor the respect generally granted to him. He was also a writer (both in prose and poetry) and was for long vice-secrertary general of the FSLN.

During the imperial reign of George Bush Sr., the Empire essentially blackmailed Nicaraguans on keeping the embargo and the dirty war unless they voted fascist leader Violeta Chamorro in. That way the Sandinista rule came to an end for some time. 

However in 2006 and within the context of greater left-wing gains all around Latin America, the Sandinistas came back to power again with wide popular support. As veteran member of the FSLN, Tomás Borges was national deputy until his death. 

Nicaragua has decreed three days of national duel.

Partial source: LINyM[es].

Colombia: labor leader murdered

Colombia is the place of the World where being a worker activist or in general a left-wing political activist may cost you dearest. It seemed like Honduras, another US-supported dictatorship, was on the path of taking this macabre record but fascist violence is still most serious in the South American country.

Daniel Aguirre Piedrahita (pictured), Secretary General of the union of sugarcane cutters (SINALCORTEROS) was murdered on April 27th in the town of Florida (Valle del Cauca).

Daniel Aguirre was active in strikes and organization, as well as information spreading and the struggle against the Free Trade Agreement that makes Colombia a de facto colony of the USA, since 2005. SINALCORTEROS and other unions have called for the immediate clarification of the crime, however we all know who are the murderers, right?

Source: LINyM[es].

Basque Country: solidarity for the latest car accidents of prisoners' relatives forbidden

The Spanish occupation authorities forbade the protest called in Atarrabia, Navarre, to show solidarity with the relatives of Basque prisoners who have to travel thousands of kilometers every other weekend to visit their relatives scattered through all Southwestern Europe.

This weekend alone there have been three such road accidents with three people injured (nine affected). Luckily nobody got killed but it does happen sometimes too.

The Spanish police forces threatened to charge if the peaceful protest was not dissolved. Therefore the protesters decided to move the meeting to the House of Culture (photo).

Source[es]: Ateak Ireki.

Freedom of speech now!

It is our country: meddle in your own business, you damn imperialist Spaniards!