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Climate conferences: liability or opportunity?

Climate change can only be stopped if activists utilize new forms of media

Negro Matapacos
02/12/2021

US President Joe Biden stands at the podium at COP26, 2021, the annual climate conference

“COP26 was a flop”, “COP26: most ambitious climate summit yet”, “What the outcome of COP26 means”, “COP26 is a PR event,” – the headlines from this year’s climate conference were all over the place, both during the event and in the aftermath. Hailed as ‘the most important climate conference’ since the Paris Agreement of 2015, people across the board, from activists to journalists, small business owners and union members, had high hopes that finally, this year, our elected representatives would do something about the pace at which we are careening towards a world unliveable for billions of people.

The delegates did make some real progress, COP-timists will say. ‘What about that methane pledge?’, and all those countries that promised to ‘end deforestation’? Or the fact that Modi said India would ‘phase down coal?’ Doesn’t that count for anything? It does, of course, count for something.

Any progress in a movement that has existed for decades and has thus-far largely been ignored is, of course, cause for celebration. This year’s climate conference drew more delegates than ever before, and many who have historically been left out of negotiations: young people, representatives from indigenous communities, and support from workers’ movements within Glasgow. And if these were pledges that had been agreed to 15, 10 or even five years ago it would likely have been deemed a true success.

However, the problem is that we, globally, are far past promises to “phase down coal”. We are facing a global emergency the scale of which we cannot even begin to imagine. Millions of people will be without water by 2030, triggering mass migrations that will dwarf the so-called “refugee crisis” of 2015. The Amazon rain forest is dangerously close to a tipping point that will see it begin to emit more CO2 than it sucks up, which will likely end up with it turning into a savannah.

Meanwhile, the global agricultural industry sucks up 70% of the freshwater on the planet and we dump a garbage truck full of fast-fashion textiles into landfills every single second. What is a pledge to end deforestation without any mention of global agricultural subsidies, or the role that fashion plays in cutting down precious trees? What do words about phasing down fossil fuels mean when leaders immediately turn around and approve new oil fields and coal mines?

To community activists and followers of social movements, the fact that leaders completely fail over and over to tackle any challenge that cannot be fought with guns and bombs is far from surprising. But there was something interesting and new about this COP that departed from previous years, other than the fact that a significant portion of the delegates could not attend due to Covid travel and vaccine restrictions.

This year, for the first time, media around the world turned their attention towards the conference in a way that they had not before.

During the two weeks of the conference, press agency footage was plentiful, and it seemed like every announcement and protest was getting coverage. From diplomats to young activists taking the official stage, as well as Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion members staging protests outside, COP was in the spotlight.

This is no accident, and not because people within large media organizations have deemed climate change important enough to cover – it’s because the climate emergency is, well, an emergency now. Fires, floods, famine, drought, migration: these all make for attention-grabbing headlines, so extreme weather and the warming of the Earth are finally seen as ‘newsy’ enough to cover. The news cycle isn’t working any differently now than it has ever before. The old adage, ‘If it bleeds, it leads’, is still as true as ever. Except now, it is the whole planet that is bleeding.

So what’s wrong with more media attention on climate change, and especially on a conference bringing together heads of governments from across the globe? Like Greta Thunberg pointed out, this COP and future climate conferences are in danger of becoming important PR campaigns for nations; another tool with which professional diplomats and negotiators navigate the international stage.

The more media attention, the more their empty promises can be echoed and amplified around the world. It could become especially important for countries that are in the spotlight for human rights’ abuses: the United States, India, and China to name a few. These types of conferences hold the potential to become one giant greenwash, especially now that politicians know that they will have more and more of a spotlight as the state of the planet deteriorates.

But there is another option, albeit one that will require a change in the way that the global media reports on these types of events. Traditionally, sources of information in the press that are deemed ‘credible’ are often those that are affiliated with governments or businesses, although this varies between and sometimes within countries.

When it comes to reporting about the climate, however, governments and businesses usually have similar agendas, so in the never-ending search for objectivity, many media outlets also give their platforms to NGOs, or activists, as long as they don’t say anything too controversial.

And considering as COP, and other conferences like it, are hugely important in the opportunity they provide to these individuals and organizations to meet with each other, the media lens might serve to pass the microphone to alternative viewpoints in a way that they haven’t been offered before.

In the face of a global crisis that threatens the life and livelihoods of most people on the planet, there is no more time to accept statements from politicians at face value when it comes to climate action.

For better or for worse, the entire landscape of journalism has, and continues to, evolve at a rapid pace. Large media houses are losing captive audiences and being forced to change how they report, which often means prioritizing what their viewers want to see. Smaller organizations are getting a chance at a reach that would not have been possible before widespread internet access and social media.

We’re in an interesting moment, where journalism is more of a two-way street than it has ever been before. And social platforms, which of course come with a huge number of their own issues, have a chance to influence what ends up on the homepage of major news outlets.

Maybe in the face of these changes, climate conferences could be a tool that community organizers and activists could use to have their voices heard.

Deaths on the Polish border – the EU and Belarus share the blame

In the conflict between the EU and Belarus, both sides have been treating refugees as pawns

Hanna Grzeskiewicz
01/12/2021

by Magdo Chuchracka, Alicja Flisak and Hanna Grześkiewicz

Two officers of the Polish border police throw a 29-year old pregnant person from the Congo over the border fence back into Belarusian territory like a sack of rubbish. Two days later, she has a miscarriage. She is not the only pregnant refugee who has recently tried to reach the European Union over the Polish border. Local activists report that there are known cases of pregnant people who have been violently sent back to Belarus six times.

Around the border, voluntary medics are trying to look after those who most need their help. They examine pregnant people with an ultrasound scanner. One of the refugees, who is nine months pregnant, is complaining about strong pains and a urinary tract infection.

“We want the children to be born in a safe place”, says one of the doctors. People are driven away from the border like cattle – irrespective of whether they are pregnant. And this is happening in a country in which the constitutional court has de facto forbidden abortions in the name of Catholic values. But the protection of unborn lives, which the Catholic hypocrites harp on about, applies only to white Christians.”

Free Hand

The doctors report that some of the pregnant people have considered suicide. They are losing hope. After they receive medical help, they must return to the woods. Without water, without food, without medicine. Often without family and friends, who have been lost on the journey or were separated from them by state authorities, even though it is illegal to use violence separate families.

But that hasn’t interested anyone here for a long time. The deputy press speaker of the border control in Podlachien, Krystyna Jakimik-Jarosz, openly admits that pregnant people are being returned “to the border strips.”

Wojewodschaft Podlachien lies in the North, partly bordering Lithuania, but mainly Belarus. Since the beginning of the humanitarian crisis in mid-August of this year, its border security had not punished a single border guard for brutality or other illegal practises. According to officer Jakimik-Jarosz, there has not been a single complaint about her colleagues. Small wonder. None of the border guards would report their own people, and the masked officers, who have mainly hidden their car number plates, cannot be recognised from the outside. It doesn’t matter that this is illegal. For the refugees, who also don’t speak any Polish, it is almost impossible to make a complaint about abuse.

The border guards have a completely free hand. They can do what they want. An Iraqi journalist reports that the border police have shot at the people in the woods with rubber bullets. One of his friends was seriously wounded there. There have also already been deaths. “We feel like we’re fair game. I don’t know if I’m still a person. I have become a hunted animal. They have robbed me of my humanity. My crime is that I have the worst passport in the world”. Some of the refugees call the no-man’s land between Poland and Belarus the “Second Iraq”.

Hundreds of thousands of people want to leave the “first Iraq” – devastated by Western wars and militant Islam, like many other states in the Middle East, many people there live in disgraceful conditions threatened by hunger, poverty and violence. The EU deal with Turkey has prevented people from coming to Europe by land since 2016. Now only the dangerous and often fatal path over the Mediterranean remains.

Brought to the border

Since the EU applied sanctions on Belarusian president Alexander Lukaschenko following the supposedly rigged elections of August 2020, a new possibility of escaping misery has emerged. The Belarusian travel agency “Oskartur” is organising flights to Minsk and four nights in a hotel for around US$3,400 (€2,935). For the last few months, Lukaschenko had been flying in people from Baghdad and Istanbul and bringing them to the border with the West. First to Lithuania, and for the last few weeks also to the border with Poland, 300 kilometres away, where the Belarusian border guards drive the people towards the fences that separate the two countries.

According to media reports, the government in Minsk is extending these activities. On November 7th 2021, the Welt am Sonntag reported that roughly 40 weekly flights until March were planned from Istanbul, Damascus and Dubai.

Grodno has 380,000 inhabitants and is nearly 20 kilometres from the border. In Grodno, the rumour mill is buzzing. It says that the refugees are good business. A woman can take $100 for a flat of 30 square metres for 12 people. This rumour can’t be proved. The Belarusian media do not report the migrants. “No independent journalist in the country is reporting the migration phenomenon. Also no NGO”, says Alexej Schota from the local news portal hrodna. life. It is simply too dangerous. The authorities threatened to close down the website in September.

In Lenin Square in the town centre, at the foot of the memorial to Russian revolutionaries who rejected all forms of nationalism, people lie in sleeping bags and tatty coats. Around the market place, many of them are looking for weatherproof boots and warm clothing. The path through the forest to the border is barely possible in flip flops. And it’s getting even colder. Winter is coming: at night the temperatures are already sub-zero.

State of emergency declared

On 2nd September, the Polish government declared a state of emergency along the Belarusian border. Since then, 183 cities and villages are closed to outsiders, and open meetings are forbidden. Aid organisations have been barely able to reach the refugees who have managed to cross the border. Accompanying the state of emergency, the official ruling has ordered a “restriction of access to public information about activities in the area of the state of emergency regarding the defence of national borders and the prevention of and fight against illegal migration”. In plain language: journalists and doctors, lawyers and activists must stay out.

In the last three months, the Polish authorities have registered more than 28,500 attempts to cross the border, According to reports from people who live in the closed areas, at the moment there are around 3,000 refugees living there. Although there is no way of counting exactly how many people are involved, only a few individuals are occasionally able to bring simple soup and warm clothes into the woods. Everyone else must wait outside. “We can only help those who manage to get out of there”, says Marta Gorczynska, a lawyer who is active in the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Poland, and in the Grupa Ganica (Border Group). And even this is difficult, as the helpers are fully overwhelmed.

Cynical charge

Meanwhile, in the Polish media the horror scenario is being propagated of an anonymous mass which is threatening to overwhelm Poland. You see very little in either the liberal media or that close to the government about the individual experiences of the refugees. Pictures of arrests from the Polish side are reminiscent of those of the apprehension of members of criminal groups.

At the same time, the Belarusian station Belta News is trying to further stoke the fires of conflict. The station regularly broadcasts reports about the “unsustainable conditions” at the border fence. The government in Minsk is accusing the Polish authorities of hurting the refugees and restricting the work of journalists. On the 9th of November, President Lukaschenko officially warned his neighbour against further provocations in the border area, referring to the protection of women and children. The refugees have become pawns in their game.

Grupa Granica, an alliance of journalists and doctors, lawyers and actives, demands of the Polish authorities that they at least allow doctors and paramedics into the special zone. The group “Medycy na Granicy” (doctors at the border) now offers consultation by telephone, to provide medical advice as a bare minimum. More than 500 doctors have registered to help.

It was some time before the larger Polish aid agencies and charities responded. Poland’s largest charity “Wielka Orkiestra Swiatecznej Pomocy” (Large orchestra of Christmas help), which collects money every year for medical equipment has allowed “Medycy na Granicy” to use all their equipment, but only in the last few days. The Polish Red Cross has now opened all its sites for the collection of donations.

Just over 2 weeks ago, the Brandenburg initiative “Wir packen’s an” (we will tackle it) reached Wojewodschaft, the capital of Wojewodschaft Podlachien, with a lorry load of aid supplies. Last Tuesday, a further transport was able to reach its goal. Together with the initiative “Seebrücke”, “Wir packen’s an” is currently trying to gain a permit from the German interior ministry to be able to bring refugees to Germany on their return journey.

Little Infrastructure

Apart from this, in the border area there has so far been only very little international support. Many of the local activists are burned out because of the permanent activity. “Every day there is more work at the border. The shift that ended their work at 8 o’clock this morning could only sleep for one hour”, reported an activist from “Medycy na Granicy” last week. The situation is more than overwhelming. The local groups are therefore asking that journalists, doctors and lawyers come to the border if they are able to arrange this. As well as personnel, there is also a lack of heated tents and combat support hospitals.

The Polish army and the border patrols really have not yet built anything, as recently reported in the newspaper Krytyka Polityczna. Sylwia Urbanksa and Przemyslaw Sadura spoke of “total chaos” at the border: “The Polish state is not trying to organise an adequate number of transit camps for the refugees. Instead, the exhausted people are driven back into the woods.

Meanwhile, the conservative Polish PiS government under Mateusz Morawiecki is abdicating responsibility and demonising the refugees. Here, they are playing the same game as the European Union. The woods in the Polish-Belarusian border territory and the emergency complement the Mediterranean, where emergency sea rescue is being criminalized. It does not help to merely point out the fact that Lukaschenko is using the refugees as a weapon and Belarus does not care about their fate. Because Lukaschenko’s “hybrid war” is an attempt to put the EU under pressure through organised migration. This is only able to work because in previous years, the EU has increasingly closed its outer borders and visibly outsourced its migration policy to so-called “third countries”, in order to keep refugees away from its own territory at any price.

Praise from Frontex chief

The “European solution to the humanitarian catastrophe at the Polish-Belarusian border is the deployment of the European “border control agency” Frontex. This solution has been demanded by part of the parliamentary opposition in the Sejm as well as Polish civil society. The effect is one of using a fox to guard chickens. For Frontex was not created to save people, but to deter refugees, as shown by increasing claims that Frontex is making illegal “pushbacks”. No wonder that the cooperation between the Polish authorities and Frontex, which is located in Warsaw, seems to be working well. Even if the Polish government continues to reject all Frontex activity on the border, in the end Warsaw receives enough resources to be solely in charge. Frontex executive director Fabrice Leggeri recently thanked the Polish authorities for the help in protecting the Eastern EU outer border. He was impressed by the methods which were deployed to control the border. There has been a permanent exchange of information since the beginning of the crisis. Leggeri also approves of the newest idea of the PiS government to build a wall along the Belarusian border. That fits the bill. The member states of the European Union and the Schengen area have already built more that a thousand kilometres of wall since the 1990s, in order to prevent refugees from coming to Europe.

Furthermore, the Polish government is using the situation on the Belarusian border to promote their own political agenda. In the name of the “hybrid war” it is preparing a “law to defend the fatherland” and planning to further increase military spending. Vice-president Jaroslaw Kaczynski has already announced a “radical strengthening of the armed forces”. Poland already belongs to the few countries which have achieved the NATO goal of spending a minimum of two percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for military purposes. Warsaw would like to increase this spending to 2.5% of the GDP by 2030. Racism and militarism are also in this case two sides of the same coin. The horrible pictures from the border have at least led to a fragile pro-migration movement to develop for the first time. In Warsaw and Krakow, people are taking to the streets again and again under the banner “Stop the torture on the border”. We can hope that this movement will get larger, in order to increase the pressure on the government.

No Solution in Sight

Meanwhile, refugees have been organising themselves. On Sunday, 7th November, thousands of them gathered five kilometres from the border near Grodno. On Monday, 8th November, they were joined by further groups from Minsk and Brest. Together, they walked along the motorway towards the Polish border – accompanied by the Belarusian military – and tried to cross it. The Polish border guards responded with tear gas. There were also reports of shots in the air, although this has not been confirmed independently. But some refugees did film the acts of the Polish and Belarusian border troops.

Now, 12,000 soldiers have gathered on the border. Warsaw says that if necessary, more can be mobilised. They want to stand up to Lukaschenko, no matter what happens. President of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen is of the same opinion. On 8th November, she demanded sanctions against Lukaschenko. In cynical diplomat’s jargon, she stated that she wanted to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe and support a “safe return” for people. Meanwhile, the Lithuanian parliament in Vilnius has declared a state of emergency on the border with Belarus, initially limited to one month. This means that death on the EU outer borders will continue.

Magdo Chuchracka is a queer activist who lives in Berlin. She works at the Goethe University in Frankfurt-Main, with a focus on Queer Theory, Gender Studies, Feminism, Media and Political Science.

Alicja Flisak is an activist and socialist who lives in Berlin. She is a sociologist and works in the international department of the party Die LINKE.

Hanna Grześkiewicz is an activist who lives in Berlin. She writes and researches the subjects social movements, Eastern Europe, Feminism and Music/Culture.

This article first appeared in German in the junge Welt newspaper. Translation: Phil Butland. Reproduced with permission.

War and corpses – the last hope of the rich: Hands off Russia and China! Rosa-Luxemburg-Konferenz, 8 January 2022. More information here.

Expropriation is not negotiable

As a housing activist and member of the Berlin Senate, here’s why I think LINKE members should vote NO to the new coalition agreement

Katalin Gennburg
30/11/2021

Recommendations for posts in the next Berlin government are in. Urban development goes to the SPD . What about Die LINKE?

Let me put it this way. It is very difficult to gain a direct mandate [majority of votes in a constituency]. It is even harder to defend this at new elections.

Put another way: to win one of the most powerful government departments in 2016 was a great victory.

To lose it in 2021 is a major defeat!

As a politician for my party Die LINKE, I cannot just speak about urban development – my main area of concern. I also want to comment more generally on today’s agreement between the SPD, Greens and LINKE. I will comment with facts and in political terms.

As one of the negotiators, I could still defend my positions, even though some of our leading figures described them as being “too extreme”. Unfortunately, I could not then bring them into the negotiation group, because other people in the group would have / could have / should have to negotiate.

Nonetheless, it is also important to me to report that many of my individual demands have been more or less firmly established, that I was able to introduce some projects close to my heart, and that these projects have actually survived.

But this is an insufficient evaluation of the whole picture and does not answer the question as to whether the coalition agreement has been written in left-wing handwriting. This is why I am attempting a full analysis of the current situation and asking some important questions.

What will become of the highly publicized “rent election” #Mietenwahl 2021.
What will happen now to Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen #dwenteignen ?!
What will happen to rent control of city-owned housing companies and affordable new building by communal housing associations?
What will happen to the maxim: no further privatisation of state-owned properties?

Hard facts: All decisions for social, ecological and cooperative urban development policy now lie outside our potential party political influence. The senate administration for finance will go to the Greens, who will be responsible for real estate and access to state-owned housing companies!

The senate administration for urban development and housing will go to the SPD, and with Frau Giffey as mayor of Berlin, the senate office’s connection between the Rotes Rathaus (Berlin city hall) and the urban development authorities will be firmly under the control of the SPD and – tadaaa – be opened up to rounds of investors.

Frau Giffey says: “Berlin must be an international competitive city”.

Hold my beer! I think the 1990s have just called…

Even more importantly: who has taken the SPD seriously here?!

True, the settlements in the coalition agreement in the area of urban development and housing are written in very clear handwriting (this could also be seen in the consultation paper with 1. building new houses, 2. housing alliances, 3. DWE)

The final agreed distribution of department cements this.

Building communal housing and regulating rents is no longer at the heart of the politics of providing accommodation. This is now based on construction a la “build, build, build” #bauenbauenbauen. And this will be realised above all by private companies, who will be allowed maximum legroom.

The SPD has prevailed, and wants to once more pursue their ideological programme of gentrification and eviction of poor people – class struggle from above in favour of a “new middle class” – just as they did in the 1990s and early 2000s.

We must remember: gentrification as a political battle cry has a real basis with the “Planwerk Innenstadt” [a 1999 masterplan to rebuild Berlin aimed at winning the support of private investors] and restructuring politics. In this period, this battle cry #gentrification became known through the rental battles in Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg, and with them we saw the emergence of a new Generation Rent Protest in Berlin. (To some, this may sound “exaggerated and somehow extreme”, but unfortunately it is historically documented and common knowledge, at least within the movement for fair rents!)

I ask again: who wants to hear this and has seriously entered into dialogue based on this knowledge, instead of dismissing it as grumbling and Gennburgish defeatism?

But isn’t the distribution of departments just one thing, and hasn’t the coalition agreement been negotiated so laboriously as a basis for working together ???!

Here I would like, as best I can, to offer my wealth of experience of the previous five years as the speaker for urban development and as part of the government coalition R2G [red-red-green or SPD-LINKE-Green].

I have not shied away from any conflict (abolish the marketing of the capital city, legalise squatting, open the Spreepark, abolish the agreements with Nestlé, SIGNA / Airbnb / Siemensstadt … and many more). I have from time to time argued with my own senator, and have never found common ground with her successor (which was no glorious story, but an open secret and an honest reflection of our political and professional differences!) [In August 2020, after Katrin Lompscher (die LINKE) was obliged to stand down as Berlin Senator for city development and housing, she was replaced by Sebastian Scheel (also die LINKE)]

Nevertheless, we always fought together against the blockade of the SPD, whether around the rent cap #mietendeckel or against development plans for #checkpointcharlie or rent control and cooperation agreements with the housing companies, or with #SIGNA or the tower block model.

In short: for five years, without controlling the department, the SPD has consistently stonewalled and arranged that we could NOT carry out decisions in the previous coalition agreement.

And, do I need to tell you? They will carry on doing the same, and this time they will also be in charge.

The housing mafia in construction above and below ground will celebrate!

My prognosis: this Giffey-gentrifies-all-of-Berlin-SPD will completely ignore all detailed decisions in the coalition agreement and will fill all decisive posts with leading ideologues of the Berlin real-estate-SPD.

We have lost politically (and if you know me, I never say that!)

I am actively campaigning during the members’ vote in our party for a NO! to the coalition agreement.

Why?

In the last few years, die LINKE in government could have decided much more uncompromisingly to rule rebelliously. Unfortunately. this train has left the station. with the appointment of the successor to [Andrej] Holm [advisor to housing senator Katrin Lompscher] and Katrin Lompscher [who was also forced out of office].

The new parliamentary leadership in die LINKE fraction in Berlin has followed this course of sucking up and not supporting any resistance from the fraction.

We can see the proof of this in the last confrontation about the amendment of the law to prohibit misappropriation [this law, in effect since May 2014, limits the misuse of empty houses by turning them into commercial space or holiday homes]. As a politician working in this area, I had to vote against the proposal of die LINKE senator. This was because the fraction leadership preferred to follow the legal opinion of the social democratic lawyers in the urban development department over the position which I developed with left-wing lawyers and tenants’ representatives for a truly hard ban on misappropriation. Our proposal would have been one of the most important laws to protect housing space at the state level. (You can read my statement on this here).

You can find many more examples which show that for a long time, die LINKE has not resolutely fought for a rebellious participation in government in this powerful department. My opposition to this policy has not been noticeably acknowledged – neither in the Senate, nor in the fraction!

Clearly we are not yet ready for a LINKE participation in government which includes the challenging contradictions which could orientate our own party towards the future.

This must change. Otherwise, we will be swept away at the next election.

We need a renewal within the party and a radical democratisation of the Berlin party if we are to realise the honest desire for a common politics.

“By the way, politics is what happens when everyone wants to be right”. 😉

Yes, sure”

I can only report my assessment of the bad situation, and in all clarity state why the rent election #mietenwahl has been buried and why “we give you the city back” #wirgebeneuchdiestadtzurück is now over. At the same time and very urgently I can say that our party Die LINKE now needs a socialist and anti-capitalist update.

The rebellion on the streets will not decrease and the world is out of joint. Compared to this audits and playing according to bogus rules is not an option for LINKE politics.

We urgently need a LINKE voice which can be heard, and we won’t have this if we are part of a social democratic and bourgeois government project where the left-wing potential for protest is curbed by power politics or – much worse – the movement is much more remote from us as LINKE, and – as already announced, will resolutely stand against us at the next elections.

I have repeatedly presented my compass for the assessment of the issue of urban development, housing and how we live, repeating this in my recent speech in parliament.

We have at least three referenda to defend, and if “build, build build” #bauenbauenbauen is the current strategy, then this is not our project.

At least the BZ was kind enough to put the agreement that must now be voted on online, so that we can all read it 😉

Lift the Blockade of Cuba

Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden have fought an economic war against Cuba. This must stop.

Joao
29/11/2021

The economic blockade imposed on Cuba by the U.S. will soon have been in place for 60 years, and has intensified during the pandemic under the Trump and Biden administrations. In order to explain the present and to understand the blockade, we need to discuss Cuba’s historical and material conditions.

Historically exploited and subjected to the brutal violence of Spanish colonization as well as by American imperialism, Cuba was built as a dependent economy, producing raw materials and mainly exporting sugar. To give a picture of the social circumstances, half of its children did not go to school in 1958.

Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America (1973) provides a clear historical background on Cuba before the revolution: “Cuban sugar became the master key for U.S. domination, at the price of monoculture and the relentless impoverishment of the soil” (p60).

Cuba bought not only automobiles, machinery, chemical products, paper, and clothing, but also rice and beans, garlic and onions, fats, meat, and cotton, all from the United States. Ice cream came from Miami, bread from Atlanta, and even luxury suppers from Paris. The country of sugar imported nearly half the fruit and vegetables it consumed, although only a third of its population had regular jobs and half of the sugar estate lands were idle acres where nothing was produced.

Thirteen U.S. sugar producers owned more than 47 percent of the total area planted to cane and garnered some $180 million from each harvest. The subsoil wealth–nickel, iron, copper, manganese, chrome, tungsten–formed part of the United States’ strategic reserves and were exploited in accordance with the varying priorities of U.S. defense and industry. In 1958 Cuba had more registered prostitutes than mine workers and a million and a half Cubans were wholly or partly unemployed (Galeano, p72). This voracious exploitation led to horrible conditions in Cuba and completely deprived the Cuban people of sovereignty.

In 1960, one year after the Cuban revolution had succeeded and liberated the Cuban people, a memorandum by U.S. diplomat Lester Mallory was released advising the enforcement of new economic sanctions. These sanctions would go much further than the weapon and ammunition restrictions already in place since 1958, with Fulgencio Batista. This document clearly stated the essence of American foreign policy in Latin America and on the periphery of capitalism as per se, arguing that the sanctions policy should be one that:

“makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

Following the memorandum policy, the U.S. announced a drastic reduction in sugar importation from Cuba. These measures strongly hit the island economy, considering that Cuba relied on a sugar monoculture which was responsible for about 70% of the GDP.

At this point, the alignment with the Soviet Union was developing in multiple aspects and the USSR took charge of the importation previously undertaken by the U.S., trading oil with sugar under extraordinary conditions to support the Cuban economy. As a retaliation to the new American restrictions, Fidel Castro announced the expropriation and nationalization of all American companies in Cuba.

With the escalation of tensions, and concerned with potential diplomatic damages that could be caused by a direct military intervention, in 1961 the U.S. backed a group of counter-revolutionaries on the operation of the “Bay of Pigs Invasion”. The U.S. not only providing financial and logistical support, but also preparing the forces with CIA training. The operation was a fiasco and the troops suffered a humiliating defeat by the Cuban armed forces.

In the following year, Kennedy enacted harder sanctions that could affect any nation establishing commercial relations with Cuba, prohibiting raw materials importation, medicines, artifacts and financial operations. Considering the worldwide economic power of the U.S, the effect of this measure was determinant in establishing how Cuba would be able to trade with other nations in international commerce.

The risk for other nations of trading with Cuba and being subjected to economic retaliations by the biggest economic power is a fact. This brings other countries to a position of avoidance towards Cuba. Being a small economy with around 7.5 million inhabitants at the time, means that engaging in economic relations with Cuba, isn’t worth the risk. This act marginalized the Cuban economic position and clearly showed that the embargo was detrimental to Cuba’s commerce with any other country in the world; not only with the USA.

During the 1970s and early 80s, Cuba was benefiting from the Soviet Union’s bilateral relations. This enabled the country to progress towards a social welfare state and bring significant improvements to people’s lives, stepping forward in multiple state initiatives.

The island economy was still heavily dependent on sugar exportation to the USSR. With the fall of the Soviet Union and consequently the dissolution of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), Cuban exportation had dropped by approximately 80%, importation by more than 50% and the GDP by 35%.

Facing enormous difficulties with keeping industry and agriculture running, mainly because of a lack of fuel and energy, Cuba opened up the economy for tourism. The 1998 election victory of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela brought a new key commercial partner, especially for oil exportation to Cuba.

The systematic policy to suffocate Cuba reached a new level with the Torricelli and Helms-Burton laws (1992,1996). This allowed any company establishing commerce or financial operations with Cuba to be sued in an American court (OFAC).

That means if a company has branches in the US or financial operations in dollars; or any connection with the American financial system it can be prosecuted by an American Court for commercially engaging with Cuba.

The laws also strangled naval logistical operations by stating that a ship which has docked at a Cuban port is temporarily forbidden to dock in the US, enormously increasing the logistics costs for Cuba.

The imperialist machine is still at full speed in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. President Trump imposed more than 240 sanctions during the global health crisis, including classifying Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism. President Biden has kept the previous sanctions and increased them, saying that the sanctions on Cuba are just the beginning. These measures brought severe complications for Cuba in acquiring medical equipment, medicine, syringes for vaccinations and artificial respirators. Despite the blockade, Cuba was the first Latin American country to develop its vaccine (Soberana 2).

By comparing some U.S. rates with Cuba we can observe a higher literacy rate than the U.S., lower unemployment, a lower infant mortality and seven times less CO2 emissions per capita. In the last UN general assembly, 184 nations voted for ending the embargo on Cuba. Only the U.S. and Israel voted to keep it.

The blockade is an oppressive and systematic crime, denying Cuba the right of self-determination and economic stability. Imperialism in its late stage operates through unbalanced trades, instrumentalized by a global economic monopoly and political interventions, intensifying exploitation and surplus value. The shape has been transformed but it still preserves the body and the content of domination and violence.

U.S imperialism knows no borders and we must call for the end of the blockade.

Teachers and educators in Berlin go on strike for better pay

Appreciation for essential workers must be reflected in adequate pay and good working conditions

Priska Komaromi
23/11/2021

Since the 8^th of October, several unions have been negotiating with the bargaining association of German states (Tarifgemeinschaft deutscher Länder (TdL)), demanding salary increases for around 845,000 public sector employees across Germany. This includes teachers without civil servant status, early years educators, research staff at universities, social workers, healthcare workers and local government employees.

What are the demands?

The GEW (Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft, Education and Science Workers‘ Union) is demanding a pay rise of 5% for public sector employees, with a minimum increase of at least 150EUR a month, as well as an increase of 100EUR for trainees and interns. As the GEW points out, this just about covers the current rate of inflation and is an extremely moderate demand. The TdL have so far rejected these demands as ‘unrealistic’ given the impact of the pandemic on public finances. Ver.di (Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft, United Services Trade Union) is also demanding a 300EUR monthly increase for healthcare workers and the reinstitution of previous guaranteed employment contracts for trainees.

As Anne Albers, head of the division of wage policy at the Berlin GEW, puts it:

“Appreciation for the important work of educators, teachers and social workers is also reflected in pay.”

What happens now?

The final round of negotiations will take place between the 27^th and 29^th of November in Potsdam. The Berlin GEW has called for a third warning strike on Wednesday, the 24^rd of November. This follows warning strikes on the 11th of November and the 17th of November, which were attended by 6000 and 8000 union members respectively. Warning strikes will also take place in a number of other cities across Germany. Ver.di has also called for another warning strike on the 25.11, following a warning strike on 16.11.

In a message to parents, who are especially hard hit by the strike, the GEW said:

“We are aware that daycare and school closures are an enormous burden for families. Unfortunately, the uncompromising attitude of the finance ministers so far makes our warning strikes necessary. We are fighting for good working and income conditions and consequently also better educational conditions. We ask for your understanding and support.”

Educators are undervalued, facilities are understaffed

My daughter started KiTa (childcare facility) in August this year. Having a child has made me understand how incredibly exhausting the work of childcare is, and therefore appreciate the educators that look after my daughter. Recent closures due to corona outbreaks and strikes have made me realise the importance of having childcare. In Berlin, all children are entitled to at least seven hours of free childcare a day from the age of one. This is a huge deal.

Free childcare allows both parents, and especially women to go back to work without worrying if they can afford to do so.

In London, for example, families spend around 1000 GBP a month on childcare, and the high cost of childcare is pushing many families, and especially women, into poverty. In Berlin around 45% of children under three are in childcare facilities. KiTas in Berlin are, however, chronically understaffed and undervalued. A recent study found that there is only one educator for every five children under three. The poor working conditions and societal recognition of this profession has meant that there will be an estimated shortage of 230,000 qualified educators nationwide by 2030.

Teachers, educators, healthcare and social workers and others deemed ‘essential’ during lockdown should not be made to pay for the economic cost of the pandemic.

As we have seen time and time again in the last two years, their work is vital and they deserve better wages and working conditions, not just applause!

The GEW warning strike will meet on the 24.11 at 10 am on Friedrichstraße between S-Bahnhof Friedrichstraße and Weidendammer Brücke, ending with a rally at Invalidenpark at 11 am.

Ver.di’s warning strike will meet on the 25.11 on Straße des 17. Juni between S-Bahnhof Tiergarten and Charlottenburger Tor at 8.45 and marching to Brandenburger Tor.