Thursday, April 25, 2024


The Crisis in Haiti: Perspectives from the Leadership of Fanmi Lavalas


 

APRIL 25, 2024
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The Haiti Action Committee is honored to send out this transcript of a presentation by Fanmi Lavalas executive committee members, Dr. Maryse Narcisse and Joel “Pacha” Vorbe, delivered via zoom during our April 6th event at Eastside Arts Alliance in Oakland, California.

In their presentation, the two Lavalas representatives analyze the current disastrous situation in Haiti, revealing its roots in the 2004 coup d’etat against President Aristide and the series of illegitimate right-wing governments that were put in place by the U.S and the Core Group of foreign powers in the aftermath of the coup. They discuss the devastating impact of the paramilitary violence that has left thousands of people dead, with hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes and millions more facing famine. And they share their perspective on how to move forward in this next period, including their viewpoint on the new transitional presidential council being formed in Haiti.

This is a rare opportunity to hear directly from leaders of Fanmi Lavalas, the people’s party in Haiti. We hope the transcript will be read and shared widely.

The Transcript:

Good afternoon. Pacha Vorbe and I (Maryse Narcisse) of the Fanmi Lavalas Executive Committee are honored to be part of today’s event. We are here to discuss the crisis that now engulfs Haiti, twenty years after the coup d’état that overthrew the democratically elected administration of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and to commemorate the continued resistance of Haiti’s grassroots movement.

Thank you to the Haiti Action Committee for organizing this meeting and for continuing to be in solidarity with Haiti, fighting for freedom, justice, dignity and democracy.

Thank you Walter Turner for moderating this conversation on Haiti.

Thank you to the EAST SIDE ARTS ALLIANCE for hosting.

And thank you to Justice Vanguard for technical assistance in broadcasting this event. We also thank all media that are providing coverage of this event.

I want to thank everyone in the Bay Area who has been in continued support of Haiti.

Special thanks to the other participants in today’s event: Dr. Rama Ali Kased, Marvin X and Andrew Reynolds for their solidarity with the Haitian people. This is the kind of international support and collaboration that the world needs. Fanmi Lavalas stands with the people of Palestine and condemns, in the strongest way possible, the genocide that is being waged against Palestinians. Antoine Izmery, one of the earliest supporters of the Lavalas movement, was a man of Palestinian descent who stood firmly with the people of Haiti in the struggle for human dignity. He was a brave man, ultimately killed by forces that have always opposed progressive change in Haiti.

FANMI LAVALAS: WHO WE ARE

I think it would be helpful to start today’s discussion with an overview of Fanmi Lavalas. Fanmi Lavalas is a grassroot political organization. Our mission is to work with the poorest, marginalized people, in a shared struggle for a better life, dignity, justice and freedom. The struggle is for real and deep changes in Haitian society. Access to education, health, food, housing and economic opportunities for all.

Fanmi Lavalas is trusted for several reasons:

1) Its commitment and orientation towards a real and deep change in the standards of living of the poorest and the excluded who constitute the overwhelming majority of the population.

2) Its systematic refusal to subordinate the interests of the majority to those of individuals groups.

3) The formal inclusion of Dignity and Sovereignty of the Nation in our political objectives

4) The loyalty of Fanmi Lavalas that is recognized by the masses and the implacable coherence between political speech and political choices or actions.

5) The National Representative of Fanmi Lavalas, Dr Jean Bertrand Aristide, who, through a lifetime of service, leadership and education has never abandoned his commitment to the poorest.

Today, President Aristide’s vision is still the same: EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION. Education is the stepping stone towards our goals. Education without exclusion! Education aimed at Excellence! One of the most effective strategies in combating the crisis in Haiti is investing in education.

BRIEF BACKGROUND ON HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF HAITI’S SITUATION

To understand the crisis in Haiti, we must refer to our history, the hierarchies and prejudices embedded in our societal fabric, and Haiti’s geopolitical and global context. Haiti is the first independent black republic. We achieved our independence at the beginning of the 19th century through an unprecedented revolution: an uprising by an enslaved African population. Because Haiti was surrounded by countries and colonies powered by slave economies, our independence was not recognized for many years. Our country faced political isolation and economic blockades.

In 1825, under the threat of war and re-enslavement, France forced Haiti to pay a crippling indemnity in exchange for formal recognition of the new Republic. This debt set Haiti on a course of extreme poverty and political instability. According to estimates from the NY Times’ one year investigation in 2022, payments to France have cost Haiti’s economic development between $21 and $115 billion in losses over two centuries, or one to eight times the country’s gross domestic product in 2020.

Understanding the crisis in Haiti today means understanding that for more than 200 years, Haiti has been facing the designs of a coalition of Western powers to put the country under some kind of guardianship. Indeed Haiti has gone through more than two centuries of exploitation and extensive international interference in its internal affairs under various different labels: occupation, foreign intervention, coup d’état, support of rigged elections and dictatorial rule, lackey governments in the service of foreign powers. Regardless of the label, the aim has always been to control the state and to make sure that there would always be alignment with Western interest.

Understanding the crisis in Haiti means fully appreciating the social contradictions to emerge on day 1 after the country’s independence in 1804. That is, the emancipatory social vision for all held by the father of the nation, Jean Jacques Dessalines, versus the class interests of the retrograde forces of the country, a conflict that ultimately led to Dessalines’s assassination. Ever since this shattering of Dessalines’s humanist dream, the Haitian oligarchy and leaders have transformed the Haitian state into an instrument at their service. A system of pillage, corruption and impunity – which was established without any concern for the development of the national economy and the development of the population – persists today.

Understanding the crisis in Haiti means also understanding that Haiti did not choose to be poor. Haiti still suffers today, in various ways, the effects of a “modern” form of neo-colonialism harmful to its emancipation and its sustainable economic development.

The 2004 COUP: TWENTY YEARS LATER

In 2004, when Haiti celebrated the two hundred year anniversary of its independence with pride and dignity, the Western powers, assisted by their local allies, once again made the Haitian people pay for the arrogance of their ancestors for having broken the chains of slavery. Moreover, the Aristide Government in place at that time had been democratically elected by an overwhelming majority. It was not a client state of the West. The policies pursued by the government – increase in minimum wage, greater access to education and health care – prioritized the overwhelming majority of Haitian people, not Western interests.

And finally, it was the Aristide Government alone that was willing to demand restitution from France for the indemnity Haiti was forced to pay in 1825.

The 2004 coup d’état was another manifestation of Western powers’ designs to regain control of Haiti. On the very night of the coup d’état of February 29, 2004, the United Nations Security Council authorized the immediate deployment of a multinational force in Haiti.

The 2004 coup represents the desire by the western powers to break the efforts of Haitian nationalists to bring the country out of its state of underdevelopment, and to transform into reality the demands of the Haitian people for a State at the service of the population where “Tout moun se moun, tout moun dwe viv tankou moun.” Every person is a human being, every person should live like a human being.

The 2004 coup is characteristic of the refusal by Western powers and their local allies to respect the principles of democracy and self-determination of peoples to decide for themselves. The forced departure of President Aristide was unconstitutional and against internationally recognized rules of law.

Under Haiti’s Lavalas governments important achievements were made to address the basic needs of the population in many areas such as health care, education, women’s rights, housing, economic justice. In Health Care: a greater percentage of the national budget was allocated to health care than had any previous government in Haitian history. Education/Literacy: For the first time in its history, Haiti began implementing a Universal Free Schooling Program. 20% of the national budget was dedicated to education. Lavalas built 195 new primary schools and 104 new public high schools and began the first school bus program. 70% of government subsidies were granted for school books and uniforms and 700,000 hot meals were served every day through school lunch programs.

20 YEARS AFTER THE COUP, WHAT HAS CHANGED

These gains were wiped out by the 2004 coup. The coup has largely contributed to the situation we are experiencing today and the living conditions of the population have only gotten worse. Successive elections were riddled with irregularities and outright election-fixing by foreign powers. In the 20 years following the 2004 coup, Haiti endured foreign occupation, state sanctioned repression and terror, and a wave of neoliberal economic policies that have created the disastrous situation we are now living in Haiti.

But this coup did not stop the daily struggles of the Haitian people against economic inequalities and social policies imposed by a local and international exploiting class. Indeed, the armed militias and gangs that have grown in force and numbers in the past several years emerged precisely to stop the massive demonstrations protesting government policies, fraudulent elections, rising prices of food and fuel, and demands for accountability for the stolen Petro Caribe Funds.

HAITI IN CRISIS

The Haitian crisis is catastrophic, multidimensional, and aggravated by institutional vacuum.

A BROKEN POLITICAL SYSTEM

Since the fraudulent elections of 2016, no elections have taken place in Haiti at any level of governance. As a result, all elected positions have not been renewed leading to

– The lapse of Parliament (no Senate or House of Deputies seats are filled)

– The Supreme Court is not functional

– The presidency and the Prime Minister position are vacant

– Not one elected mayor in Haiti’s 146 counties

A DETERIORATION OF THE SECURITY SITUATION WITH AN INCREASE IN VIOLENCE

In addition to the country’s political instability, we are facing the worst insecurity crisis in decades making the daily life of Haitians filled with stress and fear. According to a January 2024 report of the UN Secretary-General, there were 4,789 reported murders in 2023, i.e. a ratio of 40.9 homicides per 100,000 population; 2,490 cases of kidnappings in 2023. Violence, especially sexual violence and gender-based violence, is a practice used by armed militia and gangs to control populations. All these were underestimated due to community stigma, and threats of reprisals. Deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire of gangs fighting between themselves for territory or with the police were also reported.

WIDESPREAD AND BRUTAL VIOLENCE BY MILITIA  AND GANGS IN HAITI

Attacks and violence by heavily armed gangs across the country have escalated, supported by an unprecedented flow of weapons and ammunition flowing into the country, mainly sourced in the US. The gangs have been involved in spreading terror, murders, kidnappings, burning houses, rapes of women and young girls in impoverished neighborhoods and as a consequence, people have been forced to flee their homes to escape violence. Deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire of gangs fighting between themselves for territory or with the police were reported.

+ Heavily armed militia/gangs have also been involved in massacres, looting and destroying businesses, banks, and schools mostly in impoverished neighborhoods.

+ Attacks on the ports and looting of shipping containers, looting and burglary of stores and banks.

+ Vandalism, burglaries and closure of health centers including the best equipped hospitals in the country.

+ Fires in several police stations.

All these crimes have been carried out with impunity. Gangs are now controlling the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince and continue to proliferate into other urban centers. They easily get new young recruits because of few economic opportunities. Gangs in Haiti are reported to have strong connections to political and economic elites and maintain ties in the police and the criminal justice system, which explains the impunity. This is anarchy.

+ Mass prison breaks which set 4000 inmates free (Port-au- Prince and Croix des Bouquets), and riots at the Prison of Jacmel causing 6 injuries and 3 deaths

+ Police force repression: The police force is understaffed and with a lack of training has not been able to restore security in response to the escalating violence by armed gangs

+ The suspension of all flights at the country’s main airport following shootings at airplanes

+ The forced closing of all schools and universities, now extending into the 8th week

+ The government’s decision to declare a state of emergency throughout the territory

A HUMANITARIAN CRISIS CHARACTERIZED BY:

Forced repatriations:

From July 2023 to Jan. 2024, 118,228 Haitians were repatriated by the Dominican authorities, 406 Haitians from the United States, 596 from the Bahamas, and 1,649 from the Turks and Caicos Islands

Internally displaced persons:

As of 31 December 2023, 146,584 people are internally displaced (BINUH) due to gang violence. It is estimated that 30,000 additional people have been internally displaced between January and March 2024. More than 30 refugee camps have been identified in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince where people live in subhuman conditions.

A massive migration of Haitians to the United States, Canada, Latin American and Caribbean countries:

126,000 Haitians migrated to the US between Jan. and Dec. 2023 (Custom and Border Protection Report as of 1/31/2024)

Food insecurity:

From August 2023 to February 2024, 44% of the analyzed population is experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity of which 14%, or nearly 1.4 million people, are classified as IPC Phase 4 (Emergency) and 30% (about 2.95 million people) as Phase 3 (Crisis) i.e. 44% of the population in need of urgent action (IPC Analysis of Food Insecurity-Haïti).

Haiti’s hunger crisis is unseen as headlines focusing on gang violence hide the 4.3 million people facing extreme hunger. Gang violence and restrictions of movement have limited the humanitarian response.

Massive corruption is widespread at all levels of the society (government, business sectors, Haiti’s police and justice systems etc.) given the existing impunity.

And to deal with all that has been said: A WEAK JUDICIAL SYSTEM WHICH CANNOT ENSURE ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ANY CRIMINAL.

THE ECONOMIC SITUATION is catastrophic

Poverty has reached inhumane limits. Hunger is rampant throughout the country. Some estimates put Haiti’s unemployment rate as high as 70 percent. The cost of living has skyrocketed due to political instability, gangs restrict access to and from Port-au-Prince to the rest of the country. There is a vertiginous acceleration in the price of basic necessities. The inflation rate is 29.0% as of July 2023. In addition the reduction of money transfers to families also had a significant negative impact because of distrust in the authorities keeping $1.50 on each transfer. Haiti remains one of the poorest economies in the world, and one of the most vulnerable to climate change, where more than half of the population lives below the poverty line and suffers from chronic food insecurity.

In addition, Haiti is also vulnerable to devastating natural disasters. This global situation (political instability, insecurity, economic catastrophe) has impacted agricultural harvests, food availability making food prices too high for the most vulnerable households.

SEARCHING FOR STRATEGIES TO ADDRESS HAITI’S GLOBAL CRISIS

Inter Haitian dialogue

There is no entity in Haiti that has any real OFFICIAL legitimacy. So there is a basis for all of them to humble themselves and work together on urgent matters such as the problem of Insecurity, hunger — even while they engage in dialogue about longer term matters such rebuilding the institutions, reviving constitutional order, a stable transitional government to organize free, fair and democratic elections.

In 2018, Fanmi Lavalas issued the following statement: In total agreement with the demands of the people, Fanmi Lavalas made the decision to have discussions with all sectors because we believe that it is through an exchange of ideas with all the political organizations and those within civil society that we will find a common agreement on how to address the problems of Haiti.

Just like the broader population, Fanmi Lavalas believes that the real solution to the crisis can only come through changing the system, meaning real, deep changes in the society. Meaning a complete break with the old system which brings only poverty, hunger, corruption, gangsterism. The people are not interested in band-aid solutions.

Addressing insecurity must be at the top of the agenda

It is everyday insecurity that most Haitians see as their top concern. Haitians see insecurity as their top concern and want a more stable and secure environment. The effective and lasting solution that we must find to the country’s security problems is not going to come only from yet another multinational force. Our recent history is full of these costly initiatives.

And today we are painfully suffering the consequences of their failures.

The solution is first and foremost Haitian and involves multiple interventions targeting various dimensions of this crisis such as strengthening the capacity of Haitian security forces, reinforcing the justice system.

The National Security Council, led by the Transitional Council and the Prime Minister, will be created and responsible for developing a National Security Plan, ensuring its application and monitoring in consultation with public, civic and security stakeholders, as well as with international experts. It will have to develop modalities of cooperation relating to international security assistance.

To achieve social peace we will need support from public opinion with the active participation of the population, political parties and groups, human rights defense organizations and civil society organizations.

A transitional government

The position of Fanmi Lavalas has always been very clear on this since November 2018 when we made public our document on the search for consensus for a Haitian solution to this multidimensional crisis that is suffocating our country. This document, titled “Crisis and Solution,” reflects the demands of the national majority, and its aspirations for reclaiming our sovereignty and dignity. In this document, we propose a disruptive transition aimed at reconciling the people with the State, with a government of public safety implementing a consensual Roadmap bringing together the priorities of action which will make it possible to lay the foundations of a new form of State by specifying the contours of the new republic which must be fair, united, and participatory. We absolutely need a functional consensus, for a new transition with a view to reorienting the Governance of the Country.

This consensus should be able to be structured around certain key points:

1. A Presidential College and a Prime Minister chosen by consensus between stakeholders according to predefined criteria

2. A government of Public Safety integrating ministers chosen on the basis of criteria of competence, credibility, honesty and commitment to change.

3. A body for monitoring government action including representatives of all the vital forces of the nation, including the diaspora

4. A consensual Roadmap bringing together the action priorities and reforms to be undertaken by this Government of Public Safety in various areas such as:

– Security

– Emergency measures to improve the living conditions of the population

– Economy

– National Conference

– Justice

– Constitution

– Electoral Council

– Electoral law and electoral infrastructure

– Free, inclusive, and credible elections

A stable transitional government that works to provide needed services to the people, improves living conditions, facilitates the return home of the daughters and sons of Haiti, and regains our dignity as a sovereign people. This new political leadership has no choice but to act transparently and within the law.

Without a stable transitional government issued of a political agreement, it is unlikely that attempts to fight the sources of violence and insecurity, to end impunity, to reinforce the rule of law will succeed.

Things need to change. It is at this crossroads that we have arrived. And history is looking at us!

CONCLUSIONS

HAITIAN PEOPLE CONTINUE THEIR STEADFAST FIGHT FOR DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE AND TRUE SELF- DETERMINATION

Today, despite the insecurity, despite the gangs threatening people in the poor neighborhoods, the struggle continues. This war has not weakened the determination of the population and will not succeed in making them accept the unacceptable.

To succeed in the struggle for the development of our country, we must question the models and habits inherited from the colonial system. This mental decolonization involves several aspects: it includes the decolonization of political structures, legal and administrative systems, mental attitudes, lifestyles. This must be done through education, hence the need to invest in people. The choice to invest in people implies respect for human rights, the modernization of our institutions and democratic governance. I invite you who have always accompanied us on this journey to continue to stay engaged.

UK

Opinion

It’s time to ban MPs from taking donations from fossil fuel firms

We need to build a firewall between politicians and the oil and gas firms driving the climate crisis.


Richard Burgon 23 April, 2024
Richard Burgon is the Labour MP for Leeds East


The same oil and gas giants behind the record energy bills that have forced so many into poverty have also brought us to the cliff edge of climate catastrophe.

If we are to have a fighting chance of preventing the worst of the climate crisis, then we need to rapidly cut fossil fuel use. Key to that is breaking the vast power that oil and gas companies have over our politics.

That’s why this week I will present a Bill in the House of Commons to ban MPs from receiving funding or any other benefit from oil and gas companies.

My Private Members Bill would stop MPs from taking any second jobs with, or receiving any donations, gifts, hospitality or benefits-in-kind from, any company that makes more than 50% of its annual revenue from oil or gas.

It would also force the Government to end investments by the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund in any oil and gas companies.

The aim of my Bill is simple: to build a firewall between our political decision-makers and the oil and gas corporations that have knowingly caused the climate crisis.

For decades, oil and gas giants used their vast financial power to confuse and undermine the science about the role of fossil fuels in driving climate change. More recently, their focus has moved on throwing huge sums at delaying, blocking and weakening global climate action.

Fossil fuel money also pollutes British politics. The Tory Party received £3.5m from donors with fossil fuel, polluter and climate denial links in 2022 according to an analysis of Electoral Commission records by DeSmog, an investigative website focused on global warming misinformation campaigns.

MPs have also earned huge sums working for oil firms. Former Tory Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi once pocketed £1.3m from an oil company while working as an MP. Former Energy Minister John Hayes has received over £200,000 from oil and petrochemical trader BB Energy Trading since the 2019 General Election, according to the latest Register of MPs Financial Interests. These are just two examples among many.

This goes to the very top. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak received £141,000 from individuals and companies with financial ties to the oil and gas sectors in 2022, with many of the payments going to his Ready4Rishi leadership bid. The single biggest donation to Liz Truss’ successful campaign for the Conservative leadership came from the wife of a former BP Executive.

There is also a very well-oiled revolving door between politics and the gas industry. New research exposes how, under the Conservatives, more than 100 oil and gas industry representatives have taken up senior roles in government and on ministerial advisory boards. Two dozen have gone the other way leaving government for plum roles in the oil and gas sector.

The cost paid by ordinary people for this cosy relationship was clear when the Government pushed for a windfall tax on the excess profits of fossil fuel giants. The industry went into overdrive securing over 200 meetings with the government in just 12 months. They were able to successfully water down the policy with loopholes that allowed nearly all the windfall tax to be avoided. It barely needs to be said that climate justice activists have no such access to the corridors of power.

The public has had enough of the influence that these corporate giants have on our politics. One recent poll found that six in 10 people think politicians taking donations from fossil fuel companies is “unacceptable” including four in ten who found it “completely unacceptable”. Just one in ten thought it was “acceptable”.

My Bill can be part of the fight against climate change but also of the much-needed cleaning up of our politics. I previously brought a bill to ban MPs from taking any second jobs and I welcome that Labour is now committed to this.

Even bolder action is needed given that British politics is now marked by a widespread sense of corruption at the top. Two-thirds of voters believe UK politics is becoming more corrupt, according to a recent poll. In what is clearly a danger to our democracy, just one-third had faith in their elected officials to put the public interest ahead of their own interests.

Just like with tobacco companies in the past, the influence of oil and gas giants on our politics is a huge threat to public health. Air pollution from fossil fuels already kills five million people globally every year. But even that will be dwarfed by the impact that the climate catastrophe will have on the lives and safety of billions of people.

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that the fossil fuel industry is ‘incompatible with human survival’. Stopping oil and gas giants from polluting our politics is a key step in securing the just climate transition we all urgently need.

Please ask your MP to sign EDM 221 in support of my Bill.

 

Silencing and cancelling –  art and truth for Palestinians

Sally Hobbs reports on how public opposition and the collective action of artists got an important solidarity event reinstated.

APRIL 24, 2024

On Monday 22nd April, Manchester’s central community arts venue, HOME, was host to a packed audience. They had gathered to listen to an evening of “Voices of Resilience” – readings from Palestinian poets and writers, with Palestinian music. Video links with readings from Maxine Peake and Jeremy Corbyn were broadcast alongside background video images of olives, skies and sea, as writers’ work was read out by a team of speakers. 

The event was presented by publishers Comma Press as “an evening of writing from Gaza, marking the launch of Don’t Look Left: a diary of genocide, by Atef Abu Saif, with additional readings of work by Refaat Alareer, Hiba Abu Nada and others who have lost their lives in the current conflict. With guest appearances from Kamila Shamsie, Maxine Peake, Ahmed Nehad and others.”

This event was the successful end result of a shameful episode in HOME’s previous history of open access to dissident and diverse communities within the arts, which started when HOME announced the cancellation of the event at the start of the month due to “safety considerations”. It emerged that a lobby group  – the Jewish Representative Council – had claimed that the Abu Saif was an “antisemite” and “holocaust denier” a claim repeated without evidence in an article by Manchester Evening News.

The letter sent by the JRC to HOME and published on their X account, referred to an article Abu Saif wrote on 22nd August 2022 in Al-Ayyam newspaper as evidence of this. Rather than denying the holocaust, he said the exact opposite: “Hitler’s crimes against humanity cannot be forgiven or tolerated. They may be unprecedented in history in terms of their ugliness… As Palestinians, this is a fact we have not denied and will never deny. We are a people who suffer injustice, massacres, killing and displacement. We cannot accept something similar that happened to others and say it is right.”

Comma press threatened legal action for defamation. HOME advised in a statement cancelling the event that it was due to “safety considerations” and that HOME was a “politically neutral space”.  An article in The Mill, an independent online vehicle for local journalism, covered the background, citing the influence of some specific lobbyists including  Ed Glinert, known locally for co-founding a local paper and as a tour guide, but whose influence appears at odds with his incendiary and entirely unfounded claims about the potential risks from pro-Palestine protesters rioting, and objections to the use of the word genocide. He was also apparently proud of his track record in claiming to have got the director of Whitworth Art Gallery sacked while lobbying for the cancellation of a previous prestigious art event in Manchester hosted there.

Atmospheric Memories,  which included verified evidence of the use of white phosphorus and footage of the shooting of unarmed Gazans during the 2018 Great March of Return protests at the border with Israel, along with others internationally, was the focus at that time. In the end, exhibition was not cancelled following strong objections. 

Meanwhile the opposition to  Council- and Arts Council-funded HOME’s decision snowballed. Letters to the recently appointed Director of Home, Karen O’Neill, protests outside HOME and prominent local and national voices in opposition to the decision put escalating pressure on HOME. Hundreds of artists, including actress Maxine Peake and director Kapadia, a patron of HOME, also signed an open letter stating that the venue has “contributed to the silencing of Palestinian voices at a time when they most need to be heard.”

Just what was happening behind this, in terms of the decision-making of the board, of funders  and sponsors? Manchester City Council has a very direct responsibility for the venue and will have also been influential. We continue to call for transparency and accountability for the decision-making process.

The final humiliation for HOME was when over 100 artists and their supporters took down around 70 of the 500 artworks in the biennial regional Open art exhibition, with more set to follow. In place of the absent artworks, copies of a statement signed by over 150 artists were put up, calling for an apology from HOME and the reinstatement of the “Voices of Resilience” event, alongside other demands such as facilitating a forum for “Palestinians and their allies” to air concerns. Photos of artists walking out with their work were reproduced in the local and national press.

The day after this, HOME published a carefully worded statement acknowledging “the upset and distress caused” and confirming the exhibition’s reinstatement.

So Monday night’s event felt particularly important in the face of the continuing battle for the right of Palestinians to be heard. The nerves of HOME were still evident: I have never attended anything there before where every ticket holder was contacted personally beforehand to be advised that they would have bag searches and ID checks and on no account must they call out, wear or carry flags, symbols or other indicators of Palestine solidarity.

But once through a largely friendly security check, there was a real sense of a shared experience.  It was a powerful evocation of the Palestinian experience of displacement, longing for home, being unheard. And at its centre was a series of extracts from a journal written daily of his first-hand experience of living in Gaza through the first three months of the Israeli invasion and bombing of Gaza after October 7th, by internationally acclaimed Palestinian writer, Atef Abu Saif. Inevitably, this was a hard listen, read perfectly by actor Kingsley Ben-Adir  although often needing a pause to enable him to continue.

The evening was introduced by Basma Ghalayani, from Comma Press, starting with her welcome of “Well, we made it here!” She introduced the evening as one that had originally been aimed at providing a space for the Palestinian community in the region and for their supporters, and to launch Abu Saif’s book, who she said “was luckier than most” – he got out – but that only goes to define how terrible others’ experiences of ordinary life in Gaza has been and continues to be. It certainly achieved its intention and cemented for me the critical importance of sharing this experience and telling others the truth about the genocide that is continuing.

Nationally and locally we continue to battle for the truth to be told and not to allow defamatory claims of antisemitism to derail genuine humanitarian stories of what is happening.   The murder of journalists and photo-journalists in Gaza, the news blackouts and lack of internet access, all tell to the scale of Israel’s need to control the narrative. 

HOME’s experience is also testimony to the support of artists. Art is never conducted in a political vacuum and it is indeed vacuous to say so.

Sally Hobbs is a Palestine supporter and activist in Manchester.

Image: Ceasefire protest in Colchester, April 20th, c/0 BH Griffiths.

 TSSA flag outside parliament

Further Strike Action on London Underground -give your solidarity!

“Because of London Underground’s refusal to get back round the negotiating table, we have been forced to take further strike action this week.”

From the TSSA Press Team

The TSSA rail union has announced a further day of strike action on Friday 26 April at London Underground by members working as Customer Service Managers.    

The walkouts will take place on Friday 26 April where members will not commence work on any shift starting between 00:01 to 23:59 on Friday, 26 April 2024. Accordingly, strike action will also take place on Saturday 27 April 2024 in respect of any members expected to commence shifts before 23:59 on Friday 26 April 2024 whose shifts run into Saturday 27 April 2024.

When TSSA Customer Service Managers took strike action on 10 April stations closed at short notice. Similarly, the strikes this week are likely to cause stations to close at the last minute, including late night and into Saturday morning (night tube on Friday night).

TSSA Customer Service Managers at London Underground will also take part in an overtime ban from 29 April to 5 May. This overtime ban will again lead to station closures at very short notice.

Commenting, TSSA General Secretary Maryam Eslamdoust said “It’s clear that our Customer Service Managers strike on 10 April made a real impact, many stations shut at short notice, and we had overwhelming support from the public. Because of London Underground’s refusal to get back round the negotiating table, we have been forced to take further strike action this week.

“London Underground must now come clean with the public – their refusal to negotiate seriously and fairly with our union will lead to stations closing at the last minute and other stations being understaffed.

“We have made it clear that our union will not accept the continued threats to our members’ roles, locations, terms, and conditions to stand unchallenged. We will continue to take sustained action until London Underground is prepared to negotiate with us in good faith.”


 

#MayDay4Palestine – Get organised in your workplace on May 1st!

“War & peace are very much a class issue – & Palestine is very much a trade union issue.”

By Jennie Walsh, Stop the War Coalition

War and peace are very much a class issue and Palestine is very much a trade union issue. Our power as organised working people has the potential to force the biggest change in our society. 

Since 7 October over 33,000 Palestinians have been killed, 70 per cent of them women and children. Millions are at imminent risk of starvation.

At the heart of the trade union movement lies international solidarity, which the Palestinians urgently require. marching on the streets is incredibly powerful, but when workers withdraw their labour, they can shut things down. 

We’ve seen some really inspiring actions by trade unionists around the world in demand for an end to the arming of Israel and for a free Palestine, such as transport workers in Belgium refusing to carry weapons bound for Israel and port workers in Barcelona refusing to allow them to leave their shores.

Let’s not forget the impact of the brave Rolls Royce workers in East Kilbride who refused to carry out repairs on General Pinochet’s war planes.

Every collective act, big or small, sends a message to those who are suffering in Gaza that we are with them and puts pressure on our government to stop arming Israel.

This is why Stop the War is calling on all those within the trade union movement to join and build for the May Day Workplace Day of Action for Palestine on Wednesday 1 May.

Our open letter to UK trade unionists also calls for labour movement unity in the face of attacks on the pro-Palestine campaign and our right to protest.

We are encouraging all those in work, college or university to mark International Workers’ Day by organising a walkout, a lunchtime or early morning protest, or another collective action, in demand of peace and justice for the Palestinians. 

Where those workplaces are arms or arms components manufacturers, we are clear that our enemies are not the workers making the weapons, but the government that is selling them. All actions challenging militarism and the arms industry must be workforce and union led.

And in some of those factories we are seeing groups of workers taking actions, with workplace meetings and walkouts.

There are any number of activities that union members can organise for 1 May, from collections for Medical Aid for Palestinians or other charities helping the people of Gaza, giving out leaflets around the workplace, to holding a lunchtime protest outside a workplace, or organising a meeting with a speaker from Gaza.

So get organised in your workplace on 1 May and make it a #MayDay4Palestine

 

The bloody history of US & UK interference in Iran & the Middle East – John Rees

“There is the most enormous swathe, of physical bloody destruction which marks out the US and UK relationship with the Iranian people.”

By John Rees

The West, we are told, has an ‘Iranian problem’. But if you’re an Iranian whose memory stretches back over a lifetime of around 70 years, you might think you have a problem with the West. 

And you would be right. Because, in living memory, Iranians will know that the first and only attempt at a democratically elected government, that of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who nationalised the British oil holdings in the country and set out to weaken the power of the Shah, was ended by a coup in 1953 with the more or less open, and certainly now admitted, participation of the security services of this country and the US. 

What followed was a monarchical regime headed by the Shah, the King of Kings as he called himself. It was a Western client regime which would make the links the West has with the Saudi regime today pale into insignificance. The Shah was a massive purchaser of Western armaments, and he ran a brutal internal regime. 

His Savak secret military police was feared throughout the country. He used them to hunt down, capture and torture, or simply kill, his opponents around the world, including in universities here.

When the Shah’s regime was overthrown by the 1979 revolution, a revolution in which there was a significant Iranian working class component, but which eventually ended up in the theocratic regime of the Ayatollahs that runs the country today, it was a significant defeat for the West. It was an overthrow of a Western ally on a scale as if Israel had lost its influence and been transformed, or as if Saudi Arabia had been overthrown and transformed from a Western ally to an independent country. 

Because Iran was now seen as a threat the US and West backed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war from 1980-1988. A destructive war on the scale of the first or second world war. Half a million military personnel alone were killed on each side.

It was the hubris of the Saddam Hussein regime, due to the unqualified backing it enjoyed from the West, that led Iraq to invade Kuwait with such impunity that it brought about the first, and arguably the second Gulf War, after the West’s sanctions failed to remove Saddam.

So, there is the most enormous swathe, of physical bloody destruction which marks out the US and UK relationship with the Iranian people. And it is precisely because of the West’s repeated and disastrous responses to that relationship that have caused things to become so dangerous in the Middle East now. 

The war on Iraq was another catastrophic failure in the West’s relationships in the region. It did not turn Iraq into the stable, pro-western state it was hoped it would. Instead, it destroyed the country and produced an Iraqi government which is pro-Iranian. 

Much like the interference of the US in the Arab revolutions after 2011 convinced the Houthi movement, which was ultimately a product of that revolutionary wave, that leaning towards Iran was its best option. 

Likewise, the repeated attempts by Israel, with full Western backing, to invade and subdue Lebanon has resulted in a resistance movement in Hezbollah, which orients towards the Iranians. And it was the disaster of the Oslo peace process, impressed on the Palestinian people by our government and the US, that convinced many Palestinians that the PLO was not a viable strategy and that helped sustain support for Hamas, which has pro-Iranian political leanings. 

Of course, none of these forces in the Middle East are puppets of Iran in the way they’re described in the Western media. They all have perfectly legitimate reasons for not being particularly well disposed towards the West. They all have their own constituencies and their own support bases which simply obscures the real political processes in the Middle East. 

However, the course of politics in the region has certainly led to numerous political forces looking to the Iranian regime rather than to any of the pro-Western ones, which have done everything they can to prove that their policies in the Middle East are wholly and completely destructive.

So, the result of Western policy to Iran itself and towards the struggles of the Palestinians and towards the broader struggle of the Arab masses against their own dictatorships has resulted in a strategic shift in our lifetime to make Iran the most powerful regional player. US and UK policy has achieved, by its failures and repeated hostilities to the popular will of the Middle Eastern people, exactly the opposite of what it intended. 

Instead of pro-Western, stable regimes, they have produced massive instability and the growth of the Iranian state as a regional power in the area.

Ultimately, this is what we’ve seen come to fruition in the past week. A regional war became a very real possibility, from which we only stepped back when it came to the very brink of a sustained military exchange. 

It could be said that the Iranian response to the bombing of its embassy in Damascus and the Israeli response to it have in a way been performative. And it’s true that the US and the Western powers didn’t want to see the entire region go up in flames. But I don’t think we should see this as the end of things. This is simply a more dangerous escalation. The red line of Iran and Israel firing directly on each other’s territories has been breached. Now we have a different, more unstable situation than since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War.

The inability of the West to seriously restrain the Israeli state in Gaza has not been resolved and therefore the consequent conflicts and involvements of Hezbollah and the Houthis has not been removed. 

So, the peace movement must redouble its efforts and our explanatory capacity to link these events and dispel the lies and misconceptions that are so current in our media. This doesn’t of course mean, as it has not meant in any previous conflicts, that we are in favour of the Iranian regime, anymore that it meant we were in favour of the Taliban in Afghanistan or of Saddam Hussein. We simply believe that all this history proves, beyond any doubt, that the one group of people who are absolutely incapable of contributing towards a more democratic and just and stable Middle East are our governments.

Wherever they have said they are acting for democracy and peace, the exact opposite has resulted. Afghanistan was a 14-year war which led directly from Taliban rule to, yes, Taliban rule. It led to the destruction of Iraq and the turning of Libya, whatever the view of Muammar Ghadaffi, into an ungovernable territory with slave camps transiting desperate people into Europe. 

This underlies a very simple fact about international relations. The only people who can be trusted with regime change are the people of the country concerned.

Take South Africa. The masses changed the apartheid regime and ended up shaping the fate of their country. But if it is the 82nd Airborne Division that does the regime changing, then it is the 82nd Airborne that does the ruling afterwards. 

So, as ever, we must stand with the people, for peace and for democracy, against the rulers, both here and in the Middle East, who have led to such a disastrous post-war experience for the workers of the region.


  • John Rees is an Officer of the Stop the War Coalition. This piece is based on his speech at the recent Israel, Iran & The Threat of Wider War online briefing which you can watch in full here.