US veterans say actions during anti-war protest at Shannon were ‘mandated by God’

IRELAND

Tarak Kauff and Ken Mayers outside the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin. Photo: Paddy Cummins/IrishPhotoDesk.ie

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28/04/2022 | 10:14 AM

PETER MURTAGH

Two American octogenarians charged with trespass and criminal damage in relation to an anti-war protest at Shannon Airport have asserted their actions were legal under international law and were also mandated by God.

Ken Mayers (85), of Monte Alte Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Tarak Kauff (80), of Arnold Drive, Woodstock, New York, have both pleaded not guilty to causing criminal damage to a perimeter fence at the airport on March 17th, 2019.

They have also pleaded not guilty to trespassing the curtilage of a building with the intent to commit an offence or unlawfully damage property, and not guilty to interfering with the operation, safety or management of an airport, namely by entering a runway area, where they were arrested, and causing it to be closed.

On the third day of their trial on Wednesday, before Judge Patricia Ryan and a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Mr Kauff admitted to damaging the fence.

"Yes I did damage the fence, I was acting on my own moral beliefs," he told prosecuting counsel Tony McGillicuddy BL, to which Mr McGillicuddy added "and breaking the law in doing so".

Mr Kauff replied that "the US government and the Irish Government have been breaking the law. Irish people are sick and tired of their government cow-towing to the US. That is the issue here!"

'Higher purpose'

He told the jury that some things were "mandated by God".

"There was a higher purpose here than the law which says you can't trespass, that you can't cut a fence," he said.

Mr Kauff said he had friends who had taken their own lives because of what they had done while in the US military.

"That is the real damage," he told Mr McGillicuddy. "Damaging a fence is nothing. Nobody died and I should expect that you should understand that as well!"

Giving evidence both accused stated that the Irish Government was in breach of international law and Ireland's neutrality by allowing US military planes, and civil aircraft contracted to it, to transition through Shannon Airport.

"If a belligerent country lands in a neutral country, that country has an obligation under international law to inspect [the plane]," Mr Mayers said in evidence.

He told his defence counsel, Michael Hourigan BL, that the use of Shannon by the US military was part of the process of killing "many, many people".

"It is a great disservice to the Irish people what the United States government is doing," he said. "We understood that the Irish people are very conscious, as opposed to the Irish Government, of the importance of Irish neutrality."

Both defendants said they wanted to inspect a plane, which they said was an Omni Air plane, used to transport US military and which was parked on the airport apron. Mr Mayers said he and Mr Kauff would be very happy if the Irish authorities inspected US planes, which they maintain was their own intention when they entered the airport.

Democracy

In cross-examination by Mr McGillicuddy, Mr Mayers said he accepted that Ireland was a democracy. He said he had taken it upon himself to make an intervention that he knew would "violate some statute".

"I was violating that and I knew that I was violating that." He said this was to prevent something worse. He accepted that by being on the airport runway, he had prevented planes landing and taking off.

"I did that to save lives," he said.

Asked whether he had asked any garda, inside or outside the airport, any State official or any politician to have the plane inspected, he said he had not. He said he hoped that, by entering the airfield, he would persuade and encourage airport police and gardaí to inspect the plane.

"At times it becomes necessary to go beyond the laws of a State to get a point across," said Mr Mayers. "I decided to take action in defence of people who are seriously being attacked. . . I decided to break the law in order to serve a higher purpose."

He said his authority for his actions was "the obligation to do what is right".

As a member, with Mr Kauff, of the US-based Veterans for Peace, he was an habitual protester, said Mr Mayers, adding: "I have dealt with a lot of law enforcement officials over the years and I have never been treated better [than by the gardaí]."

The trial continues.

ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY

 Florida Man Freed After 32 Years In Jail For Murder He Did Not Commit


By Dane Enerio
04/28/22 

KEY POINTS

Thomas Raynard James was released Wednesday after spending 32 years in jail

He had been wrongfully convicted in connection to the death a man who got fatally shot in 1990

A late investigation conducted by Florida prosecutors determined that James was innocent

"Mistaken identification" and "chance coincidence" resulted in a Florida man being wrongfully convicted and spending more than 30 years in jail.

A Miami-Dade judge vacated the conviction and life sentence of Thomas Raynard James, 55, Wednesday, NBC 6 reported.

James got convicted of first-degree murder and armed robbery in 1991 in connection to the death of Francis McKinnon, who was fatally shot during a robbery in a Coconut Grove apartment the previous year.

He was reportedly tied to the incident after witnesses and tipsters claimed the gunman was named Thomas James or Tommy James, as per The New York Times.

James' conviction rested primarily on the testimony of McKinnon's stepdaughter, Dorothy Walton, who had been in the apartment and identified the then-23-year-old as the gunman after police put his photo in a lineup.

"I'm positive of it. I will never forget his face. I will never forget his eyes," Walton testified during the trial.

No evidence tied James or anyone else to the crime, prosecutors said.

A later investigation conducted by the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office in cooperation with James' lawyer, Natlie G. Figgers, determined that reasonable doubt existed in James' conviction and that he was innocent of the charges.

Walton would also admit that she made a mistake decades after the trial, CBS 4 reported.

"In brief, what appears to be a chance coincidence that the defendant, Thomas Raynard James, had the same name as a suspect named by witnesses and anonymous tipsters as Thomas James or Tommy James" led to his "mistaken identification" as the gunman who fatally shot McKinnon, prosecutors said in their appeal to throw out James' conviction.

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James was released Wednesday, the same day Judge Miguel de la O vacated his conviction and sentence. He spent 32 years in prison.

"I actually short-circuited right there. I don’t know what I was feeling. To describe it, put it into words, all I know is it felt good," James said following the judge’s decision.

When a reporter asked James about the first thing he would do after being released, he replied, "Go enjoy my family and eat chicken!"

James' release was "frustrating" for McKinnon's family since "what they believed was a just result for the loss of their loved one has been stolen from them."

"We thought the case was resolved. At this point, now we’re being told we had it wrong, and there’s nothing else we can do," Charles McKinnon, one of Francis' sons, said.

LABOUR LEFT

Now, Let Us Talk Peace: Jeremy Corbyn

It is welcome that at last the UN has taken an initiative for face-to-face meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Jeremy Corbyn
27 Apr 2022


With Russian shells raining down on Ukrainian cities, an uneasy ceasefire in Yemen, the attack on Palestinians at prayer in Jerusalem and many other conflicts around the world, it might seem to some to be inappropriate to talk about peace.

When a war is going on, though, it is absolutely the time to talk about peace. How else can we prevent even further loss of life or yet more millions forced into refuge somewhere else in the world? It is welcome that at last the United Nations has taken an initiative with the welcome request by Secretary-General António Guterres for face-to-face meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

There must be an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine followed by a Russian troop withdrawal and agreement between Russia and Ukraine on future security arrangements.

All wars end in a negotiation of some sort—so why not now?

Everyone knows this is what will happen at some point. There is no reason to delay it for bombing and killing, more refugees, more dead and more grieving families in Ukraine and Russia. But instead of urging peace, most European nations have taken the opportunity to ramp up arms supplies, feed the war machine and boost the share prices of weapons manufacturers.

It is also the time to talk about our humanity, or lack of it, to people in deep distress as a result of armed conflict, the abuse of their rights or the grinding poverty that many face as a result of the global economic system.

Almost 10% of the population of Ukraine is now in exile, suffering trauma, loss and fear. Most countries in Europe have been supportive of Ukrainian refugees. The British government pretends to be as well, but then ensnares Ukrainians in the Home Office’s deliberately labyrinthine and nightmarish bureaucracy to deter them. Instead, Ukrainian refugees should be supported and made welcome. That’s what the British people by and large want; the huge generosity of ordinary people is showing the best of our humanity.

However, in the treatment of desperate refugees from wars where Britain has a direct responsibility, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, the story is painfully different.

If someone is so desperate that they risk all to attempt to cross the English Channel in a dangerous, flimsy dinghy, they deserve sympathy and support. Instead, the Home Office plan is to remove them to Rwanda. If we believe in humanity, and the rights of refugees, then they should all be treated equally and decently and allowed to make their contribution to our society, not criminalised and incarcerated. If the Conservative Party gets away with this outsourcing, other European countries will do the same. The Danish government has already spoken warmly about the cruel and unworkable proposal.

The effects of this war on the politics and hopes of our society are going to be huge, not least for the world’s institutions. The United Nations was established after World War II to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” Since then, we can reel off the long and lengthening list of conflicts and proxy wars that the world has endured and that have taken the lives of millions. Korea, Vietnam, Iran-Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, India-Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and many other conflicts have been barely reported on by mainstream media, maybe because they were conflicts against colonial occupation such as Kenya.

A huge question must be asked of the UN in the Ukraine conflict. When Russia brutally and illegally invaded Ukraine, was not that the moment for the UN to send its secretary-general to Moscow to demand a ceasefire? The UN has been too slow to act, and too much of the interstate system has pushed for escalation, not negotiation.

The call for more effective and proactive international institutions to support peace was powerfully made in April 2022 in Madrid at a conference hosted by Spain’s Left-wing Podemos party, following a dialogue initiated by the Left-wing activist organisation Progressive International. Every one of the 17 speakers condemned the war and occupation and called for a ceasefire and a future of peace for the people of Ukraine and Russia. The participants knew about the dangers of escalation of this conflict and the further hot wars and violence a new cold war would bring. There are 1,800 nuclear warheads in the world primed and ready for use. One “tactical” weapon would kill hundreds of thousands; a nuclear bomb would kill millions. It cannot be contained, nor can its effects be limited.

In June, Vienna will host a major series of peace events around the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This treaty, supported by the UN General Assembly and opposed by the declared nuclear weapons states, provides the best hope and opportunity for a nonnuclear weapons future. The opportunity should be grasped with both hands.

Some say to discuss peace at a time of war is a sign of some kind of weakness; the opposite is true. It is the bravery of peace protesters around the world that stopped some governments from being involved in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen or any of the dozens of other conflicts going on.

Peace is not just the absence of war; it is real security. The security of knowing you will be able to eat, your children will be educated and cared for and a health service will be there when you need it. For millions, that is not a reality now; the after effects of the war in Ukraine will take that away from millions more.

Meanwhile, many countries are now increasing arms spending and investing resources in more and more dangerous weapons. The United States has just approved its biggest-ever defence budget. These resources used for weapons are all resources not used for health, education, housing or environmental protection.

This is a perilous and dangerous time. Watching the horror play out and then preparing for more conflicts in the future will not ensure the climate crisis, poverty crisis or food supply is addressed. It’s up to all of us to build and support movements that can chart another course for peace, security and justice for all.

Jeremy Corbyn is a member of the UK Parliament, former leader of the UK Labour Party and the founder of the Peace and Justice Project.

This article was produced by the Morning Star and Globetrotter.

Karl Marx: Five Reasons Why The Thinker Was Ahead of His Time

How modern was Karl Marx? An exhibition in Berlin's Deutsches Historisches Museum explores why the German philosopher remains relevant to this day.

1. HE MARRIED A PARTNER WHO WAS HIS EQUAL

Without his wife Jenny Marx (1814-1881), Marx's accomplishments would not have been possible. Born Johanna Bertha Julie Jenny von Westphalen, Marx's better half was not only a journalist but also his first critical reader. She debated with him and the publicist and philosopher Friedrich Engels and collaborated on the creation of the "Communist Manifesto." In the only handwritten version of the booklet that has survived the years, the first lines are written by her.

As a journalist, she wrote texts about the 1848 March Revolution in Germany and reviews of William Shakespeare for the renowned Frankfurter Zeitung newspaper, negotiated with publishers and spoke a number of foreign languages — better than her husband. Her skills came in handy, since the Marx family was forced to spend most of their lives in exile. Friedrich Engels called her and her husband the two "highly gifted natures" and said of Jenny after her death that "her bold and wise counsel" would be bitterly missed.


Karl Marx's success would not have been possible without his wife Jenny

2. HE HELPED TO MAKE THE EIGHT-HOUR DAY A REALITY

In 1866, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels helped make the eight-hour day an official demand of the International Workers Association. As early as the 1810s, Welshman Robert Owen is said to have coined the slogan in Britain: "Eight hours work, eight hours sleep, and eight hours leisure and recreation."

The eight-hour day was introduced by law in Germany, for the first time in 1918. Since then, however, the law is changing: Six-hour days are now being tested in several European countries.


An exhibition at Berlin's Deutsches Historisches Museum explores the legacy of Marx

3. HE INSPIRED THE 'OCCUPY' MOVEMENT

On September 17, 2011, demonstrators brandishing the slogan "Occupy Wall Street" occupied Zuccotti Park in New York's financial district. They protested against an economic system in which a privileged few are getting richer, while the vast majority are becoming poorer. Protesters demanded greater political regulation of the banking and financial sector. The "Occupy" movement soon expanded around the globe. Protesters used a portrait of Karl Marx and, equipped with the catchy slogan "I told you I was right," made him into a modern icon.


Marx became something of an icon in the Occupy Wall Street movement

Particularly since the financial crisis, Karl Marx's writings are once again receiving worldwide attention. He is still considered one of the most important critics of capitalism. Some may consider his legacy ambivalent: Socialist dictatorships such as the Soviet Union or former East Germany repeatedly appropriated the philosopher to legitimize their unjust state. His attitude towards Jewish citizens is also controversial. His essay "On the Jewish Question" (first published in 1844) was used as anti-Semitic propaganda, by the Communist Party in Germany in the 1920s, for example.

4. HE WAS A HIGH-LEVEL RESEARCHER

Many economists around the world still draw on the writings of Karl Marx. For example, in 2013, French economist Thomas Piketty published his book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," with direct reference to Karl Marx's seminal study "Das Kapital"(1867).

In "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," Piketty draws on Marx's analyses and concludes that since the mid-20th century, an increasingly small number of people in industrialized nations own the majority of the world's wealth. He concludes that an increase in inequality is part and parcel of capitalism and that this increase threatens democracy. The book sparked debates around the world about the future of capitalism.


Karl Marx worked together with Friedrich Engels

The first original edition of "Das Kapital," which belonged to Marx and contains his handwritten notes, has been part of UNESCO's World Document Heritage since 2013, following a joint proposal by the Dutch and German governments.

5. HIS WORK INFLUENCED MOVEMENTS AROUND THE WORLD

Marx influenced the political debate in many countries. In the 20th century, communist thinking inspired by his texts swept through many parts of the world, triggering revolutions and installing political systems based on Marxist thought in countries like Russia, China and Cuba, among others.

However, the mastermind of the "proletarian revolution" spent almost his entire life in exile as a stateless person. After his marriage, he and his wife Jenny moved to Paris. There, he began to collaborate with Friedrich Engels, the son of a wealthy factory owner.


A copy of 'Das Kapital' with Marx's handwriting is part of the exhibition

When the Prussian government demanded his expulsion, Jenny and Karl Marx moved to Brussels, with Friedrich Engels following them. There, they began work on a pamphlet that would become the Communist Manifesto. It ends with the now world-famous call, "Workers of the world, unite!" The Marx family was also expelled from Belgium and finally found refuge in London in 1849 where Jenny and Karl Marx lived until their deaths. Jenny died on December 2, 1881, Karl on March 14, 1883. Nearly 200 years after his death, his work is still selling well.

The exhibition "Karl Marx and Capitalism" at the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin runs from February 10, 2022 to August 21, 2022.

This article was originally written in German.

Christine Lehnen
12 Feb 2022

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

'Brazilian Escobar' and a Turkish Jet Filled With Cocaine

A jet full of cocaine in Brazil shows Turkey's increasing role in global drug trafficking. The UN drugs agency says the cocaine is sent via Turkey to EU countries, as well as Eastern European and Middle Eastern nations.

Pelin Ünker, Serdar Vardar
13 Apr 2022

The seized Turkish jet belonging to Istanbul-based ACM Air charter company

On August 4, 2021, Brazilian federal police boarded a jet registered with the Istanbul-based ACM Air charter company in the northern city of Fortaleza. The private jet, which bore the tail code TC-GVA, was carrying one Belgian-Spanish passenger, four Turkish crew members and, police discovered, 1.3 tons of cocaine in 24 suitcases, with a market value of €45.6 million.

According to documents seen by DW, the jet had begun its journey in Malaga, Spain, and, after clearing inbound customs in Fortaleza, Brazil, flew to Ribeirao Preto, where it was scheduled to pick up four passengers bound for Brussels with a stop in Portugal. But, when it was raided by Brazilian police in Fortaleza, the only passenger was a man named Angel Gonzalez Valdez.

Footage of the raid was broadcast by media across Brazil and Latin America, as well as in Spain, Belgium and Turkey, and shared on social media by Turkish opposition politicians and prominent Brazilians abroad.

By the end of the year, Valdez would die of cancer in custody, the pilot would be sent back to Turkey, where he was charged for his role in the suspected cocaine trafficking, and the Turkish press would be asking how a formerly state-owned jet — indeed, the plane that had carried President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to safety during the 2016 coup — had ended up stuffed with drugs and impounded in Brazil.

TRAFFICKING VIA TURKEY

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Turkey is increasingly becoming a transit point for global cocaine trafficking. From 2014 to 2020, the amount of cocaine seized in the country rose almost fivefold, according to the UNODC. In 2020, about 2 tons were captured.

Antoine Vella, a researcher with UNODC, told DW that Turkish traffickers are acquiring a greater share of the European cocaine market, with Turkey mostly used as a transit country for cocaine destined for southeastern and eastern Europe. "Large quantities have been seized in individual cases, both in Turkey and in Latin American countries en route to Turkey in 2020 and 2021," Vella said.

Cocaine is trafficked to Turkey both via air couriers and maritime shipments. "Air couriers often use Istanbul airport to land and may travel from South America as well as Africa," Vella said. "The recent increase is likely driven by the maritime shipments."

'BRAZILIAN PABLO ESCOBAR'

Documents and information obtained by DW suggest that a former Brazilian military police officer named Sergio Roberto de Carvalho may have been behind the Turkish plane that was seized in Fortaleza. According to media reports, Brazilian police also suspect's Carvalho's involvement. Malaga, the point of departure for the Turkish airplane's flight to Brazil, is known to be a base that he has used previously.

Carvalho, aka "the Brazilian Pablo Escobar," is one of the world's principal drug barons and purportedly trafficked nearly 50 tons of cocaine to Europe from 2018 through 2021. According to Spanish media, he was living in Spain with a fake Surinamese passport in the name of "Paul Wouter." Carvalho was detained as Wouter when the Spanish police confiscated a cargo of 1.7 tons of cocaine — in Paul Wouter's name — on a ship inbound from Suriname.

Sergio Roberto de Carvalho, known as the "Brazilian Pablo Escobar"

Because "Wouter" had a clean record, Carvalho made bail after four months, paying a fee of €200,000 while the case went through court. After almost two years and just before the court was to present its final judgment in August 2020, Carvalho's lawyer presented the judge with a death certificate declaring that "Wouter" had died and been cremated. The case was put on hold.

Months later, according to media reports, the Brazilian police informed Spanish authorities and Interpol that Paul Wouter was, in fact, Carvalho, and that he had left Spain with a different passport after having plastic surgery. Interpol initiated simultaneous operations targeting Carvalho's organization in Brazil, Spain, Portugal, the United Arab Emirates and Colombia. Carvalho himself, however, escaped.

Police found passports for multiple identities at his home in Portugal, as well as a van filled with €12 million in cash. Portuguese police believe that the van was intended as an exit plan.

A source told DW that the three passengers missing from the plane in Fortaleza were relatives of Carvalho's who had decided not to board at the last minute. The source said the Brazilian Escobar was known to have used companies in Dubai, Brazil, Portugal and elsewhere to launder billions of dollars. Sources also said Carvalho was using business connections in Turkey to launder money.

SUSPICIONS IN FORTALEZA

Employees with ground handlers Lider Aviacao at the airport in Fortaleza testified that ACM Air had insisted on paying in cash for the ground services, which, for security reasons, is an uncommon practice in the aviation industry. The employees also testified that the jet had taxied to a hangar other than the one designated.

A Turkish-language bill shows the fee and departure for the ACM Flight

Contacted by DW, ACM Air employees did not reveal who had paid the €160,000 to charter the jet, which the company had bought from the Turkish state in 2017.

Angel Gonzalez Valdez, the lone passenger, was arrested, along with the Turkish pilot, Veli D. — whose full name is not being used as he has not been convicted of a crime — and the Turkish crew was interrogated. Valdez's attorney told DW that Valdez said that the pilot bore primary responsibility for the drugs onboard.

"At the hospital, Angel admitted he didn't know much about the operation and he just followed the pilot's orders," said the attorney, Maria das Dores Goncalvez Cavalcante.

The €160,000 would have been a hefty bill for a solo flight for the 61-year-old Valdez, an engineer who, according to documents examined by DW, had twice declared bankruptcy. On top of that, his attorney said, Valdez, who died in custody of terminal cancer on October 24, told her in September that he would leave €500,000, paid by a third party, to his family.

Retired Turkish Air Force pilot Veli D. flew the jet seized in Brazil with 1.3 tons of cocaine

After almost four months in custody in Brazil, the pilot, a retired Turkish Air Force officer, was released for lack of evidence — only to be detained when he arrived back in Turkey on December 26, 2021, and charged four days later. One day after the pilot's arrest, Seyhmus Ozkan, the owner of ACM Air, was arrested in Turkey.

That week, leaked pictures of Ozkan with the Turkish interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, and Ethem Sancak, a businessman with close ties to Erdogan, triggered a nationwide scandal. Ozkan's sister, Cigdem Ozkan, was also a parliamentary candidate for Erdogan's Justice and Development Party in 2015.
COCAINE'S LONG JOURNEY

The most recently reported seizure of cocaine en route to Turkey from Latin America came in February, when approximately 44 kilograms (97 pounds) of pure cocaine were seized in a banana container during inspections carried out at the port in Guayaquil, Ecuador. In fact, Ecuador is a name that comes up frequently in reports of cocaine shipments to Turkey.

A leaked document describes Valdez's health while jailed on suspicion of trafficking

In June, 1.3 tons, also from Ecuador, were seized in Turkey's southern province of Mersin — the largest single haul of cocaine ever seized on Turkish soil. That would have been eclipsed had a shipment of 4.9 tons en route to Turkey not been seized at Colombia's Buenaventura Port in 2020.

Ecuador's biggest port, Puerto Bolivar, is managed by the Turkish company Yilport, which is owned by the Erdogan associate Yuksel Yildirim. According to Yilport's website, the agreement to modernize and run the port was signed during Erdogan's 2016 official visit to Ecuador, with then President Rafael Correa also looking on.

Most cocaine seized in or en route to Turkey is destined for distribution within other countries in Europe and the Middle East, but the domestic market is also growing, though it still pales with sales in EU countries such as Spain, the Netherlands and Germany. The Turkish Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (TUBIM), a unit attached to the Turkish National Police, would not give specifics about the amount of cocaine passing through Turkey annually, or how it is then distributed abroad.

Ozkan (right) was close to prominent Turkish politicians, including the interior minister

As of 2018, according to the UNODC, the prevalence of Turks aged 15-64 who used cocaine was about five in 10,000. Nevertheless, the number of cocaine seizures rose almost fivefold from 2014 to 2017, from about 700 per year to nearly 4,000. Turkish authorities arrested almost 4,500 people in connection with cocaine-related offenses in 2020.

"It cannot be excluded that demand from an emerging domestic market may be contributing to increasing flows towards Turkey," the UNODC's Vella said. "These developments appear to form part of a broader pattern of expansion of the cocaine market and diversification of routes and actors observed in recent years."


Investigations continue in Brazil and Turkey into who was behind the suitcases of cocaine seized from the ACM jet in Fortaleza. The extent of Brazilian Escobar Carvalho's network within Turkey remains murky. And the pilot, Veli D., and ACM owner Ozkan remain in jail.

The jet itself, used by Turkish prime ministers and presidents from 1988 until it was sold to ACM, has returned to official duty — in the fleet of the Brazilian federal police.

Edited by: Aydın Üstünel, Jülide Danisman and Milan Gagnon

DW

Brazil Dams: 1 Million Live Close to Danger

Data analysis by DW reveals many Brazilians live near dams that, without proper maintenance and governmental oversight, could be deadly in the case of failure.

Rodrigo Menegat Schuinski
30 Apr 2022



A boy looks at the mud that reached the city of Brumadinho, in Brazil, after a dam at an iron-ore mine collapsed in January 2019. Hundreds were killed in the disaster.


Around 1 million people in Brazil live near a dangerous dam, according to a DW analysis. The situation raises alarm bells about the possible consequences of yet another accident in the country, which has seen three large-scale dam disasters since 2009.

The finding includes all those living in populated areas no more than a kilometer away from one of the 1220 dams that combine "high risk" and "high potential damage" classifications in Brazil's National Dam Safety Information System (SNISB).

A high-risk classification means that a dam has structural damage, design flaws or is not properly maintained, putting it at greater risk of organizational mishaps and safety incidents that could lead to a rupture. A high potential damage classification, in turn, means that such a failure would have major environmental, human or economic costs.


The issue is being exacerbated by flawed governance. Despite legal requirements, many dams don't have safety and emergency plans that outline what should be done in the event of a disaster.

According to SNISB data collected in February 2022, 39 of the dams classified as "high risk" and "high potential damage" hold mining waste, which is considered particularly unstable. The recent disasters in the cities of Mariana in 2015 and Brumadinho in 2019 involved such dams.

Most of the risky structures, however, are water storage and irrigation dams. They're mainly located in the Northeast, a comparatively poor region that historically has suffered from water shortages.

Many of the reservoirs in the area were built to offset drought. Without proper maintenance, they pose a danger to around 600,000 people in that region alone.
DAMS — A SIGN OF INFRASTRUCTURE NEGLECT

Located in a semi-arid region, Riacho da Cruz is a town of around 3,000 people. Rain is scarce and rivers often run low there.

In this town, almost everyone lives just downstream of a dangerous dam. Built in 1957 to help keep water flowing during frequent droughts, the dam is a good example of the kind of structures found scattered across most of Brazil's Northeast.


"In the 1960s and 70s, the federal government tried to promote water security in this region," says Mariano Andrade da Silva, a health and disasters researcher at Fiocruz, a major Brazilian academic institution. The construction of water reservoirs in areas of frequent drought was part of those efforts.

"Without proper maintenance, those structures have turned into a risk for the population," adds da Silva.

In addition to neglected state infrastructure, da Silva describes "orphan" dams. The person or organization responsible for these dams is either unknown or is no longer actively maintaining the structures.

As a result, 10 people for every 1,000 in the Northeast live close to a dangerous dam. That's the highest figure in all of Brazil's regions. In the Southeast, home to wealthier states such as Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, about three out of every 1,000 live in a similar situation.
LACK OF RESOURCES AGGRAVATES THE SITUATION

A lack of resources in the areas where these dams are located is an aggravating factor. According to a recent survey by the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE), twenty percent of northeastern cities with at least one dangerous dam nearby don't have functioning local civil defense services.

Civil defense services are supposed to implement risk mitigation programs, including identifying vulnerable areas and establishing contingency plans. If disaster strikes, they are also responsible for coordinating rescue efforts.

"A disaster is an unlikely event. But if it occurs, it can lead not only to deaths, but to the destruction of these communities as a whole," says da Silva, adding that reservoirs are vital water sources for both human consumption and agriculture. A dam failure, he explains, also endangers local food and water security.

A look back at recent history shows the consequences of such events. In 2009, an anti-drought dam failed in Cocal, a city with 25,000 inhabitants in the northeastern state of Piaui. The event killed nine people, displaced hundreds and jeopardized the local agricultural economy.

In January 2020, a year after the disaster, a man pays tribute to the victims of the Brumadinho dam accident. PREVENTABLE INCIDENT

Since then, major dam tragedies have occurred frequently in Brazil. The 2015 Mariana and 2019 Brumadinho disasters were two of the country's largest dam accidents and are still raw in the national consciousness. Together, they were responsible for nearly 300 deaths.

The structures that failed in these mining towns, however, were very different to those in the Northeast. They were tailing dams used to store mining waste.

HALF OF THE DISASTERS HAPPENED IN A MINING STATE

Although tailing dams are significantly fewer in number, they are responsible for a disproportionate number of tragedies.

Out of the 18 large-scale dam accidents recorded in Brazil between 1986 and 2019, nine were connected to mining operations. Eight of those — including the catastrophes in Brumadinho and Mariana — occurred in the state of Minas Gerais, which has been Brazil's main mining hub since the 1700s.


"Tailing dams don't simply hold water, like the others. It's very different. The waste contains elements such as sand, clay, starch, iron... It's much more dangerous, more unstable," says Evandro Moraes da Gama, a professor at the mining engineering department at the State University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). "There's no technique, in Brazil or elsewhere in the world, that can hold this with 100% safety."

Rafaela Baldi, a geotechnical engineer with a Ph.D. in dam safety at Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ), says most failures can be traced back to poor management practices.

According to Baldi, mining companies are responsible for the lack of proper care, as they seek to increase extraction levels while reducing costs. Blame also lies with institutions meant to monitor mining activities, she adds.

Brumadinho, Brazil's most lethal dam failure, serves as an example.

Executives at mine operator Vale and auditors from German company TÜV Süd, who attested to the collapsed dam's stability, are answering to charges of ignoring structural problems.

"Unfortunately, this is not unique to that disaster. This is a common practice in Brazil. Mining companies put pressure on consultants, and they end up writing what is most convenient in the moment," says Baldí.
TURNING A BLIND EYE TO DANGER

When the Brumadinho and Mariana dams collapsed, they weren't publicly classified as high-risk structures. This illustrates another aspect of Brazil's dam problem — namely a lack of information. The country remains unaware of how many dams exist on its territory and of their state of repair.

Since 2010, information about all dams in the country is meant to be centralized in the National Dam Safety Information System, maintained by the National Water Agency (ANA).

However, the data is far from complete, as highlighted in ANA's own annual reports. Some 22,000 dams are currently recorded in the database. But the agency estimates that around 170,000 artificial water reservoirs exist in the country.

For 57% of the dams in the system, no information exists to determine whether they are subject to legislation that outlines safety standards for structures above a certain size, risk level, or potential damage classification.

Most of the 6000 dams that are recorded as subject to national safety protocols are uncompliant. Some 73% don't have the required safety or emergency plans in place. In other words, they do not provide basic guidance on what to do if a disaster occurs.


According to Fernanda Laus, dam safety coordinator at the water agency ANA, information gaps are to be expected when implementing a new public policy. The safety monitoring database was created 12 years ago.

She adds that gaps can be partially attributed to the regulatory system's patchwork nature. Ultimately, data is collected by 44 governmental organizations with varying levels of funding and staff.

"Resources are limited. It's natural to start with larger dams and leave smaller ones for later," says Laus, adding that some regulators are moving swiftly to gather missing data. "But this is not a reality for all the agencies. Some of them just don't have the capacity to do that for now."

Edited by: Gianna Grün and Jennifer Collins

DW

10 Reasons Why Hydropower Dams Are a False Climate Solution

Not only does hydro power fail to prevent catastrophic climate change, but it also renders countries more vulnerable to climate change while emitting significant amounts of methane.

Josh Klemm, Eugene Simonov
07 Apr 2022


A river is a spectacular living corridor that feeds forests, fisheries, coastal ecosystems, and farmlands; transports life-sustaining organic matter and nutrients; provides drinking water; fosters cultural connection; and prevents carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. A river supports staggeringly rich biodiversity. One major way we negate rivers’ many benefits is by building dams.

Once considered a renewable way to harness the power of rivers, hydroelectric dams are now better known for their adverse impacts: They destroy a river’s biodiverse ecosystems, decimate the food security and livelihoods of local communities, and produce harmful methane that exacerbates climate change. Dams are costly to build, difficult to maintain, and aren’t climate-resilient or competitive against proven clean energy alternatives like solar and wind power.

In 2000, following publication of the seminal World Commission on Dams (WCD) report, many countries and financiers stopped proposing and funding dams, but a remaining few are now using climate change as a pretext to save the declining industry, and calling for scarce climate dollars to be used to keep the industry afloat. Projects are now being pushed in arguably the worst places to build a dam: on rivers flowing through biodiversity hotspots and protected areas in the tropics. With vested interests calling for the doubling of existing hydropower capacity in the coming decades, here are 10 key reasons why dams are a false solution to the climate crisis.

1. Climate Change Is Making Dams Unreliable and Risky

Large hydropower projects are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Droughts have crippled hydropower generation all over the world, leading to energy rationing and blackouts from the U.S. to China, and from Brazil to southern Africa. This trend is only expected to increase in the current changing climate scenario being witnessed globally. Meanwhile, increasingly common extreme weather events make large dams dangerous for people living downstream, as they become vulnerable to dam failures.

2. Dams Produce Significant Amounts of Methane

At least 25% of today’s global warming is caused by methane emissions, which have “more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere,” according to a press release from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).

As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in 2021 showed, cutting methane emissions is the most urgent step we must take to immediately slow the rate of global warming, an observation also made in Nature. Dams generate methane and carbon dioxide when vegetation and organic matter are flooded in the reservoirs and start to decay underwater, as well as when areas are deforested to make way for building the project. Dam reservoirs represent a significant source of methane globally, equivalent to the greenhouse gas footprint of Canada, and scientists have found in some cases that dam reservoirs can cause more warming than coal-fired power plants.

3. Hydropower Climate Calculation Doesn’t Add Up

The dam sector’s industry group, the International Hydropower Association (IHA), along with other vested interests are pushing to more than double the entire amount (850 gigawatts) of hydropower installed in the past 100 years in a bid to mitigate climate change.

The IPCC report is a reminder to all of us that we have less than 10 years to drastically cut emissions if we’re to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Let’s look at the numbers: The average time it takes to build a dam is approximately 10 years, and dam construction itself causes serious emissions (for example, cement production).

Even if a dam was built in less time, a new dam reservoir actually adds to the climate crisis by emitting most of its methane and CO2 emissions in the first decade after its commissioning. For example, in Brazil, researchers discovered that the Belo Monte Dam caused a threefold increase in greenhouse gas emissions after only two years of operation. Building a vast new fleet of dams as IHA calls for would spike methane emissions at precisely the time we need to reduce them.

4. Hydropower Dams Are Falsely Marketed as a ‘Sustainable’ Climate Solution

The IHA continues to propagate the falsehood of hydropower projects being a viable solution to mitigate the climate crisis, which fails to consider the facts or latest scientific evidence to the contrary. In September 2021, IHA made its pitch for scarce climate dollars to subsidize the hydropower industry, pledging that all new hydropower projects must meet its own “Hydropower Sustainability Standard.”

This commitment to ensuring sustainability for hydropower dam projects, however, falls flat on its face when one considers the fact that all ‘sustainable’ hydropower projects pushed by the IHA members in 2020 did not even meet their definition of sustainability. A report called “Water Yearbook” for 2020 stated that “most of [the] hydropower development in the world is unsustainable and proceeds at the expense of key sustainable development objectives.”

5. Dam Projects Often Violate Human Rights

Large hydropower projects have serious impacts on local communities’ rights. According to the 2000 WCD report, dams had displaced at least 40-80 million people and have negatively affected an estimated 472 million people living downstream over the years. Hydropower companies often violate the rights of Indigenous peoples to their lands, territories, resources, governance, cultural integrity and right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).

Last year’s guilty verdict in the assassination of Indigenous leader Berta Cáceres by the former head of a dam company in Honduras highlights the danger faced by people opposing hydropower dams. The impact of dams on Indigenous populations continues unimpeded despite the key role that Indigenous peoples play in protecting 80 percent of global biodiversity and leading the world in preventing carbon emissions in their territories.

6. New Hydropower Is Expensive and Ill-Suited to Deliver Energy Access

Another considerable mark against large hydropower projects is their enormous expense. Due to planning errors, technical problems and corruption, dams experience average delays of 44 percent and cost overruns of 96 percent. Sooner or later, silt tends to build up in reservoirs over the years, and the cost of maintaining dams far outweighs their benefits. Meanwhile, the energy produced by large dams is generally inaccessible to local communities, either because it is too expensive, monopolized by the industry, or exported to distant cities or neighboring countries.

7. Free-Flowing Rivers Help Mitigate the Climate, Biodiversity and Water Crises—Dams Do Not

Rivers, when unfettered and healthy, help regulate an increasingly volatile global carbon cycle by drawing an estimated 200 million tons of carbon out of the atmosphere each year. This is just one of the dozens of essential services provided by free-flowing freshwater ecosystems, which range from provision of food to flood mitigation and access to water supply. Dams do a poor job of storing water; “it’s estimated at least 7 percent of the total amount of fresh water needed for human activities evaporates from the world’s reservoirs every year,” according to an article in Deutsche Welle.

8. Alternatives Are More Affordable and Driving the Energy Revolution

Truly renewable, clean energy sources are readily available and financially competitive and have overtaken large hydropower projects as the preferred choice for energy generation and access. Utility-scale renewable energy technologies such as wind, solar, and geothermal have the potential to provide environmentally and socially sustainable energy and are also increasingly cost-effective for consumers.

Given the plunging costs of alternative energy sources and improved storage technologies—as well as significant advances in energy efficiency and grid management—it is now possible to expand energy generation while drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preserving our free-flowing rivers.

9. Expanding Hydropower Is Incompatible With Efforts to Address the Looming Biodiversity Crisis

While they account for less than 1% of the Earth’s surface, freshwater ecosystems are home to more than 10% of all species. Hydropower dams are a key culprit in the rapid 84% decline in the populations of freshwater species experienced since 1970.

This year, the second phase of the 15th Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is expected to begin in August, and the participants of the convention will discuss and agree on the UN biodiversity framework, and with freshwater ecosystems being the “most degraded ecosystems in the world,” urgent global action is required to turn this around.

10. The Destruction of Nature Is at the Root Cause of Multiple Crises

We’re facing multiple challenges: climate change, massive biodiversity loss, and a global pandemic, among other challenges of human rights, equity, and poverty. We must tackle the root systems and drivers of our major global challenges. The future depends on us to make the right decisions at this critical moment.

Hydropower dams are a false climate solution and should not be prioritized in future energy or climate plans. A new paradigm in river stewardship and protections is critical, particularly in the wake of COVID-19, to safeguard the water sources that are indispensable to life and public health, help prevent countries from taking on calamitous new debt, ensure a just energy transition that centres people and human rights, and effectively confront our climate and water crises and biodiversity loss.

We have less than 10 years to halve our greenhouse gas emissions to stave off catastrophic climate change, and we must also address the interlinked water and biodiversity crises. As Bob Watson, former chair of the IPCC and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, said, “If we fail to act now, future generations will ask, why did we not act to save the Earth given all of the scientific evidence we have?” It is past time to put to rest these false notions of hydropower being a sustainable climate solution and instead invest in energy pathways that can both address climate change and deliver electricity to those who lack it.



Josh Klemm is the co-executive director of International Rivers, a non-profit at the heart of the global struggle to protect rivers and the rights of communities that depend on them. He previously led the Africa Program at the Bank Information Center. Find him on Twitter @JoshKlemm.

Eugene Simonov is the international coordinator of the Rivers without Boundaries Coalition (RwB), which unites local communities and activists to protect transboundary rivers of the Eurasian continent.

This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

The Role of Capitalism in the War in Ukraine
Global warfare has always accompanied the globalisation of capitalism and its profit motive.

Richard D. Wolff
13 Apr 2022

Image Courtesy: NDTV

To the motives for war in human history, capitalism added another: profit. That motive drove technological advancement and created a genuine world economy. It also built new capitalist empires, such as the Spanish, Dutch, British, French, Belgian, Russian, German, Japanese, and American empires. Each of these countries built its empire by various means including wars against prior systems operating on their own territories, in their colonies, and in foreign “spheres of influence.”

Wars likewise characterised interactions among empires. Global warfare (“world wars”) accompanied the globalisation of capitalism and its profit motive. The war in Ukraine is the latest chapter in the history of capitalism, empire, and war.

Capitalism means enterprises run by small groups of people—employers—who preside over large groups—hired employees. Employers are driven to maximise profits: the excess of the value added by hired workers over the wages paid to them. Employers are likewise driven to sell outputs at the highest price the market will bear and buy inputs (including workers’ time) at the lowest possible market price.

Competition among capitalist enterprises pressures all employers to plow profits as much as possible back into the business to help it grow and to gain market share as means to maximise profits. They each must do this in order to survive because competition’s winners tend to destroy and then absorb the losers. The social result of this competition among enterprises is that capitalism as a system is inherently driven to expand quickly.

That expansion, inside every capitalist nation, inevitably overflows its boundaries. Capitalist enterprises seek, find, and develop foreign sources of food, raw materials, workers, and markets. As competition becomes global, competing capitalist enterprises seek help from their nations’ governments to expand.

Politicians quickly learn that companies in their nations that lose in global competition will blame those politicians for insufficient support. Meanwhile, companies that win in the global competition will reward such politicians for their help. The social result of this is that capitalism entails national competition alongside enterprise competition. Wars often punctuate capitalism’s national competition. The winners in those competitions thereby often tended to build empires, historically.

For example, in the 17th and 18th centuries, wars helped British capitalism to build a global empire. In the 19th century, more wars punctuated the completion and consolidation of that empire. Empire growth had itself stimulated all manner of challenges and competition, eventuating in more wars.

For example, as capitalism took root and grew in Britain’s American colony, colonial enterprises eventually encountered obstacles (limited markets, taxes, and limited access to inputs). These obstacles eventually grew into a conflict between them and their colony’s leaders, on one side, and Britain’s capitalists and King George III, on the other. The war of independence resulted. Later, British leaders went to war against the United States in 1812 and also considered siding with the enslavers in the South against the capitalist North in the American Civil War.

The 19th century saw countless efforts by other nations to compete with, challenge, undermine, or reduce Britain’s empire. Competitive capitalist enterprises engendered competitive colonialism and many wars. The United States and Germany grew into the major national competitors for Britain.

Wars punctuated the growth of capitalism across the 19th century, within the United States and Germany, as well as elsewhere across the globe. As capitalist enterprises combined, centralised, and grew—resulting from the competition among them—so too did many nations consolidate into fewer numbers of nations. Wars became larger too, culminating in the devastating first of the two World Wars.

The British Empire fought the German Empire in World War I. That destroyed them both as contenders for global dominance. Having been far less damaged by World War I, US capitalism grew fast in replacing the global capitalist positions that Britain and Germany had lost because of the war. World War I also established capitalism’s responsibility for the tens of millions who died, were injured, and were made refugees in what was then considered the worst war ever.

Germany tried to regain its global dominance a few years later, allied with the newest capitalist empire, Japan, to undo the results of World War I. It failed, as the United States defeated Germany and Japan to demonstrate its economic and military (nuclear) superiority. A consolidated US global empire prevailed from 1945 until recent years.

The United States then learned what the British had discovered earlier. Building and consolidating a capitalist empire provokes an endless succession of challengers. Among capitalist enterprises, competition’s losers’ employees move to work for the winners; the winners’ enterprises grow, and the loser’s decline. Winners’ growth often entails still greater profits and more competitive victories. That growth invites and promotes new competitors. Fended off for a while, eventually one or more new competitors discover how seriously to challenge the older dominant firm and displace it.

Capitalist empires and their challengers exhibit parallel histories. As the competitive new enterprise destroys the old, the same happens with empires. That has been capitalism’s history, and that is what is now being seen in Ukraine.

Britain, after the end of the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, won a century of global dominance. The United States after World War I did so too. Both empires provoked endless challenges. Nations large and small developed enterprises, industries, and political leaders who wanted to make changes or move in directions that differed from/challenged the US global capitalist hegemony after World War I. For example, across Latin America, references to “manifest destiny” resulted in small wars to remove competing challenges in the region.

Likewise, when Iran’s prime minister in the early 1950s, Mohammad Mosaddegh, or Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, showed signs of breaking away from the US empire’s control, both were removed.

The one repression attempt by the US that failed was in Cuba. The United States then isolated and economically hobbled Cuba via sanctions and embargoes. Warfare could be economic as well as military. Ukraine is another example, but with a peculiarity: US support for Ukraine is an effort to repress another country that challenges US hegemony, namely Russia. And repressing Russia too is a peculiar indirect way to get at the greatest threat to the US capitalist empire, namely China.

The USSR’s survival after 1917, its World War II victories, and its development of nuclear weapons after 1945 created a potential challenger for the US capitalist empire that had to be confronted. Former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill had accommodated the USSR’s control in Eastern Europe after 1945, but that represented a “loss” for U.S. global dominance. Thus, Eastern Europe quickly became the site of an ideological or “cold” war that pitted freedom and democracy against communism and totalitarianism in the USSR and its “satellite states.” It had to be a “cold” war because the consequences of a nuclear war would have been extreme.

Before World War II, US wars against other communist challengers of its empire had not demonised them as “evil communists.” During World War II, the United States even allied with the USSR to jointly defeat the immediate challengers (Germany and Japan). But after 1945, that was the preferred ideological terminology used for the USSR to justify protecting the US empire. Then, when the USSR and its hold on Eastern Europe collapsed in 1989/1990, the old terminology faded in favour of a new terminology, used to begin a new war on a new challenger: Islamic terrorism.

The 30-plus years since 1989/1990 have changed both the US empire and its challenges. Russia proved too weak to hold on to most of Eastern Europe. The United States reintegrated much of that region into Western capitalism via EU and NATO memberships, trade agreements, and Western investments.Slowly, over the last 20 years, Russia overcame some of its post-1989 weaknesses.

The meteoric rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) brought new challenges for the US empire, including a Russia-China alliance. Russia is now a capitalist economic system allied with the PRC (whose economy has a larger private capitalist sector than at any time since the Chinese Revolution of 1949). These two powerful capitalist economies are the largest globally by geography (Russia) and by population (China). They present a major problem for the US global empire.

Russia evidently felt finally strong enough and allied with a much larger economic entity so it could hope to challenge and stop further “losses” in Eastern Europe. Thus, it invaded Crimea, Georgia, and now Ukraine.

In stark contrast, the US empire’s ability to suppress challenges to its global dominance shrank. It lost wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, as well as its intervention in Syria’s civil war. Its global economic footprint decreased in relation to that of the PRC. It proved unable to bring nations like Venezuela and Iran to heel despite trying hard for many years.

In Ukraine, on one side is an effort led by nationalists who would bring another nation further back into the US-led global capitalist empire. On the other side is Russia and its allies determined to challenge the US empire’s growth project in Ukraine and pursue their own competitive agenda for part or all of Ukraine. China stays with Russia because its leaders see the world and history in much the same way: They both share a common competitor in the United States.

Ukraine, per se, is not the issue. It is tragically a war-ravaged pawn in a much larger conflict. Nor is the issue about either Russian President Vladimir Putin or US President Joe Biden as leaders. The same history and confrontation would prevail upon their successors.

Meanwhile, former US President Donald Trump’s effort to force change on the PRC by imposing the biggest sanctions action in history (i.e., a trade war and a tariff war) utterly failed. Trump was caught up in the same history as Biden, even if each focused on attacking the Russian-Chinese alliance differently.

Eventually, some compromise will end the Ukraine war. Both sides will likely declare victory and blame the war on the other among propaganda blizzards. The Russian side will stress demilitarisation, denazification, and protection of Russians in eastern Ukraine. The Ukraine side will stress freedom, independence, and national self-determination.

Meanwhile, the tragedy goes beyond Ukraine’s suffering. The entire world is caught up in the decline of one capitalist empire and the rise of yet another. Conflicts between the capitalist empires can occur anywhere where differences between them flare up.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy lies in not recognising the responsibility of the capitalist system with its markets of competing enterprises run/dominated by the minorities we call employers. That system lies at the root of these historic repetitions. The minority employer class controls or is the leadership of the nations that have absorbed and reproduced the competition that capitalism entails. The majority employee class pays most of the costs on both sides (in dead, wounded, destroyed properties, refugee lives, and taxes).

A different economic system not driven by a profit motive offers a deeper solution than any on offer at present. Perhaps the war in Ukraine can awaken an awareness of its capitalist roots and teach people to explore alternative systemic solutions. If so, this war and the resulting devastation from it could lead to an important turning point that eventually results in some positive outcomes in the future.

Richard D. Wolff is professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a visiting professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, in New York.

Source: Independent Media Institute

Credit Line: This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

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