South Africa’s trade and industry minister Rob Davies.

By Patrick Bond

April 18, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Hosting the Durban COP17 – let’s rename it the “Conference of Polluters” – starting in late November puts quite a burden on the African National Congress government in Pretoria: to pretend to be pro-green.

Embarrassingly, last week’s US Export-Import Bank loan of US$805 million to South Africa will feed huge profits to the notorious US corporations Black & Veatch so that a vast coal-fired power plant, “Kusile”, can be constructed, mainly on behalf of huge smelters run by BHP Billiton and Anglo American Corporation – whose profits soar away to Melbourne and London.

Lecture 1: Islam and its discontents, March 17, 2011. Lectures 2 & 3, below.

A series of three lectures by Tariq Ali.

Renowned Marxist and anti-war campaigner Tariq Ali presented these three lectures as part of the University of Auckland's annual Sir Douglas Robb Lectures, delivered March 17-23, 2011. The videos have been made available to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal courtesy of the University of Auckland library.

* * *

Racist vandalism of Greens’ election campaign billboards, Sydney. Photo: Peter Boyle.

By Samah Sabawi

April 10, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly -- While Palestinian, Israeli and international non-violent protesters who march against Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories are literally showered in sewage, beaten, arbitrarily arrested and sometimes killed by Israeli forces, the battle against non-violent resistance has taken its own ugly form in Australia.

Supporters of the non-violent global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement — especially members of the Greens — have been subjected to abuse in a deliberate national campaign of misinformation and slurs orchestrated against them. It has questioned their values and integrity and falsely accused them of anti-Semitism.

The war on BDS is part of a concerted effort to sabotage Palestinian and Israeli non-violent resistance against Israel’s 43-year-old illegal occupation and its 63 years of discrimination against non-Jewish Israeli citizens.

Ghazali Jaafar (left). Photo by Jolly Lais.

Ghazali Jaafar, vice-chairperson for political affairs of the central committee of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), interviewed by Tony Iltis in Barangay Simuay, Maguindanao province

Introduction by Tony Iltis

April 10, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly -- The Moro people of the Philippines’ southern Mindanao Islands have never considered themselves Filipinos. The Spanish colonisers never succeeded in subjugating the Moro sultanates. However, when Spain ceded the Philippines to the US in 1898, the Moro homeland, Bangsamoro, was included.

In the ensuing war, which lasted until 1913, 20,000 Moros — fighters and civilians — were killed. The US set about integrating Bangsamoro to the Philippines through land ownership laws that delegitimised the communal land tenure systems of the Muslim Moro tribes and the non-Muslim indigenous tribes (sometimes called Lumads).

[For more left views on Libya, click HERE.]

Resolution by the national leadership of SAP, Danish section of the Fourth International

No to imperialist war in Libya

April 9, 2011 -- The SAP welcomes the decision of the Red-Green Alliance (RGA) leadership and parliamentary group on March 30 to withdraw its support for the Danish government’s participation in the war in Libya. This has created the possibility that the RGA finally can participate in the fight to stop the imperialist war in Libya. The positive element of the new decision unfortunately is hampered by the related statement by the RGA: “The RGA will work to get the operation back on the UN track as soon as possible.” Thus the parliamentary group focuses on a change in goals and methods of the Danish war effort instead of getting it stopped. This uncertainty has already had as result that the RGA did not co-organise or mobilise for the demonstration against the war in Libya today.

Wrong decision

[The following article was provided by Cairo-based Australian journalist Austin Mackell and first appeared at his website,

[For more left views on Libya, click HERE.]

Two articles by Louis Proyect, moderator of the MarxMail list. They first appeared at Proyect's website, The Unrepentant Marxist, and are posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author's permission.

* * *

By Louis Proyect

April 3, 2011 -- Perhaps the reason people on the left are so upset with Juan Cole and Gilbert Achcar’s “humanitarian intervention” arguments is that they are widely considered “one of us”. In Achcar’s case, the pain is even more acute for the Marxist wing of the left since his credentials are so well established.

Thousands of Red Shirts commemorate the April-May 2010 killings of pro-democracy protesters by military forces.

By Giles Ji Ungpakorn

April 12, 2011 -- Red Thai Socialist -- One year after Thailand's military gunned down nearly 90 pro-democracy civilians in Bangkok and in the run-up to the promised first election since the 2006 coup, the military have been very active in increasing the obstacles to a free and fair election. They are seriously worried about the outcome of this election.

Kick out the monarchy, kick out capitalism

For working class power and socialism in Swaziland

Statement of the central committee of the Communist Party of Swaziland on the occasion of its inaugural conference, KaMhlushwa, South Africa, April 9-10, 2011

April 10, 2011 -- Swazi men and women from inside Swaziland and in exile convened in Kamhlushwa, close to the Swazi border, over the weekend of April 9-10 for the inaugural conference of the Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS).

The formation of the CPS comes at a decisive point in the freedom struggle in Swaziland. Time is running out for the Mswati regime, which is directly responsible for the impoverishment, low life expectancy and heavy exploitation of the majority of Swazi people.

Swazi regime’s 'victory' is a pyrrhic one

By Peter Kenworthy

(Earlier reports and statements below.)

April 14, 2011 -- Pambazuka News -- Swaziland’s minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, Lutfo Dlamini, called the brutally crushed peaceful protest or uprising against Swaziland’s absolute monarchy, that lets a small elite live in luxury while two thirds of the population live below the poverty line, a “failure” yesterday.

I beg to differ. In fact, the so-called “victory” of the regime against the demonstrators, whose call for democracy and rule of law in the absolute monarchy that is Swaziland, may turn out to be a pyrrhic one,  making Swazi’s less likely to accept reformist measures once the inevitable change that most people want comes.

Because while the demonstrators didn’t manage to amass the numbers they had hoped for, this was mainly due to the intimidation, blocking tactics and violence of the police and security forces that did everything they could to stop people from assembling in Manzini.

Por Chris Slee

[English at http://links.org.au/node/2210.]

El sitio de Internet Tamilnet acusó al gobierno de Sri Lanka de declarar la “guerra de colonización” contra los tamiles que viven en la isla de Sri Lanka. El gobierno ha establecido asentamientos singaleses en áreas tradicionalmente ocupadas por los tamiles. Dicho sitio compara esta situación con la política israelí de establecer asentamientos judíos en el “West Bank” e indica lo siguiente: “...Sri Lanka desea crear lo más rápido posible una situación similar al modelo israelí". [1]

Del mismo modo que Israel usa a los asentamientos judíos para separar las áreas habitadas por palestinos en pequeños fragmentos, intentando así imposibilitar un estado palestino, Sri Lanka utiliza los asentamientos singaleses para separar las áreas tamiles del norte y del este de Sri Lanka, con el objeto de imposibilitar un estado tamil independiente.