Pakistan: Three left parties to unite
Statement by the Awami Party Pakistan, Labour Party Pakistan and the Workers Party Pakistan
September 19, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Over the past few months, three left political parties have been holding meetings to discuss the possibility of a merger and creation of a new progressive force in Pakistan politics. Many of us have been striving for left unity for years, even decades.
The challenges that working people and progressive political forces face both within this country and in the form of imperialist intrigue cannot be meaningfully confronted without such unity. In the past, efforts to bring the left together have both succeeded and failed, and it is in the spirit of learning from such experiences that this present attempt is being made.
We do not expect to suddenly emerge as a "third" force in Pakistan politics, because we do not enjoy the kind of patronage of state and non-state powers as the right-wing parties. Yet we do believe that the people of Pakistan want to see new alternatives emerging and we expect that a merger of existing left groups will be a giant step forward in building such an alternative.
Pakistan: Baba Jan released from jail
Bab Jan leaves jail, September 17, 2012.
By Farooq Tariq
Farewell Spain? Catalan independence march sends shockwave
By Dick Nichols, Barcelona
Colombia: What prospects for the peace negotiations between FARC and government?
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) fighters walk in San Isidro, Colombia, May 30.
See also "Colombia: The end for guerrilla warfare?" For more coverage of Colombia, click HERE.
By Anthony Boynton, Bogota
September 12, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The government of Colombia on September 4 announced that it had begun peace negotiations with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia (FARC, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). The news was quickly confirmed by the FARC. Although FARC still leads thousands of armed fighters and has the financial resources to continue fighting, the decimation of its leadership combined with its political isolation has brought it to the point of no return. It has entered a new peace process with the government of Juan Manuel Santos with far less than it had to bargain with when it sat down at the negotiating table with the government of Andres Pastrana more than a decade ago.
Netherlands elections: A hangover instead of an earthquake
Dutch Socialist party leader Emile Roemer.
United States: Is supporting Obama the way to fight the right?
... or maybe the time after that.
By Barry Sheppard
September 8, 2012 -- Green Left Weekly -- The election rallies of the mis-named “conventions” of the twin parties of Wall Street are over. The Republican Party -- dominated by the "Tea Party" movement -- has gone sharply to the right. But is supporting the Democratic Party and US President Barack Obama the way to fight the rightward shift in US capitalist politics? Many who consider themselves leftists or even socialists reply “yes”. Let us look at the record.
On foreign policy, there is no difference except some rhetoric. Both parties supported the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Both seek to crush Iran and return that country to its subservient status Washington enjoyed when Iran was under the Shah.
Both seek to return Cuba to a United States-controlled semi-colony. Both want to roll back the anti-imperialist gains in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, and push against the growing steps toward more independence in the rest of Latin America.
Green is also the colour of money: EU carbon trading failure as a model for the 'green economy'
By Ricardo Coelho
September 16, 2012 -- Corner House/Carbon Trade Watch -- The first two phases of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (2005-2007, 2008-2012) allocated free permits according to historical emissions; a practice known as "grandfathering" that has acted as a de facto subsidy for the biggest polluters. Electricity producers, for example, by increasing electricity prices in line with the price of the permits they received for free, have made windfall profits of between €23 to €71 billion during the second phase. The third phase (2013-2020) will still see significant subsidies paid to industry.
Emile Roemer.
[English at http://links.org.au/node/3010.]
Por Will Wroth, traducción para www.sinpermiso.info por Gustavo Buster
Septiembre 9, 2012 -- www.sinpermiso.info -- Aunque las elecciones legislativas se suelen considerar con demasiada frecuencia como "históricas" y sus resultados, celebrados como "avalanchas decisivas" o "terremotos políticos", cuando el polvo de la batalla se disipa, en la mayoría de los casos no es para tanto. Pero las elecciones legislativas en los Países Bajos el próximo 12 de septiembre parecen despertar todo tipo de expectativas.
La caída imprevista del anterior gobierno minoritario, el más derechista del que se tenga memoria y rehén del apoyo del Partido de la Libertad (PVV) del demagogo xenófobo Geert Wilders, ha provocado la convocatoria de unas elecciones que pueden producir un cambio inédito en el espacio político de la izquierda y unos resultados que planteen algunos problemas estratégicos fundamentales a los socialistas tanto en los Países Bajos como en el resto del mundo, al mismo tiempo que enfrentaran a la oligarquía económica y política del país a una realidad cuanto menos molesta.
South Africa: 'The SACP has become a vanguard of ANC power factionalism'
South Africa's ANC president Jacob Zuma (right) dances with SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande.
Thailand's 'parallel war': Thaksin and the Red Shirts
A mobilisation by Thailand's Red Shirt democracy movement in September 2010.
[For more on Thailand and the Red Shirt movement, click HERE.]
By Giles Ji Ungpakorn
September 9, 2012 -- Links international Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Six years after the September 19 coup d'état against the Thaksin Shinawatra government, it is possible to look back and assess the impact of the crisis on Thai politics and society.
One way of understanding the “dialectical” relationship between Thaksin Shinawatra and the Red Shirts democracy movement is to borrow the concept of a “parallel war” from Donny Gluckstein's book on the Second World War.[1] According to Gluckstein there were two parallel wars against the Axis powers. One was an imperialist war, waged by the ruling classes of Britain, the United States and Russia for their own interests, while the other war was a people's war against fascism, waged by ordinary working people, many of them socialists.
Brian Senewiratne: Deterioration of human rights in Sri Lanka
September 10, 2012 – Green Left TV – A 56-minute presentation by Brian Senewiratne at the Fremantle T