Bolivia: Renewed Offensive of the Oligarchy – Time to Strike Back!

By Jorge Martin
Thursday, 11 September 2008



On Tuesday, September 9th, the offensive of the Bolivian oligarchy reached a new high point. In Santa Cruz, the shock troops of the fascist gangs of the Union Juvenil Cruceñista (UJC) took over by force a whole series of public buildings. First they sacked and looted the offices of the Servicio Nacional de Impuestos (Tax Revenue Office), then they went to the offices of the recently nationalised telecommunications company ENTEL which was also looted, as were the offices of the National Agrarian Reform Institute (INRA). In doing so they had to fight running battles against the police and the army which was under strict orders not to use fire arms and were over-run by the violent demonstrators.


Departments of Bolivia

In Tarija, a group of 50 employees of the regional prefecto (governor) attacked the offices of the Superintendencia de Hidrocarburos (Office of the Ministry for Hydrocarbons) and took it over. These actions were repeated in Tarija, Beni and Pando, were gangs of thugs led by officials of the regional prefectos and leading opposition parlamentarians took over Agrarian Reform Institute (INRA) offices, highway toll boths, border customs offices, airports, etc.

Having taken over a number of government offices they then moved on to those media outlets which are not controlled by the right-wing opposition. They looted and destroyed equipment at the offices of Radio Patria Nueva (which were set on fire), and Televisión Boliviana Canal 7. They also forced the community radio station, Radio Alternativa off the air. A few days earlier four radio stations in Cobija, Pando, were also forced to stop broadcasting.

Apart from taking over public buildings and the media, the offensive of the oligarchy has also targeted the mass organisations of the workers and peasants. On Thursday, September 4th, the house of the executive secretary of the Departmental Workers' Union (COD) in Santa Cruz, was set on fire in the middle of the night, while he was sleeping and his wife and five children were also in the house. The offices of Indigenous rights NGO CIJES in Santa Cruz were also looted and set on fire and so were the offices of the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia (CIDOB). Finally, in Santa Cruz, a number of public squares and street markets in areas of strong support for the MAS, were also occupied by groups of armed thugs.

As part of this offensive there was also an attack on an oil pipeline on the border with Argentina and the occupation of a gas field in Chuquisaca, which according to some sources threatened to cut off gas exports to Brazil and Argentina, causing serious damage to the Bolivian economy.

This was not a series of "spontaneous actions", but rather part of a well prepared and coordinated challenge to the power of Evo Morales' government. These actions were discussed and decided at the meeting of CONALDE (a coalition of opposition governors and so-called "civic" committees, in effect, the high command of the oligarchy) on September 4th. The cattle rancher, land owner and head of the group of opposition party Podemos in Parliament, Antonio Franco, publicly applauded the taking over of official buildings in Santa Cruz.

The dark hand of the United States was also involved. Breaking all diplomatic protocol, the US ambassador Goldberg had a closed door meeting with one of the main organisers of the opposition, Santa Cruz prefect Ruben Costas, on August 25. A week later he also met with the opposition governor of Chuquisaca, Sabina Cuellar. According to reports in the Bolivian media, he also met with the prefects of Tarija, Beni and Pando. The wealthy landowner Branko Marinkovic, head of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee and one of the main representatives of the oligarchy, also paid a visit to the US last week. One does not need to be a rocket scientist to see how this is a repetition of the story of the coup in Venezuela in April 2002 and of the coup against Allende in Chile 35 years ago today.

Quite correctly, on Wednesday, September 10th, Evo Morales declared US ambassador Goldberg persona non grata and instructed foreign affairs minister Choquehuanca to ask him to leave the country. However, expelling the US ambassador, will not stop the coup conspiracy.

The Position of Brazil

According to some reports, the closing of a gas valve in Tarija on Wednesday, September 10th, provocked a surge in pressure which ruptured the gas pipeline. The state gas company president Ramirez, declared that as a result, gas exports to Brazil were cut by 10% to 27 million cubic tonnes a day. Bolivia supplies Brazil with 50% of its gas.

In a scandalous statement, Brazil's foreign affairs minister Celso Amorim, declared that if the Evo Morales government is not able to guarantee gas supplies to Brazil, then they would be prepared to enter into direct negotiations with the opposition regional prefects.

This would amount to Brazil recognising de facto independence to these Eastern regions and de-recognising the Bolivian government. The so-called "left-wing" government of Lula, once again, is playing the dirty role of agent of US imperialism.

The Response of the Government

Evo Morales and other ministers in his government have quite correctly described these moves as a coup. Unfortunately, they have responded by appealing to bourgeois legality. Thus, the minister of the presidency, Juan Ramón Quintana, declared that the "prosecutor must take action against those responsible and bring them to court". The little problem is that the state prosecutor in Santa Cruz responds to the interests of the oligarchy.

Reports we have received from Santa Cruz say that the government has called on mass organisations to stop their plans to set up road blockades in Santa Cruz against the oligarchy, and that local MAS leaders are nowhere to be seen. The mood of the MAS supporters is angry. Even large sections of the middle class in Santa Cruz are complaining in radio phone-in shows about the goverment's lack of action faced with these illegal violent actions.

This is a very dangerous situation. The offensive of the oligarchy cannot be fought off within the limits of the bourgeois democratic institutions, because the oligarchy has already shown it has no intention of respecting them. They know they are in a minority, as was clearly demonstrated in the recall referendum on August 10th. Evo Morales won with more than 67% of the vote and winning in 95 out of the country's 112 provinces. This is why they have resorted to violent and illegal means, using all their economic and political power (in the regional governorships) to undermine and eventually overthrow the government of Evo Morales.

The opposition in Bolivia represents the interests of the big business groups, the banking sector and the agro-capitalist groups in an alliance with the foreign multinationals and US imperialism. They fear losing important parts of their economic and political power. They feel they have already lost control over the central government and realise that the passing of the new constitution (for which the government has called a referendum on December 7th) could mean the beginning of an agrarian reform which would seriously affect their property. From their point of view what is at stake is very important and they have not hesistated in using all means at their disposal, legal and illegal.

The problem is that the MAS leaders and the government seem to only want to use strictly legal and institutional means. The class struggle is not like a game of chess, in which your opponent will abide by the rules of the game. It is more like a boxing match in which your opponent is using all sorts of dirty tricks and controls the referee as well. If the MAS government wants to continue playing chess while the oligarchy is fighting a dirty boxing match, it is clear who is going to win.

Time to Strike Back

As we said in a previous article:

"Now is the time to take decisive measures against the oligarchy. If they sabotage the distribution of food against the democratic will of the people, then their land, ranches, food processing plants and transport companies should be occupied by the peasants and workers and be expropriated by the government. If they take over oil and gas fields, as they have threatened, then workers and peasants must retake them (as in Venezuela) and put them to work under workers' control. If they blockade roads, workers and peasants must organise to keep them open." (Bolivia: a new offensive of the oligarchy, the masses respond in the streets, August 23)

Faced with the inaction of the government representatives, the mass organisations must take the initiative. The meeting of the National Coordination of Organisations for Change (Conalcam) last week in Santa Cruz decided to call for road blockades in Santa Cruz and a national march on Parliament. These plans must now be brought forward.

In Santa Cruz, the Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz Movement has made an appeal to the Departmental Workers' Union (COD), peasant and neighbourhood organisations to call a cabildo abierto (mass meeting) in the Plan 3000 neighbourhood to start to organise the response of the masses against the fascist gangs. In Potosí, the comrades of the Corriente Marxista Internacional - El Militante are attempting to organise an emergency meeting of the COD with the presence of all the mass organisations to coordinate an effective response.

The oligarchy is a minority, but it is well armed, funded and is on the offensive. The government on the other hand, is seen as acting in a weak way, not responding to these attacks. This can have a demoralising effect on the masses of workers and peasants who support the MAS and the government. The only way to counter the oligarchy's coup which we can see unfolding before our very eyes is through the mass mobilisation of the people on the streets.

The National Workers' Union (COB) and the peasant and indigenous organisations should organise cabildos abiertos (mass meetings) in all cities and rural areas to discuss the developing coup. At these meetings Popular Assemblies and self-defence committees should be organised to defend the workers' and peasants' organisations and to clear the fascist gangs from the streets. They should demand the immediate passing of a decree of expropriation of the properties and wealth of all those collaborating, participating and funding the coup of the oligarchy. The implementation of such a decree should not be left to the prosecutors, judges and police officers, most of whom cannot be trusted, but rather should be carried out directly by the workers' and peasants' organisations under the authority of mass Popular Assemblies.

The masses of workers and peasants in Bolivia have demonstrated their revolutionary courage and determination in the last few years and throghout history. They could sweep aside the ruling class in a matter of days, if they were armed with a clear programme and organised with a clear plan of struggle. In 1952, the miners alone smashed the bourgeois army and took power. That feat can be repeated. The threat is very serious. Now is not the time for vacillations, now is the time to strike back and smash the economic and political power of the oligarchy.

UPDATE

RENEGADE EYE

Stradfor: Israeli Strategy After the Russo-Georgian War

I enjoy reading the geopolitical analysis at Stratfor. The reports are pure geopolitical analysis, seperated from point of view. The method of Stratfor, is not the same as a Marxist analysis, but it provides a framework, to compliment it. This article about Israel, shatters both the left and right's views. The idea that Israel's existence is in danger is shown to be untrue, as is the left's view of Palestine resistance as a threat to Israel. The narrative that Israel supported Georgia against Russia is shown as incorrect.

By George Friedman
September 08, 2008

The Russo-Georgian war continues to resonate, and it is time to expand our view of it. The primary players in Georgia, apart from the Georgians, were the Russians and Americans. On the margins were the Europeans, providing advice and admonitions but carrying little weight. Another player, carrying out a murkier role, was Israel. Israeli advisers were present in Georgia alongside American advisers, and Israeli businessmen were doing business there. The Israelis had a degree of influence but were minor players compared to the Americans.

More interesting, perhaps, was the decision, publicly announced by the Israelis, to end weapons sales to Georgia the week before the Georgians attacked South Ossetia. Clearly the Israelis knew what was coming and wanted no part of it. Afterward, unlike the Americans, the Israelis did everything they could to placate the Russians, including having Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert travel to Moscow to offer reassurances. Whatever the Israelis were doing in Georgia, they did not want a confrontation with the Russians.

It is impossible to explain the Israeli reasoning for being in Georgia outside the context of a careful review of Israeli strategy in general. From that, we can begin to understand why the Israelis are involved in affairs far outside their immediate area of responsibility, and why they responded the way they did in Georgia.

We need to divide Israeli strategic interests into four separate but interacting pieces:

The Palestinians living inside Israel’s post-1967 borders.
The so-called “confrontation states” that border Israel, including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and especially Egypt.
The Muslim world beyond this region.
The great powers able to influence and project power into these first three regions.

The Palestinian Issue

The most important thing to understand about the first interest, the Palestinian issue, is that the Palestinians do not represent a strategic threat to the Israelis. Their ability to inflict casualties is an irritant to the Israelis (if a tragedy to the victims and their families), but they cannot threaten the existence of the Israeli state. The Palestinians can impose a level of irritation that can affect Israeli morale, inducing the Israelis to make concessions based on the realistic assessment that the Palestinians by themselves cannot in any conceivable time frame threaten Israel’s core interests, regardless of political arrangements. At the same time, the argument goes, given that the Palestinians cannot threaten Israeli interests, what is the value of making concessions that will not change the threat of terrorist attacks? Given the structure of Israeli politics, this matter is both substrategic and gridlocked.

The matter is compounded by the fact that the Palestinians are deeply divided among themselves. For Israel, this is a benefit, as it creates a de facto civil war among Palestinians and reduces the threat from them. But it also reduces pressure and opportunities to negotiate. There is no one on the Palestinian side who speaks authoritatively for all Palestinians. Any agreement reached with the Palestinians would, from the Israeli point of view, have to include guarantees on the cessation of terrorism. No one has ever been in a position to guarantee that — and certainly Fatah does not today speak for Hamas. Therefore, a settlement on a Palestinian state remains gridlocked because it does not deliver any meaningful advantages to the Israelis.

The Confrontation States

The second area involves the confrontation states. Israel has formal peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. It has had informal understandings with Damascus on things like Lebanon, but Israel has no permanent understanding with Syria. The Lebanese are too deeply divided to allow state-to-state understandings, but Israel has had understandings with different Lebanese factions at different times (and particularly close relations with some of the Christian factions).

Jordan is effectively an ally of Israel. It has been hostile to the Palestinians at least since 1970, when the Palestine Liberation Organization attempted to overthrow the Hashemite regime, and the Jordanians regard the Israelis and Americans as guarantors of their national security. Israel’s relationship with Egypt is publicly cooler but quite cooperative. The only group that poses any serious challenge to the Egyptian state is The Muslim Brotherhood, and hence Cairo views Hamas — a derivative of that organization — as a potential threat. The Egyptians and Israelis have maintained peaceful relations for more than 30 years, regardless of the state of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The Syrians by themselves cannot go to war with Israel and survive. Their primary interest lies in Lebanon, and when they work against Israel, they work with surrogates like Hezbollah. But their own view on an independent Palestinian state is murky, since they claim all of Palestine as part of a greater Syria — a view not particularly relevant at the moment. Therefore, Israel’s only threat on its border comes from Syria via surrogates in Lebanon and the possibility of Syria’s acquiring weaponry that would threaten Israel, such as chemical or nuclear weapons.

The Wider Muslim World

As to the third area, Israel’s position in the Muslim world beyond the confrontation states is much more secure than either it or its enemies would like to admit. Israel has close, formal strategic relations with Turkey as well as with Morocco. Turkey and Egypt are the giants of the region, and being aligned with them provides Israel with the foundations of regional security. But Israel also has excellent relations with countries where formal relations do not exist, particularly in the Arabian Peninsula.

The conservative monarchies of the region deeply distrust the Palestinians, particularly Fatah. As part of the Nasserite Pan-Arab socialist movement, Fatah on several occasions directly threatened these monarchies. Several times in the 1970s and 1980s, Israeli intelligence provided these monarchies with information that prevented assassinations or uprisings.

Saudi Arabia, for one, has never engaged in anti-Israeli activities beyond rhetoric. In the aftermath of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, Saudi Arabia and Israel forged close behind-the-scenes relations, especially because of an assertive Iran — a common foe of both the Saudis and the Israelis. Saudi Arabia has close relations with Hamas, but these have as much to do with maintaining a defensive position — keeping Hamas and its Saudi backers off Riyadh’s back — as they do with government policy. The Saudis are cautious regarding Hamas, and the other monarchies are even more so.

More to the point, Israel does extensive business with these regimes, particularly in the defense area. Israeli companies, working formally through American or European subsidiaries, carry out extensive business throughout the Arabian Peninsula. The nature of these subsidiaries is well-known on all sides, though no one is eager to trumpet this. The governments of both Israel and the Arabian Peninsula would have internal political problems if they publicized it, but a visit to Dubai, the business capital of the region, would find many Israelis doing extensive business under third-party passports. Add to this that the states of the Arabian Peninsula are afraid of Iran, and the relationship becomes even more important to all sides.

There is an interesting idea that if Israel were to withdraw from the occupied territories and create an independent Palestinian state, then perceptions of Israel in the Islamic world would shift. This is a commonplace view in Europe. The fact is that we can divide the Muslim world into three groups.

First, there are those countries that already have formal ties to Israel. Second are those that have close working relations with Israel and where formal ties would complicate rather than deepen relations. Pakistan and Indonesia, among others, fit into this class. Third are those that are absolutely hostile to Israel, such as Iran. It is very difficult to identify a state that has no informal or formal relations with Israel but would adopt these relations if there were a Palestinian state. Those states that are hostile to Israel would remain hostile after a withdrawal from the Palestinian territories, since their issue is with the existence of Israel, not its borders.

The point of all this is that Israeli security is much better than it might appear if one listened only to the rhetoric. The Palestinians are divided and at war with each other. Under the best of circumstances, they cannot threaten Israel’s survival. The only bordering countries with which the Israelis have no formal agreements are Syria and Lebanon, and neither can threaten Israel’s security. Israel has close ties to Turkey, the most powerful Muslim country in the region. It also has much closer commercial and intelligence ties with the Arabian Peninsula than is generally acknowledged, although the degree of cooperation is well-known in the region. From a security standpoint, Israel is doing well.

The Broader World

Israel is also doing extremely well in the broader world, the fourth and final area. Israel always has needed a foreign source of weapons and technology, since its national security needs outstrip its domestic industrial capacity. Its first patron was the Soviet Union, which hoped to gain a foothold in the Middle East. This was quickly followed by France, which saw Israel as an ally in Algeria and against Egypt. Finally, after 1967, the United States came to support Israel. Washington saw Israel as a threat to Syria, which could threaten Turkey from the rear at a time when the Soviets were threatening Turkey from the north. Turkey was the doorway to the Mediterranean, and Syria was a threat to Turkey. Egypt was also aligned with the Soviets from 1956 onward, long before the United States had developed a close working relationship with Israel.

That relationship has declined in importance for the Israelis. Over the years the amount of U.S. aid — roughly $2.5 billion annually — has remained relatively constant. It was never adjusted upward for inflation, and so shrunk as a percentage of Israeli gross domestic product from roughly 20 percent in 1974 to under 2 percent today. Israel’s dependence on the United States has plummeted. The dependence that once existed has become a marginal convenience. Israel holds onto the aid less for economic reasons than to maintain the concept in the United States of Israeli dependence and U.S. responsibility for Israeli security. In other words, it is more psychological and political from Israel’s point of view than an economic or security requirement.

Israel therefore has no threats or serious dependencies, save two. The first is the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a power that cannot be deterred — in other words, a nation prepared to commit suicide to destroy Israel. Given Iranian rhetoric, Iran would appear at times to be such a nation. But given that the Iranians are far from having a deliverable weapon, and that in the Middle East no one’s rhetoric should be taken all that seriously, the Iranian threat is not one the Israelis are compelled to deal with right now.

The second threat would come from the emergence of a major power prepared to intervene overtly or covertly in the region for its own interests, and in the course of doing so, redefine the regional threat to Israel. The major candidate for this role is Russia.

During the Cold War, the Soviets pursued a strategy to undermine American interests in the region. In the course of this, the Soviets activated states and groups that could directly threaten Israel. There is no significant conventional military threat to Israel on its borders unless Egypt is willing and well-armed. Since the mid-1970s, Egypt has been neither. Even if Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were to die and be replaced by a regime hostile to Israel, Cairo could do nothing unless it had a patron capable of training and arming its military. The same is true of Syria and Iran to a great extent. Without access to outside military technology, Iran is a nation merely of frightening press conferences. With access, the entire regional equation shifts.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, no one was prepared to intervene in the Middle East the way the Soviets had. The Chinese have absolutely no interest in struggling with the United States in the Middle East, which accounts for a similar percentage of Chinese and U.S. oil consumption. It is far cheaper to buy oil in the Middle East than to engage in a geopolitical struggle with China’s major trade partner, the United States. Even if there was interest, no European powers can play this role given their individual military weakness, and Europe as a whole is a geopolitical myth. The only country that can threaten the balance of power in the Israeli geopolitical firmament is Russia.

Israel fears that if Russia gets involved in a struggle with the United States, Moscow will aid Middle Eastern regimes that are hostile to the United States as one of its levers, beginning with Syria and Iran. Far more frightening to the Israelis is the idea of the Russians once again playing a covert role in Egypt, toppling the tired Mubarak regime, installing one friendlier to their own interests, and arming it. Israel’s fundamental fear is not Iran. It is a rearmed, motivated and hostile Egypt backed by a great power.

The Russians are not after Israel, which is a sideshow for them. But in the course of finding ways to threaten American interests in the Middle East — seeking to force the Americans out of their desired sphere of influence in the former Soviet region — the Russians could undermine what at the moment is a quite secure position in the Middle East for the United States.

This brings us back to what the Israelis were doing in Georgia. They were not trying to acquire airbases from which to bomb Iran. That would take thousands of Israeli personnel in Georgia for maintenance, munitions management, air traffic control and so on. And it would take Ankara allowing the use of Turkish airspace, which isn’t very likely. Plus, if that were the plan, then stopping the Georgians from attacking South Ossetia would have been a logical move.

The Israelis were in Georgia in an attempt, in parallel with the United States, to prevent Russia’s re-emergence as a great power. The nuts and bolts of that effort involves shoring up states in the former Soviet region that are hostile to Russia, as well as supporting individuals in Russia who oppose Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s direction. The Israeli presence in Georgia, like the American one, was designed to block the re-emergence of Russia.

As soon as the Israelis got wind of a coming clash in South Ossetia, they — unlike the United States — switched policies dramatically. Where the United States increased its hostility toward Russia, the Israelis ended weapons sales to Georgia before the war. After the war, the Israelis initiated diplomacy designed to calm Russian fears. Indeed, at the moment the Israelis have a greater interest in keeping the Russians from seeing Israel as an enemy than they have in keeping the Americans happy. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney may be uttering vague threats to the Russians. But Olmert was reassuring Moscow it has nothing to fear from Israel, and therefore should not sell weapons to Syria, Iran, Hezbollah or anyone else hostile to Israel.

Interestingly, the Americans have started pumping out information that the Russians are selling weapons to Hezbollah and Syria. The Israelis have avoided that issue carefully. They can live with some weapons in Hezbollah’s hands a lot more easily than they can live with a coup in Egypt followed by the introduction of Russian military advisers. One is a nuisance; the other is an existential threat. Russia may not be in a position to act yet, but the Israelis aren’t waiting for the situation to get out of hand.

Israel is in control of the Palestinian situation and relations with the countries along its borders. Its position in the wider Muslim world is much better than it might appear. Its only enemy there is Iran, and that threat is much less clear than the Israelis say publicly. But the threat of Russia intervening in the Muslim world — particularly in Syria and Egypt — is terrifying to the Israelis. It is a risk they won’t live with if they don’t have to. So the Israelis switched their policy in Georgia with lightning speed. This could create frictions with the United States, but the Israeli-American relationship isn’t what it used to be.

RENEGADE EYE

The Pakastan Spectator: Bloggers Wanted for Interviews

The Pakistan Spectator a news magazine/blo from Pakistan is looking for bloggers to interview. I was interviewed and survived. Contact the Pakistan Spectator at ghazala.khi@gmail.com .

RENEGADE EYE

Celia Hart Santamaría (1962 – 2008)

By Alan Woods
Monday, 08 September 2008




We have just heard the tragic news of the death in a traffic accident, of Celia Hart Santamaría, 45, and Abel Hart Santamaría, 48, the daughter and son of Armando Hart Dávalos and Haydée Santamaría.

The accident occurred on the afternoon of Sunday, 7 September in the Miramar district of Havana. We do not know the details, but it appears that the car hit a tree. It may be that the bad conditions caused by the recent hurricane had something to do with this.

The bodies of Celia and Abel were taken to the Funeral Rivero, Calzada and K, from where the funeral procession set out for the Columbus Necropolis, where they were buried today at 10:00 am local time.

Celia Hart came from a family of veteran Cuban revolutionaries who fought against the Batista dictatorship together with Fidel Castro. Celia Hart has been an outspoken defender of the political and revolutionary heritage of Leon Trotsky. Her articles on this subject, which have been published by the Spanish Marxist website El Militante and also on Marxist.com provoked an intense debate on the question of Trotsky both in Cuba and internationally.

Celia Hart was born in January 1962, just a few months after the Cuban missile crisis. Her mother, Haydée Santamaría, ("the most extraordinary person I have ever known") was a revolutionary from the very early days, and participated together with Fidel Castro in the famous storming of the Moncada barracks, where she lost both her brother and her boyfriend.

Armando Hart, her father, began his political activities by a different route: In the dark days of the Batista dictatorship, when, as a young lawyer, he commenced his political agitation and became a student leader in the University. He was a member of the National Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Nacional Revolucionario) led by García Barcena, a university professor who opposed Batista and was imprisoned even before the assault on the Moncada barracks.

Armando Hart and Haydée Santamaría were dedicated to the revolutionary cause and fought together with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. When Batista was finally overthrown, Armando was made the first Minister of Education of the Revolution and Haydée Santamaría was made President of the Casa de las Américas (the House of the Americas), which she in effect founded.

Haydée was always opposed to ‘sovietization' - that is to the attempt to impose rigid Stalinist bureaucracy and dogmatic thought and methodology on Cuba. In Casa de las Américas there was no room for either dogmatism or so-called socialist realism. She ran it together with a real galaxy of talent: Benedetti, Galich, Mariano Rodríguez and others. Tragically, she committed suicide in 1980. For his part, Armando Hart had a brilliant intellectual career, and at the present time, after more than twenty years as Cuban Minister of Culture, is in charge of the Oficina del Programa Martiano.

In Celia's own words: "I therefore grew up in the eye of the hurricane, between the tremendous passion of my mother and the intelligence and devotion to study of my father - both of them firmly inserted in the political life of Cuba." In 1980, one month before her mother's suicide, Celia decided to study physics in Havana University. Two years later she was sent to finish her studies in the University of Dresden in the German Democratic Republic.

Celia continued my studies until graduating in 1987 - the first foreign female to graduate in this Faculty. She then returned to Havana, where she worked until one year ago in the University, publishing approximately 15 specialist works on magnetism and superconductivity. She also participated in about half a dozen congresses in Italy, Brazil and Argentina.

Talking about this period in her life, Celia told me:

"In 2004 I was supposed to have finished my Doctorate in Physics, but as I was putting the final touches to a work on Philosophy, as part of my Doctorate I realized that my great love for physics was not an end in itself, but only a means to an end."

She continued:

"During my stay in the German Democratic Republic, I realized that there was a contradiction between the inevitability of Socialism to fight for a better world and the bureaucracy, the suffocating of all initiative and the apathy that I found in that country, in spite of the good living conditions. I was repelled by the excessive images of Honecker that one found in every shop window."

In this way, slowly but surely, the ground was being prepared for Celia's transition to Trotskyism, which she described in the following words:

"In 1985 I returned to Cuba on holidays and confessed to my father my feelings of utter desperation. In response, my father opened a cupboard and got out four books: the three-volume Life of Trotsky by Isaac Deutscher and Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed. I devoured these books, but until a few months ago had no opportunity of reading the rest of Trotsky's works."

"From that time," continues Celia, "everything began to fall into place like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I understood how the Russian Revolution - and not only the Russian Revolution - had been betrayed and millions of comrades had been deceived."

However, none of Celia's works were published in Cuba, except a prologue to a book written by her mother entitled Haydée Speaks about the Moncada (Haydée habla del Moncada). Her writings were first published in the website of El Militante and Marxist.com (see The Flag over Coyoacán) and the Spanish magazine Marxismo Hoy. Later we published a book of her writings in Spanish with the title Apuntos Revolucionarios (Revolutionary Notes), which was introduced to the public in Spain and Cuba by the Frederick Engels Foundation.

It was the comrades of the IMT who first contacted Celia Hart and gave her the opportunity to enter into contact with international Trotskyism. She attended our world congress in 2004 and had intensive discussions with the leading comrades. Shortly afterwards she wrote:

"I have just returned after attending the International Conference of the Marxist tendency. It was a very important experience for me. I met some marvellous comrades from Pakistan, Israel, Spain, the United States... And I see that I am not alone, that the same ideas I defend are spreading all over the world. These are the ideas of the future. I thank all the comrades for the happiest summer of my life.

"A new and exciting chapter is opening for me. It is a very strange feeling. Less than a year ago I was a researcher in Physics in the University of Havana. Now I do not know what the future holds. But I do understand that science, and the scientific method, is the best method with which to carry out this passionate revolutionary struggle."

Since then Celia has been in regular contact with the IMT and has spoken at our meetings in various countries. In February of this year she spoke at the first public book launch in Cuba of Trotsky's Revolution Betrayed, organized by the Frederick Engels Foundation with more than 100 people present at the Havana Book Fair.

Celia Hart was always very passionate about her ideas and the struggle for socialism. We had many discussions with her, often ending in agreement, sometimes not, but in all our dealings with her, there was always a warm sense of comradeship and friendship and she always spoke very warmly about El Militante and the IMT.

Most recently she spoke at a very successful meeting of 200 people in Montreal on 28 May this year, which we jointly organized. The next day there was a meeting on the Permanent Revolution organized by the IMT at which she also spoke. As far as I know this was the last public meeting she ever spoke at, although we had planned to invite her to speak at the launch of my new book Reformism or Revolution at the Havana Book fair next February.

Unfortunately, this was not to be. A cruel accident has robbed us of a valuable and much-loved friend and comrade. But her memory lives on in the hearts and minds of those of us who knew her. And above all, the ideas we defended together live on and grow stronger by the day. That is the best memorial Celia Hart would have desired.

Farewell, comrade Celia! We shall continue the struggle!

Hasta la Victoria Siempre!

Alan Woods, London, September 8th

RENEGADE EYE

Republican National Convention 2008 Open Thread

This blog is based in Minneapolis, MN, near where the Republican Party is having its convention. I attended the legal demonstration the first day.

**I didn't know until I returned home, that Amy Goodman was arrested and several others. Most who attended and took part in the legal route, were unaware of arrests. I saw the police shoot some type of ammunition on a side street. From my viewpoint I didn't see demonstrators.

**My comrades disagreed with the organizers vague slogans that fronted for support for the Democratic Party. Tactically they made an agreement with the anarchist organizers to respect "diversity of tactics." In addition they agreed to not to make public criticism.

I think everyone involved should have been allowed to discuss tactics, and come to consensus. Once the consensus is agreed to, anybody who violates the agreement is on their own. The anarchists seem to think unified slogans and tactics is authoritarian.

**I stayed with the agreed to route, like most involved, didn't know of arrests.

**Private homes and one anarchist meeting place was raided this weekend by the sheriff's department. Some of the arrests were viewed by journalists. They had the effect of lowering turnout. Those arrested feel they'll be vindicated in court. There is a case of a warrant with an incorrect address. I'm sure it scared some from attending.

**There were arrests the weekend before the march. The sheriff's office raided anarchist headquarters and various private homes. Some of the raids were observed by journalists as Amy Goodman.

**If you are dressed in all black, wearing a mask or bandana to cover your face, and go away from the legal route, what can you expect to happen? They had no speaker on the platform to explain what they were about. They were irresponsible and made no political point. Somebody said, "The anarchists don't recognize the state, but the state recognizes them."

**Obama coopted the slogans as from the immigrant rights movement as Sí Se Puede (Yes We Can), and "Power To The People."

**The police allowed rightist protesters to get too close for my comfort, to the main demo. They obviously wanted rightist martyrs. The rightists would be the martyrs, by numbers alone.

**Most of the groups fronted for Obama and the Democratic Party. Most of the speakers only attacked Republicans. Another category is the adventurous groups who mistake militant tactics for principled politics. In addition there was supporters of narrow nationalism (insert country here) and even Islamism. This mess can be straightened out with a movement led by revolutionary socialists, armed with theory and practice, so as to create history and react to it. When the RNC is over, and the delegates and protesters go home. The question is what do you do next?
RENEGADE EYE

The Founding Of The PSUV Youth - A Crucial Battle In The Bolivarian Revolution

By Patrick Larsen in Venezuela
Monday, 25 August 2008

The Venezuelan revolution today finds itself at its most critical stage ever. After a narrow but alarming defeat in the December 2007 referendum, the revolutionary movement faces a new, important test in the November elections for mayors and governors. Preparations are in full swing, and the counter-revolution is trying to mobilize maximum forces to win as many positions as possible, in order to use them in their continued campaign to undermine support for Chávez and the revolution.

As part of this campaign, the sabotage of the capitalists continues, with scarcity of many basic food products. Speculation is an additional factor that has boosted inflation to extreme levels, making it very difficult for hundreds of thousands of working class and urban poor families to make ends meet at the end of each month. Crime rate has also increased - something the opposition conveniently uses to discredit the government.

If the revolution is to sweep away the counter-revolution, it must resolve these problems. We must remember that in December 2007, the referendum was not lost because of a big increase in votes for the opposition. It was lost because approximately 3 million people who had previously voted for Chávez abstained. The reformists attempt to explain this abstention as stemming from the allegedly "low" level of consciousness of the masses. They promote the idea that this was a proof that the Venezuelan people are "not ready" for socialism.

However, for the Marxists, the explanation is very different. From our point of view, the analysis of the December defeat is still the key to understanding the present situation and the tasks that lie ahead. In our opinion, the abstention of three million chavistas was not at all due to the "low" level of the masses. In fact, what is astonishing is the degree of loyalty displayed by the Venezuelan working class and peasants to Chávez and the revolution. Time and again they have moved to defend the revolution against its enemies - not only in electoral battles - but on the streets, in the factories and the military barracks.

The reason the December referendum was lost was is because after 10 years of almost uninterrupted mobilizations, the masses see that their main problems remain unsolved. The power of the oligarchy is still in place, and even though the government has tried to put a check to this with partial measures and nationalizations such as SIDOR, Los Andes, the cement industry and recently Banco de Venezuela, this is not enough to stop the sabotage of the capitalists and begin a serious plan of production that can solve the pressing problems of the masses. To do this would require the complete expropriation of the bourgeoisie and a Socialist plan of production, distribution and exchange, democratically worked out by the workers and peasants.

The PSUV Youth

The PSUV, which had its founding congress in February-March, enjoys widespread support. In June, some 2.5 million party members participated in the internal elections to determine the party's candidates for mayors and governors. Another two million are closely following the development of the party from the sidelines.

The most recent development is the call on behalf of the national party leadership to set up the PSUV Youth organization. This is of the highest importance. As we shall see, the youth have played a very important role throughout the Venezuelan revolution. The formation of the PSUV Youth is something that the Marxists of the CMR (Corriente Marxista Revolucionaria) have been advocating for the last year. It was the central slogan of the two Marxist youth encounters held in Caracas in July 2007 and in Ciudad Bolívar in November 2007, which brought together many young people from all over Venezuela.

The founding congress of the PSUV Youth is set to take place on September 13-15th in Rio Chíco, in the state of Miranda. At present the process of electing voceros (spokesmen) per each 10 youth is taking place in the Socialist battalions (branches of the PSUV). The idea is that these spokespersons will then join with a further 9 spokespersons from other PSUV battalions, and from among them, elect a delegate to the founding congress. In that way, the plan is that the founding congress will represent as many as 140,000 young PSUV members.

The Youth in the Bolivarian Revolution

In the bourgeois media on a world scale, the Venezuelan youth (especially the students) are often portrayed as ardent supporters of the opposition. This is a blatant lie which is intended as a means of shoring up public opinion against the Chávez government. The reality is somewhat different.

The beginning of the Bolivarian revolution was an invaluable source of inspiration to tens of thousands of Venezuelan youth. In the poor urban neighborhoods, many young people began to form Bolivarian circles, groups and societies. Even in the old universities, which have traditionally been dominated overwhelmingly by the children of the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie, the revolution found a resounding echo.

At every decisive juncture, young people have energetically defended the revolution. For example, this was the case a year ago, when small gangs of fascist youth, supporters of the opposition, tried to set up burning barricades and blockade the streets of Caracas, in response to the non-renewal of RCTV's license. At that time - and again during the December referendum - the balance of forces was clearly very favourable to the revolution. While the opposition students could only mobilize a couple of thousand, the Bolivarian youth organizations mobilized more than one hundred thousand.

In the heat of the revolution, different youth organizations were born, most notably the Frente Francisco Miranda (FFM), which was started in 2003. Chávez gave it important support, both morally and financially. The FFM was launched with revolutionary slogans and called for young people in the poor neighbourhoods to get organized and solve local problems at the community level. It also began to organize brigades of Venezuelan youth to go to Cuba, where they received political and ideological courses, etc. As a result, the organization grew rapidly. In the space of less than one year, it had grown to more than 40,000 members, and had hundreds of organizers in communities throughout Venezuela.

But there was another side to this as well. The organization was born with a highly bureaucratic, top-down structure, and the leadership did not allow criticism within the ranks. Ideologically, the FFM leadership tended towards a Stalinist position, only advocating Socialism after Chávez had embraced it, and focusing on the idealist conception of creating "a new Socialist human being", instead of pointing out the main political tasks that the Bolivarian revolution faces. As a result, this led slowly but surely to the widespread demoralisation of the membership, with thousands abandoning the FFM. From more than 40,000 it dropped to around 8,000 at the present moment.

This experience provides a clear warning. A genuine revolutionary youth organisation must have a fully democratic structure or it will become stale and the youth will abandon it. Also, if the PSUV Youth do not adopt the ideas of Marxism, it will inevitably fall under the influence of other ideas (reformism and/or Stalinism). As happened to the FFM, this would ruin the organization and all the revolutionary potential of the youth will vanish.

A Crucial Battle

There are historical experience as well, that allow us to fully appreciate the significance of the PSUV Youth. In the 1930s, Trotsky carefully analyzed the situation in the workers' movement. At that time there was a ferment in the working class that began to express itself in the Socialist Youth in various countries. In France, where there was an important pre-revolutionary movement of the working class, Trotsky advocated his supporters to enter the Socialist Youth and win over its left wing to Marxism. This tactic was unfortunately only carried out too late and in a half-way manner.

In Spain, where a revolution had begun in 1931 with the proclamation of the Second Republic, the Socialist Youth become extremely radicalized between 1933 and 1935. The possibilities for a revolutionary Marxist tendency within the Spanish Socialist Youth were huge. Trotsky understood this and advocated the entry of his followers. He even predicted, in the summer of 1934, that if the Trotskyists did not win over the bulk of the Socialist Youth in France (and Spain), they would be won by the Stalinists.

This was exactly what happened in Spain, where the Trotskyists under the leadership of Andreu Nin rejected the call by the Socialist Youth leadership to join their ranks in order to "Bolshevise" the Socialist movement. The Stalinists were more clever and understood that the mass base of the Socialist Youth would be decisive for the outcome of the Spanish Revolution. In 1935 they fused their Youth Organisation with the Socialist Youth, and in the coming years, used this mass base to effectively impose their moderate slogans on the movement ("First win the war against Franco, and only afterwards win the Revolution"). As we know, the result was a crushing defeat of the Spanish working class that led to 40 years of Franco dictatorship.

This lesson should be fully absorbed by the Marxists today. The CMR will be actively participating in the building of the Youth. We will fight shoulder to shoulder with the left wing delegates and put forward a Marxist position in the discussions that will take place in the congress (so far, we know that the food scarcity question and the question of military defence against imperialism are on the agenda).

Throughout the country, there are young people in dozens of local collectives as well as unorganized activists who will see the PSUV Youth as a possible revolutionary tool that can throw out the bureaucracy and finish the power of the oligarchy. These layers have seen first hand that reformism does not work, and they are searching for other ideas. This is the reason why the recent speaking tour of the British Marxist theoretician Alan Woods - organized by the CMR - was such an unprecedented success, precisely because he explained revolutionary ideas that connected with the aspirations of the rank and file of the movement.

It is the duty of any genuine revolutionary to work with these wide layers of Bolivarian youth and win them over to the programme and methods of revolutionary Marxism.

Ciudad Guayana
August 18, 2008

RENEGADE EYE

Defend Free Speech: Solidarity With Harry's Place

I have off and on, for a few years visited a blog called Harry's Place. It is one of the most popular political blogs from the UK. Its politics can be termed B-52 left. They argue that the US/UK military interventions are progressive, and should be supported by the left. I have been involved in good debates there. They are under serious attack, and now is the time to put aside differences "por ahora."

This is one of the temporary homes of Harry's Place.

Why is this happening?

Harry's Place may be removed (or rather have it's DNS disabled) after a 'complaint' to the company that our domain name is registered with. We assume after threats were made on the weekend that this 'complaint' originates from Jenna Delich or her supporters. Though we have not yet seen the complaint submitted, we assume it runs along the lines that pointing out that Ms Delich linked to the website of a known neo-Nazi figure and former Ku Klux Klan leader is defamatory. This is extraordinary since Ms Delich has not denied that she circulated links to David Dukes website. There would be no point since the evidence is in the public domain. Nevertheless, a malicious complaint has been made to the company hosting our DNS.

1) First a supposed anti-fascist links to the world's biggest name in the "white power" movement.
2) Reports to the server company, a link to a racist site.

More info here and here.

RENEGADE EYE

Movie Roundup

Some of the films mentioned haven't opened yet. I often see movies at screenings, before they open in theaters. I'm using a five star rating system.

The Dark Knight

****



This movie is beyond what can be expected from a superhero movie. It's timely, complex and dark. This film will go down in history, longer than its genre.

The real star of the movie is Heath Ledger. His Joker makes Jack Nicholson's seem as child's play. It is a dark, brilliant and nihilistic portrayal. Ledger is guaranteed an Oscar, and it deserved. When Joker explains while in custody about planned violence against unplanned, and what it means to a society, it's chilling.

Christian Bale as Batman, is a tormented soul. He is sworn to fight evil. This Batman is unsure if it is worth it, if the fight can end. In order to fight evil, do you have to indulge in it?

Mamma Mia

***1/2



This musical from the stage play with the same name works. It is one of the most simply fun films you'll see. Abba's music works great with the story and pacing.

Meryl Streep stole the show. She shines in musicals, as she does in every role. It's Meryl Streep, in a way you can't imagine. Pierce Brosnan can't carry a tune. The movie is so much fun that who cares.

This is the story: Donna's daughter Sophie is getting married. To the buff-looking Sky. Only – where's her dad? She's never met him. A sneak-peek at Mom's diary shows Mom had three lovers before Sophie was born and Sophie secretly invites all of them. This is a film of threesomes. Three past lovers (Sam, Bill and Harry). Three close friends (Donna and two best pals). And, not to be outdone, Sophie meets up with two other young girls at the start of the film.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

***



Two girlfriends on vacation in Barcelona, get involved with a Spanish painter, unaware his volatile ex-wife is about to appear.

One gf is conservative and pragmatic (Rebecca Hall), and the other is Bohemian and care free (Scarlett Johansson). They become involved with artist Javier Bardem. Lingering is Penelope Cruz, the crazy ex-wife.

This film uses a narrator to move the story.

I enjoyed this film. In the back of my mind Woody was living vicariously through Bardem.

Ghost Town

***




This film reminds me as a cross between "Topper" and "The Sixth Sense."

A dentist who is lacking in empathy towards everyone dies for a few minutes and is revived. He now has the ability to see annoying dead people, who still have souls on Earth, because issues in their lives are not resolved. To get to the other life, they need to resolve these issues. The dentist can help them, because he's able to see them. One ghost played by Greg Kinnear is particularly aggressive. Agreeing to help Kinnear, he gets involved in a love triangle. With Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear and Tea Leoni. A fun time.

This film opens in September.

Death Race

***



One of the producers is Roger Corman.

Jason Statham plays a former auto racer, who was framed for his wife's murder. This takes place in the future, and all prisons are under private enterprise. The warden is the producer of a pay per view show, featuring prisoners in auto races to the death. This is a revenge picture. Great for what it's.

Elegy

***1/2





From IMDB. Driven by Isabel Coixets visually assured and deeply observant direction, Elegy charts the passionate relationship between a celebrated college professor and a young woman whose beauty both ravishes and destabilizes him. As their intimate connection transforms themmore than either could imaginea charged sexual contest evolves into an indelible love story. With humanistic warmth, wry wit and erotic intensity, Elegy explores the power of beauty to blind, to reveal and to transform.

Starring Academy Award®-winner Ben Kingsley and Oscar®-nominee Penelope Cruz, with extraordinary supporting performances from Dennis Hopper, Patricia Clarkson and Peter Sarsgaard, Elegy is based on Pulitzer Prize-winner Philip Roths short novel The Dying Animal. I copied that to do this film justice. I expect Ben Kingsley to be nominated best actor, and Penelope Cruz to get some nomination as well.

Did I mention Penelope Cruz is topless?

RENEGADE EYE

War in South Ossetia – a Socialist Federation of the Caucasus is the Only Way Out

This is the 300th post on this blog (hurrah)!

By Tom Rollings and Francesco Merli
Friday, 15 August 2008

After months and years of sniper shooting and military build-up on both sides, war broke out in South Ossetia on the night of Thursday, August 8 when Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ordered an invasion of the autonomous republic and the criminal shelling of its capital Tskhinvali. According to official Russian sources, up to 1,600 civilians and several Russian soldiers deployed for peace-keeping tasks were killed in the fighting before Russian forces retook the autonomous Republic. Thousands of refugees abandoned everything they had and flooded into North Ossetia in Russia calling for Russia to come to their rescue.



This was the justification that the Kremlin was seeking in order to settle down accounts in the region and reaffirm its role as a regional power. The moment couldn't be a more favourable one, with US imperialism entangled in Irak and Afghanistan and without means available to open a new front in the Caucasus.

Given the speed with which the Russian army responded (within a few hours after the Georgian attack) it is clear that the Russian strategists were expecting the attack and the armed forces deployed at the borders with South Ossetia were already in on a war footing, ready to strike back.


Despite the heavy fighting the Georgian forces proved to be unable to take control of the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali and were taken aback. The Russian counter-offensive crushed the Georgian army and retook control of South Ossetia in less than 48 hours. On Monday, Russian tanks and troops entered Georgian territory towards the city of Gori (dangerously close to the capital, Tbilisi), to show that they could easily take over the strategic centres of the country, while bombing key military infrastructures and cutting off Georgian access to Abkhazia, a second autonomous republic that Georgia claims, and the ports in the Black Sea.

The counter-offensive involved high altitude bombing that destroyed the centre of Gori, killing dozens of civilians and a Dutch cameraman. Similar scenes to those witnessed in South Ossetia, with thousands of Georgian civilians fleeing their homes in terror from the Russian counter-attack have been reported by the media internationally.

Imperialist Meddling Caused the War

Despite what the Russian and Georgian government are claiming, the war had nothing progressive on both sides. The present nightmare of war and nationalism in the Caucasus is the result of imperialist meddling. But it is also the result of the national chauvinism of the former Soviet bureaucracy, which was rotten with Great Russian chauvinism, and which sparked off the rise of regional and national chauvinism against Moscow. These centrifugal tendencies were a factor in the break-up of the USSR, and, as was the case in the former Yugoslavia, led to bloody civil wars in many of the former Republics. These conflicts to this day remain a series of festering wounds, which have not been resolved and can explode into violence at any time.

Criminally, American and Russian imperialism have interwoven these conflicts in their own struggle for spheres of influence and strategic interests, with American imperialism building up Georgia as a bulwark against Russia in the south Caucasus. Russia in its turn is using South Ossetia and Abkhazia as pawns in its battle to redraw the spheres of influence, which are connected to the strategic importance of Georgia as a pipeline route for Caspian oil to the west, and possibly gas as well in the future.

Alan Woods explained this process clearly in the article Georgia's "peaceful revolution" heralds new conflicts, published on In Defence of Marxism back in November 2003, at the time of the rise to power of Saakashvili:

"With Georgian President Shevardnadze's resignation, a radical, pro-U.S. opposition has come to power in Tbilisi. This is part of a general thrust to increase Washington's influence in the Caucasus, but it will have set alarm bells ringing in the Kremlin. The Russians will not remain with arms folded while a key country on her southern border passes directly into the camp of US imperialism.

"These events will undoubtedly pave the way for greater conflict and disintegration in Georgia. The Russians will tighten the screws on Georgia. So-called independent regions and pro-Moscow political leaders are only too willing to pick a fight with the new leadership in the capital. Since neither side enjoys majority support, chaos and violence will likely prevail, causing further upheavals, wars, bloodshed and misery throughout this beautiful but unhappy region and sabotaging U.S. plans to pump Caspian oil westward.

"Nino Burdzhanadze was giving her first televised national address following the resignation of Eduard Shevardnadze: ‘We have managed to overcome the gravest crisis in Georgia's recent history without shedding a single drop of blood,' Ms Burdzhanadze said. But she spoke too soon. The intrigues of the imperialists will cause a lot of blood to flow before the crisis is settled one way or another. The new leaders are already casting a nervous look over their shoulders at Russia. Declaring the disobedience campaign over, she said the country must work to strengthen its ties with its neighbours and "the great state of Russia". But fine words will not impress the Kremlin. Russia will be looking very closely at the policies and conduct of the new government in Tblisi, and preparing to tighten the screws. The result will be new wars, chaos and horrors without end."

And added further on:

"Washington and Moscow treat the small, weak, divided Caucasian states as mere pawns in a game in which the whole region acts as a gigantic chessboard. America makes a move, Russia responds, and the result is a war, an assassination, an explosion, a military coup or a ‘bloodless revolution'. We are now awaiting the next move in the game. We do not know when or where Moscow will respond, but one thing we do know: the losers will be the ordinary people, the poor, the defenceless."

In the epoch of imperialism, small nations such as Georgia or Ossetia are too small to play an independent role. National independence under capitalism for such nations does not mean freedom but more militarism and oppression in the interests of one power against another.

Why Did Georgia Attack?

On the part of the Georgian ruling elite, the attack on South Ossetia was a calculated bet that backfired them. Saakashvili barely survived last December to a massive movement of protest against corruption. He got out of it denouncing the movement as a Russian conspiracy and proclaiming a State of Emergency while at the same time calling for a snapshot presidential election in January, which he won. In April, Russian President Putin made a deal providing Abkhazia and South Ossetia with special relations with the Russian Federation. This move forced Saakashvili's hand. The Georgian President could not stand by and do nothing as Russian interference in the Caucasus grew unhindered under his very nose.

What Saakashvili was betting upon was the idea that Georgia could force the position in South Ossetia, although without occupying it permanently which would be impossible, in the attempt to rally the Georgian population around his nationalist agenda. They expected that despite all protests, the Russians would take the humiliation, like they did in relation to Kosovo, or the expansion of NATO to the Baltic states, but they would not dare to engage in a direct military intervention against a close ally of US imperialism like Georgia. After all, they might have thought, that's what Russia had been doing over the last years every time its interests collided with those of the United States!

But there is something more than that. It is very difficult to imagine that Saakashvili launched the attack against US wishes. The Georgian government is dependent on US aid and support, and US strategists must have endorsed Saakashvili's bet: a serious mistake on their part. But they did so for their own imperialist purposes: to test once again the reaction of Russia. Now that they have disastrously lost their bet, they have two options, either to admit the mistake of not having considered that relations of forces between USA and Russia in the region have changed, or to pretend that the Georgian government fooled them, hiding its intentions. But even if we believed that the Georgians acted on their initiative, how could Saakashvili hide the military preparations for the attack? Should we believe that the Russian security services were better informed than the hundreds of US advisors and diplomats that crowded Tbilisi? In both cases US imperialism comes out of this conflict with its credibility compromised.

Russian Imperialism Strengthened

On the other side, Russia is not the same country it was 10 years ago. It has recovered from its previous weakness both from an economic and military point of view and in recent years had been looking for a way to break up the encirclement strategy orchestrated by US imperialism since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Over the last 15 years US imperialism managed to take advantage of the crisis of Russia to establish strong ties and alliances with former USSR allies or breakaway republics from the Soviet Union of Central Asia, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe and the Baltic. NATO's expansion to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1998 and again in 2004, with the second expansion that absorbed the rest of the former satellites of the USSR in Central Europe and the three Baltic states, were rightly considered as strategic threats from the Russian military elite and convinced the Kremlin that they had to seize every opportunity to reverse this position.

The changed attitude and growing bargaining economic power of the Russian government was highlighted in the last years by the unilateral decisions to cut gas supply to Ukraine and the Czech republic, but Russia never resorted to the use of military power before August 8. What happened? A Geopolitical Intelligence Report by Stratfor commented:

"The Russians had changed dramatically, along with the balance of power in the region. They welcomed the opportunity to drive home the new reality, which was that they could invade Georgia and the United States and Europe could not respond. As for risk, they did not view the invasion as risky. Militarily, there was no counter. Economically, Russia is an energy exporter doing quite well - indeed, the Europeans need Russian energy even more than the Russians need to sell it to them. Politically, as we shall see, the Americans needed the Russians more than the Russians needed the Americans. Moscow's calculus was that this was the moment to strike. The Russians had been building up to it for months...and they struck."

Georgia happened to be the weak link in the chain of US imperialism network of alliances in the region and the best way for Russia to show the world (and above all, to the neighbouring countries) that US imperialism was not able to deliver anymore what promised, that is to protect the weak former Soviet satellites from their powerful neighbour. As Stratfor director George Friedman again puts it:

"The Russians knew the United States would denounce their attack. This actually plays into Russian hands. The more vocal senior leaders are, the greater the contrast with their inaction, and the Russians wanted to drive home the idea that American guarantees are empty talk."

Bitter Surprise for US Imperialism

The war in Georgia has forced the sudden recognition of a reality: Russia has emerged as a regional imperialist power strong enough to claim back the former Russian sphere of influence from the United States. The arrogant comment "They're not a major power, they're Saudi Arabia with trees," more significant because it comes from a long-term serving US diplomat (the Ex-US ambassador to the UN) interviewed on the BBC on August 13 reveals to what extent US imperialists have been taken by surprise by this development.

US president George Bush is not the cleverest man in the world, but in relation to Georgia was forced by more intelligent advisors to adopt a careful line. Although using a belligerent rhetoric to insinuate that Russia would be expelled from the 21st century modern world of the advanced countries if they did not change their attitude, he could not announce any action or concrete measure, apart from promising humanitarian aid delivered by the US military to Georgia.

On Tuesday, August 12, French President Sarkozy, current head of the EU, visited Moscow and then Tbilisi to broker a deal. But what we already said for the United States is even truer for the EU: there is not much the European Union can do with Russia in control on the ground. A deal might be reached only on the grounds that Russia has achieved her targets in the war.

Chauvinist Poison

In Russia, the ruling elite has enrolled the mass media in fuelling a wave of war hysteria. The suffering of the South Ossetian population was used to manipulate the understandable outburst of popular indignation and justify the counter-attack, but the war propaganda connected with a deep rooted resentment against US imperialism amongst the Russian working class. The trade union and Communist Party leaders have capitulated to the Kremlin on the war, just as they do not seriously challenge its line in peace. Instead of carrying the line of the working class into mainstream politics, they carry bourgeois ideology into the labour and communist movement. This is particularly clear on the question of war. Because of the lack of alternative, this will temporarily increase the support for Putin.

But militarism is a curse for the Russian people. The counter-attack on Georgia is a sign that the imperialist ambitions of the Kremlin and the greed of the oligarchs can lead to new adventures. Large Russian populations live in the Crimea, the Baltic states and Kazakhstan. Where will the defence of Russian citizens outside of Russia's borders end? The economic outlook for Russia is uncertain. The government as well as the capitalists are preparing another wave of cuts on living standards and attacks on rights, particularly workers and trade unionists' rights. The chauvinist poison is the weapon that the Russian ruling class always uses to make Russian workers and ordinary people accept that the military comes first while people themselves are treated as second-rate citizens.

In Georgia, where there are already thousands of refugees from the first war in South Ossetia from 1992-4, there is bitter anger at the defeat in South Ossetia. On Tuesday a crowd of 150,000 gathered in Tblisi to express their support for Saakashvili in a mood of national solidarity boosted by a hatred of Russian aggression. Yet the future of Saakashvili, regardless of high support for him at the moment, is uncertain. His policies of depending on the West to beat back Russia have ended in failure. Many demonstrators showed their rage cursing US imperialism for not coming to their rescue.

The Propaganda War - the Precedent of Kosovo and the Question of NATO

The Russian government claimed that its military operations in South Ossetia were motivated by humanitarian considerations. In this the Kremlin used the logic that NATO used in justifying its attack on the former Yugoslavia. But, NATO strategists reply, Russia opposed the NATO war on the Balkans - if NATO arguments were wrong in relation to Kosovo, why are Russian arguments any better in relation to South Ossetia? Here the Russian reply is much stronger than the lies that NATO churned out back in 1999. Over 90% of South Ossetia's population are Russian citizens, and Russia's own peace-keeping force was being directly attacked. None of these points applied to NATO. The Russian government therefore concludes that it acted perfectly legitimately in defending South Ossetia from Georgian aggression.

Two conclusions follow from this. Firstly, the defeat of Georgia is a setback for NATO and US imperialism, which weakens NATO in the Caucasus. Secondly, the workers and people of Georgia, including internal refugees who fled South Ossetia and Abkhazia in previous fighting, cannot rely on imperialism in their struggle for their rights. They have all been used as small change in the power politics of contending imperialist powers. The only alternative is the class struggle, beginning with the class struggle against the Russian and Georgian oligarchs.

On the Defence of South Ossetia

The killing of ordinary civilians in South Ossetia is criminal and completely reactionary. But it does not justify the further killing of ordinary civilians in Georgia. On the contrary this will serve to provoke further ethnic tit-for-tat killings in the future.

The systematic preparation for the war on both Georgian and Russian sides demonstrates that both sides are following their own, reactionary interests. On July 17th over 8,000 Russian troops and 700 units of heavy armour took part in a training exercise called "Kavkaz 2008." The exercises involved rehearsing fighting terrorists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and included preparations for evacuating refugees. The day before 600 Georgian troops conducted a joint military training exercise with 1,000 US troops in an operation called "Rapid reaction 2008."

The truth is that for the Kremlin the question of South Ossetia and the rights of the Ossetians is only of secondary importance.

The fact that the theatre of war extended far beyond South Ossetia and Abkhazia also underlines that the aim of the Russian rulers was not the defence of Ossetian people as they claimed, but they wanted to inflict a blow to Georgia and undermine its stability as an independent entity, in order to enforce a regime change in Tbilisi. The maps below show the areas of fighting and Russian bombardments.

The question of peaceful relations in the Caucasus will not be resolved by the presence of any number of armies in the region. Putin declared that South Ossetia will not be reintegrated into Georgia. It is also clear that South Ossetia is too small to function as a viable separate state, and that any declaration of national independence would likely be a step towards its integration into the Russian Federation.

Imperialism and capitalism are part of the problem, not the solution. The national question simply cannot be solved within capitalism. This is true not for ideological reasons, but for very material ones. Lenin described the national question as a matter of bread. The only way to solve it is through the development of the productive forces. This can be achieved only liberating oppressed nationalities from imperialist interference and can be fully developed only by means of the expropriation of the property of imperialist companies and of the local oligarchs and harmonic planning of the productive forces under the democratic control and management of the workers.

How can the question of return for all refugees be solved on a capitalist basis? If we consider it in the frame of capitalism it would only mean increased competition to access fewer resources, jobs, houses, medical assistance, education, and other services. It would provoke even sharper tensions on national or religious lines. Independence for South Ossetia or its integration in the Russian federation would end up inevitably in the ethnic cleansing of the Georgian minority of the South Ossetian population, which in turn will strengthen the resentment of the Georgian population and prepare new instability and wars.

The Complexity of the National Question in the Caucasus

The Caucasus has been for thousands of years a crossroad of different peoples, languages and religions. The perspective of a physical separation of the different peoples as a "solution" to the national question is reactionary madness.

Let's for example see the case of North Ossetia today, as well as other national Republics in the Caucasus. With the collapse of the USSR North Ossetians, who were Russian citizens, fought against their Ingush neighbours, who were also Russian citizens. This war was the tragic result of Stalin's catastrophic policies on the national question. Hundreds of thousands of Ingush (as well as Chechen) people were exiled on his orders in the 1940s (see Stalin Liquidates Two Republics by Ted Grant).

Much of the land of the Ingush people has not been returned to them. Thousands of Ingush still live in primitive conditions in what are basically refugee camps. The potential for violence at any moment explains why terrorists chose Beslan, a town in North Ossetia, for a horrific terrorist attack on a school on September 1st, 2004. They wanted Ossetians to assume the terrorists were Ingush, and to provoke a new civil war, which could have happened in 2004 and could still happen in the future. Yet the Ossetians who moved onto their land and worked on it for two or three generations, and who also have nowhere else to go, also have rights that need to be considered. This is a complicated and sensitive question.

Back to Lenin!

In his book, Russia - From Revolution to Counterrevolution, written in 1996, Ted Grant summed up the approach of Lenin and the Bolsheviks to the national question, which is worth quoting at length:

"Tsarist Russia was a prison house of nationalities. One of the key reasons for the success of the Bolshevik Revolution was its approach to the national question. Lenin realised that the only way a new socialist federation could be built was on the basis of complete equality of the national minorities that made up Russia. There could be no compulsion of one nation by another. A socialist republic could only be established on a voluntary basis, as a voluntary union of nationalities. As a consequence, the right of nations to self determination was enshrined on the banner of the party and the young Soviet republic, up to and including secession.

"Lenin stood for the unity of the peoples of the former Tsarist empire, but it had to be a voluntary unity. That is why he insisted from the very beginning on the right to self-determination. This idea which is frequently misinterpreted to mean a demand for separation is entirely incorrect. The Bolsheviks did not advocate separation, but defended the broadest possible extension of national self-determination, up to and including separation. No one has the right to oblige a people to live within the confines of a state when the majority do not wish to do so. But the right to self-determination no more implies the demand to separate than the right to divorce means the demand that all couples must separate, or that the right to abortion means that all pregnancies must be terminated."

But is also important to point out that:

"The right of self-determination was an important part of Lenin's programme, insofar as it demonstrated clearly to the oppressed workers and peasants (especially the latter) of Poland, Georgia, Latvia and the Ukraine that the Russian workers had no interest in oppressing them and would firmly defend their right to determine their own destiny. But this was only half of Lenin's programme on the national question. The other half was equally as important - the need to uphold the union of the proletariat above all national, linguistic or religious differences. As far as the Bolshevik Party was concerned, Lenin always opposed any tendency to divide the party (and the workers' movement in general) along national lines."

Lenin was opposed to any manifestation of Great Russian chauvinism. "I declare war to the death of Great Russian chauvinism", he wrote to Kamenev, and regarded this question as so important to determine his irrevocable break with Stalin when he was already terminally ill on the question of the shameful behaviour of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky against the opposition of the Georgian Communists' to their plans for the Federation. As Ted Grant explained:

"After the Revolution, Lenin hoped that there could be a voluntary and fraternal union of the peoples of the former Tsarist empire in the form of a Soviet Federation. To this end, he demanded that the nationalities be treated with extreme sensitivity. Every manifestation of Great Russian chauvinism was to be rooted out. As a matter of fact, for some time after October, the word ‘Russia' disappeared altogether from official documents. The official name of the homeland of October was simply ‘the Workers' State'."

Lenin's approach is the key to look for a way out from this nightmare. In the Caucasus and in the rest of the former Soviet Union.

For a New October

The class struggle in all these countries, beginning with Russia, is now poisoned by the national question. Russian workers will not gain anything from the war in Georgia except an emboldened Putin and the mushrooming of neo-Nazi organisations, which will engage in violence against workers and youth from the Caucasus, and against Russian workers and their organisations in the future. Only the Marxists can provide a programme and a perspective for resolving the scars of the national question, which is dependent on the struggle of the working class and the establishment of a socialist federation of states in the former Soviet Union and internationally.

The socialist alternative may seem far-off and difficult. But the foundations for it were already laid in the past in practice by the October Revolution. This is an inspiration for the struggle against capitalism, imperialism and nationalism today. Otherwise, the capitalist present is horror without end.

Today the enemy of the Russian working class are their new capitalist masters. This is already visible in the powerful class hatred against the capitalists. The mood amongst workers is not different in other former Soviet republics, including Georgia, where there is a sharp class polarisation in society and oligarchs of the likes of Kakha Benkuidze, who made billions in the metal industry in the Urals during the privatisations and subsequently became a minister in Saakashvili's government, and famously promised "to privatise everything except his conscience."

Yet in Georgia there has recently been a reaction against Georgian oligarchs, with mass protests in Tblisi towards the end of last year, which were violently crushed by the Georgian state. At the moment in Georgia there will be confusion and shock at the war, and bitterness against Russia. But the class struggle will break through the hysteria. The nationalist demagogy of Saakashvili is a sign of his weakness. Without it he does not have a stable base of support. All bourgeois politicians and policies in Georgia are empty. The workers have no option but to fight back.

In fact, the rash of wars that scar the planet are not only a sign of reaction. These wars are also a sign of the crisis of the system on a global scale. Globalisation means not only imperialism as an economic and military fact, but also the globalised crisis of capitalism and the potential for the workers to fight back against the ills of capitalism in every country. If Lenin was speaking to workers today, he would begin by hammering home the world crisis of capitalism, and making concrete the perspective of the world revolution, which has already begun in Latin America, and is finding an echo in North America, Europe and the Middle East.

But just as Lenin would underline that there are two Americas, the America of the capitalist and the America of the worker, he also explained at every opportunity that there are two Russias. Inequality has never reached such burning depths as at the present time. The Rublyovka district near Moscow has most billionaires per square kilometre in the world, just as the Russian Duma has more billionaires than any other parliament in the world. These fabulously rich live in effect in another country, with special police protection, like a court procession, when they travel on the roads, stopping the traffic. They have no contact with ordinary Russians, whose incomes are being eroded by inflation, or are being cut outright by the greed of the bosses. This was the case with the miners of Severouralsk.

After two decades of attacks the Russian workers are beginning to fight back. This may be temporarily cut across by the frenzy of Russia's military success. But the Kremlin's foreign policy holds nothing progressive for Russian workers, who have no choice but to fight against their capitalist masters both at home and abroad.

There is no way out for Russian and Georgian workers than to join forces together against imperialist meddling and their own exploiters. The only tradition that can unite all workers regardless for their nationality, language, colour and religion is that of Bolshevism and the tradition of October.

Long live proletarian solidarity!

For a new October!

For a socialist federation of the Caucasus and internationally!

RENEGADE EYE

From Ho Chi Minh City

I have asked my friends Aaron and Nadia, who recently moved to Vietnam to teach English, to send this blog regular reports.



Occasionally, in Ho Chi Minh City, Saigon, behind the smiles and food, I get this feeling of some sort of cultural train wreck. It is like everything we know we hate in America, the things we are trying to change, are formulating in Saigon and in a more glamorized form.

I think I first realized it while riding up an escalator in a western-style but Vietnamese catered MegaPlex of Gucci, Bebe, Ralph Loren, and “elite” and very expensive fast food restaurants with imported French fries, homemade food, real cutlery, and waitresses opening the doors and bussing the tables. In every aisle and on every floor, there were LCD TVs playing music videos from the 80’s and 90’s, and on the loud speaker the Happy Birthday song played repeatedly, sometimes even instrumentally and multi-lingually, urging shoppers that “this day is your day, it’s your birthday.” I didn’t know what the hell was going on.

Outside the MegaPlex, beyond a row of thatch shacks, and on the other side of a group of land mine and Polio and Agent-Orange afflicted beggars, they sell some French baguettes—apparently the French left colonial houses and baguettes, the Americans left phantom limbs, unexploded ordinances, and birth defects. They also sell, believe it or not, some American flag do-rags and “United We Stand” T-shirts. Though there is a teenage MTV-inspired western craze—and 60% of the population is under 25—I don’t think that the Vietnamese market demand is just yearning for a “United We Stand” shirt. The shirts are cheap and surplus, factory leftovers. So that poor teen with dirt smudges on his face doesn’t really love America, he just bought a cheap shirt.

Though, a sort of western craze, or rather a craving for “development,” is apparent and perhaps bubbles over. Walking the streets in the quiet, wealthier, Catholic area where I live, I feel like a Celebrity. Being one of the few westerners, everyone stares, little kids and some adults alike yell “hello,” after which I reply with another “hello” which they follow again with “hello,” and it continues for some time. The elderly, understandably, aren’t as excited to see me. I can completely understand why.

Ho Chi Minh City, I'm told, is by no means Vietnam. It’s closer to a Vietnamese Los Angeles. After a month, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that I needed someplace different. Someplace more, well, Vietnamese. I have been shocked at the safety. I’ve felt safer living in this city of 8 million than I have living in Fargo, close to the campus Frat Houses (though I had some reason for alarm). The people are more than friendly, and the one-party Communist government surprisingly puts forth more diverse candidates than two parties in a certain republic. I am curious to travel north.

--aaron a

Food & Blogging: Presenting Foxessa's Country Girl - Winter City - Baked Vegetables

There is no interest in my sardine tacos, or my use of coffee as a spice. I asked several bloggers, to send me recipes; preferably easy to prepare, common ingredients, ethnic etc. In addition if I print the recipe, I'll plug your blog. Send recipes to me at the email address at my profile. I was going to print them all in one post, but I acquired too many. Political agreement doesn't matter. Atleast every month I'll continue this series. Leave comments about food, the blog, restaraunts etc. Everyone who sent recipes, will eventually have them published. I'm going in random order.

Today's recipe comes from Foxessa, who publishes the Fox Home blog. She is originally a country person from East Dakota, who moved to New York City. Her blog combines political analysis, with a big nod towards cultural history. Readers of her blog, know of her more than passing interest in a certain performer and music historian she calls Vaquero, who also wrote an incredible book about New Orleans.



Now the Main Event

Country Girl - Winter City - Baked Vegetables

This is a side dish that evolved in my kitchen, provoked by years of eating
Mediterranean meals. The base then, is olive oil (and wine, if you choose /
like).

Turn on your oven to high heat, at least 375 degrees.

Prepare the most shallow baking dish or pan you have with whatever left-over
chicken stock you've got in the refrigerator to cover at least a quarter of
an inch of the bottom of the dish. If there's no leftover stock use some
white wine -- not too dry, but not sweet wine either -- and mix with
non-sodium bouillon. Flavor with anything else, like dried chives, lemon
grass, tarragon -- and even lemon juice, if you like (presumably your
leftover stock includes lots of onion and garlic flavors and whatever
already). Add as much / as little olive oil as suits YOU.

Take as many carrots as will fit comfortably on the bottom of the shallow
baking dish and leave room between the 'sticks'. These carrots should be
the enormous ones that look like a version of a billy club -- long and
thick, especially at the head -- not those wimpy things that come in plastic
bags, and especially not the machine-grated down nubbin things that are
passed off as 'baby carrots.' No flavor or texture in those. Peel the
carrots and slice lengthwise, to make sticks.

Peel an eggplant and slice it too lengthwise, from one end to another -- a
layered slicing if you will, not TOO thin, but not thick either. Put these
thinnish slices between / around the carrot sticks.

Peel a chayote squash -- o.k., that's not a Mediterranean, but Mexican
vegetable. So what. This squash is an inexpensive staple by now in my
kitchen. Often you can find 2 and even 3 of these yellow or green
pear-shaped vegetables for a $1.00, or below 80 cents @ lb. They hold their
shape and texture no matter whether you bake, roast, or boil them or for how
long you cook them. The single seed is edible. They can be eaten raw in
the summer with dips; sliced very thin, or shredded, they can be used in
wok cooking and in salads. They are great in any kind of soup that uses
vegetables. They have a lot of fiber and vitamins. The longer you bake
them, the sweeter and more tender they become -- probably anywhere from 45
minutes to an hour in your hot oven to be sure these tougher carrots become
tender and the carrots' flavor comes out. However, the chayote's weetness
is different from the sweetness that comes out of the carrots. So cut up the
chayote, chunk it, slice it, dice it -- doesn't matter. The chayote parts
can sit on top of the carrots and the eggplant.

It's essential the eggplant sit on / in the stock and olive oil on the
bottom of the dish -- the eggplant needs to absorb those flavors. The
eggplant pulls together the flavors of the stock, the carrots and the
squash. It's the mediator, so to speak, among the other parts, taking on
flavors of stock, carrots and chayote, while remaining eggplant. Some of
the eggplant will become delightfully soft and melt in your mouth, and some
pieces will retain more structural integrity.

Cover dish tightly, put in oven. You can be roasting chicken or something
else at the same time. This dish really takes very little time to prepare.
Once it's in the oven it needs nothing else from you, except to pay
attention that you don't leave it in too long, meaning burning it on the
bottom as the olive oil (which also helps guard against that) and liquid are
absorbed or evaporated.

These are fresh vegetables that are available in winter in most
supermarkets, vegetables that contain flavor, are filling and provide
texture for the mouth and tongue, and aren't expensive, at least if you buy
the long eggplants common in Chinatown, not the big egg shaped ones or the
boutique baby ones. They are particularly inexpensive relative to lettuces
and so on -- and forget about tomatoes. Anyway, tomatoes should only be
eaten in season, if flavor matters to you. Currently in the only supermarket
that serves our neighborhood, cardboard tomatoes are going for $3.99 @
lb. -- nope it doesn't make any difference that they come from Israel and
supposedly are vine ripened. They still don't have flavor. If you need
tomatoes to cook with, get Parmalat -- an Italian company -- chopped
tomatoes packaged in a cardboard box, without sodium. As well, carrots and
the chayote can be kept on hand -- the eggplant for less time, of course,
before going bad . Storage is also calculated into cost -- fresh vegetables
are a luxury item for so many of us in this country, winter OR summer now.
This last August tomatoes grown a few miles from the city were sold in the
supermarkets for over $2.00 @lb. I grew up with a root cellar in our
farmhouse's basement, where we stored potatoes, turnips, carrots, onions,
etc. during the winter. I've made an imitation of one in our apartment where
I store dried herbs and spices, peppers, chilis, yams, potatoes etc. in the
coolest place in our apartment. This was handy for making dinner last night
while the weather outside was frightful. You can take the farm girl out of
the country but you can't take the habits of frugality and storing food of
the farm girl raised on butchering, gardening, canning and freezing.

Take the dish out of the oven when the carrots are tender. Add pepper and
salt, if you like. This vegetable dish goes well with baked potatoes or with
boniatas and other yams -- even manioc / cassava dishes, as well as, say, a
cauldron of black beans or one of chowderi, and any meat, if you eat meat.
They make a good side to pasta --almost like a hot, winter antipasti. Your
kids might even like these vegetables -- it's a colorful dish, due to the
carrots -- the baking brings out the natural sugars in the carrots and
chayote, so it's fairly sweet. The olive oil provides that sense of content
and completion a person's inner self needs from eating.

As I said, this takes little time to prepare, certainly less than it took to
read about it.

Fox Home

RENEGADE EYE

Hamas And Fatah Are A Bigger Threat To The Palestinians Than Israel

(Taken from The Daily Star

It is a damning indication of just how bad things have become in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip when Fatah militants there must look to Israel for protection from their Palestinian rivals. The Jewish state announced on Monday that it would help a group of 150 Fatah fighters who had fled weekend clashes in Gaza relocate to the West Bank, after determining that they would face "imminent danger" if they were to return home. The scenes of Israel coming to the rescue of Palestinians after a bout of Arab fratricide were reminiscent of the events of Black September, during which scores of Palestinians sought asylum in Israel to escape King Hussein's crackdown on the Palestine Liberation Organization. The only difference this time around is that instead of seeking refuge from a heavy-handed Arab crackdown, Palestinians are fleeing from the murderous hands of their own Palestinian brothers.

Achievement of the Palestinian cause requires that all factions maintain a semblance of orderliness and keep their eyes on the price of independent statehood. In this both Fatah and Hamas have been miserable failures. Both have put partisan interests ahead of national ones and therefore have failed to maintain anything like a united Palestinian front. Even the mediation attempts of Egypt, Yemen and Saudi Arabia have not been enough to curb the political infighting and internecine bloodshed that have served to further threaten the Palestinians' very right to existence.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza has been deteriorating since the international community callously decided to punish an entire people for having exercised their democratic rights in the legislative elections of January 2006. But the Hamas movement is now exacerbating the situation by undermining the rule of law in the territory. After accusing its Fatah rivals of carrying out a deadly bombing late last week that killed five Hamas leaders and a little girl, the Islamist party launched what can be only be described as a witch-hunt, rounding up some 200 Fatah activists. Fatah provided an equally bad example of governance in the West Bank when it retaliated against the move by rounding up scores of people it branded "Hamas activists," including many judges, students and activists who have no known affiliation with the Islamist party. On both sides of divided Palestine, civilians must now add Fatah and Hamas to the long list of threats to their security and wellbeing.

The events of the last week are just the most recent example of how the situation in the Occupied Territories has gone from bad to worse under the watchful eyes of elected Palestinian "representatives." Hundreds of people were killed last year when the two groups allowed their rivalry to degenerate into street violence. Hundreds more were prevented from going about their normal activities such as attending school, going to work or expressing political views.

Over the past few days the two Palestinian factions seem to be close to repeated the same disastrous mistakes. We have seen Palestinians denigrating the legitimacy of other Palestinians, Palestinians making war on other Palestinians, and Palestinians arresting other Palestinians, while the Jewish state has come to the rescue of those Palestinians who fear for their lives. Israel has never looked so good.

The Daily Star

Marxist From Lebanon