World

On the eve of the fourth anniversary of the US-British-Australian invasion of oil-rich Iraq, the American Broadcasting Corporation released the results of a survey showing that 78% of Iraqis oppose the continuing presence of US and allied foreign troops in their country.

Like Australia, Israel was established by settlers on the myth of an empty land. However, unlike here, expulsion rather than genocide has been the preferred method of removing the previous inhabitants.

Deriding the likely technical efficacy of the USA’s ballistic National Missile Defense (NMD) system (a key element of which is already stationed in Britain at the Fylingdales radar base), Ming Campbell, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, asked Prime Minister Tony Blair on February 28: “Do you accept that the system proposed is largely untried, indeed it has been described as firing a bullet in order to hit a bullet?”

On March 17, 40 lawyers and at least 10 others were injured when police attacked a gathering of lawyers at the Lahore High Court called by the Lahore High Court Bar Association to discuss a response to the government’s suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. On March 9, President Pervez Musharraf had declared Chaudhry as “non-functional”, which was viewed by many as part of an attempt to quell the judiciary. Lawyers have boycotted the courts and organised hunger strikes and other protests demanding Chaudhry’s reinstatement. A nationwide lawyers’ strike has been called for April 3. The following are excerpts from a March 22 statement by Labour Party Pakistan general secretary Farooq Tariq.

Beijing’s drive since the early 1990s to pursue the restoration of capitalism in China received a boost on March 16, with the introduction of the controversial Property Law. Ironically, the law will take effect on October 1 — exactly 58 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The law will safeguard the property of China’s burgeoning capitalist class, giving private property the same protection as state-owned assets. This includes the large number of formerly state-owned assets converted to private property in sleazy and underhand deals.

The Fiji Women’s Rights Movement is protesting the March 13 promulgation of the Water Authority of Fiji Bill, which according to public service and public sector interim minister Poseci Bune will provide more “effective management” of water, including “opportunities for competition in the provision of water” and facilitating the “corporatisation of the Water Authority of Fiji”. Opposition to water privatisation sprang up last July when organisations including the Fiji Human Rights Commission protested the inclusion of five major private sector figures in a nine-person committee established to prepare a charter on water and sewerage. In a March 15 statement, FWRM executive director Virisila Buadromo said that “Water is a basic human right, and we are very worried about the commercialisation of this essential resource. We are appalled that water, as essential to life as air, will be treated like a business — especially in light of clear community concerns on the issue.”

The March 1 British Guardian reported that an “elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq — or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat”.

US President George Bush has been touring Latin American countries this March with two goals in mind: keep the continent divided and keep it subservient to US imperialist interests. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has also been visiting his neighbours. His goals are the opposite: to unite the countries of Latin America and to encourage and support the continent’s independence from US imperialism.

A March 9 Venezuelanalysis.com article reported that the previous day Venezuelan authorities had arrested two National Guard officers over an alleged plot to assassinate Hugo Chavez, the country’s socialist president. Agents from Venezuela’s Military Intelligence Directorate took retired General Ramon Guillen Davila and his son, Capitan Tomas Guillen, into custody. They will be tried for instigating rebellion.

On March 16 police arrested Satur Ocampo, a member of Congress from the left-wing Bayan Muna party list. Ocampo, who had been in hiding for eight days, was taken into custody shortly after he filed a court petition to quash the arrest warrant. He faces charges of killing military spies in the ’80s, according to a March 17 Philippine Daily Inquirer report.

Sekai Holland, a long-time leader of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle and a champion of women’s rights, was detained by police on March 11 in the latest violent crackdown by President Robert Mugabe’s increasingly unpopular regime. Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai was also arrested and later taken to the intensive care unit of a Harare hospital with severe injuries resulting from police beatings.

The small Andean nation of Ecuador is facing a political crisis as the Congress and the courts turn on each other over new president Rafael Correa’s plans for a Constituent Assembly and a “citizens’ revolution” to build “21st century socialism” in the poverty-stricken country.