Armed police at NHS protest

by New Worker correspondent

DOZENS of protests took place all around the country last weekend against the Con-Dem Coalition’s flagship Health and Social Care Bill. But the one in Whitehall last Saturday, close to Richmond House, the headquarters of the NHS, attracted the attention of the Metropolitan Police’s notorious Territorial Support Group (TSG).

 The protest was supported by members of the Occupy movement, who assembled in Whitehall for some speeches. They managed to block Whitehall completely for 20 to 30 minutes and then moved off, aiming to picket Virgin Healthcare – one of the private health companies seeking to profit from the changes to the NHS structure.

 The demonstrators twice evaded being kettled – first outside the Ministry of Defence and then in Trafalgar Square – before being brought to a halt in the Strand.

 On Sunday a coalition of 250 doctors – including general practitioners and consultants – launched a campaign to unseat Liberal Democrat and Tory MPs at the next election by standing against them on a pledge to fight to save the NHS.

 The doctors sent a letter to the Independent on Sunday describing the Bill as “an embarrassment to democracy” and stating their intent to stand candidates against those MPs who backed it.

 Nick Clegg and other senior Lib Dem Mps will be specifically targeted as well as those in marginal seats.

 Dr Clive Peedell, who initiated the campaign, said he was surprised at the number of doctors who came forward to take an active part in the campaign.

 The Bill cleared its final reading in the House of Lords on Monday – with some cosmetic amendments.

It was due to become law the next day but Labour succeeded in forcing a Commons debate on MPs can consider planned NHS changes for a final time before an assessment of the potential risks to the health service is published.

  The Government has agreed to a series of changes to the bill and want it to become law as soon as possible.

 The legislation would abolish Strategic Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts and ostensibly give much greater control over care budgets and commissioning decisions to GPs and other health professionals.

 But since these people are full time doctors they will not have the time or expertise to also be accountants and managers, so that work, with all the power and control over future NHS budgeting and policies, will be put into the eager hands of the private health companies who are ready to provide that service to the doctors.

 The Freedom of Information Tribunal recently upheld a decision by the Information Commissioner that the NHS transitional risk register must be published. The Government have said they will not do so until the tribunal has explained its ruling.

 The register was drawn up to calculate the risks relating to the implementation of the bill.

 Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said it was “highly unsatisfactory” that MPs would not have an opportunity to consider the information in the register before finally approving the Bill.

 Burnham said: “Parliament has a right to know, before it is asked to make a final judgment that will have huge implications for every person in this country,” he told MPs.

 In the Lords, crossbench peer Lord Owen called for a similar delay to the Bill’s third reading in the Upper House pending the publication of the document. But his motion was defeated by 328 votes to 213.

Students day of Action

Students marched through London last week in a successful Day of Action, organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts and the National Union of Students to protest at Government plans for higher education.

 They accused the Government of imposing a lifetime of debt on students to repay rising fees and forcing universities into ruthless competition that will see some of them go bankrupt.

Free Bradley Manning!

By New Worker correspondent

Demonstrators gathered outside the US embassy in London last Friday for a protest picket in support of Bradley Manning, the Iraqi war veteran accused of leaking secrets to WikiLeaks. The vigil was organised by Veterans for Peace UK and London Catholic Worker to call for all charges to be dropped against the former US intelligence analyst accused of leaking a video of the killing of civilians, including two Reuters journalists, by a US helicopter gunship in Iraq and passing other sensitive material exposing US war-crimes and those of their mercenaries in occupied Iraq to WikiLeaks.

The demonstration was held to coincide with the second day of a pre-trial hearing at a military tribunal held at Fort Meade in Maryland where Manning faces a total of 23 charges in relation to documents he allegedly handled that were later published by WikiLeaks and other major news outlets including the Guardian and the New York Times. One charge carries the death penalty, others could mean life imprisonment.

Manning was kept in solitary in Iraq, Kuwait and Quantico, Virginia following his arrest in Iraq in 2010. After widespread condemnation of Manning’s conditions of confinement, he was moved to more humane conditions at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in April 2011. Manning says he was tortured when he was held the Quantico US Marine Base. And Juan Mendez, the United Nations Rapporteur on Torture, who has slammed the American authorities for abusing Manning during his pre-trial confinement has repeatedly sought to conduct an unsupervised meeting with Manning in order to investigate these abuses.

“I believe Bradley Manning was subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in the excessive and prolonged isolation he was put in during the eight months he was in Quantico,” Mendez  told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last week.

“It’s astonishing that US officials are blocking an investigation into the humiliating and degrading treatment of Bradley Manning, while the Kingdom of Bahrain has just invited Mr. Mendez to conduct a fact-finding mission into their recent abuses of political prisoners,” said Jeff Paterson from the Bradley Manning Support Network.

Stop the killing in Afghanistan!

Mitra Quayoom from Afghans for Peace with Lindsey German at the protest

By New Worker correspondent

New Worker supporters joined protesters outside the Prime Minister’s official London residence last week to call for the immediate withdrawal of all British troops from Afghanistan and an end to the Nato war that has brought death and destruction to millions of innocent Afghan civilians over the past eleven years.

The reality of this pointless war was brought home in recent weeks by the massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by a US soldier, the killing of six British troops on 7^th March, the deliberate burning of the Koran by the US Army, which provoked outrage throughout Afghanistan, and the pictures of US troops urinating on the bodies of Afghans they had killed.

Speakers at the protest outside Downing Street, London, on Thursday 15^th  March included Linda Kemp, the mother of a soldier who has been ordered to go to Afghanistan in November, Mitra Quayoom from Afghans for Peace, Green MP Caroline Lucas, Labour MP and LRC activist Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsey German from the Stop the War campaign.

Syrians defy Nato smears and violence in London

By New Worker correspondent  

New Worker supporters and other peace activists joined several hundred London-based Syrians outside their embassy in Belgravia Square last Saturday to mark the first anniversary of the launch of the Nato-inspired and funded rebellion against the Baathist-led popular front government of Bashar al-Assad. They had come to celebrate the survival of the Assad government in the face of all that the imperialists had been able to throw at it.

            But the rally started in a doleful mood with the news of two car bombings in Damascus that morning by western-back terrorists, which had killed at least 27 civilians and injured many others.

            A wreath in honour of the victims was placed on the rostrum in front of where the speakers were about to address the crowd.

            Similar rallies were being held at Syrian embassies around the world and of course in Damascus.

            A very high proportion of those attending were women, who would have most to lose if the Baathist government fell to the right-wing extremists of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda-backed “rebels”.

            There were also a number of Syrian Christians – men and women – who told the New Worker that Syria was one of the few places remaining in the Middle East where peoples of different religions could live alongside each other in peace and friendship.

 Assad’s picture was everywhere at the rally but there were even a number of people who had opposing political views but wanted to resolve these peacefully. The last thing they wanted was a Nato intervention with the bloodshed, death, destruction and loss of human rights that these interventions have brought to Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

            They wanted peacefully negotiated reforms and were content that Assad has put a process in place towards this end. Their advice to those who opposed Assad was to use their vote against him in elections.

            They were outraged that the Nato-backed terrorists had tried to hijack their political fight, ignoring what the Syrian people really want in favour of what Nato wants to impose on them.

 Some at the rally reported that a well-known leading member of Al Qaeda who had played a role in toppling the Gaddafi government in Libya was now present – with the same Nato imperialist backing – to try to do the same thing in Syria. There are high hopes he will be arrested and put on trial.

            And there were many in the rally who identified Al Qaeda and the extremist members of the Muslim Brotherhood as the stooges of American imperialism – paving the way for imperialist interventions by fomenting internal civil wars in peaceful Middle Eastern countries – albeit many of the rank and file were not aware this was the role they were playing.

 There were a number of speeches, some in Arabic, but one who spoke in English was Lizzie Phelan – a young anti-imperialist journalist who last year reported directly from the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

            She began by noting that it was St Patrick’s Day and reminded the crowd that her country had been fighting against the same enemy, British imperialism, for 800 years.

            Lizzie then quoted from a speech against colonialism and the colonialist mentality, made by Assad’s father, many decades ago, that is very relevant today.

            The old Syrian president had said that their country would be “the rock that colonisation breaks on”, and warned of the distorting media campaigns aimed to undermine Arab confidence in their leaders.

            “And today,” she added, “The greatest enemies of democracy are trying to tell us that they are fighting for democracy in the Middle East.”

            She reported the bloodshed, devastation and destruction that have been wreaked on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya in the name of “democracy”.

            And Lizzie paid tribute to the anti-imperialist example set by Gamal Abdel Nasser, who led the Free Officer Revolution in Egypt and fought to bring about Arab unity in the fight against imperialism.

Honouring Karl Marx

A Chinese diplomat laying flowers at the tomb

By New Worker

correspondent

AROUND 200 people gathered last Sunday in the spring sunshine in Highgate Cemetery to pay their respects at the grave of Karl Marx on the anniversary of his death on 14th March 1883.

 They included representatives of the Vietnamese, Cuban and Chinese embassies as well as delegation from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and the Tudeh Party of Iran.

            Javier Moreno, President of the Forum for Memory – which seeks to uncover and preserve the history of working class struggles, gave the main oration. He spoke mainly in Spanish, which was translated by Dr John Callow, acting as master of ceremonies on behalf of the Marx Memorial Library trustees of Marx’s grave.

 Moreno spoke of the struggles in Spain to recover the remains of those massacred in their thousands for fighting against the fascist Franco regime and the struggles today against government cuts and unemployment.

            “Marxism gives us the tools to adapt to new historical stages and the effort we have to do is use them,” Moreno declared. “Marxism gave us class consciousness and class pride,”.

            This was followed by a wreath-laying ceremony where representatives of the embassies and political groups present – including the New Communist Party – laid flowers at the grave. The ceremony ended with the singing of the Internationale by all present.

Vigil for dead Afghans

 By New Worker correspondent

PEACE activists gathered in Trafalgar Square on Monday evening for a vigil organised by Stop the War to express their shock and outrage at the cold-blooded massacre of 16 civilians, nine of them children, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, on Sunday.

 The imperialist authorities maintain the culprit was a single individual United States sergeant. But freelance photo journalist Guy Smallman, who travelled to Afghanistan a few years ago to report on the effect of the war on the Afghan people, told the Trafalgar Square rally that the contacts he had made there had been in touch and said that there was definitely more than “one rogue soldier” involved.

 And other reports from Afghanistan say there was a group of drunken US soldiers involved going from house to house, shooting people in their beds and then burning the bodies in the middle of the night. There are one or two injured Afghans who survived by pretending to be dead who can bear witness.

 It follows a pattern of official night-time raids – up to 40 a night – on Afghan civilian homes searching for “terrorists”.

 This policy had led to growing anger and tension between the local people and the US occupation troops.

 Lindsey German from Stop the War Coalition said: “It is not one mentally-unbalanced US soldier on a rampage that killed 16 civilians on 11th March 2012, including nine children.  “The US and its allies have been on a rampage in Afghanistan for over 10 years. It is the occupation that causes the endless slaughter in Afghanistan. The only solution is for all foreign troops to be withdrawn now.

 “Afghans don't want us in their country, the US and UK public don't want us there, everyone knows the war is lost.”

 In an interview on Monday she told journalists: “When Obama and Cameron meet in Washington on 13th March, whatever they say publicly, they will certainly be discussing whether they can bring forward the exit date.

 “When historians look back at the end of the Afghan war surely 11 March 2012 will be marked as the day when it finally began to unravel, and when all but the most gung ho supporters of the carnage realised that the game was up.

 “The strategy of Afghanisation – training Afghan soldiers and police to take over from the ISAF troops – had already been stretched thin in the months beforehand.

 “The burning of the Koran by US troops was seen by many as the last straw, triggering demonstrations across the country and a number of assassinations of US troops.

 “The events of 11th March were even more shocking, however.

 “Sixteen people killed, nine of them children, by a supposedly lone gunman, a sergeant who was attached to Green Beret or Navy Seals Special Forces, who shot the victims in their beds and burned the bodies.”

The Afghan puppet parliament has condemned the killings and demanded a public trial, saying Afghans have run out of patience with how the Nato-led coalition forces are acting in the country. The outraged people of Afghanistan would not tolerate any other response from their government, even though it is officially an ally of the Nato forces.

 In the capital Kabul one house painter, Najibullah, told a reporter from the Independent newspaper: “The Americans are not here to assist us they are here to kill us. I hate the Americans and I hate anyone who loves them, so I hope there is no long-term partnership between our countries.”

Sinn Fein: The lessons from Ireland

Sinn Féin vice president Mary Lou McDonald TD at the seminar 

By Theo Russell

SINN Féin vice president Mary Lou McDonald TD told a seminar in London last week that the new European “fiscal compact” is “an insidious treaty which will institutionalise a regime of hardship overseen by the EU, institutionalise austerity policies and emasculate the political process in Ireland”.

She was addressing a Sinn Féin seminar, “Economic Crisis – lessons from Ireland” at the House of Commons, on the same day as the Irish government reluctantly announced a referendum on the pact. Two weeks ago the EU-IMF “Troika” visited Dublin and warned that if Anglo-Irish Bank bondholders were not repaid, “a financial ‘bomb’ would go off” in Ireland.

Sinn Féin has welcomed the referendum decision and will mount a strong campaign against ratifying the pact. As the only major party in the Republic against the consensus on repaying bank debts and slashing spending, the party’s poll ratings have leapt from 10 per cent at last year’s general election to 25 per cent now.

Dublin is faced with finding €63 billion for recapitalising its main banks and has agreed to issue promissory notes for €31 billion to pay for winding up Anglo-Irish, with the first €3 billion due at the end of March – shortly before the referendum. The total bailout for Anglo-Irish alone including interest is €47 billion, and will take at least the next 10 years to pay off.

McDonald described Anglo-Irish as “a zombie bank propped up by the state” and said: “We need to move away from a position that the banks are ‘too big to fail’, but ordinary people can suffer the consequences.”

She called for a debate on cancelling the debts of Ireland, Greece and other EU countries, and said: “We need to play hardball with the EU Troika to have some sort of structure to bringing the debt down.”

She said unemployment in Ireland was officially 14 per cent, but this excluded many self-employed people, particularly in construction. “Around 6,000 mainly young people are leaving the country every month, and over 100,000 households are in serious mortgage difficulties. We have now seen five austerity budgets in a row, with the latest cutting €3.8 billion in government spending and increasing a ‘flat’ (in other words non-progressive) tax on households.”

Pat Doherty MP re-affirmed the policy of not backing a referendum on Irish unity without first gaining the confidence of unionists. He said a recent Sinn Féin conference on Irish unity in Derry had attracted 200 people from the unionist community, out of a total of 900.

Doherty said: “Working class unionists feel absolutely abandoned and betrayed by the UUP and DUP, and what we are seeing is increasing numbers of unionists coming into Sinn Féin advice centres seeking help and support.”

He highlighted the problems created by the coalition government’s spending cuts and said that what they agreed on spending on infrastructure in the north of Ireland in negotiations for the Good Friday Agreement had now been slashed by 40 per cent.

Doherty backed a review of structures in the north which could see fewer Executive posts, Westminster and Assembly constituencies, and the number of councils reduced from 26 to 11 “super-councils”.

“Sinn Féin’s elected officials,” he added, “only take the average industrial wage, and have had no salary increase in the last five years.”

A tribute to Karl Marx

Alex Kempshall makes a point with Marx's Capital

By New Worker correspondent

KARL MARX died in London on 14^th March 1883 and his memory has been recalled ever since by the working class movement throughout the world. And last Saturday his immense contribution to the socialist cause was recalled at a reception at the New Communist Party’s London centre to mark the 129^th anniversary of the passing of the man, who together with Frederick Engels, founded scientific socialism.

This is a regular event in the NCP calendar and, as usual, the central meeting room and the print shop were transformed for the bar and buffet. During the formal part of the celebrations tributes to the work and struggle of Marx were given by NCP chair Alex Kempshall, Kumar Sarkar of Second Wave Publications and NCP General Secretary Andy Brooks while solidarity greetings from Dermot Hudson of the Korean Friendship Association were read out.

No NCP event ever ends without a collection and Alex rose to the task with an appeal not just for money but also for renewed study of the works of Marx which are as relevant now as on the day they were written. The comrades responded by raising some £250 for the New Worker special building appeal.

St Paul’s Occupy evicted

AROUND 100 bailiffs backed by 300 riot police moved into the area around St Paul’s Cathedral in the middle of the night last Monday to clear away the Occupy protesters’ camp after all legal procedures to prevent the eviction had failed.

 Most of the campers left peacefully but a few put up a fight and there were over 20 arrests as the bailiffs dismantled the tents and threw them, along with placards and banners into rubbish lorries.

 The Rev Giles Fraser, who resigned as canon chancellor of St Paul's in support of the protesters, said: "This is a sad day for the Church. Riot police clearing the steps of St Paul's Cathedral was a terrible sight."

 He added: "In the past few months, we have all been made to re-examine important issues about social and economic justice and the role the cathedral can play.

 The anti-capitalist encampment began on 15th  October, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement as a protest at the greed and selfishness of the richest one per cent that has caused the global economic crisis and condemned millions of working people around the world to unemployment, homelessness and misery.

 The campers had intended to occupy the London stock exchange but found that barred and settled down instead just outside in the area around the cathedral.

 At first the Church allowed them to stay while the City of London Corporation was determined to evict the camp.

 The campers organised a kitchen, sanitation and waste arrangements as well as a library, debates and classes.

 The Church became internally divided on the issue but was eventually pressured by the City into seeking the eviction of the encampment.

 Meanwhile the camp had attracted not only protesters but homeless people in search of warmth, food and company.

 Women’s refuges, suffering from funding cuts and over filled, in desperation advised women fleeing domestic violence that the camp would be a safe place to be.

 The campers had to extend their role from protesters to become social workers.

 Protesters also occupied some other sites and now have a larger camp at Finsbury Park.

 The Occupy the London Stock Exchange (OLSX) protesters are now considering a Cathedral proposal to host official “general assemblies” on the steps outside the central London building.

 Under the plans, the anti-capitalist group would host debates and meetings on the cathedral’s steps once a week on a Saturday afternoon.

 The debates, backed by cathedral officials, would last a couple of hours but would finish by 5pm in time for evening church services.

 Monday’s eviction came after the movement lost a Court of Appeal challenge to orders to leave the area following a lengthy legal dispute.

 Islington Council, which owns the Finsbury Park site, said on Monday that while peaceful protests were supported, the camp did not have permission for its new camp.

 Mayor of London Boris Johnson said the eviction meant "the law had finally taken its course".

Marking the birth of Kim Jong Il

Dermot Hudson pays tribute to Kim Jong Il

By New Worker correspondent

A HIGHLY successful meeting of the Korean Friendship Association was held last weekend  in London to mark the 70^th anniversary of the birth of Kim Jong Il. Dermot Hudson, chair of the Juche Idea Study Group, highlighted Kim Jong Il’s contribution to theory and ideology on his 1982 work On the Juche Idea, in which Kim Jong Il brought together and systematised the Juche theory, and his 1994 thesis Socialism is a Science. He stressed that Kim Jong Il’s strong leadership “averted the very real prospect of another war on the Korean Peninsula” and concluded with the words: “Kim Jong Il is immortal”.

 Dr Hugh Goodacre, a lecturer at London University, described how the Juche theory first emerged in the 1950s to defend the independent nature of Korean socialism when divisions were appearing in the international communist movement. He said Juche was “a new way of looking at social history, in which the masses become the subject of history and the struggle for a new society draws on their intellectual and creative spirit”, which draws on the most advanced ideas including Darwinism and dialectical materialism.

   Shaun Pickford, secretary of the Juche Idea Study Group, recalled the resistance to the Japanese occupation after 1910 and Kim Il Sung’s leading role in the armed struggle, leading to the creation of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army in 1932, which went on to liberate all of Korea in 1945. Kim Jong Il, he added, was a crack marksman and fighter pilot said to be “expert with both the gun and the pen”. A lively discussion followed, looking particularly at the role of the leader in the Korean revolution and the Worker’s Party of Korea.

Commemorating the life of Kim Jong Il

Comrades Dermot Hudson, Andy Brooks, Michael Chant and Mun Myong Sin

By New Worker correspondent

FRIENDS of Korea met in London’s historic Marx House last Saturday to commemorate the life of Kim Jong Il, the Democratic Korean leader who sadly passed away in December. But this was no solemn occasion but a celebration of the life of a revolutionary devoted to the Workers Party of Korea and the democratic people’s republic that has been a red bastion in Asia since its foundation in 1948.

            New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks, who chaired the meeting, said it was fitting that we should recall the life and work of Kim Jong Il in the building where Britain’s first Marxists, like Harry Quelch, worked and provided Lenin with rooms to edit and print the underground Russian paper, Iskra, when the Bolshevik leader lived in exile in London.

            The event, organised by the Friends of Korea committee, began with a short documentary film about Mount Myohyang, a national park in Democratic Korea that Kim Jong Il personally helped to conserve for the Korean people. This was followed by contributions from two leading members of the friendship committee on the life of Kim Jong Il. Michael Chant from the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (ML) spoke about the Korean leader’s efforts in building the Korean communist movement over the decades while Dermot Hudson of the Korean Friendship Association opened on the development of the Juche idea and Songun politics under the direction of Kim Jong Il.

 Comrade Mun Myong Sin, a diplomat from the London embassy of the DPR Korea then joined the panel for a question and answer session which developed into a general discussion on life in Democratic Korea today.

The Co-ordinating Committee of Friends of Korea consists of the European Regional Society for the Study of the Juche Idea, UK Korean Friendship Association, New Communist Party of Britain, Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) and the Socialist Labour Party, and another meeting is planned for March.

Campaigning in Lewisham against war

by New Worker correspondent

Members of Lewisham Stop the War braved the intense cold weather last Saturday to hand out leaflets and information opposing Western intervention in Iran or Syria.

Bloody Sunday book launch

Julieann Campbell speaking

by New Worker correspondent

A new book recounting the remarkable story of the campaign fought by the Bloody Sunday families has been published by Dublin-based Liberties Press, marking the 40th anniversary of the massacre. Setting the Truth Free: The Inside Story of the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign was launched in London last Friday at the Bookmarks Bookshop in Bloomsbury by the author, Julieann Campbell, and leading Human Rights lawyer Gareth Peirce. Campbell’s uncle was among the Bloody Sunday victims, and she now works for the Bloody Sunday Trust which runs the highly successful Museum of Free Derry. The speakers highlighted the fact that the campaign for justice for the 1971 Ballymurphy massacre in Belfast, in which 11 unarmed civilians were murdered by the Parachute Regiment, still continues. Unlike Bloody Sunday, there was no international media presence, and as a result no photos or film of the killings.

Setting the Truth Free is published by the Irish Liberties Press and it is available from most high street bookshops or directly from the publisher at €13.99.

International law and justice

By New Worker Correspondent

CAN THERE be true international justice when different countries and systems have such different values and concepts of justice?

 This was the theme of an enlightening debate among senior international lawyers and scholars last Friday evening at the Brunei Gallery lecture theatre at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas).

 The debate, entitled “International justice: between impunity and show trials” was chaired by Dr Stephen Hopgood of Soas.

 The main speaker was Stephen Kay QC – the man who had been appointed by the Court at The Hague to defend Slobodan Milosevic, much against Milosevic’s will because he had wanted to defend himself.

 Kay had stepped in at short notice to replace the controversial lawyer Jacques Vergès, who defended Khmer Rouge leaders and Nazi war criminals, as he could not attend because of bronchitis.

 The debate was opened by Finnish lawyer Martti Koskenniemi, international lawyer and a former Finnish diplomat. Currently he is professor of International Law in the University of Helsinki and Director of the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights. He is well known for his critical approach to international law.

 “Every trial is a political trial and a show trial,” he began, “which represents the power hierarchy and set of values of the country.”

 He argued that every trial is a connivance of all parties to agree with and support the ethics of the court.

 Then he went on to speak on the role of the show trial – where everyone knows the outcome before it begins and the purpose of the trial is a political statement. Being the defendant in a show trial does not automatically make them either innocent or guilty but the procedure in the court has little to do with this. And usually far more evidence is brought than necessary in order to lengthen proceedings and keep it in the headlines.

 Stephen Kay agreed with this up to a point. He stressed that the trial of Milosevic had definitely been a show trial to divert world attention from the very illegal Nato bombing of Belgrade – which has never been challenged in any court.

 Milosevic had been aware of this and from his point of view it was hopeless to try to win so instead he tried to do what he could to challenge the legal validity of his accusers.

 Kay also spoke at length on the continual shifting of the definitions of human rights, crimes against humanity in international law – which began at Nuremburg and were controversial at the time – but have shifted with the political winds ever since.

 The question of sovereignty was another thorny issue and international law has now shifted to allow Nato to make military interventions in other countries “to protect civilians” – a pretext that can give them almost carte blanche.

 Other speakers included Polina Levina and Robert Murtfeld and there was a good debate that included many lawyers and law students in the well-filled lecture theatre. There was no concluding statement but the general view seemed that international law was seriously flawed but better than nothing and that it should improve with time.

 It raised many serious points about the power of vested political interests to determine the meaning of justice but did not involve the dialectics of the class struggle.

Wheelchair protesters block Oxford Circus

 DISABLED campaigners in wheelchairs last Saturday blocked Oxford Circus – one of central London’s busiest junctions – for two hours to protest at Con-Dem Coalition cuts to welfare and disability benefits.

 The group Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) was backed by the activist group UK Uncut, which aims to pressure wealthy businesses into paying their fair share of taxes. The UK Uncut activists met at Holborn Tube – closely monitored by police, and set off for a roundabout trip on the underground, followed by the police.

 This gave the wheelchair users the opportunity to get to Oxford Circus and block it across the northern end of Regent Street with a line of wheelchairs chained together and chained to railings at either end before the police could stop them.

 Within about 20 minutes, with traffic stationary and congestion spilling over into other streets, around 300 people were standing at the junction, chanting, playing drums and waving placards against the welfare reform bill, which was last week given a mauling in the House of Lords where even Tory peers could not stomach some of the savage cuts to the most vulnerable people in the country.

 This week the Bill goes back to the House of Commons where Prime Minister David Cameron said he would undo all the amendments the Lords had made.

 After the road had been blocked for just over an hour, police asked over a loudhailer that the protesters move, which they refused to do. Eventually, at around 2pm, they unchained themselves and left voluntarily.

 Planned cuts to the Disability Living Allowance under the bill could see 500,000 disabled people losing money, according to the charity Mencap.

 Many of the disabled people taking part said they had never before joined a demonstration but felt angry at both the proposed cuts and the associated rhetoric from both ministers and the media.

 "The tabloids have created this idea that we're scroungers or fakers," said Steven Sumpter, a 33-year-old who travelled from Evesham, Worcestershire, starting at 6.30am to join the line of chained-up wheelchair users. "This has allowed the Government to do this – I think disabled people are seen as a good scapegoat."

 Merry Cross, from Reading, Berkshire, said disabled people needed to work together to get their voices heard. She said: "We're seen as quite an easy target. We're not a natural community – we don't necessarily live in the same places, and we can find it hard to get together. That makes it easy for the Government to think they can target us."

 Changes to the disability living allowance were likely mean her losing care assistance at home, Cross said, adding: "I've had it continuously for 20 years and now, when I'm 61, apparently I can cope fine without it. It doesn't make any sense."

Speaking out about the Holocaust

Daphne Liddle lays flowers for the NCP

By New Worker correspondent

THE SMALL cinema at the Imperial War Museum was packed – standing room only – with a strange mixture of Second World War veterans, schoolchildren, representatives of the embassies of the former Soviet republics and local campaigners – along with an MP and various local Town Hall dignitaries.

 They had all come together to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, themed around the message: “Speak up, Speak Out” about racism, fascism, discrimination and injustice to prevent such horrors happening again.

 After a short film and a dramatic presentation of the famous poem by Pastor Neimoller “First they came…” by pupils from Notre Dame RC Girls’ Secondary School, situated opposite the museum, Vera Schaufeld gave a vivid account of her experiences as a child of the “kinder transport” that brought threatened Jewish children to Britain.

 She spoke of her sadness and confusion at being put on a train by her parents with hundreds of other children and of the hundreds of parents waving goodbye to their children. None of them realized at the time it would be the last time they saw each other.

 Vera said she was lucky in Britain to be taken in by a good, kind, Christian family who, after hearing the news of Kristalnacht, had taken part in forming committees to pressure the British government to move to rescue Jews from Europe who were threatened by the Nazis.

 They saved some of the children but they could not save their parents. And when war between Britain and Germany broke out the kinder transports stopped. The last train was stopped in the station and the hundreds of children on board had to disembark. Not one of them survived the war.

 On the theme of Speak up, Speak Out, Vera stressed the importance of those ordinary people who had been moved, formed committees and campaigned.

 In her later life as a teacher of English as a second language, Vera sought out work among the refugee children of the Ugandan Asians who came to Britain in the 1960s and subsequently many other refugee children.

 After she had spoken Rabbi Dr Moshe Freedman gave the memorial address and lead prayers.

 Then the company moved to the grounds of the Museum, where wreaths were laid at the Holocaust Memorial Tree and at the Soviet War Memorial.

 Among those laying wreaths were veteran organisations including the Arctic Convoy Club, representatives of the embassies of the former Soviet Republics, the local Mayor Lorraine Lauder MBE, Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes, former Labour MP Bob Wareing, members of the Moscow Second Guards Rifle Red Army re-enactment group, the Marx Memorial Library and the New Communist Party.

No to Nato intervention in Syria and Iran

John McDonnell MP and LRC chair speaking

By New Worker Correspondent

SEVERAL hundred peace campaigners, including many Syrians and Iranians, gathered outside the American embassy in Grosvenor Square last Saturday to protest at the preparations for new Nato aggression against Syria and Iran.

 The rally was organised by the Stop the War Coalition (StWC) and supported by many organisations, including a large delegation from the Occupy London protest.

 Speakers included Tony Benn, John Rees, national officer of StWC, Labour MP John McDonnell, CND chair Kate Hudson, Iranian activist Shirin Shafaie, actor Roger Lloyd Pack, Lyndsey German of StWC and many others. The event was chaired by Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn.

 Protesters carried banners saying: "Don't attack Iran" and "Hands off Iran and Syria", while the crowd joined together in chanting: "One, two, three, four, we don't want another war. Five, six, seven, eight, stop the killing, stop the hate."

 All condemned the double standards of Nato and the western imperialists, whose motive was to control the oil resources of the Middle East and warned that the horrors that have been unleashed on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya must not be allowed to happen in Syria and Iran.

Health unions rally to save NHS

HEALTH service unions are organising a mass rally in central London involving patients and workers from all fields within the NHS to lobby the House of Lords as the Health and Social care Bill reaches its final crucial parliamentary stages.

 On Wednesday 7th March the giant union Unite, with 100,000 members in the health service, is holding the lobby of MPs and peers in the Houses of Parliament on the afternoon of 7th March, with the message that the Bill’s proposals are ‘untried and untested’ and will have a negative impact on patients’ welfare.

 Then in the evening of the same day – under the banner of the joint-union campaign All Together for the NHS campaign – nurses, midwives, doctors, physiotherapists, managers, paramedics, radiographers, cleaners, porters and other employees from across the health service will join with patients to fill Central Hall Westminster for a 6pm “Save our NHS” rally.

 The Bill is hugely unpopular with NHS employees and patients, who have major concerns over the effect the draft legislation will have on healthcare by pushing through competition and markets on to the NHS, and allowing the private sector to take over delivering NHS services.

 The All Together for the NHS campaign has called the rally over concerns that an NHS with a future based on competition will fragment the health service, worsen the care available to patients, and mean continued uncertainty for NHS employees, with the quality of training and their terms and conditions likely to suffer.

 The pressure on the Secretary of State, Andrew Lansley, has been growing in recent weeks with more professional bodies joining the calls to amend significantly or withdraw the Bill completely.

 The March rally is intended to add to that pressure by demonstrating the broad coalition of opposition to Bill.

 TUC deputy general secretary Frances O'Grady said: “Some changes have been made to the Bill but not nearly enough. Only this week we have seen a private company taking over an NHS hospital for the first time, as Circle moves in to the Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire. This will be the future the NHS has to look forward to if the Bill stays in its current form.

 “Peers must listen to the concerns of the people that know the NHS best – the staff who work in it. Health workers fear the increased competition and the extension of markets will have a devastating impact on patient care, especially poorer people who will find themselves pushed to the back of ever-growing waiting lists.

 “But it's not too late for peers to make a difference and we hope our rally in early March will provide the opportunity for NHS workers and patients to send a loud message across Parliament Square to convince the House of Lords that this Bill would be a disaster for the NHS.”

 The lobby comes in the same week that the High Court will be hearing the Labour Party’s case that the risk register – what the NHS “reforms” will actually mean on the frontline in England – should be made public by health secretary Andrew Lansley.

 Unite has accused Lansley “hiding” the risk register from public scrutiny because he fears that it will reveal how the Bill’s proposals will adversely affect patient care and is frightened of the public’s reaction.

 Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said: “The Coalition’s Bill will destroy the NHS.  It will place it in the hands of business and put profit before patient care.  Those who can pay will go to the top of the queue. The poor will get what is left.  And at a time of severe austerity, it saddles the NHS with a reorganisation bill of £4 billion.”

 He added: “Health secretary Andrew Lansley is an isolated figure who has, uniquely, managed to unite the health professionals and experts in opposition to the demolition of the NHS in favour of private companies. The Bill should be scrapped immediately.

 “Our NHS is our greatest national achievement. Only it ensures that access to health care is based on need, not wealth.  It has cared for generations of working people, improving their health and their life chances. And it places fairness at the heart of our society. But this is all in desperate danger.”

 The Bill is currently making its way through the House of Lords, expected to return to the House of Commons during the Easter period for final consideration. That means in a matter of weeks this will be law.

 For more information about the lobby and attending on the day, go to www.unitetheunion.org/unite4ournhs

Which way forward for the labour movement?

By New Worker

Correspondent

NEW COMMUNIST Party comrades joined a debate on the way forward for the labour movement at a conference in south London last Saturday organised by the RCPB (ML).  NCP leader Andy Brooks together with National Chair Alex Kempshall, Robert Laurie and Theo Russell from the Central Committee took part in the discussion that was kicked off by Michael Chant at the John Buckle Centre last Saturday.

 Comrades focused on what next after the success of the huge public sector strike in November, the struggle for peace and the building of the working class agenda throughout the country.

 The initiative of the RCPB (ML) follows the conclusions of their national consultative conference last November to develop the necessary organisation to resist the current bourgeois offensive against the working class.