EDL thugs attack pensioners in Lewisham

By New Worker correspondent

A GROUP of thugs whose faces have been seen on many marches organised by the Islamophobic English Defence League last Saturday violently assaulted members of the Socialist Workers’ Party and other activists in Lewisham.

 Earlier that morning the same group had attacked a press photographer who recognised them from the “March for England” event in Brighton the previous Sunday.

 They recognised him and five of them followed him to a bus stop, punched him twice in the face and then ran away. He immediately reported the assault to the police in the hope of alerting them to the presence of dangerous EDL thugs in the area.

 Alas the warning fell on deaf ears and there was no quick police response when the fascist thugs attacked the regular SWP stall that has been a feature of Lewisham High Street for three decades – even though the stall is just across the road from the very large Lewisham Police Station.

 The thugs accused the SWP group of being from Unite Against Fascism and “throwing bottles in Brighton” the previous Sunday.

 They were referring to the enormous turnout of local Brighton anti-fascists in protest at the EDL/March for England trying to march through their town, which succeeded in twice stopping the fascist march.

 But the only bottle throwers in Brighton on Sunday 22nd April were the EDL themselves and a few drunken anarchists, not the UAF.

 The thugs were under the impression that the thousands of anti-fascists who came out in Brighton were all UAF and that they had all come from outside, as they themselves had.

 In fact the anti-fascists in Brighton were almost all local. And since the event had not been reported in any national media – not even the Morning Star – most people in Lewisham, including those around the SWP stall, had no idea what the EDL thugs were talking about.

 The EDL came to Lewisham intending to wreak some sort of violent revenge for their humiliation in Brighton against the UAF.

 They expected a UAF election campaign bus to begin its journey through south London – urging people to vote against British National Party and other fascist candidates in the coming mayoral and GLA elections – from Lewisham clock tower that morning, as advertised on the UAF website. But the UAF campaign bus was delayed due to mechanical problems.

 The EDL hung around the clock tower for an hour, taking photographs and staring menacingly at shoppers and activists and then decided to attack the SWP stall.

 Shortly after 12 noon they passed the stall en masse at which point an altercation began, with shouts and heckling from the racist group.

 In response to Islamophobic statements an SWP pensioner approached them and received a vicious head-butt as an answer, throwing him to the ground. Another pensioner intervened and was quickly surrounded, man-handled and flung to the floor, receiving a knock to the head. Both had to receive medical treatment for their injuries.

 Sabby Dhalu, Unite Against Fascism Joint Secretary said: “This vicious, cowardly attack by fascists on anti-racist pensioners, illustrates why we must all campaign against fascism. The police must take action and immediately arrest and charge the perpetrators of this vile attack.

 “We urge every one to use their vote on Thursday 3rd May and stop fascist and racist groups like the British National Party, English Democrats and National Front from getting elected; and join the peaceful demonstration against the English Defence League organised by We Are Luton and Unite Against Fascism."

 Jarman Parmar, who chairs Lewisham Anti-Racist Action Group said: "The actions of these racist attackers is shocking and strengthens our resolve to unite everyone who opposes this kind of behaviour and ideas which have no place in our society. Those who have the vote should make it count by voting against the British National Party and help stop the far right on 3rd May. We all want to create and live in a society where there is no hate and no fear on racial and ethnic grounds.”

 Gerry Gable, editor of Searchlight anti-fascist magazine, told the New Worker that anti-fascist and other left activists should take note that there is a real threat of attack by fascist thugs like this and they should take sensible precautions. He added that dedicated activists would not be deterred by this; they would be more motivated to come out and oppose the fascists after cowardly attacks like this.

Greenwich librarians on strike

AROUND 100 members of the giant union Unite working across 13 Greenwich libraries last week began five days’ industrial action over privatisation of their workplaces.

 Greenwich Council proposes to privatise library services by transferring it out to Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL), where staff are already on poorer pay and conditions and do not receive the London Living Wage of £8.30-an-hour.

 GLL has said it intends to “harmonise” terms and conditions in the near future, which has led the union members to believe it will lead to race to the bottom – harmonising to the poorer conditions.

 By setting up stalls outside libraries, Unite recently conducted a public consultation exercise and asked the public to vote on whether they wanted the service transferred out. This got overwhelming support and resulted in over 1,600 signed postcards returned saying no to the transfer.

 Unite regional officer Onay Kasab said: “We have the full support of the public on this campaign as GLL has no experience running libraries. Despite promising to do so, the council has failed to carry out its own survey. We believe this was due to the huge opposition the council knows exists regarding the transfer.

 “During Unite’s public consultation, many fears were voiced by the public and library users. Not only do many believe that services will suffer, there are also great fears that GLL will close the smaller libraries and that the mobile library service will be scrapped – a service essential to those unable to travel.

 “Disgust was also expressed at the introduction of charges for services such as use of computers – a service thousands of people on lower incomes have come to rely on.”

'Social cleansing' in London

THE LONDON Borough of Newham last week approached Brighter Futures, a social housing association in Stoke-on-Trent, to house 500 homeless families because Government caps on housing benefit now make it impossible to house the families within the east London borough.

 Private rents in the Labour-controlled borough have soared over the last few years, exacerbated by the impending Olympics to be held mainly in Newham.

 The Government has responded by accusing Newham Council of frightening vulnerable residents.

 And Brighter Futures has rejected Newham’s proposal on the grounds that moving large numbers of families around the country would cause serious problems in providing vital social, health education and other services to support them.

 Newham Council is being accused of social cleansing but shadow housing minister Jack Dromey has told LBC, a London local radio service, that the authority has no choice.

 He said: “If the council in London is faced with a collapse in affordable house building, soaring rents in the private rental sector and the benefit changes that the Government has introduced, you put councils like Newham – which is a good council – in an impossible situation.

 “It’s Grant Shapps and the government who are responsible for this absolute scandal.

 “We warned that it would happen and it’s now happening on a grand scale.

 “These are decent families who are homeless through no fault of their own, who are desperate to find accommodation in London, but they are forced to move hundreds of miles.”

 Tory-controlled Westminster council is also understood to be considering a similar proposal.

 As part of its welfare reforms, the Government has introduced weekly caps on housing benefit of between £250 for a one-bedroom flat and £400 for a four-bedroom property.

 Local Housing Allowance, which is used to determine housing benefit payments, has also been changed so it is being calculated on the basis of cheaper rents – rather than on the mid-point of rents in an area.

 The cap on housing benefit has drastically reduced the number of private sector rental properties that are now affordable to the low paid and those on benefits.

 According to the Chartered Institute of Housing research, in a report issued in January this year, the top five areas of affordable property loss are:

      1. Westminster 20,700

      2. Birmingham 14,200

      3. Kensington and Chelsea 14,100

      4. Glasgow City 10,120

      5. Camden 10,000

      Total: England, Scotland, Wales 800,000

 Newham Council is offering to pay Brighter Futures 90 per cent of the local housing allowance plus £60 per week.

 But Brighter Futures chief executive officer Gill Brown says she will not agree to the request: "I think there is a real issue of social cleansing going on.

 "We are very anxious about this letter which we believe signals the start of a movement which could see thousands of needy people dumped in Stoke with no proper plan for their support or their welfare."

 She said previous efforts to relocate needy people had put strain on local public services and led to "the collapse of already vulnerable neighbourhoods and the rise of divisive right-wing extremism".

 Newham's mayor, Sir Robin Wales, blamed Government policies which had left his borough "chasing around the country trying to find ways to deal with people who are in need".

 He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We have got a waiting list of 32,000 – we've got hundreds of people looking for places to stay and the result of Government benefit cuts, which are still working through as well, means that many more people from wealthier parts of London are looking for places to live in London and they're just not there.

 "We have written to 1,179 organisations [housing associations] saying could you accommodate some people? We're not looking to push people all to one place; we're looking to find the best possible solution for citizens."

 Meanwhile, Westminster is said to be considering an offer from Smart Housing Group - a private association with homes in Nottingham and Derby – in conjunction with its partner councils Chelsea and Hammersmith, and Fulham.

 It has suggested it could provide properties for Westminster residents deemed "homeless" as a result of the cap – and if accepted, each of the three London councils would send 50 families.

 If the Government really wanted to cut the housing benefit bill it would cap rents, not benefits. The benefits end up in the pockets of greedy landlords, who are the true social parasites

London mayor candidates give no platform to BNP

KEN LIVINGSTONE, Labour’s candidate in the coming London mayoral elections, and Green Party candidate Jenny Jones, last week withdrew from a BBC London mayoral debate because the British National Party candidate was to be taking part.

 And spokesperson for Tory Boris Johnson said he had never confirmed his involvement, but would also "not share a stage" with the BNP.

 Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick has withdrawn too, but a spokesperson said it was not a result of the BNP's participation.

 The BBC said it was committed to giving the BNP "proportionate coverage".

  Announcing his withdrawal, Livingstone said: "The far right want to destroy our democracy and stand for the elimination of our basic rights. They cannot be treated as a legitimate part of politics.

 "We have been in negotiation about a debate with the main candidates for BBC London 94.9 – but only now have we been informed that the BNP had been invited to take part in this debate. 

 "I will not share a platform with the BNP and it is a point of principle to me that I never will do."

 A Green Party spokesperson also said Jones "would not share a platform or a debate" with the BNP's candidate Carlos Cortiglia.

Tower Hamlets strippers speak up and organise!

By New Worker correspondent

A PUBLIC debate on double standards adopted in respect of sex industry workers last week was organised in Tower Hamlets by the GMB  London Entertainment branch and the Equity Thames Variety branch.

 The meeting was supported by Sertuc LGBT network and chaired by Linda Keitz from GLATUC and member of the Sertuc women’s rights committee.

 Labour MP John McDonnell was invited to speak and expressed solidarity with the workers. He highlighted the double standard and the double morality between the pressure to close the adult venues because of nudity and all the companies who make immoral profit over people’s health and safety.

 He pointed out how the Olympics are used to cleanse East London of sex establishments while no word is said against the immoral practices of multinational companies who are using the Olympics to expand their profit and exploit workers.

 Edie Lamort from Equity talked about her experience working in office jobs before becoming a dancer and the contradiction she sees in having to justify herself as a stripper while she was suffering worse exploitation as an office worker but nobody cared for her at that time about her working conditions.

 She explained that her job allowed her to study and support herself while expressing herself in an artistic way as a performer.

 Vera Rodriguez from GMB said: “Nobody should tell us how to make a living. We want to save our job. It’s a real job that brings us an income in a time of recession.”

 She added: “We’re part of the community. We need to be united to improve our working conditions and stop having to justify ourselves. I’m not here for pity or compassion. I’m here to demand rights as a worker.”

 Clare Roderick talked about the different jobs she did and the different clubs she worked in Tower Hamlets and Hackney.

 She opposed the fees and the commission the workers have to pay to work and expressed the need for communities to co-exist with each other.

 Montana, a dancer in Tower Hamlets, opposed the concept of objectification, explaining that while working “this is the time when I decide to be beautiful and sexy”.

 She argued that most violence against women happens in marriage but that nobody tries to ban marriage like strip clubs.

 She questioned also how religions can be perceived as offensive to women and again nobody tries to ban freedom of religion.

 She opposed the ban on strip clubs saying: “The ban will force us to work in unsafe environment”. She added: “What is the difference if I use my body working as an actress in a theatre, on stage or in a strip club? In capitalism we all have to work and sell ourselves. I want to fight capitalism for all work, but meanwhile I need to work.”

 Keith Henderson, GMB organiser, said that he was very proud to organise sex workers and that GMB is ready to make a legal challenge in Parliament to change the law.

 Many interventions came from the audience about how to improve the working conditions, and what type of actions and organising could take place to oppose the ban and improve workers’ lives.

 The public talk appeared as a good start to better organise in the borough to oppose the prohibitionist measures. Many workers left their contact to the trade union organisers who promised to have a new meeting soon to decide the next actions and strategy.

 Overall, it was a successful event, well attended, with the hope and energy to change things for the better.

Support the Kurdish hunger strikers!

 by New Worker correspondent

MEMBERS of London’s Kurdish community and their supporters held a protest picket in the heart of the capital last week to show their support for Kurdish political prisoners on hunger strike in Turkey. Kurdish campaigners also took their message to the headquarters of Amnesty International that week to call on Amnesty to speak out against the grave human rights violations suffered by Kurds in Turkey.

On 15^th February around 400 political prisoners in Turkey began an indefinite hunger strike to demand justice for jailed Kurdish Workers’ Party leader Abdullah Ocalan and to raise awareness of the continued persecution of the Kurds in Turkey. Within weeks, solidarity actions were taking place across prisons in Turkey and in Europe, with 15 Kurds from across Europe gathering in Strasbourg on hunger strike in solidarity with their compatriots in Turkey while the number joining the protest in Turkish prisoners has now topped 1,500.

The strikers’ demands are clear. Ocalan has now been isolated from the outside world, with no visit, letters or phone calls, since July 2011 – a total of 260 days. The Committee for the Prevention of Torture in Europe has both the authority and the responsibility to ensure that he is not being subjected to inhumane or degrading treatment on the prison island of Imrali, where he has been held since 1999.

 For his removal from isolation and for renewed dialogue for a negotiated settlement to the Kurdish conflict, these striking prisoners, politicians and solidarity activists are willing to put their own health on the line, but they need support.

Kim Il Sung: A life to remember

Myongsin Mun addresses the meeting

By New Worker Correspondent

FRIENDS of Korea met at London’s historic Marx House last Saturday to celebrate the centenary of the birth of great leader Kim Il Sung with a panel of speakers who have all visited Democratic Korea over the years.

 Kim Il Sung founded the communist movement that liberated the country from Japanese colonialism, defeated the might of US-led imperialism in the Korean War and led the drive to build the modern, socialist republic that exists today in the north of the divided peninsula.

Kim Il Sung advanced and developed Marxist philosophy throughout his long and active life – a theme taken up by the panel, which included Michael Chant of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), Dr Hugh Goodacre, John McCleod of the Socialist Labour Party, Dermot Hudson from the UK Korean Friendship Association and Myongsin Mun from the embassy of the DPR Korea in London.

Working people will be marking the centenary with celebrations throughout Korea and across the world said Friends of Korea chair Andy Brooks, welcoming the cultural programme that followed, which included a short film from Democratic Korea and Korean music. Hugh Goodacre and Myongsin Mun both gave rousing renditions of the Song of General Kim Il Sung while the young daughter of a DPRK diplomat delivered a piano rendition of the classic song written just after liberation in 1946.

Others performed more modern Korean pieces finally ending with a spirited rendition of James Connolly’s We only want the Earth led by contemporary composer Hugh Shrapnel.

 The Friends of Korea committee consists of the New Communist Party of Britain, Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (ML), Socialist Labour Party, European Regional Society for the Study of the Juché Idea and the UK Korean Friendship Association. The committee organises friendship meetings throughout the year in London, which are publicised by the supporting movements and on the Friends of Korea blog.

DON'T INVADE IRAN!!

By New Worker correspondent

PEACE activists all around Britain and the world rallied in London on Saturday 24th March – New Year’s Day in Iran - to raise awareness of the dangers of a Nato attack on Iran – an action that is now definitely on the imperialist agenda.

 In central London members and supporters of Stop the War gathered in front of the National Gallery, overlooking Trafalgar Square, for speeches, music, poetry and a symbolic “die-in” to protest against Nato’s plans to bring death and destruction to the people of Iran as they did to Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

 The campaign raised the issue of the role of the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear watchdog since the appointment of Yukiya Amano to director general of the IAEA in July 2009.

 Wikileaks has revealed that the IAEA director general sees himself as "solidly in the US court on every key strategic decision", including Iran's alleged nuclear weapons programme.

 Yukio Amano, a veteran Japanese diplomat, has been accused by several former senior officials of pro-western bias, over-reliance on unverified intelligence and of sidelining sceptics.

 Since then, the West's confrontation with Iran over its nuclear programme has deepened and threats of military action by Israel and the US have become more frequent.

 At the same time, the IAEA's reports on Iranian behaviour have become steadily more critical.

 In November, it published an unprecedented volume of intelligence pointing towards past Iranian work on developing a nuclear weapon, deeming it credible.

 But some former IAEA officials are saying that the agency has gone too far. Robert Kelley, a former US weapons scientist who ran the IAEA action team on Iraq at the time of the US-led invasion, said there were worrying parallels between the West's mistakes over Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction then and the IAEA's assessment of Iran now.

 "Amano is falling into the Cheney trap. What we learned back in 2002 and 2003, when we were in the run-up to the war, was that peer review was very important, and that the analysis should not be left to a small group of people," Kelley said.

 "So what have we learned since then? Absolutely nothing. Just like [former US vice-president] Dick Cheney, Amano is relying on a very small group of people and those opinions are not being checked."

 Don’t Attack Iraq day events were staged in Bristol, Birmingham, Llandudno, Newcastle, Oxford, Shoreditch, Wandsworth and Peterborough.

 One of the speakers at the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) conference in the United States on 24th March 2012 was Leila Zand, Programme Director, Middle East & Civilian Diplomacy, Fellowship Of Reconciliation. She said that rather than sharing her own views on the dangers of a war on Iran, she had asked friends in Iran what they would say. She read the following message that they sent her:

 “….Dear fellow American peace lovers, please deliver our message to your politicians.  We are not just a piece of land.  We are not oil.  We are not nuclear sites.  We are not evil. We are women, men, children.  We are people with dreams, jobs, families, with a baggage of 5000 years of experience.

 “When we talk about war we know what we are talking about. We have heard the shrieks of missiles. We have smelled the gunpowder.  We have run for shelters.  We have seen pieces of a human body in top of our trees and on our roof tops. We have lost loved ones. We know what war means. War was behind our windows.

 “We experienced war in our back yard. For my generation, killing, bombs, missiles, chemical weapons and terrorism is not just in Hollywood; is not a computer game; it is real. And that is why we don’t want evil to knock on our door again. We don’t want war.”

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.