STOP IMPERIALIST STATE TERROR

Why we need to stop the Terrorism Suppression Bill

The Terrorism Suppression Bill is now before the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. It is a Bill designed to make the NZ state conform to the US policy against Terrorism rammed through the UN Security Council in the days following the September 11 atrocities. While we condemn these acts of terrorism as anti-worker, we see the ‘war against terrorism’ that the US then declared to be infinitely worse. The US ruling class has given itself a blank cheque to go to war against any state, group or individual its own intelligence services (CIA) designate as terrorists.

The US interpreted Article 51 of the UN Charter which allows states to defend themselves if attacked justify its ‘war against terrorism’. It then ignored the requirement to bring this war under the authority of the Security Council. Effectively it rendered the Security Council a rubber stamp for US policy. In the process it has bullied its rival big powers Britain, the EU and Japan, and its traditional allies including Britain, Australia and NZ to accept this justification and to join in this war. It has bribed and corrupted weak powers formally hostile to it, Russia, China, India and Pakistan to back the war. No state, apart from Cuba and Iraq has condemned the ‘war on terrorism’ as an act of state terrorism itself. Even Libya went along with it because it could be directed at Ghaddafi’s internal rivals.

At one stroke the US made public its contempt for any multilateral action in which the UN would represent the ‘international community’. It showed that the US had bought the UN lock stock and barrel and with it the loyalty of vast majority of states. The US has also it has also gone to war against terrorism at home. Immediately after September 11 the US the Security Council passed two resolutions UN 1368 and UN 1371 requiring its member states under Article 4 to 'criminalise the financing of terrorism' i.e. freeze the financial assets of persons thought to be 'terrorists', to stop the financing, joining or supporting of terrorist groups. It required its member states to ‘report’ on measures taken within 90 days?

In a rapid response the NZ Labour/Alliance Coalition introduced legislation to amend the Terrorism (Bombings and Financing) Bill before the house. These amendments were secret until Green Party MP Keith Locke exposed their existence.

Goff’s secret amendments

The amendments to the renamed Terrorism (Bombings and Financing) Bill are now available to the public only after an outcry over plans to keep these amendments secret from public scrutiny! Goff intended to show these amendments to 9 groups including Civil liberties, CTU, Bankers’ Association, only as a check to see if they had any problems with the legislation? They could look the amendments over and submit suggestions but not disclose their content without breaching parliamentary privilege! He wanted the lawyers to OK the suspension of lawyer-client privilege. He wanted the Bankers and Accountants to agree to act as the state’s agents in seizing the financial assets of suspected terrorists. He wanted the Civil Liberties groups to give their blessing to some limitations on civil rights justified by the ‘seriousness’ of the September 11 attacks.

What he got instead from the CTU and Council for Civil liberties was a refusal to participate in this Star Chamber exercise. He also got a blast from Green MPs and Alliance Ministers in Cabinet. Goff agreed to back down and make the amendments public for written submissions until the end of November and for oral submissions until February.

In the Explanatory Note to the Bill, Phil Goff as the Minister in charge tried to excuse the secrecy on the grounds that all the UN required was Regulations that would have been made in secret anyway under the powers of Chapter V11 of the UN Charter to which NZ is bound! Goff now claims that because of the "seriousness" of the 'war against terrorism' and having a convenient Bill to attach them to, the Government would legislate instead.

According to this reasoning we should be thankful for the 'war on terrorism'. Its "seriousness" means that you no longer have your rights secretly regulated away but legislated away. At least you can now register your opposition in public before parliament. Meanwhile Goff has passed the Regulations anyway until they are replaced by the new law.

This is a very bad Bill that gives new powers to the state to interfere in our lives. The pretext is to stop terrorism, but the effect will be to stop legitimate political protest. We have little more than 3 months to stop this Bill becoming law. That could be interesting because preventing a Government from acting in the national interest is one of the criteria of terrorism in the Bill!

US shows how to terrorise

Already the US has shown what the new anti-terrorist legislation looks like. What is called 'homeland security' amounts to a massive attack on the rights of individual citizens. 1000s have been locked up indefinitely after S11. One Congressman John Conyers has said: "Today we stand on the verge of a civil liberties calamity in this country. The Administration and the Attorney General have taken a series of constitutionally dubious actions that place the Executive Branch in the untenable role of legislator, prosecutor, judge and jury."
In other words George Bush and Co is Sheriff, posse, judge and hangman.

Congress passed the anti-Terrorism Bill, dubbed the 'USA Patriot Act' on Oct 26 giving the Attorney General the power to detain and deport any suspects accused of terrorism. Since then new regulations allow the authorities to intercept communications between lawyers and clients, including in jail. After S11 many political prisoners such as Philip Berrigan, serving a term for hammering a warplane, were put in isolation and held incommunicado; in the words of one Prison Guard "you are terrorists and you hate the government". On Nov 9 the US Administration started a policy of ‘racial profiling’ i.e. racist discrimination in the issuing of visas to young men of 'middle eastern' origin. On November 13 a policy to try foreigners suspected of terrorism before military tribunals was announced. Military tribunals do not have to prove ‘guilt beyond reasonable doubt’. Note that this guilt on the part of aliens and anybody who is designated 'terrorist'.

Worst features in the NZ Bill

The amendments to the Terrorism (Bombings and Financing) Bill are to put the above UN resolutions into effect. They mean that individuals can be 'designated' terrorist on the basis of secret information and may never get to face their accusers. The burden of proof is reversed. The presumption of innocence is replaced by the presumption of guilt. Worse, guilt is established at the level of the military tribunal i.e. ‘probably cause’ rather than guilt ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. Worse still, individuals designated terrorists cannot even defend themselves against the evidence because that is likely to remain secret! So the principle that ‘homeland terrorism’ can be dealt with by military tribunals in the US is now to be exported to all the state that sign up to the Security Councils’ resolutions on terrorism!

The presumption of guilt follows clearly from the section of the Bill that states that people can be designated 'terrorists' on the basis of 'good cause'. "The Prime Minister must treat the information as sufficient evidence…unless the contrary is proved" [17K (2)]. This is Catch 22 because you cannot defend yourself against secret charges. How can you prove your innocence when the evidence against you is ‘classified’? However, there is a small problem. It’s no use having these powers unless you have a definition of terrorism that fits the Bill, i.e. includes anti-state subversion of all sorts but excludes the CIA, Mossad, SIS, MI5 type state terrorism. It must not designate the CIA as the no 1 terrorist organisation in the world with a record surpassing 1000 bin Ladens that stretches from the deposing of the Shah of Iran in 1956 (check) to today.

So the definition must exclude ‘state terrorism’ such as wars, economic sanctions, and the genocide that was caused by these e.g. in Iraq and Afghanistan. For such actions are legimitated by the UN or big power politics in defence of the interests of the ruling classes. This lets the national intelligence agencies off the hook because they are held to be protecting the national interests of their respective states. Yet according to the Explanatory Note to the Amendments, UN resolution 1373 "does not define... terrorism". Oops. This might leave the door open to the inclusion of ‘state terrorism’ . So it will be necessary to add a 'new definition' of 'terrorist act' to fit the Bill. This definition is modeled on the UK Terrorism Act 2000 and the Anti-Terrorism Bill currently before the Canadian Parliament. In both cases new legislation is also being rushed through as required by the UN resolutions. What is really clear is that the new wider definition of terrorism that is contained in this new legislation is designed to turn a wide range of political dissent into ‘terrorist acts’ to allow the state to suppress political opposition.

Terrorist act defined Subsection 2

There are three broad criteria of terrorist act defined in Section 5. . First, in Subsection 2 a terrorist act is any intention, for ideological, political or religious reasons, to intimidate a population or force a lawful government to act, or not act, and which causes any or more of death, injury, serious public health and safety risk, destruction, serious damage or disruption to property, the economy or environment, and interference or disruption to infrastructure. (disruption of infrastructure facility).

The other two definitions are first, the various terrorism conventions that are listed in Schedule 3 of the Bill and are 7 Conventions dating from 1970 to 1988 that cover specifically Aircraft, diplomats, hostages, Airports, Ships and oil plafforms., and second, terrorist acts in armed conflict situations where armed force is used to ‘intimidate populations’ and ‘compel governments’ or cause death or injury to civilians. These latter definitions are fairly standard and have been around for some time. What is objectionable is the Section 2 definition rushed in after September 11.

This is an extremely broad definition of terrorist act. It could include Rogernomics where a population was intimidated and where a lawful government was compelled by international finance capital to act in ways that caused death, injury serious destruction of the economy and disruption of the infrastructure. Or it could include the UN sanctions against Iraq or the bombing of Afghanistan that caused all of the above and were designed for political reasons to intimidate and compel lawful governments.

It all depends on who is doing the intimidating and who defines what is lawful. We can be sure that it is the opponents of Rogernomics and the Sanctions and bombings of Iraq and Afghanistan that would be the target of this definition. Opponents of privatised water could be accused of terrorism for reconnecting water supplies and preventing a lawful government from acting to cut off those water supplies.

CIA defines legitimate dissent

In an attempt to head off opposition to the new Subsection 2 definition of ‘terrorist act’ Goff introduced Subsection 4 that exempts lawful and/or peaceful dissent. Exempted are: "(a) any protest, advocacy, or dissent that is lawful, or that is unlawful but peaceful: (b)any strike or lockout:(c)any other act that is authorised or required by law: (d)any act that occurs in a situation or armed conflict and is, at the time an in the place that it occurs, in accordance with the rules of international law applicable to the conflict.

Note how the 'let-out' clause for protest, dissent etc allows it to be unlawful but peaceful. But we know who will define what 'peaceful' is. The police can decide that any protest that results in (does not have to intend) serious damage, death, injury etc as under Subsection 2 cannot be ‘peaceful’. Some of the anti-Sprinkbok Tour protests of 1981 could be defined as ‘terrorist acts’ because the disruption to economy and threat to public health and safety would be defined as a ‘breach of the peace’. Any 'intention' to take an action that could be construed by the police as a breach of the peace becomes potentially 'terrorist'.

Strike and Lockouts are exempted. But only those defined in the Employment Relations Bill. Wildcat strikes, political strikes etc would be unlawful but not ‘terrorist’ unless they were considered ‘breaches of the peace’. Any serious picket line during a legal strike could also become ‘unlawful’ and if resulting in threatened serious economic disruption or damage, deemed ‘terrorist acts’.

Note also that if the cops or military engage in some 'armed conflict' to prevent protests they are covered by (4) (e) and (d). So the use of 'justifiable force' such as that used on Steven Wallace could become standard for ‘suspected terrorists’. Again if you think that this is fanciful look at what is already happening in the 'war against terrorism'. On the basis of the CIA designation of Osama bin Laden as ‘terrorist’ Afghan kids become 'collateral damage'. Helen Clark is on record as saying that civilian casualties are 'inevitable' in this war. How many civilian casualties are OK in the 'war against terrorism' at home?

Intending, planning, preparing and carrying out terrorist acts
Section 17F says (1) For the purposes of this Act, a terrorist act is carried out if 1 or more of the following occurs: (a) any planning or other preparations to carry out the act, whether it is carried out or not: (b) a threat to carry out the act, whether it is actually carried out or not: (c) any attempt to carry out the act: (d) the carrying out of the act.

These provisions are to be used to massively increase the level of surveillance over ordinary citizens. How is it possible to spy on those planning or preparing for an ‘act’ of terrorism, unless surveillance techniques are used. When the Prime Minister gets into you 'mind' courtesy of the CIA or Echelon (which intercepts emails) of as beefed up SIS and NZ Police who will be able to intercept phone calls on a normal basis, she can then 'designate' persons or groups as terrorists on the basis of this secret or classified security information. In the US millions have been spent to upgrade telephone tapping and other snooping. In NZ we can expect a boost to spending on the SIS. This means more 'spying' to gain advance information about terrorists 'plans' and an integration of spying among all of the 'allies' in the war against terrorism.

Secret informants can accuse you

17L Classified security information defined: "In this Act, classified security information means information -

(a)about the threat to security, public order, or public interest posed by terrorist acts that an identifiable entity will or may carry out, or participate in the carrying out of, or facilitate the carrying out of; and (b)held by a specified agency (as defined in section 4: ie (a) an intelligence and security agency as defined in section (2)1 of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1996; or (b) the New Zealand Police) and (c) that, in the opinion of the head of the specified agency, cannot be divulged in the entity in question or to other persons, because - (i)the information is information of a kind specified in subsection (2): and (ii) disclosure of the information would be disclosure of a kind specified in subsection (3)

In other words, you can be accused of being a terrorist on the basis of secret information provided by any secret service approved by the UN or by the NZ police on the basis of secret informants, and you can never find out what this information says about you.

There follows a long list of reasons why such information must remain secret such as to protect its source (we might discover that Mossad runs the CIA which runs Helen Clark), operational methods of the agency (so as not to reveal another botched invasion like Iran or Somalia), not to blow cover of future operations (more botched invasions -where? Indonesia?).

The US has its sights set on 50 countries said to harbour terrorists); is secret in another country (eg USA) and they say no! (they would wouldn't they); not to prejudice the security or defence of NZ (this is unlikely to include the Save our Squadrons) or be a breach of trust between NZ and some other country (you did say 500,000 tonnes of lamb); interfere with the ‘fair operation’ of the law (like ‘fair’ trade) and endanger the safety of any person (i.e. a spook or informant).

What if you are 'designated'?

Individuals accused of being terrorists can ask for a 'review' of this designation only with the Prime Minister or Inspector General of Security and Intelligence (a High Court Judge). Normal reviews through the courts involving 'classified' information are not allowed. The Government is even 'sounding out' the legal profession to see if client-lawyer privilege can be waived in this Bill given the 'seriousness' of terrorism. The decision of the Inspector-General can be appealed on matters of law only to the Court of Appeal. That is, was the Judge drunk in charge at the time of the Review. Not was the CIA informant a liar! Talk about Secrets and Lies.

This Bill makes it obvious that NZ is part of the 'Western' war on terrorism that brings that war home to its own shores with new powers and a wider definition of terrorism. Despite the 'let out' for 'legitimate protest' that is 'peaceful', the definition of what is 'peaceful' should it involve 'classified' information about somebody's 'intentions or plans' (eg to blow up a Nuclear plant in Australia which figured in a recent case in Auckland where two Afghans were falsely charged with being terrorists) cannot be decided in open court but goes to the secret tribunal of the Inspector-General of spooks, spies and sundry pie eaters (that's a reference to the famous case of a spy leaving his briefcase at a bus stop containing (the briefcase that is) a 'girly mag' and a 'meat pie'.

How to fight this Bill

Cynicism and a desperate Boondocks black humour is healthy in these times, but we need a hell of a lot more than that to stop this Bill. There needs to be a war on the war on terrorism at home. If workers lose these rights and freedoms it becomes easier for us to be turned into passive victims of the 'new world disorder' and stomped on by the ruling class and its state forces. It is important therefore to know what we are fighting for.

Communists defend bourgeois democracy not for its own sake but only insofar as it allows the working class to organise politically for a revolutionary overthrow of capitalist society. Against the widespread illusion that capitalism can coexist with democracy we have to prove that this is false. That the bosses will only defend democracy while it is their interests. We say that the Terrorism Bill is evidence that the bosses are quite prepared to suspend democracy in order to fight terrorism not because of any aberration or flaw in the system, but because it is necessary to defend their class interests at a time when opposition to the system is becoming a real threat. War is an extension of politics and politics is concentrated economics. So war always has a final economic cause. And imperialist always creates revolutionary and counter-revolutionary possibilities.

Imperialist crisis means world war

Why is this happening? Opposition to capitalist rule is becoming a threat to its survival for one basic reason. The system is experiencing a major economic crisis of falling profits. To revive those profits and allow the system to survive, it is necessary to cheapen the costs of both raw materials and of labour. But this means competition between the major imperialist powers for for raw materials and cheap labour and the inevitability of war.

The usual methods of economic competition rely on the WB, IMF and WTO to force down barriers to trade so that prices fall. These methods are insufficient to overcome the latest downward surge in profits in the world economy. All the imperialist powers need cheap oil and a cheap, reliable and disciplined labour force to revive their profits. Going to ‘war against terrorism’ achieves all of these. The US ruling class has found a way to force its economic rivals, Japan and the EU, to accept its dominance and to go along in the hope that they will get a share of the booty. This avoids unnecessary direct conflict between the big powers. This applies also to the lesser states such as Russia, China, India and Pakistan who get bribed by promises of loans, gifts and other benefits such as membership of the WTO.

It also anticipates and deals with opposition from the masses in all of these countries. They are the ones who bear the cost of these measures. Even US workers will suffer massive attacks on their rights and living standards. And in Latin America and in Asia there is a long record of popular uprisings against imperialist rule. In an age when imperialists do not rule directly, neo-colonies need to be kept under control with puppet regimes kept in place by proxy wars that remove mavericks and install compliant alternative regimes.

Still the oppressed fight back

The US has found a way to police these states in the name of defending democracy and human rights and now in the name of the ‘war against terrorism’. But in doing so it runs the risk of exposing the hypocrisy of propping up or replacing client regimes whose ‘terrorism’ is the direct result of imperialist intervention in the first place.

Already the fact that the US imperialist ruling class is using state terrorism at home and abroad to smash all political opposition that it designates as ‘terrorist’ is now widely recognised as hypocritical. The fact that al Queda and bin Laden as well as the Taliban are the creation of US policy cannot be escaped. The fact that behind the cover of the ‘war on terrorism’ the US and its allies are prepared to bomb Afghanistan shows what the real purpose of the war is – to create a compliant regime that will allow the US oil interests to build a pipeline from the Caspian region to the Indian Ocean.

So it is easy to be cynical about the US ruling class especially with Bush as its figurehead. It is revealing its class interests so clearly that what is called ‘anti-Americanism’ is now the standard position among the 3rd World masses and support for bin Laden is widespread. Respected liberal journalists like Robert Fisk and John Pilger as well as long-standing critics of US imperialism like Edward Said and Noam Chomsky are published in the mainstream media. So if the imperialist ruling class is showing up their class interests why should the masses who are suffering economic exploitation and political repression not seize the opportunity to challenge this rotten system?

Rotten role of Reformists

Exploited and oppressed workers and poor peasants are the vast majority of the world’s population. They would easily overthrow the system that rules them if it were not for the existence of institutionalised mass reformist parties committed to propping up capitalism even as it decomposes. The reformist line is that it is not possible to overthrow capitalism either because the working class is not able to do this (always a convenient excuse because it substitutes the petty bourgeois in this historic role) or because this will lead to a worse system (such as Soviet-type ‘communism’) so therefore it is necessary to reform capitalism. The reformists argue that popular parties can make governments responsive to the interests of the popular masses and rein in the ruling elites. All they need is to inform and mobilise the masses and parliamentary democracy can be made to work in their interests.

They say the Terrorism Bill is an aberration caused by the rogue US state imposing its will on the UN and small democracies like NZ. The solution, they say, is to mobilise direct democracy from below and win over a majority of MP’s to amend the Bill and remove its worst attacks on basic liberties (legitimate dissent; presumption of innocence; due process in courts of law; racial equality etc).

When it comes to the vote, just as all the MP’s voted for war except the Greens, most MP’s will vote for this Bill because they owe their pay to the bosses. The Alliance MP’s voted for the war against the membership of the party to keep their salaries. Most of them even stopped putting 10% of their salaries into paying for party activists! They will endorse the main features of the Terrorism Bill for the same reason; they are the bought men and women of the bourgeoisie.

The Green’s may be opposed to the present Government’s war and the Terrorism Bill. But their role is to divert workers from taking class action today to stop the war and to stop the Bill and to put their faith in a future ‘peoples’ government. Meanwhile millions of Afghans, Iraqis, Somalis and any other unfortunate people targeted by this war will be dead. The Greens don’t even pretend to represent workers. Their supporters are a range of social movements, environmentalist, women’s groups etc. They draw on a mixture of well-off workers, self-employed and ‘socially responsible’ or not-for-profit capitalists. They will always ‘compromise’ around the interests of small, sustainable, businesses. But small businesses are no alternative to capitalist production, and often exploit workers as much or more than big businesses.

For a workers’ state!

Fundamentally, Parliament functions as an institution that hides the class interests of the bosses behind the façade of the rule of the majority of citizens. This is clear to us from the lessons of history. It is also clear today in Bushes own election, the war on terrorism, that the politics of the working class majority will remain dominated by the wealth and power of the ruling class minority until workers are broken from ruling class ideology.

Communists believe that to break workers from this ideology it is necessary to make use of democratic rights both to defend them for as long as possible to allow open political opposition, and to prove to those who have illusions in parliamentary democracy that the Bill is no aberration and that capitalism cannot tolerate democracy when its class interests are under threat. Therefore submissions that condemn the Bill and demand that it be voted down by MPs are necessary to show these MP’s up as anti-democratic.

Those who argue that by mobilising the majority around a clear anti-capitalist program we can take back power and create a truly democratic government over look the fact that that ruling class will not give up without a fight. The Terrorism Suppression Bill is evidence of that we have been put on notice that if we dissent we can be labeled terrorists. We are now in an open class war situation. We have to refuse to sign up to this state terrorist war in Asia or at home. We must go AWOL from the bosses' state terror. We must organise our own class resistance to state terror. We must declare war on ruling class terror.

Class Struggle 42 December 2001/January 2002

NO MAORI SUPPORT FOR US/UN WAR!

Maori War Resistance Betrayed

Six weeks after the Sept 11 attacks in the USA, the NZ Army began a Marae based recruiting drive. According to its promoters, the aim was to tackle the problem of high youth unemployment among Maori. Considering the timing, it is laughable to suggest that such sentiments have been taken seriously. Unfortunately or indeed shamefully the fact remains that some Maori leaders have taken on board, aided by pro-US media hype, the sales pitch delivered by the state and military toward recruiting young Maori. More insulting, is the launching of this campaign in the Waikato, the starting point of the Maori resistance to forced conscription in 1917.

Betrayal and misleadership

At the outbreak of the First Imperialist World War in 1914, it was determined by the N.Z. Government that no organised Maori contingent would take an active combat role because the war was considered a conflict between white men. The prospect of ‘natives’ killing whites was inconceivable, at least for the expedient short term. By 1915 and the beginning of the Gallipoli campaign, soldiers of the 1st Maori Contingent were taking an active role in the slaughter on behalf of British Imperialism.

With the mounting toll numbering in the million for British and Allied troops from Passchendaele, the Somme to the Dardenelles, the urgent need for more cannon fodder was required. ‘Press ganging’ natives for this was instituted by the N.Z. government in 1917. The primary target being the forced conscription of men from the Waikato, since men from most other tribal areas had already volunteered for the first Maori Contingent and Pioneer Battalion.

The immediate response from the Waikato was a resounding rejection of the N.Z. government decision by the Te Ariki Te Puea Herangi, the tribe’s paramount chief and leader of the Kingitanga. By refusing to allow men from the Waikato to partake in the Imperialist’s war, she upheld the staunch belief that to serve the interests of the thieves and confiscators of Waikato land (and hence their economic and spiritual base), would be an insult to the massive sacrifices made by her people during the post ‘Te Tiriti o Waitangi’ colonial land wars of the previous century.

The rounding up and imprisonment with hard labour of hundreds of Waikato men was to be entirely expected, considering there was nothing left to steal. It however could never contain the spirit to resist peacefully, a tradition that had been handed on from early in the 1800’s by the prophet pacifist of ‘Pai Marire’ Te Ua Haumene to Titokowaru, Te Whiti, Tohu and more poignantly for the Waikato, the prophet chief Tawhiao. It was in the spirit of Tawhiao that Te Puea took the stand on behalf of her people.

A little more than thirty years after the last pitched battles were fought in Aotearoa, Maori ‘Kupapa’ leaders such as the four Maori MPs, Apirana Ngata, Eastern Maori; Maui Pomare, Western Maori; Te Rangi Hiroa (Peter Buck), Northern Maori and Taare Parata, Southern Maori, were determined to raise a Maori contingent to be blooded as a part of NZ’s contribution to the British Imperialist War effort. They went so far as to form a 'Native Contingent Committee’, with the help of another Kupapa leader Sir James Carroll under the auspices of the NZ government, to organise Maori cannon fodder for the up coming war.

Meanwhile elsewhere in Aotearoa, there were calls from conscientious objectors such as Archibald Baxter calling on workers not to go to kill for the likes of greedy war-mongers. People who became social pariahs because of the strong stand that they took against the war and the punishment that they suffered.

In Europe a rising revolutionary voice was being heard when Karl Liebknecht, an MP in the German Parliament and leader of the Spartacist League together with Rosa Luxemburg lead a May Day anti-war march consisting of 10,000 workers in Potsdam in 1916 shouting ‘Down with the war’. Their call was for soldiers of opposing sides to stop fighting one another to save their imperialist bosses. Liebknecht was jailed but his and Luxemburg’s days were numbered.

In stark contrast, the highly educated and bankrupt idiotic stand taken by the Maori leaders calling to support the war was nothing short of a shameful bloody disgrace. ‘Sir’ Apirana Ngata’s now infamous 1943 essay on ‘The Price of Citizenship’, will go down as one of the worst pieces of writing in Maori literature. In it he wrote that Maori should go off to fight for the interests of Imperialism in order to earn the ‘right of citizenship’ in Aotearoa, forgetting that the price had already been paid fighting Imperialism at home.

The legacy of colonisation

When N.Z. once again climbed on board the Imperialist war bandwagon in 1991, Tainui leader Bob Mahuta echoed the call from Te Puea by stating that N.Z. should stay out of the conflict and the Maori service personnel should refuse to go. However commendable the stand taken by Bob Mahuta was over the Gulf War, it was completely undone by the time US President Bill Clinton visited NZ for the 1999 APEC conference.

His welcoming to Aotearoa and stepping foot on the "Whenua" (land) of Tainui, was an affront to the anti imperialist stand taken by Te Puea. Clinton had already at that point been indicted on war crimes against humanity by an international body of jurists, legal entities and progressive workers organisations over his continuing war against the people of Iraq. Human Rights and humanitarian organisations had already made extensive catalogues of crimes and atrocities committed by the US and it’s UN lackeys against the people of Iraq, all of which was made publicly available.

In spite of this, calls by so-called Maori leaders, who essentially are ‘brown table’ capitalists and bureaucrats, to welcome the leader with the blood of millions on his hands, was their chance for a bit of prestige and to make more bucks. Insult was added to injury when the US president was welcomed to Turangawaewae Marae in the heart of the Waikato.

The holistic Maori world view, (the recognition of the connection of human relations to environment, past, present and future historical contexts), was put temporarily on hold for this purpose; so as to cloud and blind a people already desensitised by the pro-imperialist and consumerist clap trap being promoted by the U.S. President.

‘Kupapa’ (collaborators etc.), is a term too easily applied to leaders who actively sought favour with people in financial power and positions of authority, because many of the Maori communities that they serve, survive on the barest minimum of resources. Caught between a rock and a hard place, many see no choice beyond the meagre handouts by government, Lotto and so on to sustain a means of independence and identity. A situation forced by capital because it ensures that by complying with its demands co-operation will come at the drop of a hat.

Caught in this web are those who remain and not necessarily the best qualified ‘politically’ to serve their communities. These individuals are charged with conveying policies and forms generally imposed from outside the tribal structures. In order to conform to the ‘norms’ of these outside influences some have embellished themselves beyond their personal financial means by expropriating funds meant for other uses.

Whether innocently or otherwise, this layer of bureaucrats has ended up substituting itself in place of the traditional structures as the voice of ‘Maoridom’. Linked to a bourgeois political support base, many have the task of relating party policies to their home communities. They serve no other purpose than acting as party functionary go-betweens linking bureaucracy to the people.

Maori MP’s Betrayal

This brings us full circle back to the beginning of our story. When the Labour/Alliance Government announced it’s full support for the US lead war against the people of Afghanistan in October in the name of ‘Fighting Terrorism’, the position of Maori MP’s in Parliament and particularly in Government were put on notice. As expected, without exception, all of the conservative right wing members voted in support, together with the ex Airforce mechanic from Tai Tokerau, Labour Party hawk, Dover Samuels.

Alliance member and Mana Motuhake leader Willie Jackson made a lame duck and ambiguous response in October by saying that he was not in favour of a combat role for NZ forces but offered moral support for Maori soldiers serving in the SAS, who were by that stage already committed. Since the SAS largely consists of Maori and it’s ethos is ‘take no prisoners’, it is ludicrous to suggest that Jackson can be taken seriously.

For the rest, the response has been tacit and muted, with the exception of Te Tai Hauauru Government MP Nanaia Mahuta and Waiariki Government MP Mita Ririnui. As a Waikato member of the Kingitanga and relative of Te Puea, Mahuta’s stand or concern was based on the position taken by Te Puea against conscription. However, being unable to voice more serious dissent by crossing the floor on the issue she succumbed to the tight internal ruling of the Labour Party council.

Mita Ririnui’s objections were based on his Ratana religious convictions where he sought to find peaceful means to solve the crisis. By the time of the December 1st Labour Party conference there were no rumblings from either quarter. Anti war protests outside the conference venue could not encourage any further response from the Maori MP’s. They had been silenced. Their intermediary function between government and their people had been performed admirably.

Marae Recruitment

The ‘brown bureaucracy’ was to acquit itself well when on the 26th of October it lead a high powered contingent onto Nga Tai Erua Marae in the North Waikato to begin the state’s war drive recruiting campaign. At it’s head was the Tainui environmental wing – the Huakina Trust, who were earlier approached to put the initiative into action. With some trepidation and misgivings from some individuals, the task was carried out.

Other Marae such as Mangatangi have resisted approaches by the military and many are in two minds. The strength to resist lies in the political enlightenment of all the people and their leaders of the communities affected. Armed with the example set by Te Puea and linking it to the present situation is at least a beginning but by no means an end to the matter.

That enlightenment is understanding the nature of Imperialism and the way that it shuts down the links between peoples’ immediate experiences and those of their past. By individualising the immediate experience as the responsibility of an individual, the effect is a closing down or shutting off of a reality that is too hard to handle only to be replaced by prejudiced perceptions, the product of fantasy but presented as fact.

Imperialism is about divide and rule.By placing Maori in uniform on one side against Maori who stand to assert their rights as Tangata Whenua and as workers fighting for the rights of working people, the situation becomes bleak. Like the shamefaced Maori cops on Bastion Point in 1978, many knew that what they were doing was wrong but chose to go against their consciences in the service of the state. Since the end of the land wars in the 1800’s, Maori have taken part in every British and more recently US lead Imperialist war on the poorest elements of humanity around the world, while forgetting the plight of their own ancestors battles and their resulting legacy of colonialism.

NO MAORI SUPPORT FOR US/UN WAR
NO MARAE SUPPORT FOR ARMY RECRUITING
FOR RANK AND FILE REFUSAL TO GO TO WAR

from Class Struggle 42 December 2001/January 2002

"THE EMPIRE OF THE WEST"

Reviewing Hollywood’s Wars

(Starring Clint Eastwood as George W Bush, Charlton Heston as George Bush Senior, James Earl Jones as Colin Powell, Dick Chaney and Osama Bin Laden as themselves. Fox Corporation 2001, Directed by Roger Donaldson, Produced by Clint Eastwood, Screenplay by George Orwell. R20 poor language and no sex scenes)

The world since S11 2001 has resembled a gigantic replay of the American Wild West. First a line up of super violent war films put on hold while the Indians were located. Now with the ‘war against terrorism’ being scripted by the White House and Pentagon, and watched by peak audiences round the clock on CNN, NBC, ABC etc. Hollywood doesn’t want to miss out on the billions of bucks riding on the rawtide of patriotism. Not since Vietnam have a spate of war films and TV series flooded the screens. Not to be outdone by the Patriot Bill passed by Congress, Holygook is moving rapidly to release new films on Somalia and Bosnia and now the Bush banger of them all ‘The Empire of the West". It attempts to present a gung ho history of Amerikkka the Great since the Second World War. We bring you a preview of this film before it has hit the streets, or is it kasbahs or markets, or caves, or schools, or refugee camps, or mission hospitals. Anyway this is the true story of the new wild west starring the Bush administration as sheriff, judge, jury and executioner in a ‘holy war against terrorism’.

The Bush family is old Eastern capital but they have boosted their wealth by becoming leaders of the midwest capital based on Texas oil. The history of Texas oil is one of genocidal wars against Native Americans and wars of conquest against Mexico. The most powerful grouping of US capital is now concentrated in the oil and armaments industries and they will stop at nothing to build their personal business empires. Their profits dictate the policies of the Empire. We see the opening shot of Bush reading in Spanish to school kids in a Texas migrant workers’ camp somewhere on the border.

The US became the no 1 world power by pushing its continental frontier to the Pacific. We see images of genocidal attacks on native Americans as ‘collatoral damage’. Today the US pushes its global frontier to the East to take in the whole of Asia. The stakes are still the same but only a thousand times bigger. The natives who can’t escape are starved, bombed and subjected to cluster bombs disguised as food parcels. For what is at stake today is not Texas but the whole of Asia.

This 'Wild West' tale is a neverending story. The Monroe Doctrine of the 19th century pushed the US frontier down into Latin America where US sponsored elites ruled the neo-colonies. US ‘sponsoring’ includes a montage of bombs, marine invasions, CIA drug cartels and Holygook culture. Today most LA states are virtual dependencies of the Empire. We see shots of desperate migrants holding up greenbacks to bribe the US border guards.

The march into Europe began with the Marshall Plan and NATO. It was stopped by the Red Army getting to Berlin first and then sealing off Eastern Europe. Now Amerikkka has no choice but to declare a ‘cold war’ on the Red heathen. Christian fundamentalists like Foster Dulles put together the first Western ‘coalition’- the so-called "Washington Consensus" of freedom loving deputies and their dogs to hunt down and eliminate the evil Red empire. The US collaborated with Nazis to begin the arms race that led to the world of Dr Strangelove.

The move into East Asia began with the nuclear bombing of 500,000 civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki but was blocked by the victory of the Chinese peasant army led by Mao in 1950 and by a Vietnamese war of liberation led by Ho Chi Min. In 1973 at the battle of Saigon the cowboys got badly defeated and retreated in disarray to the sound of Wagner played backwards. This episode is cast by Holygook as the bloody coming of age of Pax Americana but most of the blood was Asian blood.

Despite CIA subversion in Indonesia in 1965 where between 500,000 and a million died and in East Timor in 1975 where more than 250,000 died, the East Asian masses remained relatively free of the Empire until their economies were brought to the knees by the so-called Asian crisis that forced them into the arms of the US ruling class. Images of Daihatsus with Jeep badges and Megawati Sukarnoputri backing the US in its war against terrorism.

In the Mid-East and central Asia the US stepped in to back Israel when the British empire crumbled in the Suez crisis in 1956. As always oil was at stake. When Mossadeg nationalised oil interests in Iran, the US staged a coup and put the Shah in power. When the Shah was overthrown the US backed Iraq in its long war with Iran, and then supported Pakistan in launching the Taliban to remove Soviet troops from Afghanistan.

But in Iran and Afghanistan the US failed to establish trusty client states to open up central Asia. Despite the best efforts of Rambo to help the Taliban to remove the Russians, the ‘natives’ in Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran refused to be stooges of the US Empire. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Central Asian frontier was reopened to the Western cowboys. There was a new Western expansion from Europe and the Pacific into Asia to get access to the only large reserves of oil left in the world.

The US had two problems. How to beat off its rivals, Japan and the EU for the spoils of oil? Second, how to pacify the natives? The solution was to declare war against native resistance to the Empire as terrorism and force all the Western powers to join in. This meant re-defining terrorism as any action that targeted civilians or the economic infrastructure and making sure that Western terrorism was unreported or redefined as UN peacekeeping.

The model of covert intervention in Iran (1956), Nicaragua (1980s), Panama (1990) became open wars against drug barons such as Plan Colombia. UN intervention against 'rogue' states from Korea (1950), Congo (1960) to Somalia (1990) continued but as no more than a series of one-off actions.

These tactics were too limited to produce decisive wins for imperialism. What was needed was a more global enemy than drug barons or rogue states. It was now common knowledge that the drug barons were themselves the product of Western policy. The UN ‘peacekeeping’ in rogue states was also exposed as part of the problem not the solution. What was needed was a universal enemy to replace ‘communism’ as the threat to freedom. That ideal enemy would be the religion that is used by the largest number of freedom fighters on the Eastern frontier - Islam. The new generic enemy became the Islamic 'terrorist'.

The model for the war against Islamic terrorism was being prototyped in Palestine. The Stern Gang was a notorious Zionist posse. The Wild West had to be updated to the modern world. The US backed fundamentalist Zionist regime had since 1948 demonstrated that the 'West' in the mid 20th century could occupy the territory of natives by force and get away with it in the name of democracy and human rights. UN advocacy of human rights proved toothless in the face of US patronage. Thus the just war of resistance of the natives, rather than the white settler occupiers, became first defined as 'Islamic terrorism' in Palestine. Islam rather than Zionism was the evil 'fundamentalism'.

So the war against terrorism was first officially declared by the Bush administration, not on Sept 11 2001, but in December 1990 in the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein. The war was reported by CNN and filmed by Holygook. ‘Getting Saddam’ became the first test of the US ‘new world order’ unilateral policy. It used the UN as a front against terrorism to pressure the other big powers to join up. The UK when along, other EU states such as France held back, and Russia and China resisted. Never mind, the concept had been launched and Iraq quarantined as on object lesson to other uppity natives. But this did not yet neutralise Russia and form a chain of client states as oil platforms to open up Asia. Solution?

Try again in Yugoslavia. Here the rival EU and Russia had a strong influence. It was to the benefit of both the EU and US that Yugoslavia was broken up, Russia's influence broken, and client states established to provide a bridgehead into Asia. This was achieved by backing Croatia and the Bosnian Muslims (at this stage bin Laden was an ally) against the Russian backed Serbia.

The partition of Bosnia and then the NATO bombing and occupation of Kosovo destroyed Serbian resistance and created NATO protectorates as stepping stones into Central Asia. The recent NATO intervention into Macedonia was designed to create another military base. As a result under the auspices of NATO Europe was extended towards the East and Russia neutralised as part of a wider Europe, and the US strategy of total dominance advanced another step.

September 11 2001 according to the Bush administration changed the World. What happened was that the plan to fight a war against Islamic terrorism now blossomed like a ‘daisy cutter’. After decades of the oppression of the masses in the middle east and Asia and after years of deliberate provocation, the 'evil' of Islamic Terrorism was no longer associated with particular rogue states or individual personalities like Saddam or Milosovic, but a universal evil personified in Osama Bin Laden and al queda. The attack on the World Trade Centre allowed the ruling class to move into high gear and introduce a war against terrorism to destroy all enemies of the Empire abroad and at home.

Now the former rivals to the US Empire were "totally supportive" of a military attack on the Taliban and Bin Laden, and prepared to accept 'civilian casualties'. Asian regimes that were offside with the Empire, like Pakistan and India, were bought off with loans and promises of aid from the Empire. China was promised membership of the WTO. Australia and NZ Deputy and dog saddled up for the posse.

Official workers’ organisations in the West were prepared to put their opposition to capitalism aside, justify the war and allow new state powers to limit the civil rights to combat terrorism at home. Some were prepared to endorse the use of torture to this end. In one swift move the Empire disarmed its most vocal critics in the East as well as the West. Those who were wavering were promised a role in a UN administered post-Taliban Afghanistan and bought off with promises of a share in the oil booty.

But unknown to the secret services of the Empire an underground resistance movement was emerging; basing itself on the ancient lessons of resistance of natives since the original European invasions, and on the historic workers revolutions that succeeded in defeating the Empire in the 20th century. Making full use of the great technological advances of previous centuries this rag bag army of subversives and dissidents is growing daily in its influence on the masses. The Empires days are numbered. Fox will bring out the movie ‘End of Empire’ next year.

From Class Struggle 42 December 2001/January 2002

CWG STATEMENT ON THE TERRORIST ATTACK ON THE US - SEPT 11, 2001

Build Opposition to U.S. War!

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!

We condemn the act of terrorism directed at thousands of US workers on September 11. It sacrificed the lives of workers and did nothing for the cause of the oppressed in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan or any other oppressed country.

Worse it provides the USA with the excuse that it wants to escalate its attacks on these countries with a blank cheque to fight a 'new war' against 'terrorism'. Such a war helps the USA to avoid the charge that it is the world's No 1 terrorist. More importantly it can combat a collapsing economy as it mobilises its industry in a war drive.

As the US Empire militarises its rule over the masses of poor and oppressed, those who oppose capitalist rule must take a stand now to mobilise the workers of the world to unite and smash imperialism and racism! For an anti-imperialist coalition against racism and war!

Terrorism against workers

The use of civilian planes by terrorists to attack even such prominent targets as the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon cannot advance the cause of the oppressed.

In the first place by killing US workers it makes other workers in the imperialist countries rally around their national flags and volunteer to go to war against their sisters and brothers. While terrorists may do spectacular damage to the symbols of imperialist America, they cannot smash capitalism, because they do not mobilise workers as a class to take power and control of the economy.

Second, terrorism justifies more reactionary state terror against the rights and freedoms of workers and the oppressed at home as well as in those states targeted by imperialism. It further undermines collective class struggle by promoting patriotism and religion both as the cause of conflict and as the solution. The real cause capitalism and real solution socialism become forgotten in the rush to war.

USA NO 1 Terrorist!

The imperialist powers and their agents historically have perpetrated the vast majority of terrorist acts. The use of the Atomic bomb on Japan in 1945; The massacre of millions in Vietnam; The half million who died in Indonesia in 1965 at the hands of Suharto backed by the US; The millions displaced and dead in Palestine since 1948; The half million children dead at the hands of US sanctions in Iraq since 1990. And this is only the US hit list and only the worst. The list goes on and on.

It is the extreme powerlessness of oppressed people that drives some to adopt a terrorist response. The ultimate blame for terrorism therefore must lie with the imperialists. In this sense the September 11 attacks were a logical and predicable response to US policies in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America for decades. The terrorists could just have well come from any of these continents.

What's more these 'terrorists' are often trained and financed by the USA to be used against its enemies. Saddam Hussein was backed by the USA in Iraq's war with Iran. Noriega was the USA’s man in Panama. Osama bin Laden was financed by the USA to fight the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. It would be no surprise to find that some of the pilots in the attack of September 11 were trained in the US Naval Air training school in Annapolis.

USA gears up for war

The attacks on September 11 provide a perfect pretext for US imperialism to escalate its hegemonic role as moral guardian and world policeman. The USA could not have done it better had it supplied the personnel as well as the training for the terrorists.

The USA has been able to mobilise its friends and rival powers in EU and Asia to back its 'new war'. NATO has invoked the clause that treats an attack on the USA as an attack on each of its 17 members. Russia has committed itself to support NATO against terrorism provided the charges are proved. Pakistan has been pressured to demand that bin Laden be handed over. China can hardly oppose the USA and stay in the WTO.

So the declaration of war by George Bush is a blank cheque to attack any 'terrorist' target. It is the perfect end to a ten- year campaign to demonise Islam. Since the end of the cold war in 1990, the USA has promoted Islamic fundamentalism as the new world enemy. It has cast Osama bin Laden in the role of No 1 terrorist. Saddam Hussein and Palestinian groups like Hamas are second and third in line. The USA and its imperialist allies can now use the September 11 attacks to mobilise support for an unlimited war against any power, state, or individual that opposes US domination of the world.

War serves the economy

While the drive to war appears to be a political struggle of the powerful against the powerless, its purpose is to maintain US economic control of scarce resources such as oil in contested areas like the Middle East and Central Asia. Such control becomes more urgent as the world economy goes into a major recession. For the first time since the 1930's the world economy is suffering a global downturn.

The US economy that has kept the rest of the world economy afloat in the last ten years is now in serious recession. The militarisation of the world is necessary to step up the repression of the poor and working class who are fighting back against this worsening depression. This global war on poverty targets the victims of poverty and has its model in the Plan Colombia.

US Plans for Latin America

The USA has for many years militarised its rule over Latin America. Its ruthless policies of supporting military dictatorships and of direct intervention in Cuba 1963, Chile 1973, Nicaragua 1979, Granada 1983, and Panama 1989, have created a joint military machine with its client states.

More recently it has promoted Plan Colombia, a Vietnam- style invasion of US troops and other personnel to fight the FARC under the guise of a war on drugs. There is now Plan Bolivia and looming up a Plan Argentina. In each case the armed resistance of the workers and peasants is labelled 'communism', 'terrorism' or a 'war on drugs' and a ‘counter-terrorist’ Plan devised and promoted to suppress it. The US working class barely notices these counter- revolutionary activities.

Plan Islam

But now the US ruling class is embarking on a drive to war that will take the form of a new religious crusade, a Plan Islam, to justify attacks upon and occupations of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries, and open up new colonies in the Middle East and Central Asia. Already demands have been placed on the Taliban to hand over bin Laden, and also upon Pakistan to collaborate in any action against Afghanistan. The USA will go to war when its preparations are complete.

While the pretext is fighting terrorism in the name of democracy and freedom, the object will be to advance the US domination of the world economy against its weaker imperialist rivals the EU and Japan by eliminating any opposition to this Empire Amerika. These events prove that while war is politics, politics is concentrated economics.

Anti-capitalist movement

The drive to global war will be a baptism of fire for the youthful anti- capitalist movement and the 'left' in general. Vietnamese, Latin Americans, Iraqis, Palestinians Somalis and Yugoslavs have already suffered years of localised warfare.

The Western anti-war movement struggled to oppose these local wars against what was labelled as 'communism' or 'terrorism'. Those who opposed war on both sides, rather than unconditionally defend the oppressed states against imperialism, weakened this movement.

The 'new war' against Islam will overtake all other anti- capitalist movements and force them to take sides for or against imperialism. Those who will not defend Iraq or Afghanistan because of Saddam or the Taliban do not understand that these dictatorships are the product of imperialism.

Not to defend them ensures that their defeat by imperialism makes it more difficult for the workers of Iraq or Afghanistan to overthrow these dictators. It is necessary for the Western left to overcome its pacifism and form itself into a strong anti-imperialist front against imperialist racism and war.

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!

Opposition to imperialist war can only be built in the working class whose interests are united with the worker and poor peasant masses of the oppressed countries. Anti-war movements that remain trapped in the pacifist and reformist ideology of the imperialist petty bourgeois and labour aristocracy will always support the lesser evil of imperialist democracy over dictatorships in oppressed states.

The first task of working class has always been to stand shoulder to shoulder with all oppressed peoples against imperialism. Against the ruling class forces that line up behind Plan Islam, revolutionaries must be in the front ranks of the troops that confront the class enemy. Greens, anarchists, socialists, and communists who are engaged in a variety of anti-capitalists actions must unite in solidarity against imperialist war and prepare to take on the military machine in their own imperialist heartlands.

No to the US 'new war' against Islam!

NZ out of ANZUS!

NZ out of Echelon!

Defend Afghanistan!

For Palestine Liberation!

End the Sanctions on Iraq!

End racist attacks!

Self Defence is No Offense!

Form Self Defence Groups!

Fight Racism and Imperialism!

For an Anti-imperialist United Front


Class Struggle No 41 October-November 2001

SOCIALIST WORKER ON ANTI-CAPITALISM AND WAR

Two members of the SWO recently attacked the CWG position on the Western anti-capitalist movement. They were referring to the article we wrote in Class Struggle # 40 (August-September) titled "From Genoa to Salta" where we criticised the lack of an organised, working class base to the ACM and compared it to the real life and death struggles of workers in Salta. By contrast the SWO approach is to ‘include’ as anti-capitalist anybody who doesn’t like McDonalds food or GE. For them opposition to GE has become the NZ expression of anti-capitalism. After S11 it became clear that it has the same opportunist approach to the US imperialist war. The SWO didn’t want the war identified as a ‘US’ war because that would frighten off pacifists.

What is anti-capitalism?

There is a debate about what this movement actually is and how to build it. We have joined in that debate ‘constructively’ by arguing in our article in Class Struggle #40 that the ACM is based on a wrong tactic – a premature, and therefore adventurist, confrontation with the state forces. It seems however that our criticism of the ACM was taken to be ‘destructive’ by the SWO.

"Like most radicals and revolutionaries, the SWO regards the anti-capitalist movement of both North and South as ‘the biggest challenge to capitalism since the 1960s’ ".

It is true that 100.000’s of young leftists regard themselves as part of the ‘anti-capitalist’ movement. But what is this movement and where it is going? And if it is "the biggest challenge to capitalism since the 1960’s" we think it is too early to say. But in its present form of street marches against world leaders, much bigger challenges to capitalism have taken place in the last 30 years.

The first was the survival of the Soviet Union until 1991. That was a much bigger challenge than the ACM so far. It was such a big challenge that the ‘West’ mounted something called a ‘Cold War’ against it. The reason for this was that the Soviet Union still represented a post-capitalist society that was, despite the rule of the Stalinist dictatorship over the workers, a massive historical leap ahead of capitalism that acted as a beacon for the world’s workers.

But then the SWO would know all about that having been apologists for Stalin in their earlier history as the Communist Party of NZ until they abandoned the SU as ‘imperialist’ to back the Chinese, only to then abandon the Chinese to back the Albanians. When asked in the late 1980’s why the CPNZ regarded Albania as the ‘socialist fatherland’ the CP would reply: "because the workers are armed".

In 1991 when the Albanian Stalinist regime was brought down by a popular uprising, the CPNZ covered its tracks and looked around for a suitable replacement. They found the SWP in Britain, who had the infamous distinction of refusing to defend the SU because they said it was ‘state capitalist’ from 1929.

The SWO is now part of this current that refused to defend the SU only 12 years after the 1917 revolution and 70 years before the final restoration of capitalism. The SWO combines a rotten record of responsibility for the Stalinist betrayals of the world revolution the most critical being in Germany in 1933 when Stalin split the labour movement and allowed Hitler to survive, with its betrayal of the degenerated workers’ states. If you can’t defend a revolution you cannot make one either.

Then there are the massive struggles for independence such as the liberation of the Portuguese Colonies in Africa and the end of dictatorships in Portugal, Greece and parts of Latin America. The most important was the victory of the Vietnamese over the US in 1975. These were struggles that actually involved armed struggles and seizures of power.

Then there were the strikes in the 1970’s and early 1980’s such as the Miners’ strike in Britain in 1984. The problem was that these huge struggles were defeated by the social democrats who introduced austerity policies in the 1970’s, and then the neo-liberal offensive of the 1980’s and 1990’s. On top of this was the victory of imperialism over the degenerated workers states in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and currently, China and Vietnam.

"In stark contrast, the CWG …totally write off the western anti-capitalist movement in an extremely sectarian manner. The CWG's magazine says the western anti-capitalist movement is a "symptom" of all the past "defeats" of workers, and claims it has "no class base".

Let’s look at both of these points. The ACM IS a ‘symptom’ of past defeats of workers. If it were not the case then the ACM would have built itself on top of victorious struggles from the 1970’s to the 1990’s and have successfully defended the degenerate workers states from the restoration of capitalism. Such an ACM would look very different. It would be led by strong communist currents capable of creating the preconditions of workers power – namely an armed and independent working class headed by a revolutionary Bolshevik party. What do we see instead?

The ACM is made up of a loose coalition of unionised workers, petty bourgeois bureaucrats, anarchists and some left bourgeoisie NGO’s and celebrities. That is what we mean by "no class base". The workers in the organisations are mixed up with petty bourgeois and bourgeois. There is no base founded on independent working class organisations. Instead the workers who are involved are either under the domination of union bureaucrats or members of left parties like the SWO that are not organised like the Bolsheviks around democratic centralism but in a loose federation headed by more bureaucrats.

The character of the ACM at the moment unfortunately reflects this lack of a working class base and its dominated by the adventurist tactics of petty bourgeois radicals who have little conception of the nature of capitalism. So the ACM is in fact at this stage very much a ‘symptom’ of the weakness and disorganisation of the left after a period of twenty years of defeats. To pretend that it is anything else is to create false sense of optimism that will only lead to huge disappointment and disillusionment among young people.

"According to the CWG, the western anti-capitalist movement shouldn't be "taking on the bosses' state", making the claim that such direct actions mean the movement "opens itself to state penetration". The CWG patronise and undermine anti-capitalists "sucked into" the massive Genoa mobilisation, saying they must "stop and think". The CWG insist that the western anti-capitalist movement must retreat into "defensive struggles". The CWG declare that only the global South, not the West, contains "real" anti-capitalist movements."

Such a weak movement should be starting from the ground up, rebuilding the base organisations of the class by supporting defensive struggles against all the attempts to de-unionise, casualise, genderise and racialize the labour movement. At this early stage of rebuilding it is madness to indulge in the adventurist tactic of taking on the heavily armed and prepared bosses state when there is no possibility of defeating the armed power of that state. In its lack of organisation and preparedness the ACM does indeed ‘open itself to state penetration’.

This is not to say that workers never take on the state, or run the risk of being penetrated by the enemy, just that if you make it easy for the bosses to attack you, you are no friend of the working class. While students can go home or back to university, the working class will pay for this adventurism when the state introduces more repressive measures to hamper the rebuilding of its base organisations such as unions.

Is it patronising to tell the left to "stop and think"? No, its patronising to tell the world’s workers that all their struggles over the last 40 years were insignificant compared to the youthful New Left of the 1960’s and the equally youthful New New Left of the 2000’s. In fact its more that patronising, its imperialistic because it puts the sporadic backward politics of Western youth who are against ‘globalisation’ ahead of the much more advanced and ongoing struggles of workers and peasants in the colonial and semi-colonial world. So, yes, ‘stop and think’. That’s why we make the direct comparison between today’s New New Left and that of yesterday that at its best developed into a militant anti-Vietnam war movement.

Only those who think that the ACM is an ‘offensive struggle’ can see ‘defensive struggles’ as a retreat. It is delusional to claim that a few street battles between 1000’s of youth and 1000’s of cops in Western cities are offensive struggles. Such terms have a scientific meaning for Marxists. They relate to the balance of class forces. In a period of upsurge of worker militancy offensive struggles are possible.

But the ACM is not such an upsurge. It may be the beginning of one if it develops strong links to emergent labour organisations. But before it can become one workers have to win the battle on the factory front. It is the strength of labour in controlling production by means of strong unions and victorious strikes that are the indicators of an offensive not street battles away from the site of production. Such battles can never be decisive while the bosses control production.

It is the degree to which the battles in the semi-colonial world are over control of production that allows us to say that they are ‘real’. When thousands of Korean car workers go on strike and occupy a plant that is a ‘real’ struggle for workers control of production. When thousands of youth hire a train to go to Genoa to march up against barricades and unavoidably confront the police that is not a ‘real’ battle for class power since it avoids challenging the bosses’ control of industry.

This is not to say that the ACM cannot turn into such a ‘real’ battle if it reorients towards the working class base. That is the point of our criticism and for that reason it is the opposite of being sectarian.

"And those activists in the western anti-capitalist movement who don't belong to unions are ardent opponents of the dictatorship of corporate elites and their state backers. In other words, they strongly identify with the liberation struggles of grassroots people. Many are so committed that they're prepared to put their own bodies on the line in confrontations with the police."

This is hype to keep the barricade euphoria going between summits. What is an activist unless someone rooted in the working class and militantly fighting to defend jobs, living standards, and basic rights? Any other sort of activist is a classless person without any weight in the class struggle at best, or at worst a provacateur who weakens the labour movement.

What does ‘identifying with grass roots people’ mean? Any common liberal can do this. Is this a qualification for being in the ACM? Putting your body on the line in confrontation with police can mean anything from courage to stupidity, and in any case it is counter-productive unless it is part of a deliberate and organised offensive such as the Bolshevik revolution of October 1917.

"… the Bolsheviks' retreat from confrontation with the capitalist state in July 1917 was a special case dictated by the very closeness of victorious revolution. Yet the CWG generalise the July 1917 special case to today's western anti-capitalist movement, which is (sadly) still far from overthrowing capitalism. This sectarian interpretation of the Bolshevik legacy shows that the CWG know little of the dynamics of class struggle."

Grant Morgan just doesn't understand the point of the reference in our article to the ‘July Days’ of 1917. The situation in Russia before 1917 was very different to that in which the ACM operates now yet quite similar to that in the semi-colonial world today. That is, workers were engaged in desperate defensive struggles during a reactionary period.

Of course Lenin supported all defensive struggles of workers and peasants against the Tsar and the bosses - just as we support the Korean workers, the Salta picqueteros, and PNG students etc today. In a revolutionary situation as in Russia in July 1917, the Bosheviks tried to stop the workers from prematurely going on the ‘offensive’ against the state.

So today, in Korea, Salta, PNG, Russia etc we are for workers arming themselves, and for campaigning for a general strike to turn defensive struggles into offensive struggles. But we are not for offensive mass mobilisations of workers against the state BEFORE they have already created a power base in their own independent institutions.

We most certainly don’t abandon this caution in situations today that bear no resemblance to the spontaneous defensive struggles of peasants and workers in the period up to 1917, where instead street demonstrations detached from the working class base substitute themselves for actual class struggle. If we would not advocate offensive attacks on the state in a revolutionary situation that is still unripe, we most certainly don’t advocate such attacks by raw and disorganised street marchers in what is still not yet a pre-revolutionary situation. That, Mr Morgan, is the point.

"The CWG suggest that the only anti-capitalist movements worthy of the name are to be found in armed insurrections in the global South. This is a sectarian glorification of the gun regardless of the actual conditions existing within each country and region."

Sectarian 'glorifcation of the gun'

This statement is stupid. The "global South" is a totally un-Maxist concept which obliterates the "actual conditions existing within each country and region". On the contrary we carefully consider the character of countries, their class structure and their political development. We are against guerrillaism as a tactic either in the countryside or in cities. But we defend guerrillas against the bosses. We are opposed to armed adventurism with sticks and placards or AK 47’s. But we give unconditional support to armed struggles against oppression such as Palestine, and we certainly critically support the arming of workers and peasant movements in defensive struggles against state forces such as that in Salta. But more importantly, we called for the redirection of the ACM into a movement against imperialist wars already being fought in the former Balkans and in Latin America. Such anti-war movements would be very worthy of the name ACM.

"Real-life activists in both South and North say it's critically important to build anti-capitalist movements in all countries, including the West. They all say that every movement strengthens all the others. The Zapatistas in Mexico, the unemployed road-blockaders in Argentina, the anti-IMF students in Papua New Guinea, both inspire and are inspired by the western anti-capitalist movement. When the CWG try to set the movement in the South against that of the North, they act as splitters, regardless of their motivation."

This is more SWO hype to build the barricade euphoria at the expense of the facts. Why doesn’t Morgan talk about workers? He talks about activists, movements etc as if the label ‘anti-capitalist’ confers working class ‘real life’ status on everyone. Let us inform him that the picqueteros of Salta do not look for inspiration to the ACM in the ‘north’ but to the Palestinians! The workers of South Africa are having general strikes. What motivates them is not the ACM but the oppressive conditions they face. They too have taken the Palestinian cause as their inspiration, a point reinforced by the walkout of the US and Israel from the UN conference against Racism in Durban.

If the ACM has delusions of grandeur it is because they are fuelled by groups like the SWO and people like Morgan whose politics are nothing more than the current version of leftwing imperialism. They fool themselves that they are taking on the ‘heart of the beast’ i.e. imperialism. But to take on the heart of the beast means bringing imperialism to a halt by taking control of production and disarming the imperialist war machine. The ACM’s potential to turn into an anti-war movement at home to defend Palestine, Argentina, PNG, Russia, East Timor Macedonia etc against imperialism will only develop if the current delusions about the ACM such as the SWO promote are smashed.

"Possibly the CWG's most insane claim is that the western anti-capitalist movement is just a "symptom" of past working class "defeats". This claim is so sick that it will, I believe, haunt the CWG for the remainder of its existence. All the evidence, of which there is plenty, points in the opposite direction to the CWG's pessimism. The western anti-capitalist movement is part of an explosion of grassroots anger on a global scale. There's a generalisation from the "single issue" campaigns that, in the past period of demoralisation, were the highest possible form of struggle. Now people are linking "single issues" with a fight against the whole capitalist system. Such political generalisation is an expression of growing optimism, unity and organisation at the grassroots. Certainly, the ruling elites consider the western anti-capitalist movement to be a very real threat to their class interests. That's why the next World Trade Organisation summit is being held in the isolated dictatorship of Qatar, and the next G8 big powers' summit in the remote Canadian rockies, as far away from mass protests as they can get. Many among the ruling elites themselves admit they're losing the battle for legitimacy in the wake of huge anti-capitalist mobilisations in the West. The rulers of the world have been pushed onto the defensive for the first time in decades."

To proclaim that we are living in a period of offensive struggles based on street demonstrations that have forced world leaders to retreat to the desert or the mountains is ridiculous. The phrase ‘losing the battle for legitimacy’ fools no one. The legitimacy of capitalist rule is not challenged by intermittent street protests but by general strikes. To turn these disorganised street battles into proof that the bosses are on the run is plain stupid.

If the rulers of the world are on the defensive, why are they crowing about China joining the WTO? Why are they backing the US push for the FTAA and the dollarisation of Latin America? If they are on the run why do the Israelis bomb a few more Hamas leaders and threaten to kill Arafat? Why get ready to buy up Japan and why launch a new star wars program?

In a bureaucratic organisation like the IST such illusions become insulated from challenge. The SWO’s own former sister organisation in the USA the ISO has been kicked out of the IST for being ‘sectarian’ because it expressed perfectly reasonable doubts that the ACM represented a new period of offensive upsurge.

‘Yet, claim the CWG, the western anti-capitalist movement is a failure, and to get anywhere it must follow the CWG's prescription of retreat into "defensive struggles". In other words, the CWG want the movement to retreat back to the past era of despair and demoralisation, when only "defensive struggles" were possible, and give up the confident and generalised attack on the whole system of global capitalism. The CWG are so far off the ball, they're playing another game altogether.’

Its not case of what we want. If we could have what we ‘want’ we would be living under socialism. It is a case of what is real and what is necessary right now. We do not claim that the ACM is a failure. We say that it needs to ‘grow up’. There is a difference. As with small children you help them grow up. You don’t condemn them for not being adults.

Where the children are being badly misled by disoriented and authoritarian adults however, we reserve the right to tell them they are wrong. It is wrong to mislead Western youth into thinking they are the new vanguard because they are against the capitalist ‘system’ as if the worker and peasant struggles in the semi-colonial world are not already in the vanguard. To acknowledge defeat is not to be demoralised it is to confront the causes so they can be overcome. On the contrary to fear defeat and refuse to acknowledge it means you cannot distinguish between victory and defeat and avoid the road to more defeats.

We know what game show the SWO is on. Its called ‘Opportunism Knocks’. It is hosted by the British SWP and fronted by Alex Callinicos who decided that after Seattle the world has entered a new period of history. Recently Callinicos argued that the ACM represents a new period because a significant minority now see the ‘capitalist system’ as the cause of all the world’s problems. (See our review of his "ACM and Revolutionary socialism" in the next issue of CS).

But this is self-evidently not the case otherwise the ACM would be attacking the heart and not the head of capitalism. It would be organising the working class to take over production rather than attacking the bosses for doing what all bosses do, exploit workers. A new period will only arise when the working class makes a transition from defensive struggles over jobs, wages and rights to offensive struggles for control over production and for state power.

SWO on Imperialist War?

To prove our point that we are in a period of democratic counter-revolution where workers’ struggles are still defensive rather than offensive, the new US ruling class’s war drive to smash terrorism finds the SWO disoriented. This war proves that the US ruling class and its allies can mobilise nationalism and racism to dragoon the large majority of Western workers behind the drive for war. Many of those who are against the ‘capitalist system’ find that they are against ‘terrorism’ more.

It is an open admission that this is the case in the US and Europe that the IST has opted for an opportunist approach to build broad cross class opposition to the war. Everywhere anti-war groups are being set up the IST opposes anti-imperialist fronts or even fronts that specify that it is a US war drive that has to be opposed. Yet in their own propaganda they talk about imperialist war and raise the slogan STOP AMERICA’s WAR

What’s going on here? On the one hand the IST calls for a popular front with pacifists. On the other its own line is to stop ‘America’s’ war. In reality there is no difference. ‘America’s war’ does not mean the war promoted by the US ruling class, but the war promoted by Bush and his right wing clique. It is a slogan that fits with the Greens, Chomsky, and the democratic left in general, which is that the ‘war’ is not a symptom of US imperialism, but a symptom of an evil aberration in US capitalism which can be corrected by mobilising a radical democratic majority to convict the military industrial elite of war crimes.

In other words the IST has completely exposed its opportunist anti-capitalist position by its stand on the US imperialist war plans.

While it was obvious to us that the ISTs anti-capitalism did not seriously challenge the radical democratic program to reform capitalism, their advocacy of the Stop the War position means that they are prepared to allow the pacifists to lead the anti-war movement.

As self-professed ‘trotskyists’ they should know that popular fronts are death traps for workers because they prevent them from taking an independent class line on imperialist war. A cross-class anti-war movement will remain dominated by petty bourgeois pacifists who role is to divert worker mobilisation for direct industrial action against the ruling class and it military machine back towards parliamentary solutions.

There is only one way to fight an imperialist war and that is on an anti-imperialist platform that mobilises the working class to confront the class enemy at home. Anti-imperialists are not in favour of Stopping the War. The war will stop if the victims of imperialism are defeated. To prevent that we have to wage war against imperialism. That is why we say that program of revolutionaries is to turn imperialist war into civil war!

Down with vacillators and opportunists!

Down with petty bourgeois pacifists!

Victory to workers in the class war!

Class Struggle No 41 October-November 2001

WORKERS' BAN ON CAPITALIST GENETIC ENGINEERING

Our position on GE is like that on Nuclear power. It is not safe under capitalism! We do not trust the bosses to do anything that affects workers lives because they are motivated solely by profit. We do not trust our health and safety on the job to the bosses, so why should we trust them or their state to regulate GE? This does not mean that we think that GE is necessarily bad. Under a socialist state where informed workers can democratically regulate GE many social benefits are possible. But we need socialism before we need GE! We reprint below a short excerpt from an article by Chris Wheeler responding to the Royal Commission’s Report based upon his experience of 20 years of monitoring the failure of Government environmental ‘controls.’

"…The Commission's report in favour of GE has now become an effective tool for beating the GE opposition and the Green Party in Parliament around the head - probably the only reason for this whole $NZ6.5 million taxpayer-funded farce in the first place! As PM Helen Clark, her parliamentary colleagues and the GE industry are now saying all across the NZ media: "You got what you asked for - a complete and comprehensive review of GE policy and science. The expert view resulting from the Royal Commission's deliberations is that GE is an essential part of New Zealand's economic survival and a leading aspect of our new 'Knowledge Economy' and must be allowed to go ahead with the minimum of restrictions. Now shut-up. Stop complaining, and accept the majority opinion."

Of course there are some derisory "controls" being recommended in the Royal Commission report, but in my past 20 years of direct involvement in agriculture issues and membership of official bodies deliberating on environmental control strategies in New Zealand, I have yet to see effective legislation or regulation controlling ANY aspect of the agrichemical abuse that New Zealand is notorious for in informed world environmental circles and GE abuse will fare little better. The Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) cited in the Commission's report as the responsible agency overseeing GE trials and releases has been controlled from the first day of its establishment several years ago by powerful industry lobby groups with the necessary financial resources to fight any environmental group's submissions to a standstill.

For 20 years I have been involved in various attempts to place effective controls over the profligate application of carcinogenic pesticides by New Zealand farmers, which contributes to New Zealand's record levels of breast, prostate and bowel cancer, childhood leukemia and birth defects, and have met with continual official apathy and obstruction, particularly from official regulatory agencies. I and the knowledgeable anti-GE community in New Zealand have absolutely no faith in the new GE review apparatus being suggested by the Commission because we know that just as with appointments to the food regulatory Australia New Zealand Food

Authority (ANZFA) and ERMA, membership will be heavily weighted with GE industry stooges and political appointees guaranteed to preserve the status quo…"

GE run by the bosses? No Way!

Class Struggle No 40, August-September 2001