Issue 213

News

Protestors mop up support at water profiteers’ headquarters

by Emma Miller

On World Water Day, 22 March, activists from the World Development Movement (WDM) assembled outside the Glasgow Halcrow offices to picket the Scottish water company.
The WDM ‘cleaners’ set to work in washing the Halcrow sign, while the rest of the team handed out flyers condemning the company which is paid by the UK Government to aid the privatisation of water supplies across the world.
The activists managed to get in, deliver their letter, and speak to a member of management, despite attempts by staff to bar them.
WDM has calculated that Halcrow is involved in the most UK aid-funded water privatisation programmes, many of which have been cancelled due to the negative effects they’ve had on the communities concerned.
Since 1995, the National Coalition Against Privatisation in Ghana has been fighting plans, spearheaded by Halcrow, to privatise the country’s water.
Here in Scotland, Halcrow boast that there is scarcely a part of Scotland where they don’t have projects, which range from work at the Dalmuir wastewater PFI project in Glasgow to the A92 Montrose Bridge Replacement.
Home or away, Halcrow’s mission is to promote the insatiable interests of private sector companies. What’s more, the company is in the pay of the British government in this international scam.
Meanwhile, the government’s Commission on Africa failed to even mention Halcrow’s role in the privatisation of essential services in countries like Ghana. Yet at its launch we heard Tony Blair referring to Africa as a scar on his conscious.
So long as big business is given a free reign to plunder Africa’s resources through privatisation, this scar will continue to itch.

Gray’s new pamphlet says ‘off with their powers!’

by Roz Paterson

Aren’t you just bowled over by the romance of the century between Camilla Parker Bowles and Charlie Windsor? Don’t you think they deserve all the money they get from the civil list, never mind the Duchy of Cornwall, for being so great and regal and that? No?
If you are one of the millions who don’t subscribe to the view that a monarchy has any place in a modern society, then Alisdair Gray’s latest political pamphlet should appeal to you.
And for those who aren’t quite sure, it should also help shatter a few illusions about our constitutional state - for instance, that having a queen is the only thing that prevents us having President Blair imposed on us and so on.
Gray decided to write How We Should Rule Ourselves - to be published by Canongate on 4 April - after attending the Declaration of Calton Hill event last October, organised by the SSP as a counter to the naff extravaganza being enacted down at Holyrood to mark the opening of the new parliament.
It was there that Gray heard Adam Tomkins, professor of Public Law at Glasgow University, make his angry, articulate and impassioned case against the current system.
“I was alarmed when Adam explained that the Prime Minister was able to use a power called the Royal Prerogative to pass laws without discussing them with parliament or paying attention to widespread public opinion, as he did when going to war with Iraq,” said Gray.
Thus he contacted Tomkins, author of the recently published Our Republican Constitution, who agreed to co-write the short work.
How We Should Rule Ourselves calls for the monarchy to be abolished and for the powers entrusted to it to be transferred to the House of Commons, giving the electorate at least some say in what happens to the nation.
The pamphlet, which calls on the English and Welsh as well as Scots to campaign for republican status, warns that if you “believe that the Crown and its powers are effectively controlled by elected parliaments and that, as a result, Britain may be called a democracy” then you are wrong. And this pamphlet will tell you why.
It also calls for the Royal Prerogative to be done away with. An issue, says Tomkins, that isn’t “ever talked about seriously by political parties” but which he wants to bring to the fore now.
That the pamphlet is being published on the eve of a General Election is no accident. Gray and Tomkins want people to think about republicanism when they vote, and to vote for someone they believe is “honest and independent-minded.”
Gray has declared his intention to vote for the SSP, who stand unflinchingly beneath the banner of an independent Scottish socialist republic.
Gray concludes:
“The notion of having government by a royal family is ludicrous. The royal family are the least free human beings in Britain. It’s practically impossible for them to act sanely.”

Nazis chased off Edinburgh street

Scottish Socialist Party members, including two prospective candidates in the coming General Election, last Saturday reduced a Scotland-wide British National Party pre-election mobilisation to chaos and drove the fascists off the streets of central Edinburgh.
The BNP members had set up a stall, decorated with an Inverness BNP banner, on Edinburgh’s busy Princes Street.

Threats
Alerted by text messages, SSP activists were on the scene within minutes and surrounded the fascist activists who were attempting spread their message of hate.
After trying unsuccessfully to intimidate the SSP members with threats of violence, the BNP were eventually forced to abandon their stall in the face of the SSP’s non-violent direct action tactics, which included surrounding their stall and drowning out their racist chants.
The anti-fascist activists included Morag Robertson, standing as SSP candidate for Edinburgh South, and Steven Nimmo, nominated to stand in Livingston.

Poison
Steven was previously involved in a direct action which left the BNP’s Scottish election campaign launch in ruins.
Speaking after last Saturday’s events, he said:
“We won’t allow the purveyors of racism and hatred pavement space to peddle their poison in Scotland during the course of this election.
“If they think they are going to be treated as a respectable political party they can think again.
“The SSP stands in this forthcoming election with the message that racism and hatred towards asylum seekers and the traveller and Roma community is completely unacceptable.”

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news

To Noam is to love him...

by Emma Miller

Professor Noam Chomsky, one of the world’s most articulate and insightful critics of American foreign policy, spoke to packed meetings, complete with live international links, in Scotland last week.
A key concern for Chomsky remains the democratic deficit; the disconnection between US public opinion and the actions of political elites. In both domestic and foreign policy, the electoral process is largely run by the PR industry, promoting candidates like they would tout toothpaste.
Yet opinion polls repeatedly highlight that public opinion is diametrically opposed to the policies of the elite, for instance over Kyoto, which in fact most Americans support.
Internationally, democracy is promoted by the political elite only where it coincides with US interests. Where it clashes, it is downplayed, ignored, or contained.
On US policy in the Middle East, Chomsky ridiculed claims that their actions are bringing the Bush ‘vision of democracy’ to the region.
The recent truce delegitimises resistance to the occupation, while doing nothing to prevent the appropriation of Palestinian land and the rapidly developing infrastructure of the Jewish-only settlements.
On the Palestinian question as elsewhere, US public opinion is out of line with the US government. The US public is far more pro-Palestinian than the US administration.
Chomsky went on to contrast the overwhelming military strength of the Israelis with the political strength of the Palestinians.
Rejecting suicide bombings as strengthening American and Israeli extremists, he urged Palestinians to fight where they are strong, in the political arena.
In discussing Iraq, Chomsky reminded the audience that the only legitimate routes to war according to the UN are through a vote by the UN security council or article 51. Any other resort to force is a war crime.
The supreme international crime as defined by the Nuremburg trial is pre-emptive war.
Again, US public opinion held that force should only be used if strong evidence exists that the country is in imminent danger of being attacked. This clearly disagrees with the policy of pre-emptive action.
Chomsky also discussed the case of whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu, who was jailed for 18 years for exposing Israel’s secret nuclear weapons programme.
He said the BBC’s recent apology to Ariel Sharon, the head of the Israeli government, for interviewing Vanunu was comparable to an apology to Stalin for interviewing a dissident.
Describing the BBC apology as an ‘appeasement of apartheid,’ which would not have happened before the Hutton report, Glasgow University Palestine Solidarity Campaign have asked the BBC to retract.
On the G8, Chomsky warned that, if the past is a guide, the media hysteria about violence will only escalate as the date of the demonstration approaches, and there is nothing the G8 want more than a violent demonstration, which they will win hands down.
The state will bring this about through penetration of protest groups and provocation by the authorities.
It is because of their political weakness that they want to build fear and confrontation.
We need to focus on taking the G8 on politically, exposing the mismatch between what they say and what they do, and to demonstrate that there are alternatives.
Bush and Blair are strong militarily and can crush armed revolt or violent protest. But they are weak politically and vulnerable to political challenge.
Chomsky reminded his audience that we enjoy freedom which provides opportunity and brings responsibility.
In the US and UK we live in centres of enormous power and we should use that legacy in three ways.
By using our knowledge to expose how people are being deceived, by recognising that another world is not only necessary but possible and by devoting ourselves to bringing it into existence.

Borders to be telly test zone

by Norman Lockhart

Borders residents from Carlisle to Peebles and Eyemouth to Stranraer, officially the lowest income area of Scotland, are to be forced to have digital TV.
At first glance, that sounds like a welcome bit of 21st century progress for what is a predominantly rural area. But that’s just not the case.

Railroading
Ofcom has suggested, as a means of encouraging - or should we say railroading? - people to adopt the new system, that the old-fashioned analogue system, with its sometimes poor reception, be turned off for this area by 2008.
The Media Guardian of 15 September 2004 confirmed that the government and the BBC intend to pursue this course.
Anyone who has chosen to do an Open University course and wants to see the programmes that go with it on BBC 2 will now have to have a digital TV and receiver - even though they already pay the licence fee for a so-called public broadcasting service.
Socialist MSP for the South of Scotland, Rosemary Byrne, has already tried to raise this as a matter for the Scottish Parliament only to be told that it is yet another matter reserved to Westminster and should be taken up by our MP.
At present, digital TV is available to 73 per cent of British households but only if you have the right equipment for your house. When considering whether to turn off the Borders as one of the first regions, along with parts of rural Wales, family finances were clearly not a major factor.

Income
As far as our urban-dominated culture goes, it is just a technical matter. But the benefits that could come with digital transmission depend on you personally being able to afford it.
When you consider that the Borders has official recognition as the area of Scotland with the lowest income per head of population, this forward march for progress begins to look more like a government picking on those least able to fight back.

Bare faced cheek from knickers millionaire

Michelle Mone, the Ultimo bra entrepreneur who gave Labour’s mini-manifesto on working people in Scotland the celebrity thumbs-up, may be doing Jack McConnell’s cause more harm than good.
After all, so dedicated is she to the working people of Scotland that, like Richard Branson, another of our favourite entrepreneurs, she chose to re-locate her manufacturing base to China, where the wages are dirt cheap and labour conditions just plain dirty.
Thus her statement that “Scotland is working. With low interest rates and a stable economy, I am growing my business and employing people in Scotland” rings a little hollow.
When quizzed on the matter, she explained that it was better to have a Scottish-based company with Chinese manufacturing than no Scottish company at all.
Hmm.
Not much better, when all’s said and done. Scottish people are still losing out on work and Chinese people are still being exploited in the name of global mark-ups.
Is this the brave new Scotland Jack and Ally envisage? Probably; after all, they’ve always been more keen to pacify the rich than serve the people.
Meanwhile poverty continues to escalate, thanks to the abject lack of wealth trickling down from our top earners.
Mone isn’t paying into the economy through the wages of workers, and she certainly isn’t through corporation tax, which stands at 30 per cent, one of the lowest rates in Europe.

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One World

Privatisation of the seas?

by John Aberdein, Orkney SSP

In the run-up to the 1987 election, extreme Tories were all for selling off the sea. John Selwyn Gummer proposed that prime fishing areas be privatised and hawked off in one mile square blocks.
It didn’t happen.
But now Tony Blair’s Strategy Unit has come out with a recommendation that would have the same destructive effect on fishing communities.
Under the blue-green cloak of “conservationism”, Blair proposes to marketise all rights to fish for cod, haddock, and other whitefish species.

Capital
Whereas Gummer’s proposal was hooted off every pier from Girvan to Lerwick (the idea of fencing-off the sea, with trawlers turning right-angles up and down like lawn-mowers!), Blair’s plan has already been applied to the pelagic sector (herring and mackerel) and would concentrate capital rapidly in very few hands.
The Blair plan is to introduce Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs), which would confer on their owners the right to catch a percentage of the UK Total Allowable Catch (TAC) determined annually by the EC Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).
Without an ITQ you couldn’t fish. But how has this worked out in the pelagic sector?
Thirty-five years ago, there were 90 herring boats working out of Ullapool alone: drifters, ringers, pair-trawlers and pursers. Fishermen worked for proper shares, for example, on a ringer each of the six fishers - whether skipper, engineer, cook or deckhand - got 10 per cent of the net proceeds.
This leant a strong egalitarianism to proceedings!

Conservationist
The old drifters were also inherently conservationist in the sense that small fish could just swim through the mesh.
But pursers in particular had huge catching power (a million fish at a time) and the fishery was closed in 1975.
By the time it reopened, the British had lost their taste for fresh herring.
After 1990, the Russian and Polish boats that had klondyked herring for their own folk became infrequent visitors to Scottish ports, as living standards dropped post-communism.
Only 13 licences were introduced for the huge trawler-pursers that now dominated the Scottish scene.
These days, the old share-fisherman system has been lost.
Recently an Orkney purser-trawler was sold, together with its licence and ITQ.
The owner got in the region of £26 million: the crew were given exactly four days to clear their personal effects.
Pay-off? Redundancy? No chance. The former owner is now building a huge mansion that dominates the small port, a bit like in the novel The House with the Green Shutters, George Douglas Brown’s 1901 expose of commercial greed in a small Scottish town.
Is this then the advanced capitalist system that Blair intends to apply to the whitefish sector?
In the Strategy Unit report, blandly entitled Alternative Policy Instruments for Fisheries Management, the Iceland experience with ITQs is recommended because “the fishing fleet has contracted” and “most fishing firms have been profitable”.

Disputes
The report does also mention the downside: “A series of bitter industrial disputes in the mid-90s focussed on the high price of quotas and the consequent effects on crew wages.
“ITQs have also been criticised for promoting concentration of ownership.
“They are also held to have led to a degree of regional concentration with some communities becoming marginalised as a result of loss of quotas.”
But having mentioned wages and communities in passing, the report gives no weight to them in its summing-up.
Even worse, when mentioning the New Zealand experience of ITQs, it claims that “the fishing industry is a stout supporter of the system” without any reference to the fact that the Maoris have been expropriated from their traditional fishing rights supposed to be guaranteed under Article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi.
In New Zealand the top one per cent of the boats catch 45 per cent of the fish, while the bottom 60 per cent of boats have to struggle on with access to less than 5 per cent of the fish.
In Iceland they had strikes, in New Zealand the Maoris brought court cases: are we just going to sleepwalk in to this new legislation?
Ross Finnie is talking piously about Regional Fisheries Management in Scotland, an idea that has been around for 20 years.
Manage what though?
By the time it is implemented, much ownership may have been concentrated out of fishing hands altogether: fishers will be wage-slaves contract-fishing for Somerfield or Marks and Spencer.
Forget Blair’s blue-green cloak of “conservationism”. Stocks can be far better conserved by direct methods.
The secret is to limit fishing effort by allocating maximum days at sea per boat and by technical measures like increased mesh-sizes.

Solution
The regulation of days at sea can be accomplished by satellite tracking of each boat’s transponder, and enforced where necessary by civil penalties.
The only proper solution is a red-green one, allowing fair reward to all fishers, maintaining communities, and restricting fishing effort to sustainable proportions.

Go Veggie! with Viva!

Viva!, the international animal campaigning group (who support the SSP’s petition to the Scottish Parliament calling for an inquiry into intensive animal farming), is bringing its Incredible Veggie Roadshow to Edinburgh on Saturday 30 April, from 10am-5pm.
Entry to the event is free and includes cookery demonstrations, stalls, mother and baby section, beauty products, vegan foods, competitions, books, info and campaign news. The roadshow, which is touring the UK, will be held at St George’s West Church, 58 Shandwick Place, Edinburgh. The SSP is planning to run a bus from Glasgow: contact John at the Glasgow office for details.
n Phone 0141 429 8200

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Holyrood News

A 1960s solution to a 21st century problem - the M74 is out of time, money and credibility

By Rosie Kane

There was a time when concrete was king, democracy was but a dream and ‘environment’ was an E-word best avoided by decision makers.
All of that was supposedly a long, long time ago - that is unless you are the Labour/Lib Dem Scottish Executive, in which case it’s the here and now.
Most of the country has experienced the willingness of this parcel of rogues to stick a spike in the hopes and aspirations of the community, but if we ever needed a super-sized example of this, it was handed to us on Thursday 24 March 2005.
The whole story begins somewhere back in the late fifties when our post-war cities were being shaped - and indeed, concrete was king.
Multi-storey blocks of flats, huge grey shopping centres, flat-roofed houses and the motorway network were just some of the plans starting to rear there ugly heids on the planning horizon.
The Glasgow Highway Network was part of that planning era and the M74 motorway was a major route of the plan, along with the M8 and M77.
As we know, much of the motorway network went ahead - it’s not pleasant but we didn’t know then what we know now.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I know that on more than one occasion I have wished for that very asset.
We now know, for instance, that flat roofs do not suit the climate of Scotland. We also know that living way up high in a block of flats is not without its problems.
Asbestos, once built into our homes, schools and workplaces is a killer and busy, traffic-filled roads pollute our communities and fill our children’s bodies with dangerous fumes.
Well most, if not all, of those flat roofs have been replaced (although we have a long way to go in relation to suitable affordable social housing).
Located asbestos is being removed, sadly way too late for many. If we had known then what we know now, and had those in power taken positive action - without doubt, lives would have been saved, people would have safe and suitable housing and some of the problems that haunt us now would actually be remembered as things we nearly got wrong.
Jack McConnell and his chums were offered the benefit of hindsight this year and decided to ignore it.
It was offered in the shape of a report from a Public Local Inquiry, commissioned by the Scottish Executive, into the M74 Northern Extension.
The report resoundingly backed up all of the claims made by the people along the route, the environmental movement and other reports from committees at Westminster which prove that new motorways do not provide the transport and economic solutions we now need.
New motorways encourage new traffic - this was ironically the finding of the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment (SACTRA) commissioned by Thatcher in the nineties.
She commissioned this report to prove the anti-motorway protesters wrong - and instead, didn’t it just go and prove them right?
But who needs a report to prove this?
You don’t need a panel of so-called experts to show that our cinemas, shops, swimming pools, etc, are now five miles down the motorway, leaving most folk with the option of getting behind the wheel or staying out of the deal.
Another SACTRA found that urban motorways bleed the local economy. Again not rocket science.
When Labour were in opposition at Westminster, they called for a moratorium on ALL URBAN motorway construction. In 1996, Glasgow City Council were elected on a manifesto that stated “We regret the construction of the M77 and will oppose the construction of the M74 NE”.
Once elected however, they took just over half an hour to give it planning permission.
The M74 NE will stand on stilts fifty feet high with 24 hour a day parapet lighting.
Every day, it will carry 110,000 vehicles through the heart of urban Glasgow.
It will cost at least £500 million, at least £25 million of which will come from Glasgow City Council, with North Lanarkshire and Renfrew Council putting millions in too. The Scottish Executive will cough up most of the rest.
However, there is a block of at least £3 million and no one has been able to tell me where that will be coming from - I suspect private finance will get its foot in the door.
The SNP were opposed to the road several years ago, but there pallyness wi’ big business persuaded them to execute a big tartan U-turn.
Sadly the STUC (under Campbell Christie) joined the pro-motorway chorus of the CBI, Chamber of Commerce, Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems.
The STUC believed jobs would be created if the road was built. This falsehood is blown away by the Public Local Inquiry report; if new motorways created new long-term jobs then both Easterhouse and Pollok would be minted.
Perhaps the report will encourage the STUC to back off from the project and come out in support of the communities.
Joint Action Against the M74 (JAM74) and others are now mounting a legal challenge to the Executive’s undemocratic decision.
We should not give up on the legal/political process yet, but being realistic it looks like direct action is on the cards. Would-be investors who would profit from pollution should have nowhere to hide, nor should political sorts who support the M74.
Our councils and our Executive don’t have a penny unless we give it to them - it’s not their money and how dare they use it to pollute our world, create physical divides through our built-up communities and increase our reliance on oil.
I live close to the route - it’s a very highly populated area.
When we stick up for the rights of folk along the route and when we make sure they are fully informed to allow them to stick up for themselves, we are sticking up for democracy, inclusion, human rights and the planet.
Think global act local - for me this environmental call has never been more important.

Frances wins the Presidency

Frances Curran, SSP MSP for the West of Scotland, has been elected Honorary President of the University of Paisley Students Association (UPSA).
SSP member and Paisley Uni student Cheryl McCormick, who has just been elected herself as Welfare and Representation Convenor at UPSA, is hugely pleased.
She told the Voice: “It was quite a victory from a campaign that was mostly conducted by word of mouth. Frances came into the Uni and talked to lots of students so we got enough support to get her nominated and it went on from there.”
Cheryl added: “Her position means she’ll be getting involved in helping students with their problems, such as difficulties with student accommodation, and campaigning with them on all sorts of issues.”
A delighted Frances told the Voice she was looking forward to getting her teeth into the job. She will campaign for students’ rights and for free education. This includes opposing any proposals to introduce top up fees for Scottish universities which may be contained in the new Education Bill.

Freedom for Vanunu?

Scottish Socialist Party convenor Colin Fox MSP has written to Glasgow University Principal Sir Muir Russell asking him to make representations to Jack McConnell over the plight of Mordechai Vanunu - the peace activist denied the right to travel or to even speak to foreigners by the Israeli government.
In reply to a question from Colin, First Minister Jack McConnell said he would respond to any ‘representations’ made to him by University authorities.
Vanunu served 18 years in jail for exposing Israel’s secret nuclear weapons programme to a Sunday Times journalist.
He was recently elected Rector of Glasgow University but has been unable to take up the post since the terms of his bail conditions mean he is unable to leave East Jerusalem.
Colin believes the First Minister has left the door ajar for prospects of bringing Mr Vanunu to Scotland.
He told the Voice:
“Jack McConnell today told me he would listen to what the University had to say and would be prepared to take their case to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London if requested.
“I have today written to the University to encourage them to take up the offer.
“I see this as a clear opportunity to help get Mordechai over here, as he has expressly requested.
“As I said in my speech, I can think of no better sight than seeing Mordechai Vanunu standing with us on the ‘Make Poverty History - Make Injustice History’ march in Scotland in July.”

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FREE SCHOOL MEALS NOW!

When the Scottish Socialist Party launched its Free School Meals campaign, people queued to sign the petitions, outraged at the muck being served up to our children.
Now, thanks to Jamie Oliver’s Channel 4 show and Frances Curran’s parliamentary bill, overhauling school lunches is back on the menu and the government very much on the back foot.
Here, we look at how the new bill will work, how our school dinners compare to those served up across the world, the history of the in-school midday meal. Plus, we hear why a nutritional worker, helping to implement the Executive’s ‘Hungry for Success’ campaign, wants to see further reforms, including free provision for all.

by Bill Scott

In the first session of the Scottish Parliament Tommy Sheridan, our sole MSP, managed to abolish warrant sales. However, despite co-sponsorship from John McAllion and Alex Neil and grudging support from the rest of the SNP, his Bill to introduce free school meals for all Scottish schoolchildren fell at the first stage.
Because of arcane Scottish Parliament rules this meant that we couldn’t introduce the same bill in this Parliament - unless we could show it has a substantially greater chance of succeeding.
With opposition from both the Old and New Tories - and with the SNP leadership shamefully ordering their MSPs not to sign any bill proposal put forward by the SSP - we were unable to do this and so had to think of a new proposal.
Tommy worked with Frances Curran, our parliamentary staff and the Free School Meals Campaign Group to come up with a new bill which would achieve the same aim.
Mike Dailly, the solicitor with Govan Law Centre who had drafted the first school meals bill came up with a clever solution. Our new bill proposal would be a catch-all which any MSP who favoured extension of free entitlement could support.
Instead of compelling the Scottish Executive to do anything it would instead give them powers to extend entitlement if they wished to.
For example they could extend entitlement on the basis of children’s age, or geography (all kids in deprived areas or in whole local authorities), or benefit entitlement (eg - to the kids of everyone on working tax credits or Council Tax benefit etc) or even on grounds of parents’ income.
We hoped that enough Labour and SNP MSPs would support the proposal to get the bill through its crucial first stage vote. If that was achieved we could then try to amend the bill to give entitlement to all children whose parents were in receipt of Child Benefit (effectively all school-children).
However after a great deal of work it became evident that even if we managed to get the bill passed it wouldn’t compel the Scottish Executive to do anything.
They could simply let it lie on the statute book and never use its powers.
We then had a tactical dilemma - was it worth mounting a massive public campaign for a bill that would not necessarily result in any more children receiving school meals?
We thought not. So the issue was discussed in the Free School Meals Campaign Group and then brought back to the party.
As we couldn’t simply introduce a bill to give entitlement to all children we needed to come up with a new proposal that was still true to the principle of universal entitlement.
What shape that new proposal should take was then discussed at the SSP’s Parliamentary Committee, its Executive and at the last National Council.
So the new bill proposal will be to extend free school meals provision to all primary children in Scotland but it will also give the Executive the power to extend free meals provision further on grounds of age, geography etc.
If we manage to get the bill through its crucial first stage vote we will then try to amend it at stage 2 to expand entitlement to all school children.
We believe that if we can get this bill passed it will act as a Trojan Horse and quickly lead to free meals for all.
That of course is a big if and will require a massive public campaign to bring enough pressure to bear, particularly on Labour MSPs, to have the slightest chance of success.
One thing to emphasise is that, although the wording of the bill proposal has changed, there has been absolutely no change to SSP policy.
The Scottish Socialist Party remains committed to free school meals for all school-children.
We may sometimes have to duck and weave tactically to achieve that aim in a parliament where we are the only principled socialists.
But when we’re out campaigning on the street, we should stick resolutely to our demand - free and healthy school meals for all!

Do we really need to give the kids what they want?

by Roz Paterson

In Scotland, the school dinners situation is not quite as dire as it is in England. The Hungry For Success campaign, being rolled out in Scottish primary schools, has at least recognised that a diet of Turkey Twizzlers and Wotsits does not a healthy population make.
Marjorie Shepherd, a Food and Health Development Officer for East Lothians Council, says that the campaign means school lunches must conform to a minimal nutritional standard, resulting in menus such as cottage pie and veg, fish and veg, or a filled roll and soup.
“At first, uptake amongst pupils went down, because the menus were strange and new. But within 6 to 8 weeks, uptake returned to normal and even went up.”

Spurious
Which goes to show that the multinational mantra (echoed, shamefully, by some politicians) - that “we’re just giving the kids what they want” - is spurious to say the least.
Marjorie believes that nutrition education, with the provision of healthy food at its core, should be part of the curriculum.
On the subject of choice, that favoured Blairite buzzword, she says:
“A six or seven or eight year old is not that confident when confronted with choices, and they’ll go for what they know, rather than what is necessarily good for them.”
Which means that if they’re fed pizza and beans at home, because their parents lack cookery skills or basic nutritional know-how or even just access to decent shops, they’ll opt for that in school too.
The quality of packed lunches is an insight into the quality of home cooking these days. “Sometimes they’re even worse than the school dinners.”
We’re talking jam sandwiches on white, three chocolate biscuits, two packets of crisps and a can of Vanilla Coke; fed to children at a time when their bodies need calcium, protein, fibre and vitamins just to keep on growing.
“Children can be incredibly conservative in their food choices. I’ve done fruit tastings in school where you’ll see young boys sitting with their mouths clamped shut and even their fingers up their noses to avoid eating something new!
“I read a study which said you have to offer children something new up to seven times before they’ll try it.”
So choice, you see, works no better with children than it does with adults. Marjorie believes parents should be involved in the education process too.
If they went to school after 1981, then chances are, unless their parents cooked good meals regularly, they’ll have as little direction nutritionally as their kids, who are daily subjected to dozens of commercials exhorting them to nag for a Burger King, some cheese string and a bucket of Minstrels.

Stigma
Marjorie has “always” supported the principle of providing nutritious school meals free to everyone.
That way, not only is the current stigma of free school meals for poor kids removed, it gives parents control over what their children eat in school.
Now, if you give them £2, you can’t be sure they’ll spend it on a baked potato and salad or a chip roll and two fags.
If meals are free and you give them no cash, schoolchildren have no choice but to eat in the school canteen.
Which could have very positive implications for reducing truancy and bullying too.
And, as the East Lothians experience shows, they’ll get used to it in no time and actually come to prefer it.

Century-long fight for nutritious dinners

Jamie Oliver isn’t the first person to be appalled by the state of childhood nutrition.
Back in 1907, a Miss A Cruff, of Bradford School Board, was busy with a similar crusade, trying to stem the tide of juvenile malnutrition through recipes that could be adapted for cheap, mass catering but would deliver adequate sustenance.
Though there had been many advances made in public health provision by the turn of the 20th century - including vastly improved sanitation and housing - many children, particularly those born of disadvantaged backgrounds, continued to exhibit the same symptoms of poor health as seen in children living and working in the squalor of the early industrial revolution - stunted growth, stomach troubles, physical weakness.
Childhood mortality (meaning they died before their fifth birthday) stood at 150 per 1000 live births - compared to 15 per 1000 today.
A wake-up call for the government came in the shape of the Boer War (1899-1902), when many of the would-be recruits - mostly young working-class men looking for a living - had to be turned away as they were too weak and small to be soldiers.
So what could account for this epidemic of ill-health when visible improvements were clearly being made?
In a word, poverty.
The Seebohm Rowntree study of working-class households in York (1901) found that even working families weren’t bringing in enough to afford sufficient food to nourish both the breadwinners and the children.
Recognising the problem, the Salvation Army stepped in, offering “farthing meals” to the children of the poor.
Then, in 1906, the Liberal government introduced the Education (Provision of Meals) Act, which permitted schools to offer lunches, meeting minimum nutritional standards, to pupils.
For a huge proportion of children, this midday fare was the only hot, nutritious meal they received all day. And it was invaluable educationally because there was, as many educationalists realised, little point in providing free, compulsory schooling if pupils were too starved to take any of it in.
Not all school authorities took up school dinners, of course, despite Miss Cruff’s shining example and the obvious good sense it made to do so.
In fact, it wasn’t until 1944 that local authorities were legally obliged to provide school meals and thus dawned the golden age of school dinners; liver and onions, Spam fritters, mashed potatoes, spotted dick and custard.
Then, in 1981, it all changed.
The Thatcher government, wobbling from a massive recession, abolished the minimum nutritional standards clause; now schools could serve what they liked, so long as it made money.
Two years later, this same government tried to sit on a report from its own National Advisory Committee on Nutrition Education (NACNE) which found that too much fat, salt, sugar and meat and too little fruit and fibre was accelerating the incidence of so-called “diseases of civilisation” such as cancers and heart disease.
Twenty years on, and the chickens are coming home to roost.
Obesity is rife in the UK, particularly amongst the very young.
In fact, we now have the first generation that is likely to die before its parents, thanks to inadequate diet and lack of exercise.
Youngsters are also exhibiting increased incidence of constipation, caused by a lack of fluid and fibre in their diet, and other illnesses/syndromes increasingly linked, at least in part, to poor diet - such as asthma, Attention Deficit Disorder, sleep problems and lack of concentration.
In other words, as many barriers to a successful education as were witnessed in 1906.
It has taken us a whole century to get right back where we started.

Are UK meals the dog’s dinners of the world?

If Britain is the sick man of Europe, then perhaps it’s not surprising that our school lunches are the dog’s dinners of the world. Only in America is the fuel served up to children of a uniformly lower standard.
In France, between £1.50 and £4 is spent per head on the midday meal, with three course menus offering such high standard fare as, to begin, grapefruit, to follow, grilled chicken and green beans, then a cheese course followed by a pudding, such as a prune tart, with plain water as accompaniment.
There is no choice, so children eat up what they get.
But France has a fast food problem and obesity is on the rise. So much so, that the French government has introduced nutrition classes in primary schools and banned vending machines both in primaries and in secondaries from September this year.
In Norway, there are no school lunches and children take in packed lunches, which they eat at their desks as recess is only half an hour.
These lunches tend to be pretty healthy, featuring open sandwiches, yoghurt and fruit.

Curriculum
Nutrition is part of the curriculum here and temptations are few as vending machines dispensing crisps and pop are almost unheard of.
In Ukraine, pupils eat traditional food such as Borsch (beetroot soup), sausage or meat cutlet and mash, and a pudding such as pancakes. Meals used to be free, but they cost around £1 a week now. However, corruption and poverty are huge problems here, and school fare can differ wildly from one district to another, with many children missing out on such goodies as fish, meat and eggs altogether.
In Finland, lunch is free and nutritious, with the week’s menus published in the local paper so parents can see what their children are to eat. Since the introduction of free, healthy school meals 30 years ago, heart disease in Finland has dropped dramatically, and uptake of school dinners is very high.
In Japan, you get something along the lines of a bowl of rice, usually with fish, a salad and a soup, usually made with tofu and vegetables.
Everyone, from the headteacher to the primary one kids, tucks in together, creating a real sense of social cohesion.
In Korea, interestingly, there is no school meal system and instead, children bring in packed food with a view to sharing it out.
These meals usually comprise steamed rice, a meat dish, eggs and vegetables.
In some countries, including Switzerland and Spain, many children still go home for lunch, which means they combine the benefits of a walk with a home-cooked meal eaten with the family.

Mystery meat
Meanwhile, in the US, you get the “mystery meat” - some kind of dead animal product served up in a fried breadcrumb coating - fries, burgers, tacos and, of course, fizzy drinks.
School pupils generally vote with their feet (or rather, their cars) and, as soon as they can drive, zoom off to their nearest McDonalds for a tastier, if nutritionally void, lunch instead.
However, there is a fightback. In some schools, parents and children have united to force out vending machines but still, says Dr Walter Willet, head of the nutrition department at Harvard, “(School meals) tend to be at the bottom of the barrel in terms of healthy nutrition.”
Says one disgruntled parent, talking of the school food in the Netherlands (which is also rather poor), “if schools, teachers and parents have so little concern for children’s health they might as well sell cigarettes there!”

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your voice

Arbroath: more than just the home of smokies
The anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath on April 6, 1320, will pass again this year with the vast majority of the population of Scotland ignorant to it.
But in this document, King Robert the Bruce himself was warned that he would be deposed if he failed the people in his struggle to maintain Scotland’s hard won independence. Even the Pope, who was a kind of latter day United Nations leader, was warned not to interfere in Scotland’s destiny and aspirations of freedom.
It reads:
“...if [the King] should give up what he has begun, seeking to make our Kingdom subject to the King of the English, we would strive at once to drive him out as our enemy and subverter of his own right and ours, and make some other man who was able to defend us our King.
“For so long as one hundred of us remain alive, we will never on any conditions be subjected to the lordship of the English. For we fight not for glory nor riches nor honours, but for freedom which no good man gives up except with his life...”
Some may wonder why a socialist would promote a ‘nationalist’ event. I would remind them that one of the greatest socialists these islands ever produced, John MacLean, chaired the six hundredth anniversary rally of the Declaration in 1920.
The Scottish Republican Socialist Movement will be holding their annual commemoration on Sunday 3 April, from King’s Gate in Arbroath, 1.30pm, through the town to behind the Abbey.
The speakers will be Alan McCombes of the Scottish Socialist Party, Dave Coutts of Independence First - a non-party campaign for a referendum on Scottish independence - and Dave Leadbetter of the SRSM will speak on Willie MacRae, who died in mysterious circumstances on the anniversary of the Declaration in 1985. An SNP speaker has been invited, as has John MacAllion.
Some will meet after at Arbroath’s famous folk pub, the Foundry Bar Inn.
A coach will leave from Glasgow, George Square, at 10.30am. Price £10, children free.
Donald Anderson,
Glasgow

Nuclear power is never an answer
In making the case for a new generation of nuclear power stations Roz Paterson is in danger of falling for the “no alternative” myth peddled by a coalition of pro-nuclear wolves in green sheep’s clothing.
When you find yourself in the same camp as lefty turned pro nuclear Blairite Brian Wilson it’s time to take stock.
Roz outlines a regime of controlled and regulated nuclear industry which quite simply will not be delivered.
Currently the British Nuclear Group, which deals with waste, is rostered for privatisation and indeed the fact that the nuclear industry remains in public ownership speaks volumes about it.
The reason it remains public in a sea of energy privatisation is because it is dangerous, linked to bomb-making and has unsupportable waste disposal costs.
None of this is about to change and anybody in doubt about the links between power stations and bombs has only to consider the present US /Iran confrontation on the issue.
The hard truth is that, for the foreseeable future, the mass use of cars, planes, central heating, road transport etc makes the idea of a carbon-free future little more than a fantasy.
I agree with Roz that we need bridging measures to cover the gap between now and an operational renewables industry but nukes ain’t it.
Develop clean burn coal, repay the debt we owe mining communities and ensure that we have a stable power generation grid based on non imported fuels.
Such a system, publicly owned, will provide energy security, skilled jobs and a technology of clean burn (axed by the Tories) which can be applied both in Scotland and across the world.
It will also provide the time needed to sort out the technical and democratic questions which surround renewables.
Ken Ferguson,
Newburgh, Fife

Blair’s big business aid
Taxpayers are generally reluctant, but most like to think that their contributions towards international aid are doing some good for those in the hardest circumstances in the poor world.
However we should be less than pleased with New Labour’s ‘third way’ approach. They have used big chunks of aid to India to promote and pave the way for GM farming, predicted to drive thousands of viable small farmers off the land and into city poverty, to make way for big-scale GM production. Their latest wheeze has been paying millions of pounds of aid money to business consultancies to promote water privatisation, for the primary benefit of banks and the multi-national water industry. Over a billion of mankind haven’t got access to clean water, twice that have no basic sanitation. There are simple obstacles in each affected country, but the Blair/Brown universal answer is of course ‘privatisation’. Exploitative water companies have already brought distress, pain, and even death, in several poor countries and been rejected for failure by others. Yet the Blair government presses on, happy for corporate convenience to subscribe to the contrived definition that access to clean water is “not a human right”. A challenge to this aid perversion needs awareness and support - visit the campaign website www.dirtyaid.org
Arthur Jarrett, Wormit, Fife,

Rebel Ink
Kevin Williamson

Independence first

For those who are new to the party, or for those who have forgotten, for this week only, here’s a quick cut-out-and-keep reference guide to the key documents and resolutions supported by the SSP with regards to our unequivocal support for Scottish Independence. It should help clarify any misunderstandings and give a timeline to how this ‘key strategic objective’ has developed in the last six years.
From the 16 Point Programme agreed at the SSP’s First National Conference (Feb 1999): “The Scottish Socialist Party stands for an independent socialist Scotland free from poverty, privilege, corruption, homelessness, unemployment and greed. We believe that the future of Scotland should be decided by the people of Scotland - and support the principle of a referendum on independence.”
From SSP National Conference - Passed Overwhelmingly - (Feb 2003): “Conference reaffirms that Scottish Independence is a key strategic objective of the Scottish Socialist Party and should be at the centre of our campaigning work.
“Independence will provide the basis for taking the fight for a socialist Scotland to a more advanced stage, as argued by pioneers of the movement such as John Maclean. Specifically it will: (a) provide the Scottish people with the democratic machinery to support their struggle for Socialism. (b) seriously weaken British Imperialism, the most pro-US and most dangerous imperialist power in Europe and junior partner in Bush’s war plans.
“In the tradition of striking at imperialism at its weakest link outlined by Maclean, Connolly and Lenin among others we believe that Scottish Socialists not only need to support Scotland’s right to self-determination and independence but have an international duty to do so and thus weaken British imperialism.”
From Consultation Document, written by Alan McCombes and supported by SSP National Council (2003): “We make it clear we are fighting for a socialist republic, but that does not mean we place any conditions on our support for independence. Even on a non-socialist basis, we should support independence as a progressive democratic advance and as a major defeat for capitalism and imperialism on a world scale.”
From ‘The Declaration of Calton Hill’, Supported by SSP National Council (2004): “We the undersigned call for an independent Scottish republic built on the principles of liberty, equality, diversity and solidarity.
“These principles can never be put into practice while Scotland remains subordinate to the hierarchical and anti-democratic institutions of the British state.
“We believe these principles can be brought about by a freely elected Scottish Government with full control of Scotland’s revenues.
“We believe that the right to self-determination is an inherent right, and not a favour to be granted to us whether by the Crown or the British State. We believe the sovereignty rests in the people and vow to fight for the right to govern ourselves for the benefit of all those living in Scotland today, tomorrow and in future times.”
In recent weeks a campaign for a referendum on Scottish Independence was launched by the Independence First group. In offering the campaign his support, Tommy Sheridan MSP succinctly and eloquently summarised the position of the SSP (Mar 2005):
“As a socialist I believe passionately in genuine democracy and the right of nations to self-determination.
“My party’s vision is of an independent socialist Scotland but we absolutely endorse and promote the right of citizens in Scotland to democratically decide now via a referendum if they wish an independent country.
“I see the British imperial union as a reactionary barrier to social progress and want that British union dismantled to encourage progressive and democratic ideas to flourish in the individual entities of Scotland, England and Wales. The campaign for an independence referendum deserves support from all socialists and democrats alike.”
With the Independence Election of 2007 fast approaching, it is now up to every single one of us to discuss ways to take all of these fine words and put them centre stage in all of our campaigning, education and organisation.

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—page nine—

Cultural Resistance

Pandit-G speaks

Asian Dub Foundation play an SSP benefit gig at Glasgow Carling Academy on 3 April. The following interview with ADF’s Pandit G is taken from SSY’s zine, leftfield.

leftfield: Hi Pandit, tell us about the new album.
Pandit G: It came out last month, we called it Tank, to go with the theme of war and the military. There’s two new singers on it, Lord from ADFED, and Getha Priest who sang on Fortress Europe.
What have you been listening to recently? Any new bands?
I’ve been out of the picture for a while looking after my family and my new kid, so I haven’t been listening to much new music. I had Public Enemy on the stereo a lot when we were recording Tank though.
How did ADF get started?
Myself and some other activists in London set up Community Music in 1993, and ran a series of workshops over the summer for asian youth round London.
We got about 15 youth together, teaching music and performance. It was at the time of the east end riots, and the BNP were active. Community Music became a political sound system where we’d play gigs against racism.
A couple of years later Sanjay and Chandrasonic joined, and we became more like a band.
We came up with the name Asian Dub Foundation and started to go out and play. By 1997 we were doing music full time, touring, doing records, etc...
Is Community Music still going?
Yeah, it’s called ADFED now, although it’s hard to get money and resources. There’s a great need for these kind of things. Working with young people is really important, for developing new grassroots talent. Dizzee Rascal came from a project like ours, as did Roni Size.
Young people get their first taste of putting beats together, and that’s where the raw talent is.
At least it’s an alternative to pop idol and all that.
The kids might not be superstars but that’s not the point. Even if they never go on to do music as a career, its still very worthwhile.
Why are you supporting the Scottish Socialist Party?
Whenever we can help progressives, we do. Because we all live in London we don’t hear much about what goes on in Scotland, but we know a lot of work’s been done in the anti-war movement with the SSP. Hopefully our gig on 3 April will be a help.
Over years we’ve played for many different organisations. Last summer we played to 200,000 in Central France for Attac.
We’re very much into supporting local and specific campaigns as part of reaching out to people.
What do you think of the situation in Iraq... is there any hope for peace in the Middle East?
Well, we’ve done loads of benefits for the Stop the War Coalition, mobilising the anti-war movement back in 2001 with Afghanistan.
Then there was the compilation Peace Not War we contributed to in 2002. We did a track with Tariq Ali, cutting up his speech over music, and Mark Steel too.
Tank looks at issues around war, Islamophobia... the last track Oil really sums up the whole thing, ‘We want your oil’, when you cut out the frilly language about bringing democracy to people it’s all about oil. Whoever’s left standing will do the deal with what’s left under the ground with the US and UK. The US is the sole superpower defending its interests, using the military option. The US economy will be eclipsed by India and China in the near future, so it is carving out its resources.
Does music play a role in politicising people?
Of course it can, but music is of its time. If movements are happening, art corresponds to the movement. When the Civil Rights, anti-war movements in the ’60s happened, we got Motown, funk, Curtis Mayfield, etc, and reggae came out of the anti-colonialism movement.
It rises and falls depending on the movement at a time. I suppose when we were young, we were politicised by everything from Gang of Four to The Fall, just for their belligerence. There was a polarisation then in the ’80s, a move to left and right. Later people got angry again, and the music can’t be taken out of context.
The music industry is conventional and inward looking, radical music will come from underground, from people who want to express themselves and deal with issues. The new movement will come from local campaigns about education, housing, a decent job.
In the same way, the best new music doesn’t come from Pop Idol, it will come from grassroots community music.
Events change people’s opinions and radicalise people.

ADFED
ADFED is the educational wing of ADF. Launched by members of ADF in 1998, ADFED is now an independent project giving training to under- represented youth communities, in East London. The organisation is aimed at giving young people who are passionate about music the opportunity to develop their creativity, especially those who don’t have access to musical equipment and training. ADFED projects are designed specifically to represent issues relating to Asian/Black and Ethnic minority youth cultures, particularly relating to young people who face socio-economic barriers; social exclusion; gender imbalance, refugee/asylum issues and more.

n See www.adfed.co.uk

If I should fall from grace with reality TV and turn to film

Maria Full of Grace (cert 15) directed by Joshua Marston. In cinemas now

by Nick McKerrell

It is one of the ironies of modern culture that as popular TV slowly disintegrates into a mess of unrealistic “reality” TV, some of the most powerful and engaging cinema relies upon ordinary people rather than trained actors in central roles. This approach is common in cinema across the world - in the West, Ken Loach has led the way in this approach.
Joshua Marston a young American director sees Loach as one of his role models.
In partially following this model, he has produced a wee cracker of a film in Maria Full of Grace. Maria is a young Colombian working in a rose factory. She feels trapped by her cramped living conditions.
When she becomes pregnant she wants to escape. In Colombia, the drugs trade is never far away and she is offered the chance of becoming a drugs “mule”. When in America she becomes immersed in the exiled Colombian community and makes important decisions regarding her life. The logistics of smuggling drugs in this way are shown in minute (and fairly graphic) detail. The way in which the drug dealers view the young women’s bodies as objects - slightly more complicated suitcases - is also very disturbing and powerful. Although half the film is set in America, Spanish is spoken throughout, including the customs officers in the airport. Again this illustrates the diverse nature of US society.
Catalina Sandino Moreno, a young Colombian discovered by Marston who never acted before, is remarkable. She gained an Oscar nomination for best actress a few weeks ago, the first Colombian to do so.
One of the supporting actors, Orlando Tobon, plays the role he carries out in real life as adviser and social worker for the exiled Colombians - again a favoured technique of Loach.
There is no romanticism at all in the movie - perhaps a criticism that could be levelled at some of Loach’s most recent work. In fact, some of the characters are just plainly annoying including Maria’s close mate Blanca and her waster of a boyfriend. Catch it if you can.

Art for the masses - not millionaires

by Jo Harvie

Works by Bristol-born guerrilla artist Banksy hung for ten days in some of New York’s most prestigious galleries, after he put them up himself.
Dressed as an innocuous pensioner, he glued his art onto walls in the Metropolitan, Modern Art, Natural History and Brooklyn museums, all on 13 March. Friends helped distract attention by staging a ‘loud and obnoxious’ argument nearby. Banksy said it also helped to put them up “in the boring bits”.
The artist usually works outdoors but says that, with heightened security round train stations and other usual graffiti haunts, stunts like this are now comparatively easy. He has already pulled similar stunts in London’s Tate gallery and the Louvre.
In the Metropolitan, an oil painting of a woman altered by Banksy to include a gas mask only lasted a day before being discovered and removed.
His Tesco value brand can of tomato soup tribute to Warhol’s images of Campbell’s soup survived for four days in the Museum of Modern Art.
But in the Natural History Museum a dead beetle with glued-on fighter jet wings and missiles encased in glass, entitled Withus Oragainstus, and the biggest piece, an oil painting of an admiral vandalised to include a spray can and some anti-war slogans, placed in the Brooklyn Museum, both lasted until a website published pictures of the stunt on 23 March.
“The gas mask painting is about how fear of terror is disfiguring society,” Banksy told the New York Times.
“The military officer painting is dedicated to all those who joined the forces to fight honourable and just wars, and ended up feeling like maybe they should have stayed home and been peace activists instead.”
On the idea behind his exhibition, he said he’d thought ‘I could do that’ often enough while wandering round art galleries, and decided to take matters into his own hands. These galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of millionaires. The public never has any real say in what art they see.
“It’s good to screw with the selection process sometimes. ‘Comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable’ as Eleanor Roosevelt once said.”
n See www.banksy.co.uk and www.woostercollective.com

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—page ten—

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—page eleven—

International News

The bank that likes to say ‘privatise!’

by Bill Bonnar

The proposal to appoint Paul Wolfowitz as the next leader of the World Bank has been greeted with dismay, not least by those who have been trying to project a new caring image for the organisation.
Along with the appointment of John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN, Wolfowitz is one of the most prominent members of the Project for a New American Century, designed to establish and consolidate American global domination.
The furore over Wolfowitz however is something of a red herring - having someone different at the helm would make little, if any, difference.
The World Bank lends around $20 billion a year, mostly to poor countries. The key word here is lend. As with any bank, all loans have to be paid back with interest.
Much of the international debt held by poorer countries is with the World Bank, which explains its hostility to campaigns aimed at cancelling debts.
The World Bank has also shown few scruples as to who it lends money to.
Its list of creditors over the years looks like an international rogues gallery and has financed some of the most corrupt, exploitative and repressive regimes imaginable.
General Mobuto of Zaire, President Suharto of Indonesia and the Burmese military junta are just some who have benefited from World Bank loans.
This isn’t simply a case of turning a blind eye. The World Bank has been a key player in bringing these kinds of regimes to power and maintaining them against domestic and international opposition.
It also demands a say as to how the loans are spent, and will withhold money from governments who spend too much money on health and education programmes or oppose privatisation.
Persistent offenders find themselves starved of investment and aid and subject to political and military intervention with the aim of bringing more “responsible” governments to power. That is, back to Mobutu, Suharto and the Burmese generals.
The restructuring programmes imposed on many of the poorest countries have had a devastating effect on local economies and social welfare programmes.
Countries, once relatively self-sufficient in food, have had to switch to cash crops for export, leading to food dependency.
Public expenditure has been slashed, with devastating effects on some of the poorest people in the world.
Development programmes which prioritise access to food and clean water, education and health care have been swept aside, regarded as expendable in the drive to integrate their economies into the global market.
The recently published report from the Commission for Africa identified the World Bank as one of the key solutions to world poverty.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Its role has been that of defending and ruthlessly promoting the interests of international capitalism.
Paul Wolfowitz should feel very at home.

A very controlled coup?

by Roz Paterson

Last week, popular protests against vote-rigging in the February parliamentary elections toppled the government of Kyrgyzstan, an impoverished former Soviet state in Central Asia, and forced its president Aska Akayer to flee.
There is genuine, seething anger in the country, where poverty has dramatically intensified since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Commentators compared the scenes of mass uprising with demonstrations last year in Georgia and Ukraine.
However, what is happening in Kyrgyzstan may have more to do with American imperialist interests than any domino effect.
Following Akayer’s departure, former prime minister Kurmaneck Bakiyev was appointed leader by those elected in a process he denounced earlier that week as rigged.
He has promised to investigate the allegations of electoral fraud but is already demurring, saying fraud, if it applies at all, applies only to a very limited extent.
Meanwhile, those who formed Akayer’s fallen government, mostly wealthy businessmen with their own interests at heart, have joined the opposition; thus ensuring they get a stake in the new regime.
This latter looks like it’s home and dry, with the former legislature dissolving over the course of Monday and Tuesday.
However, the word on the streets is less conciliatory. When Bakiyev was appointed, riots and looting ensued. Many were furious he’d taken the now joint post of president and prime minister.
One ethnic Russian, looking round at the shattered remains of the games machine he looked after in a ransacked mall, said the new regime has unleashed chaos, leaving ordinary people without “food, work or pensions. They just wanted power.”
Somebody else wanted power too - the US.
A report by the US ambassador to Kyrzygstan, Stephen M Young - recently published by Kabar, the Kyrzyg national news agency - tells it like it is.
As early as December last, the US set its sights on forcing Akayer to resign, as he was a Russian “protégée” and therefore “guided by Moscow”. Russia is America’s biggest rival for influence in this strategically important area.
Sure, the country’s knackered economically and riddled with corruption, but it sits on key oil and gas resources and provides a through-road to the Caspian Sea.
Bakiyev was identified as “the most acceptable candidate...(for) relations between the US and Kyrgyzstan.”
To get what they wanted, the ambassador advised the sowing of unrest through discrediting the then current regime and rallying opposition protestors, via such agencies as the embassy’s Democratic commission and the Eurasia Foundation.
Further, as young people were more likely to be attracted to the Western way of doing things, it was important to pour funds into popularising “the American way of life” amongst students.
Thus the deaths, violence and vandalism that have spilled out in the process of shaking off one corrupt leader for what looks like another corrupt leader, can be seen as part of a greater plan to “intensify (US) influence in Central Asia, particularly in Kyrgyzstan...(which we view) as the base to advance the process of democratisation in (neighbouring) Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and limit Chinese and Russian capabilities in the area.”
And how do you roll out this process of democratisation? In the ambassador’s own words - “(by getting) control of the election process.”

Developers grab land from tsunami refugees

by Eamonn Coyle

On Monday this week, Indonesia, still trying to recover from the devastating Boxing Day tsunami, was struck by yet another earthquake which has caused at least 1,000 deaths across the region.
While fears of a second tsunami have not yet been realised, this latest tremor piles yet more misery on the millions of people across South East Asia who have been seeking to rebuild their shattered communities.
However, in Thailand this mammoth task was complicated even before the second quake struck this week.

Wealthy
It has emerged that wealthy developers are annexing land on the Thai coast, vacated by families and small businesses displaced by December’s tsunami disaster.
Now, as these families begin returning to what remains of their shattered homes, they are greeted with signs which scream “KEEP OUT!” and “NO TRESPASSING!”
The debris of former houses has been replaced by piles of building materials, as developers move in to claim land as their own.
One such example of this daylight robbery is in the Thai fishing village of Ban Nam Kem, which the tsunami left in utter ruins, killing half of the town’s inhabitants.
Little over three months after the wave struck, survivors such as village resident Ratree Kongwatmai are returning to find the land they and their families lived on for decades has been stolen by local developers looking to profit from its lucrative tourism potential.