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Pacer Plus:New Zealand and Australian exploitation in the Pacific

Byron Clark
The Spark July 2009

New Zealand and Australian trade ministers met with their Pacific counterparts in Samoa to negotiate an “enhanced version” of the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) dubbed “PACER Plus”. The negotiations have been controversial for two reasons, one is the exclusion of Fiji, which New Zealand and Australia currently have sanctions against. Fiji has been officially suspended from the Pacific Forum but not from PACER, which is a separate treaty.
The other reason is the likely possibility of increased exploitation of the Pacific by the regional powers. As Solomon Islands opposition leader Manasseh Sogavare told the Solomon Star News;

“As far as Solomon Islands is concerned, the arrangement would amount to opening up one-way traffic of trade benefits from here to Australia and New Zealand, which in any case is already in favour of these countries without the PLACER-PLUS arrangement” Continue reading “Pacer Plus:New Zealand and Australian exploitation in the Pacific”

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The flag is symbolic, imperialism is real

Victoria university members of the Workers Party are facing charges of serious misconduct after burning the New Zealand flag. This leaflet explains the political background to the act.

Why burn the New Zealand flag?

The New Zealand flag is a symbol of imperialism. This is most obvious in its design, a tribute to the British Empire. This design was adopted after the Second Boer War, which devastated South Africa but resulted in a surge of Kiwi patriotism.

Lest we forget
Lest we forget

A simple re-design, while reflecting our emergence from the shadow of the British Empire, would not change the imperialist nature of the flag. It’s a tool of the ruling class, inseparably linked with militarism. From the Boer War through WWI and II, right through to armed involvement in Vietnam and Afghanistan, the flag has marked New Zealand’s presence. Flags mark military conquest, the subjugation of nations.

Flags and borders divide the working majority. ANZAC soldiers had more in common with their Turkish counterparts than with the bureaucrats who sent them to Gallipoli. The working majority has interests in common worldwide, including an end to imperial war. Ruling class nationalism is a barrier to recognising this.

What purpose does ANZAC day serve? Continue reading “The flag is symbolic, imperialism is real”

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Obama – managing the US war effort

John Edmundson

During the lead-up to the 2008 US election, Barack Obama made much of his plans to end the war in Iraq. His bold declaration – that “on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war”. Across the world, many people pinned their hopes on this promise.

Obama’s policy was never really about ending America’s imperialist war policy. It was always about managing the US war effort more effectively. Continue reading “Obama – managing the US war effort”

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Free the Cuban Five!

Below we republish a statement put out recently by the Christchurch Cuba Friendship Society calling for the release of the 5 Cuban government agents currently incarcerated in the USA for spying on right-wing Cuban exile groups in Miami who are guilty of engaging in terrorist attacks against the island nation:

Meeting calls on President Obama to release the Cuban Five

The Christchurch Cuba Friendship Society (CCFS) has called on President Barack Obama to free the Cuban Five.

The CCFC meeting, held in the city Thursday night, welcomed President Obama’s decision to close the Guantanamo torture camp and urged that he take the next logical step and abandon the facility altogether to its rightful owner the people of Cuba.

The meeting also resolved to write to Mr Obama seeking justice for the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters held in US prisons for the past 10 years.

“Much has been said on the issue of change by President Obama now is the time for action” CCFS spokesperson Paul Piesse (above) said. “Guantanamo should not simply be closed but returned to the people of Cuba along with the anti-terrorist fighters unjustly imprisoned in the US.” Mr Piesse added.

The five, Gerardo Hernández, René González, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labañino and Fernando González were gathering information about terrorist groups that operate on US soil “Their actions” Mr. Piesse noted “helped prevent terrorist acts and protect innocent civilians. Their continued imprisonment is a travesty of justice”

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has ruled that the men’s imprisonment is in breach of article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

“Mr Obama” Piesse noted “is now in a position to demonstrate his commitment to ‘honesty, courage and fair play’ – it’s time to walk the talk.”

The meeting also called on Unions, Churches and all those who seek justice to also petition the new US President for the Cuba Fives immediate release.

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“Two States” – a Zionist solution

Below we publish the text of a talk given by Mike Walker at a recent Workers Party public forum in Christchurch.

If we are to believe the hype true liberation and self determination for the Palestinian people will be forthcoming with what is commonly referred to as the “two state solution”. This supposed “solution” would leave the racist structures of the Israeli state in place and therefore the fundamental cause of the ‘conflict’ also in place. This proposal would confine Palestinians to less than twenty per cent of the land mandated by the British in 1947 and would leave the situation of Palestinians driven from their homes in what is now Israel unresolved. It would render invisible the alienated enclaves divided by checkpoints, barriers, the annexation wall and a brutal military occupation in the West Bank; combined with the Gaza strip, which has been called the largest concentration camp in the world. This represents the Palestinian Bantustan.

It is crucial as we look at the current situation in Palestine to keep in mind the “two state solution” and to contextualise the history with an emphasis on the history of Zionism and the conduct of Zionist leaders since the creation of the state of Israel.

Continue reading ““Two States” – a Zionist solution”

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Barack Obama – another Martin Luther King?

– Don Franks

The son of murdered black civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. has often been asked: did you think you’d ever live to see a black US president?

“People are surprised when I say yes”, says Martin Luther King III. “But I’m sure my father would have said the same if he was alive today. Without that faith and that sense of possibility he would have had no reason to fight in the first place.”

A spirit of faith and hope has accompanied Obama’s election campaign. A Gallup poll on announcement of Obama’s victory shows that a massive 70% of Americans believe they will be better off by the time the new president finishes his term in four years time.

Seldom has the election of a capitalist politician aroused such euphoric public celebration. Obama’s inaugural speech drew a record crowd of close on two million. In the afterglow of the inauguration ceremonies floods of Obama memorabilia continue to be snapped up at three times the volume of the previous record setter Bill Clinton. Continue reading “Barack Obama – another Martin Luther King?”

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Two states no solution for Palestine

-Philip Ferguson

 The current brutal invasion and occupation of Gaza have raised, yet again, the question of the nature of the Israeli state.  For us in the Workers Party the horrors rained down on the people of Gaza are the logical result of an exclusivist-Zionist state set up at the expense, and through the dispossession, of the Palestinian people.  Campaigning for an immediate Israeli withdrawal is the chief priority right now, but such a withdrawal does not even begin to address the wider denial of the rights of the Palestinians as a people – the very thing which ensures that actions like the attacks on Gaza will continue. 

Continue reading “Two states no solution for Palestine”

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Workers Party activist speaks at Dunedin Gaza protest

John Moore from the Workers Party spoke at a Gaza protest in Dunedin last Saturday.

About 100 protesters were present, with representatives from the Alliance, International Socialists, Workers Party and the local Muslim community. The following speech was given by John at the rally:

This protest and many others that are being held throughout the world serve two purposes. We are here to express our condemnation of the Israeli state’s attacks on Gaza and to express our solidarity with the Palestinian people.

This protest should not just be about calling for peace. There is a side to choose in this conflict. We should welcome the defeat of Israeli forces that are currently at war with Hamas and the Palestinian people.

Overall we need to start thinking about what tactics we use to oppose Israeli state aggression. Who is the enemy in this conflict, who should we be campaigning against, and what forms of solidarity should we give? Seeing this conflict through the prism of the Palestinian/Jewish divide offers no hope for a resolution. Painting all Jews as the enemy and all Arabs as the victims is both counterproductive and pointless.

A small but growing number of Jewish Israelis and larger numbers of Arabs in Israel have recently taken to the streets to show their opposition to the attacks on Gaza. This small but significant example offers hope for joint Jewish/Palestinian action. Seeing the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in ethnic terms leads to misguided tactics.

Campaigns against Israeli Jews, whether in Kebab shops or at Western universities, will only be counterproductive and distracts us from who is the real enemy. The enemy is the Israeli state, not Israeli Jews. All working class people in the Middle East are oppressed by despotic regimes, from Saudi Arabia, through to Iran and including the Zionist Israeli state. All Middle East workers have an interest in a fight for the destruction of these states.

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Middle East politics

For indepth background analysis of the conflicts in the Middle East check out back issues from our MidEast Solidarity and Liberation journals:

MidEast Solidarity Spring 2001 mideast17

No to West’s war of terror

The West’s mass murder in Iraq

Israel’s war on the Palestinians

From Zionism to socialism

One year of the new intifada

Fear of fundamentalism

How the West made Bin Laden

Labour wages war on workers and poor

The problem is capitalism

Towards an anti-imperialist movement

MidEast Solidarity Autumn 2002 mideast22

Black Hawk Down actor speaks out

United Nations – friend or foe?

Peace is not good enough – against the invasion of Afghanistan

Palestine – solidarity urgently needed

Behind the wars on the Palestinians

Deir Yassin massacre

Who is in Palestine?

Liberation Spring 2002 liberation11

Liberating ideas and the movement we need to oppose the war on Iraq

Depleted uranium – another weapon of Western terror

How the West strangles the Middle East

One year on in Afghanistan

Represssion and resistance in Turkish jails

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What’s behind the Israeli invasion of Gaza?

– Tim Bowron

gaza-invasion

Israel and most of the Western media would have us believe that the recent bloody assault on Gaza is a regrettable but unfortunate necessity forced upon the Israelis by the breaking of the June 2008 ceasefire by Hamas. This is a lie.

Between June 16 and November 4 when the Israeli army broke the ceasefire by carrying out an armed raid killing 6 Palestinians in Gaza, no Hamas rockets were fired into Israel. However, during this time Israel maintained a complete sea and air blockade of Gaza, restricting the movement of people as well as of goods and vital humanitarian supplies.

Israel has maintained this blockade since January 2006, when Hamas won power in the Palestinian Legislative Elections. Israel regards Hamas as a “terrorist organisation” because unlike the PLO it has not accepted the apartheid solution of partitoning Palestine into a homogenous Jewish state (Israel) and a small collection of impoverished Palestinian Bantustans in the West Bank and Gaza. The PLO’s acceptance of Israeli apartheid and the Oslo “Peace Process” is the main reason why it lost power in the 2006 elections.

In 1948 when the United Nations in concert with the Western imperialist powers created the state of Israel they gave it 55% of the land in Palestine, despite the fact that Jewish people only comprised one third of the total population. Today the Palestinians are left with only 22% of the land (and much of this is also taken up with illegal Israeli settlements). Over half the Palestinian population (4.2 million) are refugees.

Israel must keep fighting to ensure that it maintains its character as a homogenous Jewish state (the dream of the Zionists) – it knows that if the millions of Palestinian refugees were to exercise their right of return to the homes from which they were forced in 1948 and 1967 then the Jews would be a minority within their own country, so it must do all it can to “disappear” them from history.

The Zionists insist that Jews and Arabs cannot coexist within the same state. Yet this ignores the fact that until the arrival of the Zionist movement in the early 20th century Jews and Arabs had lived together peacefully in Palestine for centuries.

The only solution to the current conflict is the creation of a single democratic, secular and unified state in Palestine with equal rights for all peoples and religions. Until this is realised there will be no peace and no justice.