by Maqsood Mujahid
Labour Party Pakistan


A three months notice have been given to Punjab government to decide the fate of the 68000 of agriculture land owned by Punjab government and cultivated by tenants for over 100 years. The tenants have been demanding land ownership rights and despite promises to do so by Benazhir Bhutto [former leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party] and Mian Nawaz Sharif of PMLN [Pakistan Muslim League], the land in question has not been allotted to the tenants.
The three month notice was given at the end of a massive peasants rally on 29 June at Okara. The rally was organized by Anjaman Mozreen Punjab (Punjab Tenants Association) on the eve of the 10 years of tenants struggle for land ownership rights. Over 5000 peasants from different agriculture farms waving red flags chanted slogans against the regime and blamed that they are poor because the General Head Quarter of Army (GHQ) is looting the resources meant for peasants. The army owns over 25000 acres of land in Okara and Pakpattan districts of Punjab.

Thailand: Resolve the Crisis through Democracy, Not Crackdown
10 April 2010

We are deeply concerned over the current situation in Thailand where military-backed Prime Minister Ahbisit Vejjajiva has declared a state of emergency and started a bloody crackdown amidst escalating protests calling for fresh election.

The situation is worrying as the Thai government closes down all opposition media and gives sweeping new powers to the security forces to prepare for a violent crackdown on the Red Shirt protesters.  Thai troops are using excessive force including tanks and live ammunition, against pro-democracy demonstrators in Bangkok.

The United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) or more well-known as the Red Shirts has re-launched massive protests against the military-installed unelected Ahbisit government since last March.  This pro-democracy movement comprised of rural and urban poor, who stand up against the military-back oligarchic rule.

The current crisis unfolded in September 2006, when the military staged a coup against the government of Thaksin Shinawatra, scrapped the 1997 popular Constitution and replaced it with a military-sanctioned constitution.  The royalist Yellow Shirts started to organize fascistic demonstrations when the pro-Thaksin party won in the 2007 election.  The current Ahbisit government was installed by the military after the fascistic mobilizations by the Yellow Shirts and a coup by the court.

The government, the army and the Yellow Shirts are afraid to face real democratic elections, as they know that they would lose since the majority of the poor support the Red Shirts.  Ahbisit and the ruling elite are refusing to call for elections and are trying to buy time and even preparing for a violent crackdown.  It is becoming clear that Ahbisit and the old elite are bringing the country towards a fascist dictatorship.

Thailand has entered a new phase of class war.  The old ruling elite with the backing of the military are using all means to scrap democracy in Thailand.  The pro-democracy Red Shirts comprised of the majority of the working class, peasantry and poor have shown their real popularity and mobilizing strength which has definitely shaken the royalists and the military.  With the broadening of the masses’ support for the Red Shirts, it could be a new and important step in the struggle of the ordinary people in Thailand for the restoration of democracy and social justice.
We call for:

    •    The immediate resignation of the military-installed Ahbisit government and the holding of fresh democratic elections.

    •    A halt to all forms of violent crackdown against Red Shirt protesters.  Respect the right of the people to organize, to protest and to strike.

    •    A halt to the suppression of democratic rights and clampdown on the media.

    •    The Thai government to not resort to any military coup.

The current crisis in Thailand only can be resolved through genuine democracy and people’s power.
 We extend our support and solidarity to all workers, peasants and poor in Thailand who struggle against the anti-democratic government and for the restoration of real democracy.




Contact: International Bureau, Socialist Party of Malaysia / Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM)
Address: No.22A, Lorong Vivekananda, 50470 Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA.
Tel: +60-3-22747791, (mobile) +60-19-5669518
Fax: +60-3-87374772
Email: (headquarters) psmhq@tm.net.my
(international bureau) int.psm@gmail.com
Web site: parti-sosialis.org


See also:

Thai Royalist Tyrants Use Violence to Cling to Power
by Giles Ji Ungpakorn


Thailand: Time for Fresh Elections
by Giles Ji Ungpakorn

 

Ben Peterson is a young Australian socialist who spent four and half months in Nepal last year. Ben is crossing the Tasman for a speaking tour of New Zealand from 21–26 March. Ben was kind enough to answer some questions for UNITYblog about his experiences in Nepal.

When did you go to Nepal? How long were you there for?

I was in Nepal last year from the beginning of March to July, about four and half months in total.

Why did you go to Nepal?

I went to Nepal specifically to see the social and political transformations taking place there. I’d first come into contact with the revolutionary process there in 2006, but didn’t really start to study what was happening there until 2008 when the Maoists won the Constituent Assembly elections. The more I read into what was happening there the more excited I was. But all the time it was really hard to find good and reliable sources of information, particularly from a progressive point of view. So I decided that to really get a handle of what’s happening there, I should go and see it for myself.

Where you surprised by what you experienced there?

Well, yes I was. Its one thing to read about mass struggles going on, or about a peoples’ army, basically about a revolution, but its totally another to go and actually see it,  to meet the people involved and to see this sort of process playing out in front of you. The level of popular engagement with politics, and how widespread the process was, was mind-blowing. Every little village had a union office, or a party organisation or something. It was amazing to see real revolutionary changes happening before my eyes, I couldn’t really be prepared for that, no amount of books can make you *really* understand these sort of processes until you see them.

Ben: "When I was in Nepal I met amazing people, peasant farmers, workers, students, youth, and the elderly, all fighting for a democratic future. Everywhere I went there was a common desire for something better."


Ben Peterson is a young Australian socialist who spent four and a half months in Nepal in close association with the revolutionary forces who recently overthrew feudalism and are today confronting capitalism and imperialism. Ben is crossing the Tasman for a speaking tour of New Zealand from 21-27 March. Ben's visit will be a great opportunity to learn more about the exciting events in Nepal.

There are meetings in Auckland, Hamilton, Rotorua, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. The tour itinerary is as follows:

MEETING TIMES & VENUES

• Sunday 21 March - Auckland

2pm @ Auckland Trades Hall, 147 Great North Road, Grey Lynn.

• Monday 22 March - Auckland

1pm @ Function Room (over Quad café), Auckland University.

• Tuesday 23 March – Hamilton & Rotorua

1-2pm (followed by discussion) @ SUB G.20 (Guru Phabians room), Student Union Building, Waikato University.

7.30pm @ Ghandi Hall, 16 Gibson Street, (opp ten-pin bowling alley), Rotorua.

• Wednesday 24 March - Wellington

6pm @ Newtown Community Centre, 1 Columbo Street, Wellington.

• Thursday 25 March - Dunedin

1pm @ University Union Main Common Room, Dunedin University. 

7pm @ Knox Church Hall, George Street, Dunedin.

• Friday 26 March - Christchurch

1pm @ Steed Meeting Room (next to the International Room), UCSA building, Canterbury University

• Saturday 27 March – Christchurch

7:30pm @ WEA, 59 Gloucester Street, Christchurch. 


ORGANISERS

To help support and promote Ben’s tour contact these people:

Auckland - Daphna Whitmore, wpnz@clear.net.nz.
Hamilton - Jared Philips, jared@unite.org.nz, 029-4949 863.
Rotorua - Bernie Hornfeck, bernieh@clear.net.nz, (07)345 9853.
Wellington - Alastair Reith, alastair.reith@gmail.com, (04)384 1917.
Christchurch - Phil Ferguson, philip.ferguson@canterbury.ac.nz, 021-443 948.
Dunedin - Andrew Tait, andrewmtait@hotmail.com, 027-606 9549.

National co-ordination/publicity - Vaughan Gunson, svpl@xtra.co.nz, 021-0415 082.


FACEBOOK

You can join the Facebook group: Ben Peterson NZ Speaking Tour. More information on Ben's tour and events in Nepal can be found there.


DONATE

To help pay for the cost of Ben’s international and domestic airfares please make a donation into this account: Nepal Solidarity, Kiwibank 38-9010-0315883-00.

Ben Peterson’s tour of NZ was initiated by Socialist Worker and the Workers Party (workersparty.org.nz), with the International Socialist Organisation in Dunedin (iso.org.nz). Meetings in each centre are being organised with the support of other groups and individuals.

If you would like more information don't hesitate to contact us.

In solidarity,

Vaughan Gunson
svpl@xtra.co.nz
021-0415 082

Left groups in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, South Africa, Australia & New Zealand have expressed their support for striking workers in Burma. Workers at the Taiyi shoe factory and Opal 2 garment factory began a strike on Monday, 8 February 2010. They are demanding an increase in salary of 10.000 Kyat (US$ 10), a reduction of working hours and the provision of a clean space for meal. The strike started in the Mya Fashion garment factory in No. 3 Factory Zone of Rangoon’s Hlaing Thrayar Township. Now they are being blocked by riot police trucks. At least 50 trucks packed with riot police carrying assault rifles and shields were dispatched. They are prevented from leaving the factory zone and no one has been allowed to enter. Police securing roads surrounding the Hlaingtharyar Industrial Zone, about 11 km outside the biggest city, Yangon [also known as Rangoon]. Overall the working conditions in Burma are getting worse. The Burmese military regime is pro-foreign capital, and depends on cheap wages and deplorable working conditions to attract foreign investments. Like other democratic rights in Burma, the democratic rights of workers such as freedom to form trade unions is also being repressed. The rise of the working class is a good sign of the possibility of fundamental changes in Burma. The rise of the working class should be supported by all people’s movements in Burma and internationally. We the undersigned organizations and political parties support the struggle of Burma’s working class and demand: • The workers’ just demands must be fulfilled. • Reject any form of repression of workers. • Full democratic rights for the workers including the right to organize, build independent trade union and form political parties. We declare our fullest support to the people of Burma to build a democratic Burma. Because only with a democratic Burma can prosperity and justice be achieved. SIGNATORIES • Working Peoples Association (Indonesia) • Singapore Democratic Party • Socialist Party of Malaysia • Socialist Alternative (Australia) • Confederation Congress of Indonesia Union Alliance • Socialist Worker (New Zealand) • Socialist Alliance (Australia) • Young Democrats (Singapore) • Partido ng Manggangawa (Philippines) • Congress of South African Trade Unions • Partido Lakas ng Masa (Philippines) • World Federation of Trade Union (Asia Pacific Region) • Movement for the Advancement of Student Power (Philippine)

by Amb. M. K. Bhadrakumar from Global Research 12 January 2010 The inauguration of the Dauletabad-Sarakhs-Khangiran pipeline in early January connecting Iran's northern Caspian region with Turkmenistan's vast gas field may go unnoticed amid the Western media cacophony that it is "apocalypse now" for the Islamic regime in Tehran. The event sends strong messages for regional security. Within the space of three weeks, Turkmenistan has committed its entire gas exports to China, Russia and Iran. It has no urgent need of the pipelines that the United States and the European Union have been advancing. Are we hearing the faint notes of a Russia-China-Iran symphony? The 182-kilometer Turkmen-Iranian pipeline starts modestly with the pumping of 8 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Turkmen gas. But its annual capacity is 20bcm, and that would meet the energy requirements of Iran's Caspian region and enable Tehran to free its own gas production in the southern fields for export. The mutual interest is perfect: Ashgabat gets an assured market next door; northern Iran can consume without fear of winter shortages; Tehran can generate more surplus for exports; Turkmenistan can seek transportation routes to the world market via Iran; and Iran can aspire to take advantage of its excellent geographical location as a hub for the Turkmen exports. We are witnessing a new pattern of energy cooperation at the regional level that dispenses with Big Oil. Russia traditionally takes the lead. China and Iran follow the example. Russia, Iran and Turkmenistan hold respectively the world's largest, second-largest and fourth-largest gas reserves. And China will be consumer par excellence in this century. The matter is of profound consequence to the US global strategy. The Turkmen-Iranian pipeline mocks the US's Iran policy. The US is threatening Iran with new sanctions and claims Tehran is "increasingly isolated". But Mahmud Ahmadinejad's presidential jet winds its way through a Central Asian tour and lands in Ashgabat for a red-carpet welcome by his Turkmen counterpart, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, and a new economic axis emerges. Washington's coercive diplomacy hasn't worked. Turkmenistan, with a gross domestic product of US$18.3 billion, defied the sole superpower (GDP of $14.2 trillion) - and, worse still, made it look routine. There are subplots, too. Tehran claims to have a deal with Ankara to transport Turkmen gas to Turkey via the existing 2,577km pipeline connecting Tabriz in northwestern Iran with Ankara. Indeed, Turkish diplomacy has an independent foreign-policy orientation. Turkey also aspires to be a hub for Europe's energy supplies. Europe may be losing the battle for establishing direct access to the Caspian. Second, Russia does not seem perturbed by China tapping into Central Asian energy. Europe's need for Russian energy imports has dropped and Central Asian energy-producing countries are tapping China's market. From the Russian point of view, China's imports should not deprive it of energy (for its domestic consumption or exports). Russia has established deep enough presence in the Central Asian and Caspian energy sector to ensure it faces no energy shortage. What matters most to Russia is that its dominant role as Europe's No 1 energy provider is not eroded. So long as the Central Asian countries have no pressing need for new US-backed trans-Caspian pipelines, Russia is satisfied. During his recent visit to Ashgabat, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev normalized Russian-Turkmen energy ties. The restoration of ties with Turkmenistan is a major breakthrough for both countries. One, a frozen relationship is being resumed substantially, whereby Turkmenistan will maintain an annual supply of 30bcm to Russia. Two, to quote Medvedev, "For the first time in the history of Russian-Turkmen relations, gas supplies will be carried out based on a price formula that is absolutely in line with European gas market conditions." Russian commentators say Gazprom will find it unprofitable to buy Turkmen gas and if Moscow has chosen to pay a high price, that is primarily because of its resolve not to leave gas that could be used in alternative pipelines, above all in the US-backed Nabucco project. Third, contrary to Western propaganda, Ashgabat does not see the Chinese pipeline as a substitute for Gazprom. Russia's pricing policy ensures that Ashgabat views Gazprom as an irreplaceable customer. The export price of the Turkmen gas to be sold to China is still under negotiation and the agreed price simply cannot match the Russian offer. Fourth, Russia and Turkmenistan reiterated their commitment to the Caspian Coastal Pipeline (which will run along the Caspian's east coast toward Russia) with a capacity of 30bcm. Evidently, Russia hopes to cluster additional Central Asian gas from Turkmenistan (and Kazakhstan). Fifth, Moscow and Ashgabat agreed to build jointly an east-west pipeline connecting all Turkmen gas fields to a single network so that the pipelines leading toward Russia, Iran and China can draw from any of the fields. Indeed, against the backdrop of the intensification of the US push toward Central Asia, Medvedev's visit to Ashgabat impacted on regional security. At the joint press conference with Medvedev, Berdymukhammedov said the views of Turkmenistan and Russia on the regional processes, particularly in Central Asia and the Caspian region, were generally the same. He underlined that the two countries were of the view that the security of one cannot be achieved at the expense of the other. Medvedev agreed that there was similarity or unanimity between the two countries on issues related to security and confirmed their readiness to work together. The United States' pipeline diplomacy in the Caspian, which strove to bypass Russia, elbow out China and isolate Iran, has foundered. Russia is now planning to double its intake of Azerbaijani gas, which further cuts into the Western efforts to engage Baku as a supplier for Nabucco. In tandem with Russia, Iran is also emerging as a consumer of Azerbaijani gas. In December, Azerbaijan inked an agreement to deliver gas to Iran through the 1,400km Kazi-Magomed-Astara pipeline. The "big picture" is that Russia's South Stream and North Stream, which will supply gas to northern and southern Europe, have gained irreversible momentum. The stumbling blocks for North Stream have been cleared as Denmark (in October), Finland and Sweden (in November) and Germany (in December) approved the project from the environmental angle. The pipeline's construction will commence in the spring. The $12-billion pipeline built jointly by Gazprom, Germany's E.ON Ruhrgas and BASF-Wintershall, and the Dutch gas transportation firm Gasunie bypasses the Soviet-era transit routes via Ukraine, Poland and Belarus and runs from the northwestern Russian port of Vyborg to the German port of Greifswald along a 1,220km route under the Baltic Sea. The first leg of the project with a carrying capacity of 27.5bcm annually will be completed next year and the capacity will double by 2012. North Stream will profoundly affect the geopolitics of Eurasia, trans-Atlantic equations and Russia's ties with Europe. To be sure, 2009 proved to be a momentous year for the "energy war". The Chinese pipeline inaugurated by President Hu Jintao on December 14; the oil terminal near the port city of Nakhodka in Russia's far east inaugurated by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on December 27 (which will be served by the mammoth $22-billion oil pipeline from the new fields in eastern Siberia leading to China and the Asia-Pacific markets); and the Iranian pipeline inaugurated by Ahmadinejad on January 6 - the energy map of Eurasia and the Caspian has been virtually redrawn. The year 2010 begins on a fascinating new note: will Russia, China and Iran coordinate future moves or at least harmonize their competing interests?

Interview with Snehal Shingavi from US Socialist Worker 17 March 2009 A mass movement to restore Pakistan's ousted judiciary has ended in victory. After a huge protest in the streets of Lahore involving clashes with riot police, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani announced March 16 that Iftikhar Chaudhry, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, would be reinstated by the end of the month.

• Pakistan eyewitness report
• Victory for Pakistan's Long March!

by Walden Bello from Foreign Policy in Focus 9 February 2009 For over 40 years now, the cutting edge of the region's economy has been export-oriented industrialization (EOI). Taiwan and Korea first adopted this strategy of growth in the mid-1960s, with Korean dictator Park Chung-Hee coaxing his country's entrepreneurs to export by, among other measures, cutting off electricity to their factories if they refused to comply. The success of Korea and Taiwan convinced the World Bank that EOI was the wave of the future. In the mid-1970s, then-Bank President Robert McNamara enshrined it as doctrine, preaching that "special efforts must be made in many countries to turn their manufacturing enterprises away from the relatively small markets associated with import substitution toward the much larger opportunities flowing from export promotion." EOI became one of the key points of consensus between the Bank and Southeast Asia's governments. Both realized import substitution industrialization could only continue if domestic purchasing power were increased via significant redistribution of income and wealth, and this was simply out of the question for the region's elites. Export markets, especially the relatively open U.S. market, appeared to be a painless substitute. The World Bank endorsed the establishment of export processing zones, where foreign capital could be married to cheap (usually female) labor. It also supported the establishment of tax incentives for exporters and, less successfully, promoted trade liberalization. Not until the mid-1980s, however, did the economies of Southeast Asia take off, and this wasn't so much because of the Bank but because of aggressive U.S. trade policy. In 1985, in what became known as the Plaza Accord, the United States forced the drastic revaluation of the Japanese yen relative to the dollar and other major currencies. By making Japanese imports more expensive to American consumers, Washington hoped to reduce its trade deficit with Tokyo. Production in Japan became prohibitive in terms of labor costs, forcing the Japanese to move the more labor-intensive parts of their manufacturing operations to low-wage areas, in particular to China and Southeast Asia. At least $15 billion worth of Japanese direct investment flowed into Southeast Asia between 1985 and 1990. The inflow of Japanese capital allowed the Southeast Asian "newly industrializing countries" to escape the credit squeeze of the early 1980s brought on by the Third World debt crisis, surmount the global recession of the mid-1980s, and move onto a path of high-speed growth. The centrality of the endaka, or currency revaluation, was reflected in the ratio of foreign direct investment inflows to gross capital formation, which leaped spectacularly in the late 1980s and 1990s in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The dynamics of foreign-investment-driven growth was best illustrated in Thailand, which received $24 billion worth of investment from capital-rich Japan, Korea, and Taiwan in just five years, between 1987 and 1991. Whatever might have been the Thai government's economic policy preferences — protectionist, mercantilist, or pro-market — this vast amount of East Asian capital coming into Thailand could not but trigger rapid growth. The same was true in the two other favored nations of northeast Asian capital, Malaysia and Indonesia. It wasn't just the scale of Japanese investment over a five-year period that mattered, however; it was the process. The Japanese government and keiretsu, or conglomerates, planned and cooperated closely in the transfer of corporate industrial facilities to Southeast Asia. One key dimension of this plan was to relocate not just big corporations like Toyota or Matsushita, but also small and medium enterprises that provided their inputs and components. Another was to integrate complementary manufacturing operations that were spread across the region in different countries. The aim was to create an Asia Pacific platform for re-export to Japan and export to third-country markets. This was industrial policy and planning on a grand scale, managed jointly by the Japanese government and corporations and driven by the need to adjust to the post-Plaza Accord world. As one Japanese diplomat put it rather candidly, "Japan is creating an exclusive Japanese market in which Asia Pacific nations are incorporated into the so-called keiretsu [financial-industrial bloc] system." China Masters the Model If Taiwan and Korea pioneered the model and Southeast Asia successfully followed in their wake, China perfected the strategy of export-oriented industrialization. With its reserve army of cheap labor unmatched by any country in the world, China became the "workshop of the world," drawing in $50 billion in foreign investment annually by the first half of this decade. To survive, transnational firms had no choice but to transfer their labor-intensive operations to China to take advantage of what came to be known as the "China price," provoking in the process a tremendous crisis in the advanced capitalist countries’ labor forces. This process depended on the U.S. market. As long as U.S. consumers splurged, the export economies of East Asia could continue in high gear. The low U.S. savings rate was no barrier since credit was available on a grand scale. China and other Asian countries snapped up U.S. treasury bills and loaned massively to U.S. financial institutions, which in turn loaned to consumers and homebuyers. But now the U.S. credit economy has imploded, and the U.S. market is unlikely to serve as the same dynamic source of demand for a long time to come. As a result, Asia's export economies have been marooned. The Illusion of "Decoupling" For several years China has seemed to be a dynamic alternative to the U.S. market for Japan and East Asia's smaller economies. Chinese demand, after all, had pulled the Asian economies, including Korea and Japan, from the depths of stagnation and the morass of the Asian financial crisis in the first half of this decade. In 2003, for instance, Japan broke a decade-long stagnation by meeting China's thirst for capital and technology-intensive goods. Japanese exports shot up to record levels. Indeed, China had become by the middle of the decade, "the overwhelming driver of export growth in Taiwan and the Philippines, and the majority buyer of products from Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Australia." Even though China appeared to be a new driver of export-led growth, some analysts still considered the notion of Asia "decoupling" from the U.S. locomotive to be a pipe dream. For instance, research by economists C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh, underlined that China was indeed importing intermediate goods and parts from Japan, Korea, and ASEAN, but only to put them together mainly for export as finished goods to the United States and Europe, not for its domestic market. Thus, "if demand for Chinese exports from the United States and the EU slow down, as will be likely with a U.S. recession," they asserted, "this will not only affect Chinese manufacturing production, but also Chinese demand for imports from these Asian developing countries." The collapse of Asia's key market has banished all talk of decoupling. The image of decoupled locomotives — one coming to a halt, the other chugging along on a separate track — no longer applies, if it ever had. Rather, U.S.-East Asia economic relations today resemble a chain-gang linking not only China and the United States but a host of other satellite economies. They are all linked to debt-financed middle-class spending in the United States, which has collapsed. China's growth in 2008 fell to 9%, from 11% a year earlier. Japan is now in deep recession, its mighty export-oriented consumer goods industries reeling from plummeting sales. South Korea, the hardest hit of Asia's economies so far, has seen its currency collapse by some 30% relative to the dollar. Southeast Asia's growth in 2009 will likely be half that of 2008. The Coming Fury The sudden end of the export era is going to have some ugly consequences. In the last three decades, rapid growth reduced the number living below the poverty line in many countries. In practically all countries, however, income and wealth inequality increased. But the expansion of consumer purchasing power took much of the edge off social conflicts. Now, with the era of growth coming to an end, increasing poverty amid great inequalities will be a combustible combination. In China, about 20 million workers have lost their jobs in the last few months, many of them heading back to the countryside, where they will find little work. The authorities are rightly worried that what they label "mass group incidents," which have been increasing in the last decade, might spin out of control. With the safety valve of foreign demand for Indonesian and Filipino workers shut off, hundreds of thousands of workers are returning home to few jobs and dying farms. Suffering is likely to be accompanied by rising protest, as it already has in Vietnam, where strikes are spreading like wildfire. Korea, with its tradition of militant labor and peasant protest, is a ticking time bomb. Indeed, East Asia may be entering a period of radical protest and social revolution that went out of style when export-oriented industrialization became the fashion three decades ago. Walden Bello is a Foreign Policy In Focus columnist, a senior analyst at the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South, president of the Freedom from Debt Coalition, and a professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines. Sources 1. Hisahiko Okasaki, "New Strategies toward Super-Asian Bloc," This Is (Tokyo), August 1992. Reproduced in Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Report: East Asia Supplement, Oct. 7, 1992. 2. "China: the Locomotive," The Straits Times, February 23, 2004.

Interview with Snehal Shingavi from US Socialist Worker 17 March 2009 A mass movement to restore Pakistan's ousted judiciary has ended in victory. After a huge protest in the streets of Lahore involving clashes with riot police, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani announced March 16 that Iftikhar Chaudhry, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, would be reinstated by the end of the month. Chaudhry, along with dozens more judges and jurists, had been dismissed in March 2007 by then-military dictator and President Pervez Musharraf. When Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), came to power, he also refused to restore the judiciary, despite pledges to democratize the political system. Chaudhry's ouster in 2007 touched off a mass protest movement that eventually brought down Musharraf. The dictator finally left office in August 2008, following elections held earlier that year that brought to power Zardari, a corrupt playboy and widower of PPP leader Benazir Bhutto. Now, less than a year later, Zardari's own rule is shaken. Mass protests, culminating in a "Long March" to the capital city of Islamabad, have forced Zardari to agree to reinstate Chaudhry. New questions loom in the wake of this major political shift. We asked Snehal Shingavi to answer our questions about the movement that won the reinstatement of Pakistan's popular chief justice. JUST LAST September, Asif Ali Zardari won Pakistan's elections as a stand-in for his assassinated wife, Benazir Bhutto. What changed that brought hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis into the streets? THE FIRST thing that has to be said is that the restoration of Iftikhar Chaudhry as chief justice is an amazing victory for the people of Pakistan. Thousands of people came into the streets to demand the restoration of democracy and the return of an independent judiciary. And they won. The immediate political beneficiary of this victory is not just Chaudhry, but Pakistan's former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf in a 1999 coup. By aligning himself with the lawyers' movement that demanded the restoration of the judiciary, Sharif has greatly increased his popularity. This marks a huge political comeback for Sharif. After the 1999 coup, Sharif was exiled to Saudi Arabia, but returned to Pakistan in late 2007 after Musharraf was forced to concede new parliamentary elections. Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Bhutto's PPP forged a tentative electoral alliance to compete with Musharraf's supporters. After the assassination of Bhutto in December 2007, Zardari became the PPP's candidate and, following elections last August, became the dominant partner in a governing coalition. Zardari promised Sharif that Chaudhry and the other independent judges would be restored. But Zardari broke that promise--apparently because he fears the judges might revoke a special presidential law, issued by Musharraf, that exempts Zardari from corruption charges. In recent weeks, Zardari and his allies have taken an even more confrontational approach to Sharif and the pro-democracy movement. In late February, the Musharraf-installed Supreme Court ruled that Nawaz Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, were ineligible to participate in electoral politics. Shahbaz Sharif had been chief minister, or governor, of Punjab, the most important province in Pakistan. Once the court effectively removed Shahbaz Sharif from office, Zardari used his power to oust the province's elected government and take direct control from the capital. But while the international and even the Pakistani media have focused on the Sharif brothers, the real movers of change in Pakistan are the ordinary people who came out into the streets in the thousands and challenged the corruption and the hypocrisy of the Zardari government. HOW COULD Zardari become so unpopular so quickly? ZARDARI RENEGED on every one of his promises--promises to restore the judiciary, to abandon extraordinary powers granted to the president when Musharraf amended the constitution, and to work to stabilize the country. Zardari has done none of these things--and has more or less brought about a return to Musharraf-style politics, running the country as his own playground. The most important of these betrayals was reneging on the demand to restore the independent judiciary. Most Pakistanis see Chaudhry as the one figure in power with a legacy of fairness and credibility. He brought corruption charges against high-ranking officials, stood up to Musharraf and investigated the cases of several "disappeared" persons. When Chaudhry was sacked by Musharraf, it brought people out into the streets in a spectacular way. So when Zardari failed to honor his pledge to restore Chaudhry to office, people got fed up. Secondly, the government's cooperation with U.S. military strikes against the Taliban and its allies in North-West Frontier Province and Waziristan have angered the majority of Pakistanis. Even Pakistanis who don't sympathize with the Taliban are outraged over the large number of civilian casualties caused by the U.S. and Pakistani armed forces. Third, the Pakistani economy is in shambles. Long lines for food have returned. Joblessness is up. Wide-scale power outages continue in major cities. People are genuinely worried about their futures. For these people, Zardari has become the symbol of all that is wrong with the Pakistani economy: corruption, elitism and nepotism. HOW HAVE these developments affected the mood within Zardari's own party, the PPP? ZARDARI'S ACTIONS in the last several months have really exposed the left flank of the PPP, which often touts its progressive credentials. In fact, at every turn, Zardari merely turned to Musharraf's playbook, implementing the same kinds of repressive actions as the dictator. Zardari shut down the independent media, locked up activists, put politicians under house arrest and made protests illegal. This was Musharraf part two. What is amazing is how ordinary people remained undaunted in the face of this repression. The question now is how this changes the political landscape. The return of the chief justice and the rise in popularity of Sharif almost certainly marks the beginning of the end for Zardari. That may take some time to work itself out, but it's almost a certainty. Even if Zardari remains in power, there are thousands of people who now have a taste of genuine people's power to keep the government in check. WHAT ARE the main forces behind the opposition to Zardari? There are really three main forces: the lawyers' movement; two conservative Islamist parties, Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and the Sharif's PML-N; and the secular, civil society organizations. The lawyers' movement is led by Aitzaz Ahsan, among others, and represents both lawyers and sacked judges who want a return to rule of law. Most of their demands are centered around the restoration of the judiciary and constitutional reforms that would limit the powers of the Pakistani president. The JeI and the PML-N are conservative parties with large religious bases and religious ideologies. But they are regular, parliamentary parties. The PML-N is the dominant party in Punjab, which was the scene of the confrontation with Zardari. Nawaz Sharif's stock has really risen in the past months because he has stepped forward as a defender of the judiciary. This is ironic, because as prime minister in 1997, Sharif forced the removal of the then-chief justice, Sajjad Ali Shah. At one point, Sharif had his party activists smash their way into the Supreme Court building to intimidate Shah, who had earned Sharif's wrath by pressing corruption charges against him and was soon ousted in a power struggle. These days, Sharif portrays himself as a defender of the judiciary and sounds increasingly populist. And along with the JeI, the PML-N has brought a good chunk of their followers on to the streets. The majority of the people in the streets, though, are either tied to civil society organizations and NGOs, or are unaffiliated. Students, workers, middle-class Pakistanis--these really make up the largest chunk of the people who have come out in the streets. And their demands are fairly left wing. One of the biggest problems, though, is that the left is still weak. It has been growing, but doesn't have the size or the reputation to lead the movement. The Labor Party of Pakistan (LPP), for instance, was a driving force, along with People's Resistance in the Long March. The International Socialists of Pakistan played a big role in the sit-in that happened in the Lahore High Court. These are impressive developments. WHAT IS the outlook of progressives and the left? THE MOOD on the streets is electric. One activist said that she hadn't seen Pakistan this way since the movement in 1969, which brought down Ayub Khan, another military dictator. People are genuinely thrilled by the first taste of real power. One of the most popular chants on the Long March was "Jeena hoga, marna hoga, dharna hoga, dharna hoga," which means, approximately, "Some will live, some will die, but the struggle will continue." There's a fairly combative mood out there. The repression has been pretty extensive in the lead-up to the Long March reaching Islamabad. Some 1,000 activists were rounded up and detained. A number of leaders went into hiding. People on the streets were attacked by the police. But on March 14 and 15, things began to change. People on the march reported that the police were increasingly reluctant to attack protesters. Terrible things were done, undoubtedly, by the police. But several top officials in Lahore, including the district coordination officer and the deputy attorney general of Pakistan, resigned in protest against the crackdown on the protesters. What's more, major fissures have developed in the PPP. High-ranking members, like Information Minister Sherry Rehman, have resigned over Zardari's decision to gag the media. Others have resigned because of the attacks on nonviolent protesters. These are extraordinary developments. It's unclear how well poised the left is to take advantage of this political opening. But it's there, and there are some real opportunities to build a durable, powerful left in the coming months.

called by Free Burma Campaign New Zealand "Trade unionists and human rights campaigners will protest in solidarity with the people of Tibet outside Helen Clarke's office on Wednesday at 6pm. We are calling for her to tear up the Free trade deal with the butchers of Tiananmen and Lhasa- there can be no appeasement with the Free trade Stalinists of Beijing. Freedom for Tibet!" Protest outside Helen Clarke's offfice 65 Sandringham Road Auckland 6pm Wednesday March 19th Stop the massacre- Freedom for Tibet! No Free Trade deal with the butchers of Lhasa and Tianenmen. for more info contact Naing Ko Ko: 021 1218 118