A stain on the world's conscience
Monday 19 November 2012by John Wight Printable Email
As ever, the dominant narrative being presented to us on the current conflict in Gaza is that Israel is defending itself and its civilians against unprovoked aggression by Palestinian terrorists.
And as expected, it is the same narrative being pushed in Washington and London, as, like a well-rehearsed play, the actors involved perform their respective roles with the same old aplomb.
It is the same narrative we have been subjected to over countless years, one intended to paint Israel, that democratic outpost of Western civilisation surrounded by barbarian hordes intent on its destruction, as perennial victim.
But as in the past, so as now, it is a lie.
The truth is the current conflict has little if anything to do with Hamas or its rockets.
It does however have everything to do with the state of Israel's decades-long policy of occupation, embargo, siege, collective punishment, expropriation, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.
Israel's war is not with Hamas but with the Palestinian people in their entirety, both the 1.5 million in Gaza and the 2.5 to three million in the West Bank.
It is a war waged every hour of every day there is occupation, checkpoints, and settlements.
It is a war waged every hour of every day there is an economic embargo, siege, and collective punishment.
It is a war being waged every second of the indignity and humiliation suffered by its victims.
Yet despite the irrefutable facts of Israel's barbaric treatment of a people criminalised for daring to exist, we are treated to a constant inversion of the truth, which holds that the many and multiple depredations being suffered by the Palestinians do not amount to one of the most sustained and grievous crimes against humanity in history, but are the result of their intransigence and violence.
This is the song of colonialism. The victims always bring it on themselves. If only they would learn to bear their chains in silence.
As Golda Meir said, "We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children."
And they are killing them, right now, even as the world looks on - again.
Worse, when we consider that Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people constitutes a clear and inarguable breach of international law, and has done for decades, the Western media's continuing policy of ascribing a moral equivalence between Israel, an oppressive settler colonial state, and the Palestinians, an oppressed colonised people, monumental insult is added to monstrous injury. There is no moral equivalence. Nor can there ever be.
Israel's latest military assault against the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, which, at 40km long and 10km wide with a population of between 1.5 and 1.7 million people, is one of the most densely populated pieces of land in the world, goes by the biblical name of Operation Pillar of Cloud.
As with Operation Cast Lead four years ago, during which 1,400 Palestinians were killed, thousands more were wounded and war crimes, as adduced by the UN and the Red Cross, were committed wholesale, this latest military operation is designed to terrify the Palestinians into submission.
The major, though as yet unquantifiable, difference between now and then is Egypt.
Hosni Mubarak, Israel's man in Cairo, has been replaced by Mohamed Morsi, the first democratically elected president of Egypt and champion of the Muslim Brotherhood, and at time of writing the prime minister of Egypt has already visited Gaza to show solidarity and offer Egypt's rhetorical support to the Palestinians.
The question now is how this support will manifest if, as expected, Israel escalates its assault in the days ahead.
The answer could well have a bearing on the future not only for the Palestinians but the region as a whole.
The Obama administration, thus far supporting Israel in Washington's time-honoured fashion, will not relish the prospect of strained relations with the most populous Arab nation in the world.
Not now with the region still in a state of flux as a result of the Arab spring. And not even despite the fact that Israel is and remains the US's closest ally.
Former US president Ronald Reagan, with the candour of a man accustomed to making and breaking governments at will, said it best.
"The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts."
A new Egypt has been created, not by Israel or the US but by the Egyptian people. And it remains to be seen how this will affect Israel's ability to continue in the old way.
It is a question that is still to be answered. What we know for certain now is that oppression breeds resistance.
The rockets being fired against Israel from inside Gaza are the natural response of a people under siege for the crime of exercising their democratic right to elect a government of their own choice.
And when it comes to that government, Hamas's supreme crime, according to Israel and its apologists, is that in its charter it states its desire to see the destruction of Israel.
Standing alone and shorn of any historical or actual context, it is a desire that cannot be understood or accepted by any reasonable person.
But add this context, in the shape of the previously mentioned decades-long occupation and policy of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and national humiliation - is it really beyond comprehension that the people suffering this oppression may develop along the way a hatred of their oppressor, however irrational it might seem to us who don't live under this kind of oppression and consequently could never understand its dehumanising impact?
In the last analysis, the only way Israel will ever be able to guarantee its security is if it guarantees the security of the Palestinians.
This will first of all require an end to the inherent racism that exists in the heart of every coloniser towards those being colonised.
The Palestinians are not subhumans. They are not products of a lesser culture or race.
They are a people who have suffered six decades of injustice that continues as a stain on the conscience of the world.
Incinerating their children in the name of civilisation and democracy renders both meaningless.
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Tuesday 20 November 2012
Monday 22 October 2012
Comment
Marching for real change
Friday 19 October 2012 Printable Email
David Cameron entertained his backbenchers this week - it doesn't take much - by ridiculing Ed Miliband's decision to speak at today's A Future that Works protest in London.
Cameron chortled, as only privately educated beneficiaries of inherited, tax-dodged wealth can do, that the Labour leader was ingratiating himself with his trade union paymasters by attending "the most lucrative sponsored walk in history.
What a card and what a loss to the world of stand-up comics when Cameron renounced comedy for politics.
This braying ass and his back-bench sycophantic gigglers wouldn't understand in a month of Sundays why hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the streets of London, Glasgow and Belfast.
The short answer is in opposition to the Tory-Liberal Democrat government policies, but a more detailed response would cover a catalogue of crimes committed by this conservative coalition and its own corporate paymasters.
It won't just be trade unionists protesting, although they have reasons enough to do so.
Whether in the public or private sector, workers have seen job losses, pay restraint, attacks on pension schemes and plans to undermine trade union representation.
Council tenants and the homeless will also take to the streets because they see a government intent on fleecing working people to suit its friends, the property speculators, private landlords and banks.
There are 4.5 million people on council housing lists, but, instead of investing in a new generation of local authority homes, the government pushes further privatisation and housing benefit cuts to drive poor people out of better-off areas of our cities.
Ministers take refuge in their natural prejudice against claimants by increasingly equating them to scroungers on society.
Justifying their campaign to slash benefits they seek support from "hard-working families," juxtaposing their economic hardship in the current crisis with supposed featherbedding of the unemployed, as though most, or even many, don't work through choice.
It is classic Tory divide-and-rule tactics, as Liberal Democrat leaders would once have pointed out before their backsides became so cosily moulded to their ministerial easy chairs.
Marchers know that it wasn't claimants, public service workers, trade unionists, pensioners, single parents, asylum-seekers, the long-term unemployed, young people or any other convenient scapegoat that caused capitalism's crisis.
It was sparked by private banks that gambled on subprime mortgages, worthless financial packages and commodity speculation.
When the going was good, the rewards were excellent for company directors and shareholders, but, unlike other gamblers who stand their own losses, the banks insisted on being bailed out, refinanced and allowed to start again.
Britain's finance sector wasn't unlucky. It was corrupt and crooked. Instead of being bailed out, the banks should have been nationalised and the people running them should be in jail.
Barclays has just set aside a further £700 million to cover its "mis-selling" saga, making £2,000 million so far.
What other business could engage in fraud on this scale and still be allowed to operate?
Yet politicians of all stripes still bow down to the banks, euphemising them as "markets" or "investors," and tell workers to pull together and bear the pain of paying for the crisis.
That's not acceptable from the Tories and Liberal Democrats. Nor will it be from Miliband. He should be told that today.
Workers are not marching today against Tory austerity with no better aim than embracing austerity-lite from Labour. They want real change.
If you have enjoyed this article then please consider donating to the Morning Star's Fighting Fund to ensure we can keep publishing your paper.
Donate to the Fighting Fund here
Marching for real change
Friday 19 October 2012 Printable Email
David Cameron entertained his backbenchers this week - it doesn't take much - by ridiculing Ed Miliband's decision to speak at today's A Future that Works protest in London.
Cameron chortled, as only privately educated beneficiaries of inherited, tax-dodged wealth can do, that the Labour leader was ingratiating himself with his trade union paymasters by attending "the most lucrative sponsored walk in history.
What a card and what a loss to the world of stand-up comics when Cameron renounced comedy for politics.
This braying ass and his back-bench sycophantic gigglers wouldn't understand in a month of Sundays why hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the streets of London, Glasgow and Belfast.
The short answer is in opposition to the Tory-Liberal Democrat government policies, but a more detailed response would cover a catalogue of crimes committed by this conservative coalition and its own corporate paymasters.
It won't just be trade unionists protesting, although they have reasons enough to do so.
Whether in the public or private sector, workers have seen job losses, pay restraint, attacks on pension schemes and plans to undermine trade union representation.
Council tenants and the homeless will also take to the streets because they see a government intent on fleecing working people to suit its friends, the property speculators, private landlords and banks.
There are 4.5 million people on council housing lists, but, instead of investing in a new generation of local authority homes, the government pushes further privatisation and housing benefit cuts to drive poor people out of better-off areas of our cities.
Ministers take refuge in their natural prejudice against claimants by increasingly equating them to scroungers on society.
Justifying their campaign to slash benefits they seek support from "hard-working families," juxtaposing their economic hardship in the current crisis with supposed featherbedding of the unemployed, as though most, or even many, don't work through choice.
It is classic Tory divide-and-rule tactics, as Liberal Democrat leaders would once have pointed out before their backsides became so cosily moulded to their ministerial easy chairs.
Marchers know that it wasn't claimants, public service workers, trade unionists, pensioners, single parents, asylum-seekers, the long-term unemployed, young people or any other convenient scapegoat that caused capitalism's crisis.
It was sparked by private banks that gambled on subprime mortgages, worthless financial packages and commodity speculation.
When the going was good, the rewards were excellent for company directors and shareholders, but, unlike other gamblers who stand their own losses, the banks insisted on being bailed out, refinanced and allowed to start again.
Britain's finance sector wasn't unlucky. It was corrupt and crooked. Instead of being bailed out, the banks should have been nationalised and the people running them should be in jail.
Barclays has just set aside a further £700 million to cover its "mis-selling" saga, making £2,000 million so far.
What other business could engage in fraud on this scale and still be allowed to operate?
Yet politicians of all stripes still bow down to the banks, euphemising them as "markets" or "investors," and tell workers to pull together and bear the pain of paying for the crisis.
That's not acceptable from the Tories and Liberal Democrats. Nor will it be from Miliband. He should be told that today.
Workers are not marching today against Tory austerity with no better aim than embracing austerity-lite from Labour. They want real change.
If you have enjoyed this article then please consider donating to the Morning Star's Fighting Fund to ensure we can keep publishing your paper.
Donate to the Fighting Fund here
Friday 19 October 2012
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Thursday 4 October 2012
Eric Hobsbawn
Features
Obituary: Eric Hobsbawn
Thursday 04 October 2012 Printable Email
Eric Hobsbawm, who died on Monday aged 95, stood unchallenged as the foremost historian in the Marxist tradition not just in Britain but internationally.
He was also an active Communist for most of his life and closely involved in the key debates which defined the history of the left in Britain during the 20th century.
Born in Alexandria to Jewish parents of British-Austrian nationality in 1917, he was orphaned as a child and then brought up by an uncle in Berlin.
There he witnessed the nazi rise to power at first hand and participated in resistance activities as a member of a communist youth organisation.
Moving to school in Britain in 1934, he secured a scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, in 1935 and quickly became involved in the wider intellectual and organisational activities of the university's Communist Party branch. He served during the second world war in the engineers and army educational corps.
After the war he lectured at Birkbeck College in London from 1947 until his retirement in 1982 and held a fellowship at King's College, Cambridge, between 1949 and 1955.
He held visiting chairs in the United States from the 1960s and became president of Birkbeck College in 2002.
As a historian Hobsbawm was a central figure among those who transformed British history writing in the 1940s and '50s and for at least three decades broke the dominance of those who had hitherto made history speak for the existing order.
Along with Christopher Hill, Donna Torr, George Thomson, Rodney Hilton, Victor Kiernan, EP Thompson and other members of the Communist Party Historians Group, Hobsbawm laid out a new agenda.
This was interdisciplinary, insisted that society had to analysed as a whole and drew on the approach of the French historians of the Annales school, Georges Lefebre and Marc Bloch, both deeply influenced by Marx.
In 1952 Hobsbawm with other members of the Historians Group founded the journal Past and Present and a little later the Society for the Study of Labour History. The sophistication of their analysis forced mainstream historical journals to engage on fields of battle defined in Marxist terms.
Hobsbawm himself did so particularly in three areas.
He redefined the European crisis of the 17th century in economic, demographic and political terms as a clash between feudalism and capitalism.
He provided statistical support for Marx's view that the initial phase of industrial growth was at the expense of working-class living standards and hence challenged the dominant academic orthodoxy which insisted that industrialisation improved living standards.
Hobsbawm also produced detailed studies which vindicated Lenin's explanation of the reformism of Britain's labour movement in terms of a labour aristocracy sustained on the profits of empire.
Regis professors were lured out of their ivory towers - often returning battered and discredited.
These debates took Marxist assumptions on the class-driven character of social change to the heart of history teaching in schools and universities.
Hobsbawm followed this up in the 1960s and '70s with brilliantly accessible histories of Britain, Europe and the world over the past three centuries that defined the historical understanding of a generation.
It is rare for a scholar of Hosbawm's stature to be so accessible in their writing and teaching. Many of us will remember this for many years to come.
At the same time Hobsbawm was closely involved in the politics of the Communist Party. Along with EP Thompson and John Saville, he was among those who demanded changes in inner-party democracy and a departure from democratic centralism in the wake of the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party and its denunciation of Stalin. He did not, however, leave the Communist Party.
In the '60s and '70s he developed links with those in the Italian Communist Party who saw themselves as developing a strategy for socialism that was quite distinct from - and to a large extent posed against - that of the Soviet Union.
In 1977 he published The Italian Road to Socialism based on a long interview with Giorgio Napolitano, then international secretary of the Italian party and today president of Italy.
In 1978 he gave a lecture at Marx House in London that was subsequently published in the Communist Party monthly Marxism Today as The Forward March of Labour Halted.
Writing at the time when the trade union movement was at the peak of its strength - and the left highly influential within it - Hobsbawm argued that the manual working class was in numerical decline and that the character of its politics was inherently economistic, trapped within the bounds of self-interested wage bargaining, and that consequently the left had to look in future to broader alliances and social movements.
This lecture became an iconic text for that wing within the Communist Party that sought to steer it away from class politics and to challenge key elements of Marxism.
While Hobsbawm never fully endorsed this endeavour, he actively supported the transformation of Marxism Today into its flagship journal and was a very frequent contributor. He continued to be so until 1991, by which time the Communist Party of Great Britain under the control of this wing had expelled virtually all opponents and then voted itself out of existence.
The same tendency subsequently provided important ideological support for those within the Labour Party calling for a realignment away from the trade union movement and the creation of new Labour.
Although Hobsbawm supported Neil Kinnock's remoulding of the Labour Party and was honoured by Tony Blair he subsequently spoke out against new Labour, its alignment with US policies and, very firmly, against the invasion of Iraq.
In his final years Hobsbawm continued his role - to use his own phrase - as a "public intellectual."
He refused all invitations to unilaterally condemn the Soviet Union and instead asserted its historic role in the defeat of fascism.
He indicated his concern at the manipulation of "identity politics" and in particular the divisive use of nationalism and national mythology. He showed his exasperation at the abandonment by most contemporary historians of any attempt to understand overall processes of social change.
Internationally, his writings have become an intellectual beacon for those seeking an understanding of human development in Marxist terms, particularly in Latin America and the Indian subcontinent.
While in Britain his death marks the end of that generation of communist historians who transformed history-writing, his continuing influence as a humanist and historian is assured.
Obituary: Eric Hobsbawn
Thursday 04 October 2012 Printable Email
Eric Hobsbawm, who died on Monday aged 95, stood unchallenged as the foremost historian in the Marxist tradition not just in Britain but internationally.
He was also an active Communist for most of his life and closely involved in the key debates which defined the history of the left in Britain during the 20th century.
Born in Alexandria to Jewish parents of British-Austrian nationality in 1917, he was orphaned as a child and then brought up by an uncle in Berlin.
There he witnessed the nazi rise to power at first hand and participated in resistance activities as a member of a communist youth organisation.
Moving to school in Britain in 1934, he secured a scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, in 1935 and quickly became involved in the wider intellectual and organisational activities of the university's Communist Party branch. He served during the second world war in the engineers and army educational corps.
After the war he lectured at Birkbeck College in London from 1947 until his retirement in 1982 and held a fellowship at King's College, Cambridge, between 1949 and 1955.
He held visiting chairs in the United States from the 1960s and became president of Birkbeck College in 2002.
As a historian Hobsbawm was a central figure among those who transformed British history writing in the 1940s and '50s and for at least three decades broke the dominance of those who had hitherto made history speak for the existing order.
Along with Christopher Hill, Donna Torr, George Thomson, Rodney Hilton, Victor Kiernan, EP Thompson and other members of the Communist Party Historians Group, Hobsbawm laid out a new agenda.
This was interdisciplinary, insisted that society had to analysed as a whole and drew on the approach of the French historians of the Annales school, Georges Lefebre and Marc Bloch, both deeply influenced by Marx.
In 1952 Hobsbawm with other members of the Historians Group founded the journal Past and Present and a little later the Society for the Study of Labour History. The sophistication of their analysis forced mainstream historical journals to engage on fields of battle defined in Marxist terms.
Hobsbawm himself did so particularly in three areas.
He redefined the European crisis of the 17th century in economic, demographic and political terms as a clash between feudalism and capitalism.
He provided statistical support for Marx's view that the initial phase of industrial growth was at the expense of working-class living standards and hence challenged the dominant academic orthodoxy which insisted that industrialisation improved living standards.
Hobsbawm also produced detailed studies which vindicated Lenin's explanation of the reformism of Britain's labour movement in terms of a labour aristocracy sustained on the profits of empire.
Regis professors were lured out of their ivory towers - often returning battered and discredited.
These debates took Marxist assumptions on the class-driven character of social change to the heart of history teaching in schools and universities.
Hobsbawm followed this up in the 1960s and '70s with brilliantly accessible histories of Britain, Europe and the world over the past three centuries that defined the historical understanding of a generation.
It is rare for a scholar of Hosbawm's stature to be so accessible in their writing and teaching. Many of us will remember this for many years to come.
At the same time Hobsbawm was closely involved in the politics of the Communist Party. Along with EP Thompson and John Saville, he was among those who demanded changes in inner-party democracy and a departure from democratic centralism in the wake of the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party and its denunciation of Stalin. He did not, however, leave the Communist Party.
In the '60s and '70s he developed links with those in the Italian Communist Party who saw themselves as developing a strategy for socialism that was quite distinct from - and to a large extent posed against - that of the Soviet Union.
In 1977 he published The Italian Road to Socialism based on a long interview with Giorgio Napolitano, then international secretary of the Italian party and today president of Italy.
In 1978 he gave a lecture at Marx House in London that was subsequently published in the Communist Party monthly Marxism Today as The Forward March of Labour Halted.
Writing at the time when the trade union movement was at the peak of its strength - and the left highly influential within it - Hobsbawm argued that the manual working class was in numerical decline and that the character of its politics was inherently economistic, trapped within the bounds of self-interested wage bargaining, and that consequently the left had to look in future to broader alliances and social movements.
This lecture became an iconic text for that wing within the Communist Party that sought to steer it away from class politics and to challenge key elements of Marxism.
While Hobsbawm never fully endorsed this endeavour, he actively supported the transformation of Marxism Today into its flagship journal and was a very frequent contributor. He continued to be so until 1991, by which time the Communist Party of Great Britain under the control of this wing had expelled virtually all opponents and then voted itself out of existence.
The same tendency subsequently provided important ideological support for those within the Labour Party calling for a realignment away from the trade union movement and the creation of new Labour.
Although Hobsbawm supported Neil Kinnock's remoulding of the Labour Party and was honoured by Tony Blair he subsequently spoke out against new Labour, its alignment with US policies and, very firmly, against the invasion of Iraq.
In his final years Hobsbawm continued his role - to use his own phrase - as a "public intellectual."
He refused all invitations to unilaterally condemn the Soviet Union and instead asserted its historic role in the defeat of fascism.
He indicated his concern at the manipulation of "identity politics" and in particular the divisive use of nationalism and national mythology. He showed his exasperation at the abandonment by most contemporary historians of any attempt to understand overall processes of social change.
Internationally, his writings have become an intellectual beacon for those seeking an understanding of human development in Marxist terms, particularly in Latin America and the Indian subcontinent.
While in Britain his death marks the end of that generation of communist historians who transformed history-writing, his continuing influence as a humanist and historian is assured.
Wednesday 3 October 2012
http://bulatlat.com/main/2012/10/03/military-files-case-against-labor-leader/
MANILA – The Cabuyao Municipal Trial Court issued a warrant of arrest dated August 2, 2012 against labor leader Hermenegildo “Hermie” Marasigan. Marasigan is a member of KMU’s national council and vice-chairman of the the Pagkakaisa ng Manggagawa sa Timog Katagalugan (Pamantik), KMU’s regional chapter.
According to a report from Pamantik-KMU, Marasigan is being charged with “direct assault upon a person in authority” and “slight physical injury” during a supposed incident that took place on Oct. 20, 2011 in Barangay Pulo, Cabuyao, Laguna. An official of the Philippine Army is behind the charges; the officer earlier alleged that Marasigan was guilty of “human rights violations” against a soldier.
KMU chairman Elmer Labog immediately expressed outrage against what he deemed as political and legal harassment against the Southern Tagalog labor leader. Labog led leaders of Pamantik and Olalia in a protest in Cabuyao last October 2 to denounce the warrant of arrest against Marasigan and the continuing military operations in the region.
“Southern Tagalog has one of the highest concentration of workers in the country, and the labor movement there is very active and highly politicized. Ka Hermie is an exemplary labor leader and these made-up charges against him are a direct attack not so much against his person but against the labor movement not just in the region but in the country. This is out-and-out political harassment and a move to cripple Pamantik and Olalia’s activities in the region. These labor organizations are active in exposing the countless labor rights and also human rights violations in Southern Tagalog,” Labog said.
Labog said the Aquino administration is utilizing the same militarist tactics against political dissenters and labor leaders that were employed by his predecessor Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the former dictator himself Ferdinand Marcos.
“Aquino is wielding martial law against workers and the labor movement. This is not the first attack that his government launched against Filipino workers, and it’s certain that it won’t be the last,” he said.
The warrant against Marasigan was delivered last Sept. 26, after two men in plainclothes went to his house in Brgy. Pulo, Cabuyao, Laguna and told his wife that he was being “invited” to the town’s police station. A staff of Olalia went to the Cabuyao police station twice to inquire about the incident but the police authorities denied sending a letter to Marasigan. It was only when the staff staff went to the Cabuyao MTC that the existence of the arrest warrant was confirmed.
According to Pamantik, the arrest warrant against Marasigan came at the heels of the establishment of a military camp beside a local office of Anakpawis Partylist in Brgy. Pulo. Members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines have been noted to be asking residents about the whereabouts and homes of workers who are members of KMU-affiliated unions such as those working for Nestle Cabuyao and RFM. The soldiers have also been holding public film showings featuring documentaries against progressive partylist groups Anakpawis and Bayan Muna.
Residents, in the meantime, have also complained against the rowdiness of the soldiers who hold drinking sessions in the camp. When residents petitioned for the removal of the camp, the military merely transferred to another location in the same barangay, near the Malayan Colleges in Paseo de Cabuyao.
Labog said the AFP should immediately pull out from Cabuyao and from all workers’ communities.
“The Aquino government is using the military to intimidate workers and frustrate workers’ efforts at forming unions and fighting for their rights,” Labog said.
What went before
Based on an October 23 report from Journal.com.ph, the military was swift to file “human rights violation charges” against Marasigan when on October 22, he tried to stop soldiers from conducting community development operations in Bgy. Pulo.
The media report revealed that it was Capt. Gene Orense, civil military officer of the 202nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division who said that the army will file the charges against Marasigan. It was reported that the AFP was conducting a so-called “community organizing activity for development operations” in Brgy. Pulo when Marasigan and a few others from Pamantik and Olalia arrived and allegedly disrupted the meeting.
“Marasigan and his group reportedly forced their way into the barangay hall of Pulo, Cabuyao, and went on to write graffiti on the wall with the words: “Palayasin ang militar dito sa Barangay Pulo,’” (Remove the military from Pulo village) said the report.
In the meantime, the report also included a statement, which claimed that Marasigan figured in a punching match with a Cpl. Reynante Roxas. Roxas of the SOTWA, Bravo Coy Command Battalion of the 2nd Infantry Division of the Philippine Army filed the case against Marasigan on Oct. 25, 2011.
Pamantik, in a statement, explained that the October 20 activity was precisely against militarization. It said the peaceful protest was threatened when the military took out their high-powered firearms. The soldiers, at the time, were occupying a former health center which they turned into a detachment. The detachment, in the meantime, was next door to a day care center where toddlers and small children were present and playing at the time.
“The Philippine Army violated Article 4, Section 4 and Article 12 of International Humanitarian Law when they established camp at kept weapons in a civilian community,” Pamantik said.
The group said the charges against Marasigan were issued arbitrarily and the subsequent hearings held without following due process.
“Marasigan did not receive any subpoena, neither was he formally and legally informed that criminal charges were filed against him. It was revealed that in the first hearing that took place last November 23, 2011, the soldier who filed the charges did not even attend, but the court still continued to process the case and issue a resolution as well as a warrant of arrest. The court should immediately have thrown out the case,” it said.
According to a report from Pamantik-KMU, Marasigan is being charged with “direct assault upon a person in authority” and “slight physical injury” during a supposed incident that took place on Oct. 20, 2011 in Barangay Pulo, Cabuyao, Laguna. An official of the Philippine Army is behind the charges; the officer earlier alleged that Marasigan was guilty of “human rights violations” against a soldier.
KMU chairman Elmer Labog immediately expressed outrage against what he deemed as political and legal harassment against the Southern Tagalog labor leader. Labog led leaders of Pamantik and Olalia in a protest in Cabuyao last October 2 to denounce the warrant of arrest against Marasigan and the continuing military operations in the region.
“Southern Tagalog has one of the highest concentration of workers in the country, and the labor movement there is very active and highly politicized. Ka Hermie is an exemplary labor leader and these made-up charges against him are a direct attack not so much against his person but against the labor movement not just in the region but in the country. This is out-and-out political harassment and a move to cripple Pamantik and Olalia’s activities in the region. These labor organizations are active in exposing the countless labor rights and also human rights violations in Southern Tagalog,” Labog said.
Labog said the Aquino administration is utilizing the same militarist tactics against political dissenters and labor leaders that were employed by his predecessor Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the former dictator himself Ferdinand Marcos.
“Aquino is wielding martial law against workers and the labor movement. This is not the first attack that his government launched against Filipino workers, and it’s certain that it won’t be the last,” he said.
The warrant against Marasigan was delivered last Sept. 26, after two men in plainclothes went to his house in Brgy. Pulo, Cabuyao, Laguna and told his wife that he was being “invited” to the town’s police station. A staff of Olalia went to the Cabuyao police station twice to inquire about the incident but the police authorities denied sending a letter to Marasigan. It was only when the staff staff went to the Cabuyao MTC that the existence of the arrest warrant was confirmed.
According to Pamantik, the arrest warrant against Marasigan came at the heels of the establishment of a military camp beside a local office of Anakpawis Partylist in Brgy. Pulo. Members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines have been noted to be asking residents about the whereabouts and homes of workers who are members of KMU-affiliated unions such as those working for Nestle Cabuyao and RFM. The soldiers have also been holding public film showings featuring documentaries against progressive partylist groups Anakpawis and Bayan Muna.
Residents, in the meantime, have also complained against the rowdiness of the soldiers who hold drinking sessions in the camp. When residents petitioned for the removal of the camp, the military merely transferred to another location in the same barangay, near the Malayan Colleges in Paseo de Cabuyao.
Labog said the AFP should immediately pull out from Cabuyao and from all workers’ communities.
“The Aquino government is using the military to intimidate workers and frustrate workers’ efforts at forming unions and fighting for their rights,” Labog said.
What went before
Based on an October 23 report from Journal.com.ph, the military was swift to file “human rights violation charges” against Marasigan when on October 22, he tried to stop soldiers from conducting community development operations in Bgy. Pulo.
The media report revealed that it was Capt. Gene Orense, civil military officer of the 202nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division who said that the army will file the charges against Marasigan. It was reported that the AFP was conducting a so-called “community organizing activity for development operations” in Brgy. Pulo when Marasigan and a few others from Pamantik and Olalia arrived and allegedly disrupted the meeting.
“Marasigan and his group reportedly forced their way into the barangay hall of Pulo, Cabuyao, and went on to write graffiti on the wall with the words: “Palayasin ang militar dito sa Barangay Pulo,’” (Remove the military from Pulo village) said the report.
In the meantime, the report also included a statement, which claimed that Marasigan figured in a punching match with a Cpl. Reynante Roxas. Roxas of the SOTWA, Bravo Coy Command Battalion of the 2nd Infantry Division of the Philippine Army filed the case against Marasigan on Oct. 25, 2011.
Pamantik, in a statement, explained that the October 20 activity was precisely against militarization. It said the peaceful protest was threatened when the military took out their high-powered firearms. The soldiers, at the time, were occupying a former health center which they turned into a detachment. The detachment, in the meantime, was next door to a day care center where toddlers and small children were present and playing at the time.
“The Philippine Army violated Article 4, Section 4 and Article 12 of International Humanitarian Law when they established camp at kept weapons in a civilian community,” Pamantik said.
The group said the charges against Marasigan were issued arbitrarily and the subsequent hearings held without following due process.
“Marasigan did not receive any subpoena, neither was he formally and legally informed that criminal charges were filed against him. It was revealed that in the first hearing that took place last November 23, 2011, the soldier who filed the charges did not even attend, but the court still continued to process the case and issue a resolution as well as a warrant of arrest. The court should immediately have thrown out the case,” it said.
Thursday 20 September 2012
Broken dreams: Forced labour in the UK food sector
Broken dreams: Forced labour in the UK food sector
Many of us remember the publication of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) Inquiry into recruitment and employment in the meat and poultry processing sector back in 2010. The Inquiry highlighted just how poor the conditions for some workers in this industry are, providing concrete examples of discrimination, physical and verbal abuse.
Though appalled at the Inquiry's findings, I hoped something positive might come from them. The report received good coverage in the mainstream press, and it even seemed to get traction beyond the ‘usual suspects' in the CSR and ethical trade arena.
But it seems I was too optimistic. Because last week I was equally horrified by the findings of new research detailing widespread exploitation and abuse in the UK food industry - particularly among low-wage migrant workers.
New evidence
Funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), ‘Experience of Forced Labour in the UK Food Industry' is a detailed study - one of the largest of its kind - of experiences of forced labour and exploitation in the food industry. It draws on interviews with 62 migrant workers (mainly Polish, Chinese, Latvian and Lithuania) across five locations. Most workers interviewed were working on farms (many as fruit or vegetable pickers), in food processing and packing, or in ‘minority ethnic catering'.
Human cost
The report paints a grim picture. Using a set of 19 indicators of forced labour, the study identified 14 forced labour practices in the UK food industry. These range from debt bondage as a result of paying upfront fees to travel to the UK and secure work, threats and bullying; through to non- or under-payment of wages, retaining documents, and tie-ins (eg through accommodation). But what comes out strongly is the human cost of these practices - in particular, the acute sense of powerlessness among the workers, and the absolute and relative poverty that they live in.
"Work is tough, low-paid and insecure; many interviewees barely earned enough to survive. Fear and powerlessness were almost ubiquitous... Although none were actually coerced into work, this insecurity, allied with material deprivation, made it difficult to distinguish between free and unfree employment relationships".
Unlike some reports, it tackles head on the underlying causes of these problems, putting the competitive structure of the food supply chain centre stage. It also highlights the role of cultural drivers - and isolated criminal actions of employers and employment agents.
What can be done?
The authors suggest a range of interventions to help minimise the economic, cultural and criminal drivers behind these practices. Proposing the need for a combination of state and non-state action, they set out recommendations for different actors including government, large food retailers and suppliers, inspectorates, trade unions and voluntary organisations.
Practical recommendations for large food retailers and suppliers include the need for better methods of collecting confidential evidence from employees (ie getting away from ‘staged interviews'); looking at ways to challenge ‘flexible employment' arrangements that keep workers ‘on call'; and providing guidance and advice on identifying and addressing particular exploitative practices.
These issues are firmly on ETI's agenda. We have long been aware of the shortcomings of audits as a way of identifying and addressing exploitative labour practices, and have been exploring different approaches to moving ‘beyond audit' to get a better picture of what is really happening on the ground. As the report notes, it's not just about improving audit interview techniques. It's also about providing guidance on and support around ways of identifying forced labour practices, and looking at using workers' contracts as a way of providing better protection and increased transparency around payments, deductions and lack of certainty around working hours.
Most importantly, however, it's about retailers working in collaboration with trade unions and NGOs to bring about an end to exploitative practices and improve the lives of workers involved in growing, picking, packing and processing our food. Without a joint approach to tackling these issues, I fear I may find myself reading a similar report in two years' time.
Many of us remember the publication of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) Inquiry into recruitment and employment in the meat and poultry processing sector back in 2010. The Inquiry highlighted just how poor the conditions for some workers in this industry are, providing concrete examples of discrimination, physical and verbal abuse.
Though appalled at the Inquiry's findings, I hoped something positive might come from them. The report received good coverage in the mainstream press, and it even seemed to get traction beyond the ‘usual suspects' in the CSR and ethical trade arena.
But it seems I was too optimistic. Because last week I was equally horrified by the findings of new research detailing widespread exploitation and abuse in the UK food industry - particularly among low-wage migrant workers.
New evidence
Funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), ‘Experience of Forced Labour in the UK Food Industry' is a detailed study - one of the largest of its kind - of experiences of forced labour and exploitation in the food industry. It draws on interviews with 62 migrant workers (mainly Polish, Chinese, Latvian and Lithuania) across five locations. Most workers interviewed were working on farms (many as fruit or vegetable pickers), in food processing and packing, or in ‘minority ethnic catering'.
Human cost
The report paints a grim picture. Using a set of 19 indicators of forced labour, the study identified 14 forced labour practices in the UK food industry. These range from debt bondage as a result of paying upfront fees to travel to the UK and secure work, threats and bullying; through to non- or under-payment of wages, retaining documents, and tie-ins (eg through accommodation). But what comes out strongly is the human cost of these practices - in particular, the acute sense of powerlessness among the workers, and the absolute and relative poverty that they live in.
"Work is tough, low-paid and insecure; many interviewees barely earned enough to survive. Fear and powerlessness were almost ubiquitous... Although none were actually coerced into work, this insecurity, allied with material deprivation, made it difficult to distinguish between free and unfree employment relationships".
Unlike some reports, it tackles head on the underlying causes of these problems, putting the competitive structure of the food supply chain centre stage. It also highlights the role of cultural drivers - and isolated criminal actions of employers and employment agents.
What can be done?
The authors suggest a range of interventions to help minimise the economic, cultural and criminal drivers behind these practices. Proposing the need for a combination of state and non-state action, they set out recommendations for different actors including government, large food retailers and suppliers, inspectorates, trade unions and voluntary organisations.
Practical recommendations for large food retailers and suppliers include the need for better methods of collecting confidential evidence from employees (ie getting away from ‘staged interviews'); looking at ways to challenge ‘flexible employment' arrangements that keep workers ‘on call'; and providing guidance and advice on identifying and addressing particular exploitative practices.
These issues are firmly on ETI's agenda. We have long been aware of the shortcomings of audits as a way of identifying and addressing exploitative labour practices, and have been exploring different approaches to moving ‘beyond audit' to get a better picture of what is really happening on the ground. As the report notes, it's not just about improving audit interview techniques. It's also about providing guidance on and support around ways of identifying forced labour practices, and looking at using workers' contracts as a way of providing better protection and increased transparency around payments, deductions and lack of certainty around working hours.
Most importantly, however, it's about retailers working in collaboration with trade unions and NGOs to bring about an end to exploitative practices and improve the lives of workers involved in growing, picking, packing and processing our food. Without a joint approach to tackling these issues, I fear I may find myself reading a similar report in two years' time.
Wednesday 25 July 2012
Britons rally in support of Greek striking steelworkers
Tuesday 24 July 2012 by John Millington Printable Email
Trade unionists in Britain flooded to the Greek embassy in London on Monday to show solidarity with striking steelworkers after their picket lines were attacked by riot police in Athens.
Workers at the Hellenic Steel factory have been on strike for 268 days, struggling for decent wages and demanding the reinstatement of sacked colleagues.
But last Friday Greece's coalition government ordered police to try and break the strike despite ongoing negotiations between unions and employers.
Riot police attacked picket lines with batons and tear gas.
But despite a handful of strike breakers and managers being escorted through police lines, the workers' union Pame has insisted the strike "will go on."
Greek and British communists alongside members of transport union RMT unfurled a banner saying: "Without you no cog can turn. Workers can do without the bosses."
Speaking to the Morning Star after delivering a letter on behalf of the union to the Greek embassy condemning the police action, RMT president Alex Gordon said: "Riot police have been deployed and workers quite rightly are resisting.
"I think the first thing, is to get the message out that the Greek workers are not alone."
Mr Gordon added that the example of the strike in Greece and the brutal response of the government was a sign of things to come.
"Things are getting difficult in Britain," he said, pointing to reports of ministers considering sacking striking border guards.
"The duty of trade unionists and socialists is to collective action and to defend our class interests."
johnm@peoples-press.com
Foreign news: p6
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Tuesday 24 July 2012
Monday 9 July 2012
Spanish coal miners ratchet up the pressure
Spanish coal miners ratchet up the pressure
Monday 09 July 2012by Tom Gill Printable Email
Spanish miners rallied in Madrid today for a day of protest demanding a reversal of subsidy-cuts which could cripple the country's coal industry.
Their Black March on the capital comprised two columns - one from the north, made up of miners who have marched 250 miles from Asturias and Leon, and one from the north-east arriving from Aragon.
They merged in the capital to highlight a brutal attack on their sector which will lead to the loss of thousands of jobs and devastate coal-mining communities.
The UGT and Comisiones Obreras trade union confederations, who represent the miners, will be taking part in a mass rally and march which will see the protests outside the Industry Ministry.
With this march the miners wanted to "take the conflict out of the pits and extend it to the rest of society to support their just demands," said Agustin Martin, a leading figure in the Madrid section of Comisiones Obreras, which has been planning the reception of the miners.
The miners have received "great and warm support" in every town they passed, he said - adding that their demands have been endorsed "by virtually all political organisations, except the (governing) Popular Party, and a large majority of social organisations."
For Marga Ferre of United Left, the miners "are giving a lesson to the whole country that things are won through struggle."
The representative of the radical left formation hoped that the protests of the coal sector would spread to other areas of society, as the miners have historically acted as the vanguard of the labour movement.
Among those who turned out to welcome the miners to the capital were members of the "indignados" (indignant ones) movement, who on day one of the Black March 17 days ago established a Miners Support Group together with neighbourhood organisations of Madrid.
The indignados - the movement led by disaffected youth that exploded onto the national scene with occupations of Madrid's central square, Plaza del Sol, in May 2011 - believe this conflict is part of the "massive transfer of income from the people to the banks and financial markets" and what they consider an attack on democracy and the people's social rights and living conditions.
One main website of the movement declares: "We stand together with the miners' resistance. Their struggle is ours."
Youth movement the Platform of Youth Without Future has also expressed support for the Black March.
"The poor youth, whether unemployed, student or low-paid casual worker," is on the side of coal miners, it says.
"This is a struggle for rights, for the right to a life worth living against the market system that robs us every day."
The cuts by Mariano Rajoy's right-wing government are in breach of a five-year Plan for Coal agreement signed between the government and unions last year.
Eight thousand mine workers will lose their livelihoods and a further 30,000 jobs will be affected indirectly if the 64 per cent cut to government mining subsidies, from €703 million (£560m) to €253m (£200m), goes through.
Spain's miners, who walked off the job at the start of June, are the first major group of workers in Europe to go on indefinite strike against the austerity measures that are wreaking havoc across the continent.
Monday 09 July 2012by Tom Gill Printable Email
Spanish miners rallied in Madrid today for a day of protest demanding a reversal of subsidy-cuts which could cripple the country's coal industry.
Their Black March on the capital comprised two columns - one from the north, made up of miners who have marched 250 miles from Asturias and Leon, and one from the north-east arriving from Aragon.
They merged in the capital to highlight a brutal attack on their sector which will lead to the loss of thousands of jobs and devastate coal-mining communities.
The UGT and Comisiones Obreras trade union confederations, who represent the miners, will be taking part in a mass rally and march which will see the protests outside the Industry Ministry.
With this march the miners wanted to "take the conflict out of the pits and extend it to the rest of society to support their just demands," said Agustin Martin, a leading figure in the Madrid section of Comisiones Obreras, which has been planning the reception of the miners.
The miners have received "great and warm support" in every town they passed, he said - adding that their demands have been endorsed "by virtually all political organisations, except the (governing) Popular Party, and a large majority of social organisations."
For Marga Ferre of United Left, the miners "are giving a lesson to the whole country that things are won through struggle."
The representative of the radical left formation hoped that the protests of the coal sector would spread to other areas of society, as the miners have historically acted as the vanguard of the labour movement.
Among those who turned out to welcome the miners to the capital were members of the "indignados" (indignant ones) movement, who on day one of the Black March 17 days ago established a Miners Support Group together with neighbourhood organisations of Madrid.
The indignados - the movement led by disaffected youth that exploded onto the national scene with occupations of Madrid's central square, Plaza del Sol, in May 2011 - believe this conflict is part of the "massive transfer of income from the people to the banks and financial markets" and what they consider an attack on democracy and the people's social rights and living conditions.
One main website of the movement declares: "We stand together with the miners' resistance. Their struggle is ours."
Youth movement the Platform of Youth Without Future has also expressed support for the Black March.
"The poor youth, whether unemployed, student or low-paid casual worker," is on the side of coal miners, it says.
"This is a struggle for rights, for the right to a life worth living against the market system that robs us every day."
The cuts by Mariano Rajoy's right-wing government are in breach of a five-year Plan for Coal agreement signed between the government and unions last year.
Eight thousand mine workers will lose their livelihoods and a further 30,000 jobs will be affected indirectly if the 64 per cent cut to government mining subsidies, from €703 million (£560m) to €253m (£200m), goes through.
Spain's miners, who walked off the job at the start of June, are the first major group of workers in Europe to go on indefinite strike against the austerity measures that are wreaking havoc across the continent.
Monday 2 July 2012
JOHN HAYLETT: Pravda, still speaking out
JOHN HAYLETT: Pravda, still speaking out
Just over two decades ago when the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, its Communist Party claimed over 20 million members and Pravda was the party's daily voice writes John Haylett, political editor of the Morning Star.
Self-styled democrat Boris Yeltsin banned both by Russian presidential decree, prompting an exodus of careerists, opportunists and those without the stomach to fight for the cause they previously championed.
He seized the assets of party and paper, forcing those loyal to the Communist Party and Pravda to rebuild from scratch, relying on conviction rather than state power.
Pravda had been set up in 1912 by Bolshevik leader Lenin as Russia's first legal working-class daily paper and was constantly persecuted by the autocracy, being closed down at the beginning of the first world war before reappearing after the first February 1917 Russian revolution.
It marked its centenary last month in Moscow with a weekend of celebration, receiving guests from two dozen communist parties and left-wing papers from around the world for a round-table discussion and staging a mass rally and concert for Pravda readers and supporters in the historic House of the Unions, which hosted all major Communist Party congresses and also provided the setting for state funerals.
Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) president Gennady Zyuganov, began the anniversary celebrations by leading international guests in laying red carnations on the memorial to Marshal Georgy Zhukov and at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in tribute to the role of the Red Army in crushing the Third Reich.
CPRF delegations from across Europe did likewise, linking in to national observation of Victory Day on May 9, for which many citizens sported commemorative red and yellow ribbons.
Both party and paper refer constantly to the second world war, evoking the national unity, comradeship and self-sacrifice of those days.
Zyuganov told the House of the Unions rally that capitalism was living through its 12th crisis in 150 years, vindicating Marx's forecast that they would occur every 10-15 years.
"Imperialism seeks a way out of the current crisis through military adventures and financial injections. It hasn't worked," he said, noting that two previous crises had had "tragic consequences," leading to the first and second world wars.
"Four empires collapsed as a result of the first world war while our country was rescued by the Great October Socialist Revolution and by Lenin, leading to the new economic policy and electrification," he said.
"The second crisis ended with victory in 1945. Winston Churchill had called on the world to strangle the Bolshevik baby in its cradle, but after Hitler began bombing London, he said that Britain had a choice of an alliance with the Soviet Union or perishing.
"The main anti-Sovieteer signed an alliance with the Soviet Union because he was aware of the threat from German fascism."
Zyuganov cited the cold figures of the human cost of the war to his country - 28 million lives lost, "among them our strongest, youngest people," and 19 million children orphaned.
He contrasted the two global conflicts, pointing out: "In the first world war not one enterprise was removed. In the second, 1,500 factories and 10 million workers were evacuated beyond the Urals and new productive facilities set up in a very short time.
"It was said that we did not know how to make modern military goods, but nothing surpassed the T34 tank and Katyusha rockets. They were superior to German weaponry, as were our fighter planes," he added proudly.
The Communist Party leader listed the Soviet Union's postwar achievements of free universal education and full employment, together with achieving nuclear military parity and exploring space.
However when the Soviet system entered critical times, he said, "Gorbachov and others failed to meet the challenge."
He contrasted the experience of China which had seen 100 million victims of the ill-starred cultural revolution but, under Deng Xiaoping, had laid the basis for improving industry, becoming a space power and emerging as the workshop of the world, exemplified by one in four goods sold in US being made in China.
"This proves that it is possible to modernise under Communist Party leadership, but we had one leader, Gorbachov, who was a windbag and then Yeltsin was a drunk. The party had no control over these leaders," he asserted.
"The grassroots didn't have the courage to solve this problem reasonably and peacefully," he said in what appeared a rationalisation of the adventurist and botched 1991 coup by CPSU leaders that proved a godsend to Yeltsin.
Zyuganov slated Yeltsin's prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin for selling weapons grade plutonium and pumping "a sea of resources" to the US and bringing in US "specialists" to set commodity prices.
Anatoly Chubais, who spearheaded the privatisation of Russian state property and the creation of a number of oligarchs in the 1990s "would have been executed in the US as a traitor" for his deeds, in Zyuganov's view.
"They should all be brought to account," he declared, laying down an alternative economic approach, including public ownership of all mineral resources.
The Communist leader congratulated party workers for the efforts in the recent general election that, despite widespread ballot rigging, had returned CPRF candidates across the country, doubling the party's parliamentary representation.
Zyuganov awarded Pravda gold medals to eight veteran workers at the paper, stating: "Pravda is a symbol of the Soviet era. It has survived all ups and downs. It mobilised citizens to fight for Soviet power and to be victorious.
"Congratulations for preserving the existence of Pravda to support broad patriotic movement, which can say: 'Truth is on our side'," he said. Pravda of course means Truth in Russian.
Congratulatory messages were read to the audience, drawing warm responses in the main, none more so than Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko's "Pravda loyally and truthfully covers the situation in Belarus."
However, then Russian president Dimitri Medvedev's message that Pravda embodied "the best traditions of Soviet journalism" was greeted by whistles and boos among some applause.
Editor Boris Komotsky welcomed international guests to the Pravda offices where staff had just completed production of a special centenary edition and an Age of Lenin calendar.
Komotsky recalled the hard days of the early 1990s when anti-communist mobs had attacked the paper's headquarters, saying: "We had to fight to defend the building against vandalism.
"Our opponents were engaged in violent activities. There was a ban on the party and paper and subsequently there were several times when our paper was forced to close for lack of finance."
There were other trials, not least the sale of the paper to Greek entrepreneurs posing as communists by then editor Gennady Seleznyov, who was later expelled from the party and now sits in parliament as the sole representative of the Russian Renaissance Party.
Some Pravda journalists left the paper and its political inspiration to set up a Pravda Online website, while the CPRF succeeded finally in 1997 in regaining ownership of the newspaper as its party organ.
Pravda had 300 editorial staff in Soviet times. Now it has just 14 full-time journalists, some veterans who have worked there since the 1960s and younger people who have joined more recently.
Over 80 per cent of the paper's content is contributed by volunteer worker correspondents - "in the Leninist tradition," as Komotsky puts it - across Russia.
"Several TV teams have visited us to mark our 100th birthday, which is very atypical and was surprising to us," said editor Komotsky.
"Our party has gained weight and strength as a result of election results. We hope they'll tell the truth about the Truth," he added.
Current circulation for Pravda, which is now published three times a week, is 100,000, based on four editions in Moscow, the Caucasus, the Urals and Siberia. There are also weekly regional versions, plus specials.
The paper's bank sent along a birthday cake decorated to show a Pravda front page, including its distinctive masthead showing the two orders of Lenin and one of the October Revolution.
Those reminders of Soviet times were dropped at one time, but Komotsky was insistent on their reappearance, calling Pravda "a beachhead of Soviet civilisation that never surrendered."
"We have withstood all trials. We have remained true and loyal to its name and the principles on which Lenin founded it. It reports truthfully on workers' struggles.
"It's a school for strong characters. It was not made by political wizards but arose out of the suffering of working people and the desire for change."
Komotsky is pleased at the response to Pravda's first invitation to international guests in over 20 years to witness "the tremendous job of restoring the work of Pravda. This work continues.
"The best outcome of today's meeting would be closer ties between ourselves. There are technical and financial difficulties, but it is possible to overcome them," he stresses.
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