Ireland: British collusion exposed in hundreds of paramilitary murders

The BBC’s Panorama program on May 28 made explosive revelations about British state collusion with paramilitaries in the North of Ireland, implicating it in the murder of hundreds of people, and in subsequent cover-ups.

The documentary, titled "Britain’s Secret Terror Deals", detailed British security forces collusion with illegal paramilitary groups in the North on a vast scale, running thousands of informants and agents, many of them known criminals and murderers.

Former Police Ombudsman Baroness Nuala O’Loan told the program that some paramilitary informants recruited by the security forces during “the Troubles” were serial killers, and that their crimes – including murder, intimidation, drug smuggling and terrorism – were covered up.

“They were running informants and they were using them,” O’Loan told the program.

“Their argument was that by so doing they were saving lives, but hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people died because those people were not brought to justice and weren’t stopped in their tracks,” she said.

"There was impunity really for these people to go on committing their crimes. Many of them were killers, some were serial killers."

Germany: G7 meets amid mass protests

Schloß Elmau, venue of the G7 summit

Tens of thousands of anti-capitalist, environmental and social justice activists have taken to the streets and the country roads of Bavaria to protest the Group of Seven (G7) nations summit, which took place on June 7 and 8 in a secluded castle in the German Alps.

On June 4, over 35,000 demonstrators marched peacefully in the Bavarian capital Munich, protesting the destructive policies of the G7 industrialised nations – climate change, militarisation and NATO expansion in Europe, economic austerity and poverty, democracy-destroying free trade deals and more. 

Some protesters dressed as clowns, while others wore black or even traditional Bavarian lederhosen, and carried rainbow flags and banners bearing slogans such as “Stop the G7 now!”, "G7 go to hell" and “Revolution is the solution”.  

On June 8, another 8,000 protesters marched through the alpine resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a few hours south of Munich, in the shadow of Germany’s highest mountain, Zugspitze. 

The meeting between the leaders of the G7 nations – the United States, Britain, Canada, Italy, France, Japan and Germany – was held nearby at Schloss Elmau, a picturesque castle converted into a luxury hotel, at a cost of approximately US$350 million.

Over 22,000 police were deployed to protect the summit – the largest police operation in Bavarian history – and 17 kilometres of temporary fenceline was erected to keep protesters out.

Euskal Herria: Historic pro-Basque coalition forms government in Navarre

Uxue Barkos, leader of Geroa Bai

Regional elections held in Spain on May 24 have installed an historic pro-Basque state government in the autonomous community of Navarre for the first time,  bringing to an end 16 years of rule by the pro-Spanish, centre-right Navarrese People's Union (UPN).

The UPN won only 15 seats, down four from 2011, while their allies the right-wing Spanish People’s Party (of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy) won 2, half of their quota in 2011.   

Instead, Uzue Barkos, leader of the pro-Basque coalition Geroa Bai (“Yes to the Future”) – itself a coalition of centre-left Basque nationalist association Zabaltzen and the centre-right Basque Nationalist Party (EAJ-PNV) – approached other pro-Basque parties to negotiate a coalition government after her party won 9 seats.      

In order to form government, Geroa Bai needed to secure 26 seats in the 50-seat Navarrese parliament – 17 more than their direct mandate.      

Geroa Bai immediately entered into discussions with the Basque leftist pro-independence coalition Euskal Herria Bildu ("Basque Country Unite", EH Bildu), which won 8 seats, the new Spanish anti-austerity party Podemos (7 seats) and the left-federalist Izquierda-Ezkerra ("Left-Left", I-E) – the Navarra affiliate of Spain's Izquierda Unida ("United Left") – with 2 seats.

Trade Union Royal Commission signals new attacks on workers’ rights

On May 19 the Abbott government’s Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption released a 116-page discussion paper (PDF) of potential law reforms, recommending a swathe of new attacks on union rights.

The proposals in the paper give the clearest indication so far of the likely outcome of the expensive inquisition into the union movement when the Commission releases its findings in December.

The document presents little more than a sweeping wish list of restrictions on the rights of union officials and the ability of unions to carry out their work to benefit members.

Among the ideas presented for “discussion” is further restricting right of entry provisions, making it harder for unions to enter worksites to investigate safety and other breaches by employers.

In this, as well as other proposals, the pro-employer bias of the commission is clear. Rather than the importance of union right of entry in preventing workplace deaths and protecting work conditions, the paper is concerned with union right of entry powers as a “serious encroachment upon liberty” to be curtailed.

Directly targeting union militancy, the paper also suggests new police “move on” powers to break up picket lines and protests at construction sites.

Under the proposed new laws, anyone who failed to leave an area within 15 minutes of a police direction would be guilty of an offence, and conviction would be grounds to automatically ban a person from holding any union office.

Germany: SPD wins Bremen election amid record low voter turnout

The German city-state of Bremen went to the polls on May 10

Germany’s centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) has narrowly held on to power in the city of Bremen, Germany’s smallest state, after elections on May 10 saw the governing coalition returned with a diminished majority amidst a record low voter turnout.

While the SPD still topped the poll with 32.9 percent, its vote share was down 5.7 percent on the 2011 election, and marks its worst ever result in Bremen.

The SPD has governed the city-state – one of Germany’s main industrial centres – continuously since the end of World War Two. Bremen, with a population of only 655,000, has been hard hit by a gradual decline in the local shipbuilding industry and by weakened public finances.

It now suffers from Germany’s highest unemployment rate, at 11 percent, as well as high levels of debt. According to a recent report by German charity Der Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband, nearly a quarter of people in Bremen live in poverty, more than any other German state.

The level of political engagement has suffered as a result, with barely fifty percent of the electorate turning out to vote in this election – the lowest turnout in any poll in modern Germany history. 

Ireland: Attacks on leading Sinn Féin members a threat to peace

Arson attack on a Sinn Féin billboard in Derry

A series of violent attacks and bomb threats against leading members of Sinn Féin, as well as a fatal shooting, threaten to overshadow May 7 elections in the six counties in the north of Ireland.

In recent weeks leading up to the May 7 British General Election there have been a series of arson attacks on Sinn Féin electoral billboards across the six counties.

Since the start of May, however, these attacks have escalated dramatically into a campaign of intimidation and violence, including arson, death threats, and bomb alerts targeting leading republicans.

On May 2, a number of cars were set alight in Derry, including one belonging to well-known local community worker and Sinn Féin activist Sean McMonagle.

Early in the morning of May 5, high profile Sinn Féin member Gerard “Jock” Davison was gunned down near his home in the Markets area of south Belfast on his way to work at the local community centre.

Germany: Record rail strike brings country to a halt

Striking GDL workers

On May 5, thousands of German train drivers and railway workers embarked on a week-long strike, the longest rail strike in the country’s post-war history, after fraught industrial negotiations broke down again.

Approximately two thirds of Germany’s long distance trains and a third of regional trains have been cancelled, with trains in the eastern region around Halle, Leipzig, and Dresden reduced to around 15 percent of services.

Some subway systems were also affected, including those in Hamburg and Berlin.

Deutsche Bahn accounts for about a fifth of Germany's freight transport – around 1 million tonnes per day – as well as moving 5.5 million passengers daily.

During earlier railway strikes, economists from the Federation of German Industries estimated that extended train strikes could cost Germany's economy "up to 100 million euros per day", and German industry has, predictably, condemned the strike.

In November last year, train drivers announced an until-then-unprecedented four-day strike, but then shortened it to three days, the longest since a GDL-led national strike in 2007.

Germany: Blockupy protests target Europe's financial hypocrisy

Tens of thousands protested in Frankfurt on March 18

The protests that met the official opening of the new European Central Bank (ECB) headquarters in Frankfurt on March 18 were largely symbolic – not only because bank staff had already moved in last November, but also because the building itself represents the ugly hypocrisy lying at the heart of the European project.

Over 20,000 anti-capitalist protesters took to the streets of Frankfurt last week to coincide with the heavily-policed opening, taking part in mostly peaceful protests in the German financial capital to oppose the ECB’s “asphyxiating” economic policies.

Included in the ranks of the protesters were representatives of Germany’s main opposition party, the left-wing Die Linke, German trade union Verdi, the Greek ruling party SYRIZA, and Podemos from Spain, as well as unions, NGOs and grass-roots activists from 39 European countries.

Across the Eurozone, the ECB – part of the “Troika”, along with the International Monetary Fund and the Eurogroup – is playing a central role in forcing national governments to cut public spending, privatise infrastructure and push down wages while unemployment and poverty continue to increase.

These policies have caused untold misery and suffering for millions of Europeans in order to maintain a system of corporate profits and a false sense of economic order in the name of “austerity” and “growth”, but have also given rise to powerful popular resistance movements across Europe – particularly in Greece, Spain and Ireland.

Euskal Herria: Spanish arrests a snub to calls for peace in the Basque Country

Guardia Civil arresting Oihana Barrios

The Spanish state has responded to an international declaration calling for the release of Basque political prisoners and a restoration of the peace process by arresting four representatives of the prisoners’ rights movement.

On March 25, Guardia Civil (Spain’s heavily politicised military police) arrested Nagore López de Luzuriaga, Izaskun Abaigar, Fernando Arburua and Oihana Barrios, in a series of coordinated raids in an operation codenamed “Pastor” (“Shepherd”).

Spain’s Ministry of the Interior confirmed that the operation had been carried carried out in the Basque provinces of Gipúzkoa, Vizcaya and Alava, as well as in Nafarroa, and that more arrests have not been ruled out.

The Ministry accused the four arrested of being part of a network using Basque political prisoners to support terrorism, and of coordinating a “cohesion front” among the prisoners on behalf of a terrorist organisation.

In fact, the “terrorist organisation” they are accused of working for – the armed separatist group ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna; “Basque Homeland and Freedom”) – has been on a "permanent ceasefire" since 2012, and accepts the necessity of a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

Ireland: Massive water protest keeps pressure on government

Water protesters in Dublin, March 21

On March 21, nearly 90,000 people took to the streets of Dublin, in an unprecedented fifth mass protest in six months against the introduction of water charges by the Irish government.

Protesters from across the country gathered at three different locations in the city, before converging on O’Connell Street, home to Dublin’s iconic General Post Office – site of the Easter Rising in 1916 that began Ireland’s War of Independence nearly a century ago.

The human sea of flags, banner and placards was addressed by a range of politicians, community activists and union leaders. Between speakers, the crowd chanted slogans against water charges, including “Can’t pay! Won’t Pay” and “From the rivers to the sea, Irish water will be free”.

The protest was organised by the Right2Water campaign – a broad coalition of community groups, NGOs and political parties, led by some of Ireland’s largest unions.

Since October last year, Right2Water has coordinated a series of massive protests in Dublin and across the Republic of Ireland, involving hundreds of thousands of people in what is being described as the biggest mass mobilisation of people the country has ever seen.