International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

On April 1st each year the United Nations Security Council devotes a meeting to a debate about the issue of Western Sahara and the tasks of the “MINURSO” mission. The meeting starts with a report by the UN secretary-general followed by interventions by the permanent members and the non-permanent members. It ends with issuing of the decision that sets out the plan for the next year as regards negotiations between the two parties to the conflict and numbers and funding of the mission.

South Africa’s deepening economic and social crisis is rapidly morphing into a political crisis. In turn, the political crisis is further undermining a stagnating economy. The political crisis centres on different components of the state that are involved in a series of proxy wars. At a recent NEDLAC Summit, the Deputy President, Cyril Ramaphosa, was forced to acknowledge the depth of the conflict: "We call upon the state machinery, if not to have a ceasefire, at least to act in a way that will not disturb the stability that our people call for."

Without an agreement for Assad to step down and allow a transition toward a pluralist government, no cease-fire stands a chance.

Sara Rougeau reports on the thuggish attempts by oil companies to repress a massive Native encampment against the Dakota Access Pipeline project

Malek Adly, a well-known human rights lawyer and activist, emerged from an Egyptian prison in late August after spending three months in solitary confinement.

Since the Greek trauma – both the neo-colonial diktat from the Euro-group and agreement by Tsipras to submit despite the popular OXI – the European radical left has debated “Plans B” without any strategic or tactical consensus. The referendum in the United Kingdom (UK) is the bitter illustration of this, without the anti-racist left opposed to the EU having the conditions of expression of a credible alternative to the dominant national, European and international institutions and policies. With less of a media profile than Brexit, the referendum on 6 April, 2016 in the Netherlands, rejecting the agreement of association between the Ukraine and the EU shamefully illustrates the same booby trapped “choices” for the internationalist left.

On June 23, the British electorate voted to leave the European Union (EU) by 17,4120,742 (52%) to 16,141,241 (48%) with a high turnout of 72%. The referendum gave voters the simple choice of whether the UK should “Leave” or “Remain” in the EU. It was called by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, as a result of pressure from “Eurosceptic” Tory (Conservatives) Members of Parliament (MPs) and the growing right-wing, anti-EU, anti-immigrant United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP, pronounced U-kip).

In the wake of the failed military coup in Turkey, and the massive wave of state repression that has followed, building solidarity with the progressive resistance in Turkey and Kurdistan is even more vital. The attention of socialists and democrats worldwide will be turned towards the reactionary mobilisation that the ruling AKP has unleashed. This will put the HDP (Peoples Democratic Party) and the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) centre stage.

Within a year two populations of Europe – one in the south, the other in the north – have voted against the EU and its policy. They did this out of entirely different motives and with different aims. Whereas on 5 July 2015 the Greek OXI was directed against the austerity dictates of the Troika and the degradation of Greece to the state of a semi-colonial country, the British Brexit above all was characterized by the fear of “foreigners” and the desire to escape from the freedom of movement in the EU. But at the same time the Brexit expressed the desire to settle accounts with the ruling political elites. Whereas the left was the driving force of the Greek NO, the British NO was captured by the right.