A Verdade on Cuba's electoral system + Some upcoming events, including anti-war protests 4/2

Register for the GDR event at:  peoplesforum.org/events/the-untold-successes-of-german-democratic-republic/

The Friends of the Chatham County Library will have in-person sales March 30th - April 1st and September 21st - 23rd:  www.friendsccl.org/  and they have an online store at friendsccl.org/Store

The Digging Durham Seed Library is open:  durhamcountylibrary.org/digging-durham-seed-library/  

The annual North Carolina Science Festival will be April 1 - 30 with events throughout the State: ncsciencefestival.org/ 

The NC SciFest will be at Cary's Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve April 1st [just postponed to the 2nd] 10am - 1pm.

The Great Raleigh Market will be at the NC Fairgrounds April 1 - 2. 

The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA is organizing protests around the country against US/NATO war with Russia and China Sunday, April 2nd:  revcom.us/en/dont-stand-aside-join-others-protest

[I forgot that there was also this call for protests on April 2nd worldbeyondwar.org/on-april-2nd-lets-take-peace-into-our-own-hands/ and www.pressenza.com/author/europa-per-la-pace/ ]

The NC Botanical Garden's Annual McNeill Sims Native Plant Lecture will be Sunday, April 2nd 5:30 - 6:45pm, with a hybrid and free format:  ncbg.unc.edu/event/annual-evelyn-mcneill-sims-native-plant-lecture-architects-of-abundance-indigenous-regenerative-land-management-and-the-excavation-of-hidden-history/

[Quarterly anti-torture vigils (and monthly peace vigils – STN announcement:

As part of the international movement to close the United States' notorious Guantanamo Bay prison, NC Stop Torture Now is supporting international vigils and organizing quarterly vigils in North Carolina. The next vigil will take place at noon on Wednesday, April 5, at the Federal Building, 300 Fayetteville Street, Raleigh.

 

The vigils are also calling for the release or fair, speedy legal processing of the remaining prisoners, and accountability for the United States' use of torture, rendition and post-9-11 detention at Guantanamo and the so-called "black site" prisons.

North Carolina served as the staging ground for rendition flights to torture during the “war on terror.” There has been no investigation or accountability of the state's role in the CIA's use of rendition and torture. Prisoners were seized abroad and transported by Smithfield-based Aero Contractors to secret CIA black sites or in some cases to Guantanamo.

 

Please join us for the first vigil on Wednesday, April 5 at noon in Raleigh. We will join peace activists at their monthly vigil at the Federal Building at 300 Fayetteville St. 

Our second vigil will be Monday, June 26 (time and address to be announced), UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture at Aero Contractors headquarters in Johnston County [at the airport]. Over the full length of the Bush Administration’s rendition program, Aero transported at least 34 of the known 119 CIA black-site prisoners, plus at least 15 of those sent by the CIA to other, often secret sites, where most were tortured. 

Our final vigils will be in September and December at sites to be announced. We hope continued and renewed pressure will highlight the need to close this international symbol of torture, and push Governor Roy Cooper to finally investigate our state’s illegal role in kidnapping, and aiding and abetting torture.]

JC Raulston Arboretum at NCSU will have plant sales online Thursday, April 6th and in-person April 28 – 29th

The NC Botanical Garden's Twilight Thursdays, when it will be open until 7pm, for equity, will be April 6 - June 15th and August 17 - September 28th.

The annual NC Pilgrimage for Peace and Justice, inspired by Nicaraguan examples, will be in Raleigh April 7th, Good Friday:

Dear Cohorts, Co-Conspirators, Co-Defendants and Co-Dependents:

It's Lent and Good Friday looms April 7 so the Pilgrimage for Peace and Justice needs your help. 

We hope you will walk with us to remember the "outcasts" and in opposition to all forms of imperialism. 

We need speakers at each stop, readers for the 14 stations of the Way of the Cross at the Capitol 

and suggestions for themes for each station. A "sag wagon" with water is also needed.

 

We want to have speakers/prayer at each walk stop and a reading and prayer at each station at the Capitol. 

Please let us know if you can join us April 7 

or take on a role such as writing and reading a station. 

   Peace, Tirzah, Gail and Patrick

 

Good Friday Pilgrimage for Peace and Justice

 (Walk with us or Meet at the Capitol)

When: Good Friday, April 7, 9 a.m.

Begin at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Gardens 1215 MLK Jr. Blvd. Raleigh

2. Women's Prison (N.C. "Correctional" Institution for Women 1034 Bragg St.) End Mass Incarceration; Free All Mothers

3. Central Prison 1300 Western Boulevard (abolish the death penalty)

4. The Women's Center 400 S. West St. (end homelessness, provide affordable housing)

5. Wake Country Jail 330 S Salisbury St. (end cash bond, stop racist jail/prison industrial complex)

6. North Carolina Justice Center 224 S. Dawson St. (welcome immigrants, support workers right to organize, Black Lives Matter)

7. State Capitol (arrive at noon) for Peace and Justice Way of the Cross (end all wars, feed the hungry, liberty to captives, health care for all, abolish ICE, stop voter oppression)

For more information contact  Witness for Peace SE Director Tirzah Villegas [  ] or Patrick O’Neill [  ]

There will be a Carolina Wetlands Association meet and greet in Raleigh April 12th 6 - 8pm.

A Carteret County, NC seed library will open April 14th:

[The UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens' plant sale will be April 6 - 8th. 

From the Haw River Assembly – 

The Third Fork Creek Trash Trout litter trap is scheduled to be cleaned out April 1st:  docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScecuMpJaumTOYGJ4C4hT3074SIvoPnCnKne4kmXkWH_Tn8jg/viewform

The HRA Lobby Day will be April 5th in Raleigh.

Burlington climate change talk

May Memorial Library in Burlington will be co-hosting a program at 3 p.m. on Earth Day, April 22^nd, about climate change, the misinformation that surrounds the topic, and the impact it will have locally on our agricultural community. The event will feature light refreshments and a special guest speaker, Dr. Ademe Mekonnen, a climate and atmospheric scientist from NC A & T University. The library is located at 342 S Spring St, Burlington, NC 27253

The HRA's blog:  hawriver.org/riverkeeper/

The previous calendar is posted at:  durhamspark.blogspot.com/2023/02/some-events-and-anniversaries-in-late.html

A Verdade #267, March 2023

A newspaper of the workers in the struggle for socialism

Is Cuba a dictatorship?

The Cuban electoral system

Pioneers. Cuban children inspect the ballot box [photo.]

Savio Peres
Pinar del rio (Cuba)

One of the countries that fascists and liberals attack most in Latin America is Cuba. They shout that Cuba is a dictatorship and that the Castro family owns the island. They even say that in Cuba there are no elections. However, in Cuba not only do elections exist, but they also have active popular participation.

In 2019, a new constitution was approved in Cuba (the country has already approved more than three constitutions since the 1959 Revolution). In this way, legislative updates were subsequently made, such as a new Criminal Code, the Code of Families and Electoral Law No. 127 – the latter will serve as the basis for this article.

Municipal Assemblies

The first thing to understand is that the Cuban electoral process has two forms – one direct and the other indirect. Let us start with the Municipal Assemblies, which is one of the direct voting processes. In Cuba, each municipality has a Municipal Assembly. The Municipal Electoral Council meets months before the elections and makes a proposal to divide the municipality into constituencies.

From there, a delegate (what we call councilor) is elected by the constituency of the municipality. To make it easier to understand, in comparison with Brazil, suppose that Barreiro (region of the city of Belo Horizonte) is a region of the Municipality of Belo Horizonte. Then the people of Barreiro will elect a person from the region to represent them in the Municipal Assembly. In the same way that the residents of Pampulha will elect the representative of their region and so on until the Municipal Assembly is formed.

How do you run within a constituency? Suppose you want to be a delegate of your neighborhood within the Municipal Assembly. Then, before the electoral contest begins, a popular assembly is organized in that neighborhood. This assembly is open to everyone and the people in the constituency who want to run make themselves available, argue why they want to be candidates. In this previous people's assembly, all citizens have the right to speak for or against the person's candidacy.

After the open discussion within this assembly, there is the first vote in the assembly itself (open and public), which will elect the people who can run for delegate (minimum of two and, at most, eight elected). Those with the most votes will have their biographies presented in the localities defined by the law and, finally, days later, each citizen will be able to go to the polls to choose who will vote for the delegate of the municipality in free, equal, direct and secret voting.

An important observation: the vote is on paper and the counting of votes is done publicly, in the presence of the candidates, the members of the electoral bodies, the representatives of the political and mass organizations and any other person (voter or not) who wishes. Here there is the possibility of a second round if necessary.

National Assembly

The election for deputy of the National Assembly is also made by free, equal, direct and secret vote by the population. To be a candidate for deputy of the National Assembly also goes through a previous ballot, both by bodies called candidacy committees, as well as by the Municipal Assemblies themselves.

There are three types of electoral commissions: municipal, provincial and national. The members of these commissions are representatives of the Cuban Workers' Federation (CTC), the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs), the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), the National Association of Small Farmers, the University Student Federation (FEU) and the Federation of High School Students.

These commissions organize the list of people who will be proposed as candidates for the National Assembly, in a complex and interconnected process, and people who have already been elected within the Municipal Assembly (delegates) and people from outside the Municipal Assembly must be chosen, in a proportion of, at most, 50% of municipal delegates.

In the end, this list goes through a vote within the Municipal Assemblies of People's Power, and some people may be removed from the process if they do not have half the votes of the delegates of their municipalities.

Once the nomination of the candidates is over, the dissemination of their biographies by the broad media begins for a certain period of time, and then the voting is carried out by the population – along the same lines as the election for delegates.

Once the deputies of the National Assembly of People's Power have been elected, this body will elect the President, Vice-President and Secretary of State – an indirect election at this stage.

Therefore, to say that Cuba is a dictatorship is, in fact, to ignore the democratic and participatory electoral process of this country. It is worth mentioning that on March 26, Cuba held its direct vote for new members of the National Assembly.

Three articles from A Verdade on Bolsonaro, privatization, and femicide

 A Verdade #266, March 2023 [Published by the Revolutionary Communist Party of Brazil]

A newspaper of the workers in the struggle for socialism

To defend democratic freedoms is to punish the coup plotters of yesterday and today.

No Conciliation. The majority of the people are in favor of Bolsonaro paying for his crimes [Photo]

Heron Barroso
Editorial Board

For four long years, the Brazilian people ate the bread that the devil kneaded in the hand of the fascist Jair Bolsonaro. All his government did was to make workers' lives worse: the minimum wage suffered the biggest squeeze in 30 years, unemployment grew, the price of gasoline, cooking gas and food soared, and more than 33 million people went hungry again every day.

Bolsonaro also promoted a pension reform that ended the right to retirement, destroyed labor laws and social programs, cut funds from SUS [Brazil’s health-care system] and universities, privatized Eletrobras, ruined Petrobras and allowed the Amazon and the Pantanal to be violated by the greed of agribusiness and mining companies.

Corruption has also increased in those four years. Through the so-called "secret budget", billions of reais were no longer used to build schools, nurseries, popular houses and hospitals and served to buy the support of the corrupt deputies of the Centrão [nepotist political parties]. This is not to mention the graft, kickbacks in gold bars in the MEC [Ministry of Education], the purchase of 51 pieces of real estate in cash and spending public money from the corporate card of the Presidency of the Republic.

In the elections, to try to avoid his defeat, the former captain [Bolsonaro] spread lies against the polls, threatened to close the Supreme Court and used the entire state machine to his advantage. The law that prohibits government spending in an election year was violated numerous times, the Brazil Aid was adjusted from R$ 200 to R $600 [about $38 to $114] during the campaign, the Federal Highway Police blocked roads to prevent voters from voting and the Armed Forces spent months on end threatening not to recognize the result of the vote if their candidate was not elected.

A Government of death

In addition to turning people's lives into hell and promoting the greatest corruption in our history, Bolsonaro also carried out a veritable genocide during the pandemic. The fascist treated Covid-19 as if it were a "little flu," made fun of people's suffering, appointed the incompetent General Pazuello to the Ministry of Health and even denied oxygen to hospitals. Not only that, at the height of the crisis, he suspended the payment of emergency aid and delayed the purchase of the vaccine for several months. All this inhumanity has led to the death of more than 700,000 people, and consequently, millions of Brazilians to this day feel the loss of their parents, siblings, grandparents, companions and friends.

Hypocritically, while campaigning against social distancing measures and encouraging his supporters to take chloroquine and not get vaccinated, the then-president was secretly one of the first to take the vaccine. In order not to be caught in the act and stop being called a "myth" in the playpen of the Planalto Palace, he decreed secrecy of 100 years on his vaccination card.

In the favelas and peripheries, Bolsonaro's death policy was felt in the increase in police violence against black and poor people, in the massacres, the growth of cases of femicide and the arming of the drug traffickers and militias, which had the purchase of weapons and ammunition facilitated by numerous presidential decrees.

Nor were the indigenous peoples spared the cruelty of the fascist government. The former captain and his generals did nothing to rescue the Yanomami from illegal mining on their lands. The result of this indifference was that almost 600 children died and hundreds of indigenous people were diagnosed with malnutrition, pneumonia, malaria, the presence of mercury in their bodies and other diseases related to the presence of prospectors in the region. A real crime against humanity.

Punishment for Bolsonaro and his accomplices

In the face of so many atrocities, Bolsonaro deserves to spend the rest of his life in jail, which is where every corrupt and fascist should be. However, he is not the only one who needs to sit in the dock and account for his crimes. His accomplices in the Centrão, among the big bourgeoisie and in the Armed Forces, also have to pay for all the evil they have done to the people and the Nation.

Indeed, if it were not for the support of the Centrão in the National Congress, the former captain would not have finished his term. Proof of this were the hundreds of requests for impeachment shelved by the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira (PP), and his predecessor, Rodrigo Maia (former DEM, now in the PSDB), in exchange for more positions and funds.

The big bourgeoisie is also complicit in the crimes of the fascist government; after all, it was they who financed the rich electoral campaigns of the Bolsonarist candidates, their networks of lies on the internet, the encampments at the gates of the barracks and the attempted coup d'état of January 8 in Brasilia.

But undoubtedly, the most responsible for Bolsonaro's crimes are the generals of the High Command of the Armed Forces. They were the real ones who brought the former captain to the Presidency of the Republic. In those four years, the military has held more than seven thousand government positions, commanded ministries and state-owned companies, supported denialism in the pandemic, been silent on the destruction of the Amazon and the Yanomami genocide, and not a day has gone by without making threats of a new military coup.

This permanent affront of the Army against democratic freedoms in Brazil only continues unpunished because, after the end of the Military Dictatorship in 1985, there was no effective transitional justice in our country. The Amnesty Law, passed in 1979, still under the government of dictator João Figueiredo, also covered the military who persecuted, kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered thousands of Brazilians, and were not tried for their crimes. Worse, the Armed Forces and the military police maintained the same command, the same doctrine and structure of the time of the dictatorship, and even today they learn in the military barracks and academies to praise the coup of 1964 and to nurture hatred of the communists and the people.

In fact, massacres, executions, torture, police repression in the favelas and the persecution of trade unions, indigenous peoples, social movements and revolutionary organizations did not happen only under the dictatorship. On the contrary, this policy continues even after redemocratization. Proof of this are the massacres of Candelária, Jacarezinho and Praça da Sé, the massacre of Corumbiara and the murders of Marielle Franco and Anderson Gomes, who were killed five years ago this March without any answer having been given about their masterminds.

No amnesty for coup plotters!

Therefore, it is fundamental that the struggle for the punishment of today's coup plotters goes hand in hand with the struggle for the punishment of the coup plotters of 1964, whether they are alive or dead, because they need to be remembered for what they really are: torturers, rapists, kidnappers and murderers. Without facing the violence of the past, without promoting memory, truth, justice and reparation for the victims of the dictatorship, human rights violations and threats of a new fascist coup will remain present.

After the fascist vandalism of January 8, the slogan "No amnesty for coup plotters" gained strength, which will be taken to the streets at the national event of April 1, the date of the 1964 coup. The revolutionary communists must raise this flag together with all those who defend democracy, demand punishment for Bolsonaro and his accomplices, military dictatorship never again and for a true Transitional Justice in Brazil which punishes the fascists.

The defeat suffered by Bolsonarism at the polls needs to be consolidated in the streets, with the mass movement promoting acts and demonstrations, pressing for there to be no conciliation or forgiveness and demanding that firm measures be taken to prevent the coup plotters from continuing to act freely, starting by placing in reserve the High Command of the Armed Forces, demilitarizing the police, confiscating the assets of the business owners who finance the fascists and close their channels of lies on the internet. Only with courage and without conciliation will the struggle against fascism be decided in favour of the working class.

A Verdade #267, March 2023

A newspaper of the workers in the struggle for socialism

Is it possible to renationalize privatized Brazilian companies?

Auctions. The bourgeoisie loves the privatisation spree; in the photo, sale of Eletrobras

Cadu Machado
São Paulo (SP)

The late 1980s were a period of great transformations in the world. With the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) and the end of the Soviet Union (1991), the imperialist powers, led by the United States, intensified their offensive to dominate the peoples of the whole world.

One of the important milestones of this offensive was the "Washington Consensus", a kind of playbook for the implementation of neoliberalism produced by the rich countries for Latin America. Briefly, the imperialists directed the dependent countries to reduce public investments, abandon industrialization and privatize their state-owned companies. In return, they could renegotiate and contract new debts with the IMF. A real financial blackmail.

Privatization in Brazil

From then on, the privatization of state-owned companies that was already underway in Brazil was accelerated. According to the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), already in the 1980s, at least 40 public companies were privatized.

Over the next decade, this process was accelerated. During the two years of the Collor Government (1990-1992), 18 large national companies were privatized, among them companies in the steel and petrochemical areas. After his impeachment, Itamar Franco expanded the privatization project and sold 15 more state-owned companies, especially the Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional [National Steel Company] (CSN) and the Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica [Brazilian Aeronautics Company] (Embraer).

Under the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002), the Telebras System [Brazilian Telephone Company], Companhia Vale do Rio Doce [Brazilian Metal and Mining Company], Light Serviços de Eletricidade [Brazilian electric company] and state banks such as Banerj and Banespa were privatized. All strategic companies essential to the sovereignty and development of the country were handed over to private capital.

FHC [Fernando Henrique Cardoso, president of Brazil from 1995 to 2003] also broke the monopolies for exploration and operation of Petrobras and Eletrobras, put up its capital on the stock exchanges and sold subsidiaries of these two companies.

With the PT [Workers’ Party] governments (2003-2016), privatizations slowed down, although they did not cease. During Lula's first two governments, the so-called Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) were implemented, which granted some sectors of the national infrastructure to private companies.

But it was with the coup of 2016 and the Temer Government (2016-2018) that privatizations gained new momentum. In the first month of the coup government, Temer presented the Investment Partnerships Program (PPI) and proposed transferring 175 public assets from strategic sectors (railways, highways, airports, ports, energy, mining, oil and gas) to the private sector.

Despite not being able to fulfill its plan, the government advanced in the handing over of at least 90 public companies, in addition to implementing the Spending Ceiling and the Labor Reform, with the widespread increase in outsourcing.

False patriots

With the Bolsonaro government (2019-2022), privatizations went into a "forced march." In the election campaign, the former captain and his accomplices defended "privatizing everything" and, during his government, carried out their neoliberal project, which has nothing to do with patriotism.

In four years, Paulo Guedes and Bolsonaro privatized 133 of the 209 companies that were still controlled by the Federal Government. The main one was Eletrobras. Its handover to the private sector has ended our energy sovereignty for good.

Petrobras, the main company in the fascists' privatization plan, was being privatized in parts. The government sold essential sectors of the company, such as part of the pipeline network, the distributor Gaspetro, the Landulpho Alves refinery (RLAM), the Carcará, Iara and Lapa fields, BR Distribuidora and Transportadora Associada de Gás (TAG), in addition to trying unsuccessfully to sell Liquigás.

Who benefits

The main justification of the bourgeoisie and the sell-outs for selling the state-owned companies is the dynamization of the companies. They say that private management is better able to achieve results and provide cheap and quality services, thanks to administrative efficiency and competition between different service providers. But that is just a big lie.

First, because competition is not the reality of the private sector. In the current phase of capitalism, big business, monopolies, dominate small ones and do away with competition. Thus, the argument of competition between different providers falls flat.

The discourse of efficiency of private management is also a lie. According to the "Public Future" database, organized by the Netherlands-based Transnational Institute (TNI), since the early 2000s, at least 1,627 companies have been renationalized worldwide, mostly because they provided expensive and bad service while under private control.

Renationalization in the world

The truth is that renationalization is a growing trend in the world. According to geographer Lavinia Steinfort, coordinator of TNI, the prioritization of profits of private companies, for the most part, conflicts with the provision of services on which society depends.

According to Steinfort, the countries that carried out the most deprivatizations were those of the center of capitalism: Germany renationalized 407 companies; United States, 243; France, 167; Spain, 135; United Kingdom, 126. That is, the same countries that defended privatization in Latin America are the ones that are reversing the private management of their strategic sectors.

The branches of the economy that were most renationalized were energy, with 383 companies taken over, water, sewage and water management, with 367, and health care, with 205. These sectors are precisely the ones that are in the sights of the Brazilian bourgeoisie for privatization.

First step

These international experiences show that it is possible to combat and reverse privatization in our country. One of President Lula's first measures was to order the suspension of the privatization of eight state-owned companies initiated under the Bolsonaro government. The order signed by Lula determined the withdrawal of strategic companies such as Petrobras, Correios, Empresa Brasileira de Comunicação (EBC), Pré-Sal Petróleo (PPSA) and Dataprev from the National Privatization Program and the Partnerships and Investment Program.

With this measure, the new president has begun to fulfill one of the promises made during the campaign and after the elections: to end privatization in Brazil.

The Government, however, does not intend to reverse any of the privatizations already consolidated and still kept on the agenda the privatization of the Belo Horizonte Metro, with the sale of the mining section of the CBTU.

Next steps

From now on, the articulation of social movements, unions, popular representations and political parties will be fundamental for the defense of renationalization.

Only the popular struggle can create conditions to completely curb the privatization processes that are underway, reverse those that have occurred in recent years and renationalize the strategic sectors of the Brazilian economy.

It is possible to put an end to the plan of handing over resources and the national economy to private and foreign capital. But this process will only be possible with great popular pressure, together with the professional categories of each sector involved.

A Verdade #267, March 2023
A newspaper of the workers in the struggle for socialism

The struggle to end violence against women is the struggle against fascism!

\

Indira Xavier

Larissa Maymi

Coordination of the Movement Olga Benario

Earlier this March, research published by Datafolha and the Brazilian Forum on Public Security showed that in 2022, every six hours a woman was killed in Brazil. There were 1,410 women murdered because they were women, the highest number ever reached since these hate crimes began to be recorded in 2015.

Compared to 2021, all types of violence against women have increased. It is worth remembering that in 2021 we experienced a peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, with social isolation measures to contain the spread of the virus, in which there was an increase in domestic violence, since many women began to live for a longer time confined with their abusers.

The survey also reveals that the main victims were black women, 65.5%, and that 57.4% were mothers. Young women are also among the main victims: 30.3% were aged between 16 and 24 years and 22.8% in the range of 25 to 34.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 33.4% of Brazilian women aged 16 years or older suffered physical and/or sexual violence from their intimate partner or ex-partner, a number higher than the world average of 27%.

Why is violence against women increasing?

Under the government of the fascist Jair Bolsonaro, between 2020 and 2023 about R$ 23 million [about $4.37 million U.S.] were allocated to confront violence against women, 94% less than between 2016 and 2019 (R$ 366.58 million [about $69.65 U.S.]). One of his last actions was to cut the funds for these policies by 90%, which had already suffered successive cuts, threatening the extinction of Dial 180, a channel for women's care.

Thus, these cuts made it precarious and caused the closure of many specialized services for the care of women.

The reflection of this also appeared in the above-mentioned survey: 45% of women who suffered violence did not seek specialized help; they turned to friends and family for help. The justification for not looking for the Police was mainly because they decided alone or because they did not believe that the Police could offer a solution.

Another factor cited in the report was ultraconservatism, i.e. fascism, which directly attacked women. Bolsonaro and his followers have uttered several hate speeches against women and even committed acts of physical violence.

The conservative discourse of defending the "traditional family" model, as the only and legitimate one for the protection of children, in contrast to the advance in the debates held in the school environment on sexual education as a way of preventing sexual violence against children and adolescents, has also increased violence in this environment: in 2021, more than 61.2% of rape victims were between 0 and 13 years of age; 76.5% of the cases occurred at home, with 82.5% of the aggressors being a known man, and of these, 40.8% were the father or stepfather. The home is the place where most severe cases of violence occur (53.8%).

What is the response of women?

Although the data point to a cruel scenario for women and girls, on March 8, International Women's Day, even with rain in many cities, hundreds of thousands of women took to the streets from North to South of the country, with the main banner in defense of democracy and demanding the punishment of the coup plotters who attacked Brasilia, on January 8, in an attempted coup d'état.

"Fascism increases the death of the women of our country and has to be fought in the streets, with a great mass act. The election is over, but our struggle is just beginning and the Olga Benario Women's Movement invites everyone to come out into the streets on April 1st saying that we want Bolsonaro and his accomplices in prison," said Nana Sanches, a militant of the Olga Benario Movement at the women's event in Porto Alegre (RS).

In the North, the message of the Movement was: "The Brazilian State is silent when it comes to defending the lives of women. For this reason, we are holding this action and invite everyone together to build safe houses for women in the city of Manaus," said Gabriela Valentim.

Vivian Mendes, from Popular Unity (UP), said that "we demand punishment for the generals and other members of the dictatorship who, in the past, tortured, raped, murdered, concealed the corpses of our women, such as Helenira Resende, Margarida Maria Alves and Maria Lúcia Petit."

Thus, the Olga Benario Women's Movement called for women to fight in the streets from North to South of the country against fascism and to organize more women in more struggles in defense of women's lives and for a socialist society! Only in this way will it be possible to combat violence and live in a free world!

En Marcha: Workers mobilize in Europe [and in the USA]

In addition to recent US labor struggles, including here in North Carolina, there will be mobilizations against US government militarism and it's costs, here and abroad, Saturday, March 18th at 1pm across from the White House and in some other cities across the country, supported by over 200 groups, including the GPUS (there is a press release at:  www.gp.org/peace_in_ukraine_rally_stop_the_endless_wars ). For the NCGP carpool see:  www.ncgreenparty.org/dc_carpool_march_18  UNAC is calling for further anti-war actions April 15 – 22.  

A few NATO war anniversaries are coming up soon, including the 20th anniversary of the 2003 attack on Iraq.  The BBC has been looking back every day this week, but hides the UK's role and whitewashes the events it highlights.  It doesn't make connections with the war in Ukraine.  In talking about the Blackwater's massacre of Iraqi civilians the company was called something like a private security contractor, while the Russian Wagner Group is portrayed as a group of brutal mercenaries, and I think the staff literally calls them mercenaries.  It was  highlighted that Trump pardoned the four American mercenaries convicted of crimes in Iraq.  I haven't heard any blame being given to George W Bush or Tony Blair yet or mention of the lies or allegedly inaccurate intelligence used to justify the war (no mention of the Downing Street memos or Biden's role in Congress and during the Obama administration).  Another story covered the US capture of Saddam Hussein near Tikrit and how he was treated.  There is no talk of the Bush administration's claim to have won the war, followed by years of guerrilla war against the occupation and inter-communal violence.  I remember a Triangle Free Press article about the UK sending a tank or tanks to break someone out of jail in the south of Iraq during the occupation, similar to how the US kept an American asset out of British custody after she hit someone with a car a few years ago.  A Brown University study is claiming that the war resulted in at most 306,000 civilian deaths, including killings by the Iraqi government and armed groups.  I haven't heard much coverage in the US mainstream media, though I might have missed some segments.  The mainstream media is still doing US propaganda work, marching to the tune of proxy war with Russia and intentionally creating conflict with China.  Maybe this is what it was like when the US and UK worked to stir up the original Cold War in the 40's.  

It is headline news if Putin, almost the only Russian official ever referred to by name, is accused of war crimes by an international body, under a judge from US-allied Norway, the US and Norway accused of being partners in the operation that destroyed the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, but similar proceedings against the top American leadership only appear in the margins if at all.

 

En Marcha #2040 from March 15 to 21, 2023

Central Organ of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador  

Workers mobilize in Europe  

 

The international situation in recent months has been characterized by a deepening of the contradiction between capital and labor. Millions of workers in cities and the countryside have taken to the streets around the world to fight for better living conditions.  

Among the territories in which this development of the workers' struggle is evident is the European continent. Thousands of workers are mobilizing against the budget cuts and anti-people measures taken by the present governments, which intend to put on the shoulders of their peoples the crisis that is developing due to the impacts of the war in Ukraine.  

In recent days, France had a day of mobilizations that took place in the main cities and that had as its main element the rejection of the project of social security reform proposed by the right-wing government of Macron. In several sectors there have been strikes with road blockades, as in the case of refineries. In Greece, important mobilizations took place to demand the sanction of those responsible for the neglect of the railway network, product of the lack of maintenance due to scarcity of economic resources. In Spain, there have been several mobilizations against the dismantling of public health led by the state governments of the PP and Vox. In Portugal, teachers are rebelling over the reduction of salaries and the dismantling of the teaching career. In Germany, commuter trains in seven German federal states, including the two most populous, North Rhine-Westphalia (west) and Bavaria (south) were paralyzed because of the employers' refusal to carry out a wage increase for bus, airport and train workers. In February Great Britain saw its first day of strike, coordinated between several sectors and of a magnitude not recorded in more than a decade.  

As we said, the European economy is not going through its best moments. The economic growth forecasts for the year 2023 are not encouraging, barely 0.8% for the European Union, which speaks of not improving living conditions, in the context of the market economy. To the low growth rate is added the problem of inflation, which reached 10.5% in Great Britain, while in all Europe it was at 8.5%; however, wage increases are not enough to cover the reduction in the purchasing power of European workers. The authorities justify not increasing wages beyond a certain level in order to control inflation, which leaves wage earners as victims of these measures.  

A study conducted by a French organization found that aid from European governments to transnationals between 2008 and 2018 grew at an average annual rate of 7.5%, while resources for pensions barely grew at 2.5%.  

The struggle for demands led by the European working class confronts neoliberal measures that try to put the economic crisis on the shoulders of the workers. The massiveness of the protest puts governments in trouble, which are constantly entering into crisis due to the loss of representativeness.