Solidarity Solidarity& Workers’ Liberty For a workers’ government For social ownership of the banks and industry MYANMAR SOLIDARITY TARGETS BRANDS By Michael Elms Many trade union leaders had to go into hiding, because mili- ollowing a meeting called by tary started searching for them FMomentum Internationalists at factory level and at their between UK labour movement homes. For many of them it is activists and Myanmar trade now difficult to return to work, union leaders, there will be a due to lack of transportation series of protests directed at UK and due to the many military brands from this weekend. checkpoints on the roads, ment, calling itself the Civil Sheffield: Saturday 22 May where people are checked and Disobedience Movement, has 11am H&M on Fargate arbitrarily detained or shot. been led by trade unions and Newcastle: Friday 21 May, “In Hlaing Thar Yar, the mili- workers’ organisations. 2pm, H&M on Northumberland tary is arbitrarily stopping work- Many workers in Myanmar’s Street ers on the streets demanding garment factories, especially North London: Sunday 23 that they handle their phones Yangon, have been out on May, 11am H&M in Wood to soldiers or under threat of strike. The army and police has Green arrest they obliging workers, if met these protests with vio- Lambeth and Lewisham, both they do not have phones, to pay lence and live bullets. The As- to be confirmed. 20,000 MMK. During the 14-15 sistance Association for Political Trade unionists in Myanmar March crackdown, around 37 Prisoners said that as of 17 May, and around the world are de- Chinese owned factories were 802 people had been killed by manding that global brands burned or damaged. Two more the military for participating in work with their suppliers to garment factories in Hlaing the movement, 4,120 detained safeguard the jobs of work- Thar Yar were burned on April and 20 sentenced to death. ers who are unable to attend 7, leaving 16 people dead at Many UK clothing brands use work due to the political situ- the hands of the military. garment factories in Myanmar. ation. So far, some brands like “Also due to these events, In April, trade union leader H&M, Next, C&A, Primark and many workers are afraid to go Khaing Zar Aung described the ≫End the occupation: for a fully independent Palestinian state! Benetton have suspended back to work, fearing that their situation for workers in garment new orders. But they have not factories may also get burned in Recognise Israel’s right to exist factories: ≫ yet taken steps to ensure that the future. The military regime “Many workers are afraid to wages and severance are being cut phone lines and mobile in- ≫Democracy for all: stop discrimination against Palestinians in Israel go back to work, because of paid. ternet, so it is nearly impossible the total lack of security in the See page 2 The military in Myanmar for workers to inform their em- ≫Jewish-Arab workers’ unity industrial zones. Thousands of carried out a coup in Febru- ployers if they cannot return to workers have returned to their Glasgow protest US battles on Left politics in Cliff Slaughter: ary and abolished the elected work. Due to the cut-off of com- home villages during the vio- halts deportations voting rights Singapore might-have-been government. Since then, mil- munication, even union mem- lent crackdown taken place in “A lot of threads came States have already The battle to create A major writer on the lions of people have taken to bers cannot contact their union Hlaing Thar Yar on 14-15 March, together... spontaneity, passed 25 new laws to space for democratic British far left from the the streets to demand an end representatives and inform the when military killed over 100 but.. with roots” cut voter turnout debate and culture 1960s to the 1980s to dictatorship and democracy employers.” □ for Myanmar. This street move- people in that industrial area. Page 9 Page 9 Page 6 Pages 12-13 No. 593, 19 May 2021 50p/£1 workersliberty.org No. 593, 19 May 2021 50p/£1 workersliberty.org Two states, equal rights! Socialist, or even minimally demo- cratic, federations can be achieved only Editorial by free agreement between nations, and withering-away of national hostili- ties and fears through solid guarantees n day nine of Israel’s bombing of of rights. Gaza, the percentage of civilian O That is the way in Israel-Palestine: casualties is inexorably rising. Hun- self-determination for both peoples, dreds are dead. 58,000 are displaced, Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian Arab. according to the UN. The bombs in- Freedom for the Palestinians to gain creasingly shatter the social infrastruc- their own independent state alongside ture of the blockaded, pauperised Israel. Two nations, two states. No path territory: hospitals, electricity, water. to future socialist federation is possible The Israeli government of Benjamin other than through that way of mutual Netanyahu, surprised at Hamas’s abil- Standing Together protest recognition. ity to fire so many rockets, and as far “Two states” is part of a program, not as Jerusalem, is retaliating with over- tories and negotiate on the basis of the ans fled or were driven out. a whole program. Achieving it will not whelming, brutal, vindictive military Palestinians’ right to an independent No socialist, or almost none, backed automatically resolve the democratic force, intent on wreaking maximum de- Palestinian state, in contiguous terri- the Arab states then. Socialists saw questions within the states, let alone struction before international pressure tory, alongside Israel. those states were engaged in (as the the social and class issues. It will open brings a ceasefire. Israel withdrew troops and settlers Palestinian Trotskyists put it) a “racial the way to the withering-away of na- The immediate frame is rising right- from Gaza in 2005, but, together with war against the Jews of Palestine”. (In tional hostilities, fears, and barriers wing Jewish-chauvinist mobilisation Egypt, has maintained a blockade on the run-up to 1948, and in the decades rather than immediately ending them. in Israel, expressed in new pressure the territory since Hamas took power after, almost all Jews would be forced It is a pivotal link in the program to evict Palestinians in East Jerusalem there in 2007. out of Arab states, over 600,000 of needed now to unite workers across and large-scale violent police actions The Palestinians have a right to them). the region for common aims; an urgent against Palestinian youths in the Old self-determination! The semi-quasi-au- In 1948, it looked like the Arab states, step to win peace and redress for the City and the Al-Aqsa mosque com- tonomy in pockets of the West Bank (in with their large established armies, Palestinians; and a necessary basis for pound in Jerusalem. effect, the “right” to have a bureaucracy would win against the scrappy impro- international solidarity geared to de- The Israeli authorities eventually re- of their “own” distribute aid money), vised Jewish militia. Now, Hamas’s mili- mocracy, not revenge. □ treated a step in the face of joint Pal- and blockaded Gaza, are a taunting tary chances are zero. The politics of its estinian-Jewish street protests inside mockery of that right. military action are no less reactionary. One result of the bloody horrors now And they lock Palestinians into a per- Israel: postponing (but only postpon- → from inside page ii ing) court hearings on evictions, re- is to give reprieve to Netanyahu. At- spective where no redress is possible tempts to form a coalition to displace other than hoping for a magical rever- hinterland of East Jerusalem, cutting laxing police restrictions, re-routing a it off from the West Bank, and threat- provocative Jewish-chauvinist march. him after Israel’s 23 March general sal of the military balance. election (the fourth in two years) have ening the Palestinian aspiration to Then Hamas started firing rockets on 10 Hope an independent state with East Jeru- May; and Israel has bombed, bombed, collapsed. Another result is to boost the stand- Immediately we have to add pressure salem as its capital. East Jerusalem and bombed. for a ceasefire. Larger hope is for the Palestinians have also suffered from The longer-term frame is Netanyahu’s ing of Hamas in the West Bank and even, it seems, among Palestinians in long haul, but it exists. the building of the “Separation Wall”, policy, since he became prime minister It exists in movements like Standing which cuts through East Jerusalem in 2009, of stalling and blocking all Israel. Hamas’s rocket attacks are in- discriminately aimed against civilians Together, a joint Jewish-Arab move- and puts many of them on the wrong peace initiatives with the Palestinians. ment in Israel, which has been active side of checkpoints. Instead, he has worked to “manage” in Israel, and cannot possibly help get a just peace. Amidst political impasse on social issues and equal rights in- 75% of the East Jerusalem Pales- the Palestinian populations inside Is- side Israel, and is now mobilising for a tinians live under the official poverty rael, in the West Bank, and in Gaza — to and desperation, they can give Hamas the shine of doing “something”. ceasefire. line, reliant on work in construction, keep them beaten down while he ex- It exists in other movements like trade, and education. Jerusalem’s tends Jewish settlements in the West Netanyahu and Hamas reinforce each other. It serves Netanyahu to have the WAC-Ma’an, or the Democracy and Jewish population is also poorer Bank.