BBC boss has bad idea

If ever a technology has failed to live up to its potential it is satellite broadcasting. Hundreds of channels of every sort of unwatchable idiotic tosh litter the outer reaches of the broadcasting spectrum and most radio stations play it safe with musical choices which have more to do with advertising demographics than the presenters’ tastes.

Two bright spots are BBC 4 and BBC 6Music . BBC 4 features lots of programmes with well informed people talking about subjects they have studied. It ranges from Byzantine art to documentaries about German avant garde music in the 60s and 70s. Low budgets mean that there are no fancy graphics or attempts to recreate the Battle of Waterloo with twenty extras and four horses. It’s a refreshing break from much BBC factual programme making which more and more relies on some family entertainer investigating quantum mechanics with the aid of bewildering graphics and an assumption that the people who choose to watch this sort of thing need the same level of visual stimulus as someone watching MTV. BBC 4 programmes even abandon the need for something heartwarming to happen at the end of each programme. The Krautrock documentary didn’t end with Faust getting a Scandinavian number one hit, though it did show them trying to make music by banging a cement mixer around a barn.

BBC 6Music  has a similarly Reithian take on what it does, if you set aside a compulsive need to play too much familiar old stuff during peak times. It’s the place to go if you want to find the non-commercial hinterland, the things that you never knew existed. More importantly it dedicates a big portion of its broadcasting time to giving a platform for new musicians. Marc Riley has introduced me to 80% of what I’ve bought this year. Without that space for emerging talent we face a future where Susan Boyle and the Killers are all you’ll get to hear.

How does the BBC’s Director General Mark Thompson decide to celebrate these two important stations? By suggesting that he plans to shut them down. He said in a recent interview :

“Expect to see reductions in some kinds of programmes and content… and a close examination of the future of our service portfolios once switchover has been achieved.”

That means “we are thinking of shutting down the two things that don’t pull big enough audiences and we’ll use the money to put lots of our old programmes on iPlayer.”

With no obvious irony he added that there will be a “further shift in emphasis in favour of key priority areas”, including news, children’s programmes. The main evening news bulletin on BBC 1 is now a cross between the Daily Mail and a lifestyle magazine aimed at an imagined audience which needs to be patronised to within an inch of its life. On top of that anyone with the vaguest connection to its news gathering operations  will explain at some length how journalists are under great pressure to provide endless content for the website and the interactive platforms at the expense of proper journalism.

If public service broadcasting funded by a compulsory licence should have anything to distinguish it from the Extreme Skateboarders Go Large in Ibiza HD channel or, heaven forfend, provincial commercial radio it should be about allowing niche programming for people who don’t want to be sold car insurance in between Lily Allen and Alexandra Burke songs. The battle to protect BBC 4 and BBC 6Music starts here!

 

 

 

Hugo Chavez, D. Wayne Love and the Fifth International

The Very Reverend Dr. D. Wayne Love was the first person I heard float the idea of a Fifth International. He was performing with the Alabama 3 some years back at the Scala sharing the stage with a number of women who were toting AK 47s. Something about the setting made it seem a bit ultra left at the time.

It’s taken a while but someone serious has decided that the idea might be worth exploring. Step forward Hugo Chavez.

This piece is nicked from International Viewpoint. It’s by François Sabado, a member of the Executive Bureau of the Fourth International and seems to have been rapidly translated from French Trotspeak but you can get the general idea.

During an international meeting of left parties held in Caracas from 19-21 November, 2009, Hugo Chavez launched a call for a Fifth Socialist International which, according to him, should bring together left parties and social movements. According to the president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the Fifth International must be “an instrument for the unification and the articulation of the struggle of the peoples to save this planet”. In a world political situation marked by a total crisis of the capitalist system, this is a fact important enough to be underlined.

Indeed, leaders or parties who pose the question of an International do not grow on trees. That is the first merit of Chavez’s call.

All the more so as this call is accompanied by a declaration which denounces the systemic character of the capitalist crisis, beyond its financial and banking dimensions, and reaffirms the perspective of a socialism of the 21st century. It calls for an urgent mobilization against the new imperialist offensive in Latin America, by the US administration and the Latin American Right.

On the basis of this call, a broad world anti-imperialist front can be established, to mark its solidarity with the struggle of the peoples for their social and political rights, to oppose the new US bases in Colombia, to support, in particular, the mobilization of the people of Honduras against the new dictatorial regime.

In the trial of strength in which the imperialists are confronted with the struggles of the peoples, such a world front would constitute an important instrument to fight the power of the ruling classes, not only in Latin America but in the whole world.

We are ready, as we have been since the beginning, in solidarity with the Cuban revolution, the Bolivarian revolution, with the experiences in Bolivia and Ecuador, to fully commit ourselves to the common fight against the imperialist attacks imperialists and to take our full place in this world anti-imperialist front.

It is also within this framework that the process of construction of a new International would be posed. Chavez calls for the establishment of a Socialist Fifth International. That puts back on the agenda the discussion about a new International. Chavez situates the building of the Fifth International in continuity with the Fourth. We have already declared on many occasions: what do labels matter, if there is convergence over the content?  But the constitution of a new International implies a whole process around a programme, policies, and an organization, which must be carried out on the basis of a broad discussion with all the protagonists.

There is, indeed, a new historical period, where divergences between various revolutionary currents can be surmounted on the basis of “a common understanding of events and tasks”. From this point of view, it is not a question of discussing the historical balance sheets of different currents, but it is decisive to learn together the lessons from Stalinism and social democracy, so that the tragedies and the errors of the past are not repeated.

Each party, each organization, each current and each militant must contribute to this debate. As for the Fourth International, it has already formulated, on many occasions, its proposals:

* An anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist programme of emergency demands, which starts from the demands and the social needs of the popular classes, proposes a new distribution of wealth, public and social appropriation of the key sectors of the economy and leads on to the revolutionary transformation of society.

* Unity of action of all the organizations, currents and militants against the attacks of the governments and the capitalist classes.

* Independence of the social movements, associations and trade-union organizations with respect to parties and states.

* Solidarity with all struggles of peoples against all the imperialist powers.

* The fight against oppressions and the defence of the rights of women, homosexuals, young people and immigrants.

* The fight for governments of the workers and popular classes which satisfy the principal social and ecological demands and base themselves on the mobilization of the population and its control over the principal sectors of the economy. This perspective implies not participating in governments which manage the state and the capitalist economy along with the parties of the centre-left or social democracy.

* The central character of the self-emancipation and self-organization of peoples, in the perspective of overthrowing capitalism.

* An ecosocialist project which combines both the satisfaction of social needs and the respect and balance of our ecosystem. In this sense, we have much to learn much from the indigenous peoples of South America and their relationship to the land.

* Socialist democracy as a project of society: self-management of the economy, democracy and pluralism of parties and social movements.

These are some themes for discussion in order to advance along the road of bringing together all anti-capitalists on an international level. They are the first ideas that we will defend in the process of constitution of a new International.

Lastly, Chavez’s call for a Fifth International also constitutes a point of support when it poses the question of a new International, independently of the Second (Socialist) International of which organizations like the social democratic parties, the Mexican PRI and the Brazilian PT are members. But it is also necessary to clarify a question in the construction of a new International, that of the difference between state policies and the development of a political project. One thing is to conclude economic and commercial agreements with states which have anti-imperialist governments, to conclude such agreements with other states, including some which have reactionary regimes, or to oppose attacks of imperialism against certain countries. It is quite another thing to give political support to regimes like those of the Chinese Communist Party or the Islamic Republic of Iran… The project of the Fifth International cannot in any way at all be associated with these regimes.

Once again, this call creates the conditions for a new international discussion, indissociable from solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution. It is in this spirit that the Fourth international, its organizations and its militants, will answer “Present”!

François Sabado is a member of the Executive Bureau of the Fourth International and an activist in the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) in France. He was a long-time member of the National Leadership of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR).

 

Video: Child M must stay vigil

Thanks to Richard for this video of the anti-deportation vigil in Manchester. More information here and on Facebook.

 

`NHS Mutual: Engaging staff and aligning incentives to achieve higher levels of performance’. Eh?

 Thanks to David Ellis for this.

Back in July this year, the Nuffield Trust, an influential health service think-tank, published a report suggesting that NHS Trusts should become a business in the John Lewis mould. This, they claimed, would boost staff engagement and raise productivity by 4 or 5 per cent. It is, in fact, privatisation.

It is believed that this suggestion, one of several of its type in the snappily named report `NHS Mutual: Engaging staff and aligning incentives to achieve higher levels of performance’, is almost certain to make it into the New Labour manifesto in time for next year’s general election.

The department store John Lewis is held in trust for its employees who are then entitled to a share of the profits. This incentivises its staff to take an active interest in the business and to sell more merchandise. However, the NHS is free at the point of delivery. It is funded by National Insurance Contributions. The type of pressure on NHS staff to maximise their profits will be somewhat different to those experienced by John Lewis workers.

By turning workers involved in publicly-funded care services into profit hungry mini-capitalists they will be incentivised not to provide a better service but to deny service, to deny medicines, to not make referrals, to diagnose the cheaper illness, to close that ward, that wing, that hospice, that hospital. All in the name of an annual dividend paid out of that part of the budget that remains unspent. Obviously, you could circumvent that problem by making the customer king. That is, make them pay then the staff would have to earn their profits. That, however, would be the end of health service delivery at the point of use and in reality the end of health service for the ordinary worker.

It will be necessary to oppose to this manifesto policy during the election with a socialist policy. Such a policy would demand workers’ control of the NHS Trusts. If demoralisation and lack of engagement really are endemic amongst NHS trust staff, as the mainstream press have suddenly and conveniently discovered, then not privatisation but workers democracy is the only solution for both them and the communities they serve.

Whilst remaining socially owned and publicly funded either by national or local governmental forms, Trust board members and managers at every level within the Trusts need to be elected by the workers they manage. Elected staff bodies should be responsible for appointing junior managers and setting their pay whilst managers at senior level should be elected directly following a short campaign in which they outline their plans and the remuneration they are seeking. These elections would be scrutinised by the staff body and the victors should be instantly recallable and subject to re-election perhaps every four years though obviously it will be up to the staff themselves to set the rules and time limits. This would act as instant anti-dote to the endless and meaningless staff consultation that currently poses as workplace democracy in the NHS.

Patients and their relatives must of course be given a more powerful voice in the day to day running of the hospital. Their input and advocacy will do a great deal to keep both managers and staff on their toes and prevent any bureaucratism or cynicism from creeping in. It would, in that sense, help a great deal if workers had a genuine work/life balance, provided they’ve got a job, which allowed them to take a more active approach to the institutions that care for their sick and for their children.

Of course, the Tory manifesto won’t be proposing anything quite as coy as this backdoor version of privatisation coming as it does clothed in the language of staff productivity and morale. For that reason the Tories must be immediately stopped at the ballot box. They are looking for a political mandate that will allow them to go much further, much faster. Labour will find it much more difficult to finally destroy the NHS. Either way, however, before, during and after the election NHS workers must prepare to resist privatisation, defend social ownership and prepare for workers’ control. Naturally this campaign could be greatly advanced if it could gain the support of the Health Service unions.

The guards and the archbishop

As apologies go Garda Síochána Commissioner’s Fachtna Murphy was not very persuasive.

“This is an important chronicle of events within the Dublin Archdiocese over a forty year period. It makes for difficult and disturbing reading, detailing as it does many instances of sexual abuse and failure on the part of both Church and State authorities to protect victims.

The Commission has found that in some cases, because of acts or omissions, individuals who sought assistance did not always receive the level of response or protection which any citizen in trouble is entitled to expect from An Garda Síochána. I am deeply sorry that this occurred.”

The fact that it took second billing to a press release on ‘Operation Bicycle Lights’ did not make it any more convincing.

It’s not often that even my most distant relatives make the news but Archbishop John Charles Mc Quaid was popping up everywhere today because of his part in protecting child abusers from prosecution as described in the Irish Government’s report. When priests were reported to the Garda they referred the matter back to him and he shuffled them onto another parish where they could continue abusing. This prompted me to see if John Cooney’s biography could throw any light on the relationship between the Archbishop and the Garda. It did and Commissioner Murphy seems to stand in a long lone of Irish cops unwilling to be too blunt about the Catholic Church.

In 1952 the Yugoslav football team arrived in Ireland to play. The League of the Kingship of Christ shared Mc Quaid’s view that the footballers were representatives of “a tyrannous regime of persecution” and that anyone attending would be committing a mortal sin. That’s the really bad type. Mc Quaid persuaded the Government to oblige the President to reverse his decision to attend the match. The Army band which had already begun practising the Yugoslav anthem suddenly beat a tactical retreat. The Irish team’s coach was a cop and he was not involved in the preparation for the game due to clerical pressure. Radio Eireann did not broadcast the game.

 Cooney sums up the affair by saying of Mc Quaid “his contact with the Taoiseach, the Department of Justice and the Garda Síochána ensured that the control he exercised over “official” Ireland was almost total: no minister of state or municipal representative attended the match.”

On the plus side over 21 000 people defied the clerical ban and IRA veteran Dan Breen attended the match so that he could “fire his last shot for Ireland” with a protest against theocratic rule.

That episode is the only significant reference to the police in the most authoritative biography of Irish Catholicism’s dominant figure in the twentieth century. This is partly because all the most incriminating documents were stored in the vaults of the Archbishop’s residence and most police officers would not have committed their inquiries to paper if they were investigating abuse claims against a priest. Yet trivial as it is the football match story conveys something of the inability of the Irish state to confront the power of the Catholic Church and the craven deference of public officials to the organisation. The state was as much to blame for the abuse as the Church.

Ireland – big strikes, bad leadership

A quarter of a million public sector workers in Ireland held a one day strike yesterday. Schools, Civil Service offices and many local authority services were closed . Hospitals and courts ran a limited service. Union members may repeat the action on December 3^rd and the strike follows on from a demonstration of 150,000 in November. The strikes and demonstrations are the union movement’s response to 7.5% wage cut imposed though a pension levy and the suspension of a 2.5% pay rise which was due in October.

You might expect that with support on that scale that the Irish Congress of Trade Union’s (ICTU) leadership would be willing to face down the state’s attempt to make workers pay for the shambolic state of the 26 counties’ economy. That’s not the way bureaucrats’ minds work. The Irish Times reports firebrand Peter McLoone, general secretary of Impact summoning the workers to the barricades with this battle cry: “it would be necessary to agree some temporary measures to cut payroll costs in 2010 because reforms were unlikely to deliver the necessary savings before 2011”. When asked last night whether this could include cuts in overtime rates or allowances or the introduction of short-time working, he said the government had indicated these would be on the table.

The government plans to cut €1.3bn (£1.7bn, $1.9bn) from the public sector pay bill and his public negotiating position is that he’s willing to help them do it. ICTU’s preferred option is extend the period of time over which the cuts are made and keep its fingers crossed that the economy comes out of recession. Though given that much of the boom was built on property speculation and the finance sector it’s hard to see this happening anytime soon.

At least the government is open in its declaration of class war. Among the measures it is proposing are:

• Paying overtime at flat rates rather than time-and-a-half;
• Introducing an 8am-8pm core day during which no overtime payments would apply;
• Introduction of unpaid leave, perhaps as much as 12 days per year;
• The possibility of staff working a small number of additional hours per week;
• The elimination of privilege days at Christmas and Easter.

ICTU’s leadership remains devoted to the idea of “social partnership” even if the other partner is at that point in the relationship where he’s not bringing home flowers and chocolates and is more likely to roll home drunk and fall asleep farting on the sofa. It seems determined to provide a safety valve and then give Fianna Fail every substantial thing it is asking for. If you want proof that there is such a thing as a bureaucracy  which has interests separate from those of the working class you need look no further.

An epidemic of top-down control

Alan Thornett reflects on Respect’s recent conference and some recurring features. This piece is taken from Socialist Resistance.

The Respect conference could have been a very positive event. It was attended by over 200 members and was located in Salma Yaqoob’s constituency of Sparkbrook and Small Heath in Birmingham where she won 27% of the vote in the last general election and where she stands a very good chance of winning in the next general election.

Unfortunately rather than providing an upbeat launch for the Respect election campaign it was overshadowed by an intolerant attack on a minority current and a challenge to the long established policy of Respect to work towards a broader coalition of the left to tackle the crisis of working class representation. The result was a potential setback for Respect just at a time when it was starting to recruit more members and consolidate its functioning after the split with the SWP.

This attack on broader coalitions is completely out of kilter with the needs of the political situation. We are facing the most important and dangerous general election for a generation, and we cannot approach it just through the prism of getting Respect candidates elected — important as that is. The left, and Respect as a part of it, has a responsibility to provide an alternative to the widest possible spectrum of the electorate as is possible — difficult as this may have repeatedly proved to be in the recent past.

The Tories are poised to launch an even bigger attack on the working class than Labour if they are elected and the far right is waiting in the wings in the form of the BNP and the racist UKIP to capitalise on the unprecedented unpopularity of the main parties through the expenses debacle. The left has a responsibility to maximise its intervention into the election not just to provide a desperately needed alternative to New Labour but as a cutting edge against the far right — which no one else is going to provide. This was absolutely clear from Nick Griffin’s appearance on the BBC’s Question Time where the only response from the main parties to the BNP was that they were perfectly capable of cracking down on immigration themselves.

The conference actually started very well, and on precisely this subject, with a substantial session on “one society many cultures’ introduced very strongly by Salma Yaqoob. She presented racism, Islamophobia and the rise of the far right firmly in the context of state racism and the economic and social policies of Brown’s Labour Government. This triggered a very good debate on the far right and how to confront it and on state bans against the BNP and where the left should stand on them.

It was a real discussion over legitimate differences and exactly the kind of debate which should take place in a broad organisation like Respect. Socialist Resistance speakers argued against state bans on the basis that they are generally used against the left whilst Socialist Action, the only other organized current inside Respect, appeared to be the main proponent of the opposing point of view.

This positive atmosphere changed rather dramatically, however, with the arrival of George Galloway — who first introduced and replied to a question and answer session, and later replied to the session on electoral strategy. His response to an emergency motion by Nick Wrack and others, proposing a positive response to the new No2Eu type initiative, turned the conference inwards. It was also contrary to the National Council resolution on the agenda which called for a positive approach to such developments.

Even if the movers of the emergency motion overestimated the possibilities of the new No2Eu, at the present stage at least, and underestimated its potential problems and were not prepared to accept that the issue was already covered by the NC resolution the reaction to them was completely misplaced and contrary to the ethos we should be building inside Respect.

A military musical clusterf*ck

Wars can be times of tremendous creativity. Look at all the things they’ve given us. Nuclear weapons, napalm, those ready to eat meals that you can buy in camping shops. So you might have thought that the years the British Army has spent winning Iraqi and Afghan hearts and minds would give us some memorable cultural products. Maybe an admixture of modern electronica and rhythms evoking the pummelling of an Afghan village or a musical recreation of some prisoners being kicked to death. The truth is if you’ve been looking for artistic production that says something about modern war and pushes the boundaries of contemporary music it’s been a dry period.

Actually it’s worse than a dry period. It’s a hideous musical and ideological regression. A serving sergeant, sergeant-major and lance corporal have released an album which has gone platinum in the British charts. The one thing less imaginative than their name “The Soldiers” is their material. They’ve eschewed soundscapes featuring samples of helicopter gunships blasting wedding parties for tripe like He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother by The Hollies, and Eric Clapton’s teeth-gratingly horrendous Tears In Heaven. Speaking of their choice of material Sgt Maddocks said: “They’re feel-good songs that you’d associate with the guys in the army.” There is a fine example of two clauses that don’t really fit in the same sentence.

There is a torrent of this stuff at the moment. Another example is We Will Remember Them by United Artists. Its press release says it’s “an ensemble of more than 200 stars including Michael Bolton, Mica Paris, Robin Gibb and Atomic Kitten singers Natasha Hamilton and Liz McClarnon.” If Dante were writing today he would reserve that torture for the deepest circles of Hell and only impose it once every thousand years. As with The Soldiers’ album the money will go to the Royal British Legion and the Help For Heroes charity.

Also adding to the flux is a reworked version of what one leading music pundit described as “We’ll meet a f*cking gain”, presumably the Prodigy remix of Vera Lynn’s only known song. Then there’s the Christmas release of the theme from The Great Escape by a British Army band.

Is there anyone willing to take a musical stand against this deluge of musical jingoism, some cutting edge young musician who surveys the world and wants to rage? Does Roger Taylor from Queen count?

He has released what he describes as a “protest song” called The Unblinking Eye (Everything Is Broken).

Here’s an extract from his description of it.  On first, second and third reading it seems to be a cut and paste job from UKIP, The Morning Star and The Daily Mail:

In case you hadn’t noticed.
The high street is full of holes.
We are fighting a pointless actively negative war which is killing our young soldiers and which we simply cannot afford.
This war promotes and prolongs terrorism.
This is our Vietnam. Unwinnable. Pointless.
We are taxed and retaxed while the nation is not only broke but utterly bankrupt, being propped up with tax payers money and money which is simply printed.
…As a nation we own almost nothing including “our” water, electricity, gas, airspace and major manufacturers.

If we are kind we can call this “inchoate” in its sense of imperfectly formed or developed.

The big ideological regression is that every mainstream criticism of the imperialist wars has to be prefaced with effusive praise for those conducting them and utter silence on the matter of the civilians who are doing most of the dying. But I think we can also link the musical sterility with the low level of both anti-imperialist and class consciousness. Admittedly Mullah Omar is not likely to stir the spirit of any leftward leaning radical youth or musician who hadn’t been banged over the head with a shovel a few times. But the one thing this river of bilge has in common is its lack of empathy with the victims of imperialist war and its active support for the organisations creating the victims. Few things are more tedious than someone droning on about the olden days but a comparison is useful because of the indication it gives of political consciousness on some sort of mass level. At a time when some of the most publicly reviled men and women in the British media were Irish Republican prisoners there was always a handful of bands willing to do overtly political songs and perform at explicitly anti-imperialist and radical events without feeling the need to express their admiration for the men of the Parachute Regiment. It’s hard to imagine that happening today because that understanding of imperialism is so much weaker and because there is a rupture between music and political mass movements.

(BTW – I’m a bit vague about what a clusterf*ck is but it was used a lot in Generation Kill to describe a lot of bad things happening at once and we’ll stick to that definition.)

Jerry Hicks to stand for Unite General Secretary

ONE YEAR TWO ELECTIONS : KEEP MORE THAN AN EYE ON BOTH

Next year will see two elections. Both are likely to be defining moments. The General Election and the election for General Secretary of the country’s biggest trade union ‘Unite’.

Jerry Hicks whose successful legal challenge last year forced an election in the Amicus section of Unite has, after being urged by many, decided to stand again.

He is deeply critical of Unite’s failure to protect its members despite the tens of £millions having been handed over to the Labour Government during what he says are the ‘squandered / wasted years’, meaning the 3 terms of Labour in office.

He also argues that fundamental change is needed in the union’s relationship with New Labour which he describes as being – too close – too cosy – paying too much – for far too little. £13 million of members’ money has been donated since 2005. While supporting over 100 Labour MPs, not even the basic right to re-instatement when unfairly dismissed has been achieved. ‘The returns have been pitiful’.

The union opposes PFI hospitals as well as academy schools yet we are ignored. We demand better pensions yet we have the second lowest state pension in Europe. We should support only MPs or councillors, current / prospective, who support our policies.

Whoever wins the next election, cuts and attacks are staring every workplace, every union member in the face.

Gordon Brown has said Labour would legislate to halve the deficit. £75bn in cuts and even more Privatisation. Nick Clegg the Liberal leader said they would make savage cuts. George Osborne the Tory shadow chancellor boasted that within 3 months of being in office they would be the most unpopular Government since the 2^nd World War.

Given the size and make up of Unite, it makes the election for the union’s General Secretary the most significant union election for decades.

Jerry Hicks has been highly critical as to the wages of the General Secretary. He said “Fat cats in the city are rightly despised, just as MPs who are a world away from reality. Why have a ‘Fat cat’ General Secretary in our union with remuneration in excess of £130,000 living a lifestyle nothing like that of our members.” This will end, if elected he would only take the average wage of a skilled worker. This is certain to strike a chord, as none of the other candidates are likely to say the same.

Jerry Hicks said “Our union leadership, many of whom will seek to become the General Secretary have been unable to face up to Labour. Can our members be sure they can stand up to the Tories if they get in?”

Ends: Notes for Editors: Unite is not only the country’s biggest Trade Union it’s also the biggest single donator to the Labour Party. Jerry Hicks will most likely be the only candidate who is not a senior official of the union. This was also the case last time, however he secured support from every region and sector of the union, coming second, within touching distance of incumbent General Secretary Derek Simpson who will not be standing this time round. Jerry Hicks is thought by many to be a possible winner.

Jerry Hicks can be contacted on Tel: 078 178 279 12 Visit www.jerryhicks4gs.com

Get Irish mercenaries out of Bolivia

Integrated Risk Management Services is a company managed by former members of the Irish Army’s counter terrorist and special forces. One of its employees got himself killed by Bolivian police who claimed that he was involved in a plot to murder Evo Morales. This is the text of a letter handed intto the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs on Friday by Cristian Dominguez, the Secretary of Natural Resources for the peasant organisation, CSUTCB and Cristian Dominguez and Jose Sagarnaga of the Bolivia Solidarity Campaign.

Minister for Foreign Affairs
Mr Micheál Martin
80 St. Stephens Green
Dublin 2

Dear Mr Martín,

As members of Bolivian civil society in Europe we would like to respectfully bring to your attention matters relating to the Irish-based company Integrated Risk Management Services (I-RMS).

We have information that proves that this company employs or has employed well known mercenaries as Coronel Gyla Attila. It is through these mercenaries that Michael Dwyer, an employee of I-RMS made contact with international mercenaries. 

The I-RMS company provides security to Fianna Fáil for its annual conferences as well as providing security for Shell in Rossport, I-RMS had an advert on its website offering armed and un-armed security services internationally. The advert was taken off the website after the death of Michael Dwyer in an armed clashed with the Bolivian police earlier this year.

We would like you to investigate the links between this company and right wing extremist terrorist groups in Europe and the connexions they have with our country Bolivia.  Bolivia is a country undergoing a deep process of social, cultural and economic change, which has the support of rank and file social organisations. Our government is the representative of the people and was elected with 53% of the votes and ratified with 68% of the votes in a recall referendum. Its legitimacy cannot be questioned.

The presence of Irish citizen Michael Dwyer in Bolivia coincided with terrorist attacks perpetrated in 2008 and the first months of 2009, aimed at destabilising the process of change we describe above.
The actions which led to the death of Mr Dwyer started back in Ireland, when he worked for Irish company I-RMS. Your government, as well as the Irish media, have asked the Bolivian government to investigate these facts, and this is now being done. However, we would like to request from your government a full investigation into the obscure aims and methods of companies which employ mercenaries or terrorists, and which openly offer their services in Ireland.

Cristian Domínguez, secretary of defence of natural resources and the environment of the Bolivian Confederation of Peasant Workers (CSUTCB), is currently visiting Europe. He is a survivor of the massacre of Pando in 2008, which was organised and carried out by those who are experts in organisation wars of secession. Mr Dwyer and the machinery he was a part of should be investigated for their responsibility in these events which left men, women and children dead, and many survivors scarred for life.

The proof that exists against these mercenary groups is conclusive, but we are worried that they are still active in our country, Bolivia. For all these reasons, and knowing your democratic and peace-loving record, we would like to request from the office you represent:

1.- A full investigation into the legal status of I-RMS in Ireland and the services it offers, as well as an investigation into any other companies offering international armed security services from Ireland.

2.- An investigation into the links between security company I-RMS and extreme right wing elements from Eastern Europe. There are clear indications that Attila, an employee of I-RMS, was the contact who recruited Michael Dwyer for his activities in Bolivia. 

3.- Taking into account the danger that these mercenaries pose to our democracy and to Bolivian society as a whole, we would like your government to investigate how many people employed by I-RMS have travelled to Bolivia and whether they are still in our territory.

4.- It is possible that other Irish organisations and/or companies are still offering security training to Irish citizens in Bolivia. If this is the case, the Bolivian government should be informed so it can take action to prevent terrorist activities against the Bolivian state.

5.- We would like to know what knowledge does your government have of these facts and what actions has it taken against these groups and their terrorist activities.

6.- Finally, we would like to respectfully ask that the result of these investigations be made public, so these terrorist cells can be disbanded and cease to be a threat to Bolivia and the world.

Sincerely yours,
Cristian Domínguez
Secretario de Defensa de los Recursos Naturales y del Medio Ambiente  CSUTCB
Amancay Colque, Coordinator  Bolivia Solidarity Campaign
Bolivia Solidarity Campaign-Inglaterra: Amancay Colque – Jose Sagarnaga   
ARLAC, Bruselas- Bélgica: Ringo Guzman
Ballet Folclórico Boliviano, Barcelona – España: Severino Viraca
Bolivia Action Solidarity Network-Canada: Marcelo Saavedra Vargas
Cambio Foro Bolivia, Estocolmo- Suecia: Judith Muñoz – Nelson Monsalvez
Centro Cultural Tupac Katari, Estocolmo-Suecia
Comisión Comunicación CPB-EU y CPB-Francia: Jose  Luis Martinez
Comité de Apoyo a Bolivia.Malmö-Suecia: Tereza Moreira – Marcelo Torrez
Comitè de Solidaritat amb els Pobles Indígenes d´ Amèrica M. Antònia Arnau
Consejo Pro Bolivia – Escandinavia: Eulogio Limachi -  Leonor Churquina
Consejo Pro Bolivia- CPB – Alemania: Roxana Soria –  Gladis Schlanbush
Consejo Pro Bolivia Gotemburgo.- Suecia: Walter Vera Rivera -  Jorge carrasco
Coordinadora Somos Mas, Barcelona-España: Rosa Rosa  Krugler -     
Grupo Apoyo a Bolivia, GAB-Estocolmo-Suecia: Jorge Cuenca
Grupo Apoyo a Bolivia, GAB-Växjö-Suecia: Victoria Gonsalez
Grupo de apoyo al MAS, Barcelona-España: Varinia Olivares
Grupo de Apoyo al MAS, Uppsala, Suecia Adriana Petersheim
Latinamerikagrupperna-Gbg. – Suecia: Adolfo Suarez
Por la Comisión Orgánica del Consejo Pro Bolivia en Europa, CPB-EU: Walter
Vera Rivera- Victoria Gonsalez
Presencia Latinoamericana (Frente Bolivia)-Suiza:  Patricia Ogay
Coordinadora Somos Mas, Barcelona, Rosa Kugler
Grupo de Apoyo al MAS en Noruega Julio Cesar Toro