Power sharing in Syria could avoid Libyan revenge and civil war – but it and ending Assad’s crimes require a deal with Russia

Assad's government and military in Syria are definitely guilty of torturing and killing civilians, including children, as well as targeting the wounded and doctors. That’s sickening and it needs to be stopped (1) – (4). Accounts by Syrian opposition activists of the killing of whole families are painful to read (5).

That has to be stopped – the question is how to stop it without creating a longer civil war or mass revenge killings and torture of the kind going on in Libya.

We should be wary of believing every claim made by the Syrian opposition. Some of the claims made by the Libyan opposition of Gaddafi ordering his troops to rape women and anti-aircraft guns being used on demonstrators turned out to be false (6).

A look at the results of a rebel victory in Libya or the situation in “liberated” Iraq should throw some serious doubt on the idea that the overthrow of Assad through Arab League and Western government arming and training of the rebels would guarantee an end to torture and murder. It might, as in Libya, lead to fighting among different rebel factions and the torture and murder by them of people even suspected (often wrongly) of having supported the dictatorship. NATO and Arab governments will only care about removing Assad as an ally of Iran, just as they lost all interest in torture and killings in Libya once Gaddafi was overthrown and his enemies were responsible for the crimes. As in Libya though, they are the only source of military support that the opposition have to turn to. However the Russian military presence in Syria (their fleet is allowed to use Syrian ports) would make any direct NATO involvement risk World War Three, which is probably why the US and it’s allies have ruled out direct military involvement – if they intervene it is likely to be covertly by arming and training the rebels with Special Forces, as in Libya. In Syria even that could risk war with Russia though.

A power sharing agreement of the kind suggested in the UN Resolution that the Chinese and Russian governments vetoed may be less bad than a Libyan or Lebanese style civil war – but that would first require an end to the government forces’ attacks on civilians – and then there would be the problem there is how to achieve a balance of power which results in compromise and a transition to democracy rather than a long civil war which neither side can win.

Many minorities in Syria including Kurds and Christians also fear being targeted by Sunni Muslim fundamentalists among the opposition if Assad is overthrown by force, just as black Libyans and African immigrant workers have been lynched and tortured in Libya and Assyrian Christians and other minorities have been killed and ethnically cleansed in Iraq. The Assad family are from the Alawite minority sect of the Shia Muslim religion.

Achieving peace is a lot harder than just overthrowing Assad, which would achieve the aims of the US government and it’s allies without ending the fighting or the torture and killing, just as with overthrowing Gaddafi in Libya. As in Libya it might reduce the scale of the torture and killing, but at the risk of civil war continuing indefinitely.

Getting that agreement will be hard as the sides now have plenty of reasons to hate and distrust one another ; and getting each to make real concessions requires convincing them that they have enough power to force the other to make real concessions to them, but not enough that they can be sure the other won’t defeat them in a fight to the end.

In Libya there are over 8,500 people held without trial by the rebel factions including women and children, many of them tortured using the same methods Gaddafi's forces used, some to death. It's so bad that Medicines Sans Frontieres have pulled out as they were being given hundreds of prisoners to keep them alive in between torture sessions so they could be tortured again. (7) – (10).

The rebel militias have been fighting one another in Tripoli ever since Gaddafi's death right up to present (in one case over control of the airport as NATO flew in planeloads of released Libyan funds in bales of cash - much of which will likely end up disappearing 'unaccounted for' just as with the billions of dollars of Iraqi Oil for Food funds that went missing under Bremer in Iraq ) and creating revolts against their rule by arresting and large numbers of people on suspicion of being Gaddafi supporters, with no trials and torturing or killing many of them (i.e behaving exactly like Gaddafi's forces did towards anyone they suspected of not supporting Gaddafi) (11) – (15).

In Iraq the torture and death squad methods used by Saddam continue to be used by the US trained police commandos and counter-terrorist units - who also kidnap and torture people just in order to extort money from their families (16) – (21).

The Arab League, which backed the UN motions on Libya and Syria is mostly made up of dictatorships that torture and kill their own civilians themselves (the Saudi monarchy, Bahraini monarchy both last year and last month, the Yemeni dictatorship, the Egyptian military) and which the NATO governments continue to back despite this. The Saudis, who have backed the brutal repression in Bahrain which has included shooting unarmed protesters, torturing protesters to death and targeting ambulances, ambulance crews and hospital staff, are the main supporters of the Syrian rebels as part of a US and NATO alliance with Sunni dictatorships against Iran and Shia Muslims. The Saudi and Qatari monarchies, along with the Egyptian military, also provided arms, funding and Special Forces to aid the rebels in Libya. None of them are democracies so promoting democracy is not likely to be their main motive (22) – (30).

The motives for intervention among the Arab League and western governments are as much about their own power in the Middle East, rather than democracy or human rights, as the Russian and Chinese governments’ are. Syria provides Russia with a naval base in the Mediterranean, while Bahrain provides the US with a naval base in the Persian Gulf, the main export route for Middle Eastern oil to the net oil importing NATO governments. That’s why Russia had blocked intervention to stop the massacres in Syria and has even sent arms shipments to Syrian forces as they commit these crimes; and why the US and it’s allies did nothing about the massacres in Bahrain (except for the Saudis, who sent troops to ensure it would continue and prevent any concessions to the protesters from the king of Bahrain) (31).

Amnesty International have now found that the Obama administration have begun arms sales to Bahrain again while killings of protesters and their deaths by torture after arrest continue (32) – (34).

Having seen what happened in Libya, i am sickened by what Assad's forces are doing, but a complete rebel victory might lead to similar brutality against anyone known or suspected to have supported Assad. The Libyan rebels may not be killing as many civilians as Gaddafi’s forces were, but they’re still torturing and murdering plenty of people on suspicion of being Gaddafi supporters.

What's needed is a balance of power between the two sides so neither feels it can torture and murder the supporters of the other.

The UN Resolution that the Arab League backed was a good peace plan for power sharing and reconciliation before elections and is still the best plan despite the Russian and Chinese vetoes.

Unless the US and it’s allies want to risk ending up at war with Russia any peace deal will require a deal between the US and it’s allies and the Russians and theirs.

After Iraq and Libya it's not hard to see why Russia and China, apart from their own self-interest, didn't trust NATO governments to not go much further than the Resolution allowed them to, but that doesn't make the main parts of the plan in the Resolution they vetoed any less valid.

The problem is that the Syrian government has to fear foreign sanctions and/or support for the rebels enough to make a real deal with the rebels, but the rebels have to fear losing enough to be willing to compromise with a government that they have very good reasons to hate; and both have to believe they’re strong enough that the other side will be forced to make genuine compromises, but not so strong that they could defeat it completely. That will be a very difficult balance to achieve. The sad truth is that whatever governments outside Syria do now, there is a high risk of a long civil war. Ending the current civil war without either creating a longer one or letting whoever wins take brutal revenge on anyone suspected of having supported the losing side should be the aim now.

That first requires an end to the massacre in Homs though – which requires Assad’s regime to fear intervention by outside powers - and it’s hard to see how that can be done at all, since direct military intervention on the side of the rebels could lead to all out war with Russia. The Assad-Russian side may have a point that attacks by rebels would also have to end for any ceasefire and power sharing deal to happen, but no-one can believe their claims that all violence is the result of attacks by armed enemies of Assad’s government any more.

(1) = Amnesty International UK  24 Oct 2011 ‘Syria: Hospital patients subjected to torture and ill-treatment - New report’, http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=19770

(2) = Amnesty International 01 Feb 2012 ‘Security Council: Russia must not block efforts to end atrocities in Syria ’, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/security-council-russia-must-not-block-efforts-end-atrocities-syria-2012-02-01

(3) = Human Rights Watch 03 Feb 2012 ‘Syria: Stop Torture of Children’, http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/02/03/syria-stop-torture-children

(4) = Medicines Sans Frontieres 08 Feb 2012 ‘Syria: medicine used as a weapon of persecution’, http://www.msf.org.uk/Syria_repression_20120208.news

(5) = guardian.co.uk 07 Feb 2012 ‘Syrian siege of Homs is genocidal, say trapped residents’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/07/syrian-homs-siege-genocidal-say-residents

(6) =  Independent 24 Jun 2011 ‘Amnesty questions claim that Gaddafi ordered rape as weapon of war’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/amnesty-questions-claim-that-gaddafi-ordered-rape-as-weapon-of-war-2302037.html

(7) = Guardian 24 Nov 2011 ‘Libyan rebels detaining thousands illegally, Ban Ki-moon reports’ , http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/24/libya-illegal-detentions-un-report , ‘Libya's former rebels have illegally detained thousands of people, including women and children, according to the United Nations secretary general….Many of the 7,000 prisoners have been tortured, with some black Africans mistreated because of their skin colour, women being held under male supervision and children locked up alongside adults, the report by Ban Ki-moon found.’

(8) = BBC News 26 Jan 2012 ‘Libyan detainees die after torture, says Amnesty International’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16741937 , ‘More than 8,500 detainees, most of them accused of being loyal to former Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi, are being held by militia groups in about 60 centres, according to UN human rights chief Navi Pillay.’

(9) = Independent 27 Jan 2012 ‘Free' Libya shamed by new torture claims’,http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/free-libya-shamed-by-new-torture-claims-6295394.html

(10) = Amnesty International 26 Jan 2012 ‘Libya: Deaths of detainees amid widespread torture’, http://www.amnesty.org/zh-hant/node/29388

(11) = Reuters 01 Feb 2012 ‘Rival Libyan militias fight gunbattle in capital’,http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/01/us-libya-tripoli-battle-idUSTRE81029420120201 ; ‘Rival militias fought a two-hour gunbattle over a luxury beach house being used as a barracks in the Libyan capital Wednesday…Militias have carved up Tripoli and the rest of Libya into competing fiefdoms, each holding out for the share of power they say they are owed.’

(12) = guardian.co.uk 17 Dec 2011 ‘Libyan scramble for £100bn in assets fractures the peace at Tripoli airport’,  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/17/libya-tripoli-airport-assets-un

(13) = CNN 31 Aug 2005 ‘Audit: U.S. lost track of $9 billion in Iraq funds’, http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/30/iraq.audit/

(14) = Reuters 24 Jan 2012 ‘Anger, chaos but no revolt after Libya violence’, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/24/libya-idUSL5E8CO2HB20120124 , ‘elders in the desert city…dismissed accusations they wanted to restore the late dictator's family to power or had any ambitions beyond their local area…."When men from Tripoli come into your house and harass women, what are we to do?" said Fati Hassan, a 28-year-old Bani Walid resident who described the men of May 28th as a mixture of local men and outsiders, former anti-Gaddafi rebels who had turned into oppressors when given control over the town….."They were arresting people from the first day after liberation. People are still missing. I am a revolutionary and I have friends in The May 28th Brigade," said Hassan, who said he urged them to ease off. "The war is over now."….."On Friday, the May 28th Brigade arrested a man from Bani Walid. After Bani Walid residents lodged a protest, he was finally released. But he had been tortured…."This caused an argument that escalated to arms.’

(15) = BBC News 24 Jan 2012 ‘Libya: Competing claims over Bani Walid fighting ’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16702044 , A source within the Libyan government, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the BBC the fighting broke out after a group of former rebel fighters, the 28 May Brigade, arrested one person.

The fighting was "more a clash between local people regarding a difference of who this [arrested] person was," the source said. "But of course now other people seem to be involved as well. The situation is not very clear who is who. It's still confused."

(16) = NYT magazine 01 May 2005 ‘the way of the commandos’, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/magazine/01ARMY.html

(17) = The Nation 22 Jun 2009 ‘Iraq's New Death Squad’, http://www.thenation.com/article/iraqs-new-death-squad

(18) = BBC News 27 Jan 2005 'Salvador Option' mooted for Iraq’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4209595.stm

(19) = Times 08 Aug 2005 ‘West turns blind eye as police put Saddam's torturers back to work’, http://www.infowars.com/articles/iraq/west_turns_blind_eye_saddams_torturers_at_work.htm

(20) = Amnesty International Annual Report 2011 – Iran,http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/iran/report-2011#section-64-6

(21) = Guardian 16 Jan 2012 ‘Corruption in Iraq: 'Your son is being tortured. He will die if you don't pay'’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan

(22) = BBC News 13 Jan 2012 ‘ Shia protester 'shot dead' in Saudi Arabia’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16543013 ‘At least one person has been killed and three others injured in clashes between security forces and Shia protesters in eastern Saudi Arabia, activists say.Issam Mohammed, 22, reportedly died when troops fired live ammunition after demonstrators threw stones at them in al-Awamiya, a town in the Qatif region.’

(23) = Amnesty International Annual Report 2011 – Saudi Arabia, http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/saudi-arabia/report-2011#section-121-5 and http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/saudi-arabia/report-2011#section-121-11

(24) = CNN 27 Jan 2012 ‘4 killed in protests in Bahrain, opposition group says’, http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-27/middleeast/world_meast_bahrain-unrest_1_bahrain-center-bahraini-police-wefaq?_s=PM:MIDDLEEAST

(25) = See sources listed and linked to in this post and this one on Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi and Yemen

(26) = CNN 04 Feb 2012 ‘Death toll climbs after Egypt soccer protests’, http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/04/world/africa/egypt-soccer-deaths/index.html

(27) = Independent 07 Mar 2011 ‘America's secret plan to arm Libya's rebels  - Obama asks Saudis to airlift weapons into Benghazi ’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/americas-secret-plan-to-arm-libyas-rebels-2234227.html

(28) = Al Jazeera 03 Apr 2011 ‘Libyan rebels 'receive foreign training'’,http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/04/201142172443133798.html ; US and Egyptian special forces have reportedly been providing covert training to rebel fighters in the battle for Libya, Al Jazeera has been told….An unnamed rebel source related how he had undergone training in military techniques at a "secret facility" in eastern Libya.

(29) = Guardian.co.uk 23 Aug 2011 ‘Libya: battle for Tripoli – live blog – 5.50pm’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/aug/23/libya-battle-for-tripoli-live-blog#block-11 ; ‘Defence expert Robert Fox is telling the BBC special forces from Qatar and the UAE, with US, British and French training, are responsible for the successful attack on Tripoli. "It has been a genuine Arab coalition ... I think it was the Qataris that led them through the breach." He said William Hague was "dissembling" in his comments just now.’ ;

(30) = Go to the post on this link and see sources 7 to 14 on it

(31) = Amnesty International 01 Feb 2012 ‘Security Council: Russia must not block efforts to end atrocities in Syria ’, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/security-council-russia-must-not-block-efforts-end-atrocities-syria-2012-02-01

(32) = Amnesty USA blog 30 Jan 2012 ‘U.S. Arms Sales to Bahrain: 4 Questions for the Obama Administration’, http://blog.amnestyusa.org/middle-east/u-s-arms-sales-to-bahrain-4-questions-for-the-obama-administration/

(33) = Amnesty International 26 Jan 2012 ‘Bahrain’s use of tear gas against protesters increasingly deadly’, http://www.amnesty.org/zh-hant/node/29403 ; ‘A Bahraini human rights group has reported at least 13 deaths resulting from the security forces’ use of tear gas against peaceful protesters as well as inside people’s homes since February 2011, with a rise in such deaths in recent months.

“The rise in fatalities and eyewitness accounts suggest that tear gas is being used inappropriately by Bahraini security forces, including in people’s homes and other confined spaces,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director.’

(34) = CNN 27 Jan 2012 ‘4 killed in protests in Bahrain, opposition group says’, http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-27/middleeast/world_meast_bahrain-unrest_1_bahrain-center-bahraini-police-wefaq?_s=PM:MIDDLEEAST

Russian and Chinese government propaganda on Libya?

There have been reports from the Voice of Russia Radio of almost half the casualties being soldiers – without specifying how many soldiers were rebels and how many Gaddafi loyalists.The Chinese Xinua news agency also reported in the early stages of the protests in Benghazi that two policemen were hung by rioters and the managing director of a hospital was tortured to death by them (1) – (2).

It’s possible that these reports are true or closer to the truth than other media, but we also have to remember that these governments have their own ulterior motives and that most of the media in China and Russia are controlled by the governments of one party states with rigged elections. If Gaddafi survives then Libyan oil and arms contracts are likely to move from American and European firms to Russian, Chinese and Indian ones. Gaddafi has already started talks with the ambassadors of these countries on this (3). So there’s even more likelihood of their reports containing propaganda than those of the western media.

Xinua news agency have not been exactly unbiased on the causes of riots in Chinese occupied Tibet and Xinjiang, or on police responses to them. There’s no reason to think they’re more unbiased on Libya.

We also have to take account of the fact that Russia Today (RT) and Voice of Russia Radio get most of their funding from the Russian government – and that Russian journalists critical of their government often end up murdered, like Libyan journalists have in the past under Qaddafi, or having their legs and skulls broken (4) – (5). If you watch RT’s coverage of Chechnya for instance you’ll get the impression that the Russian government and their client thug Kadyrov in Chechnya are very humane democrats, with all killings in the country being the actions of “western forces” or terrorist groups. In fact Kadyrov, like Russian forces under Putin, kills anyone who defies his rule in order to keep the main oil and gas pipeline from the Caspian to Moscow under Russian control. Kadyrov has said that he approves of “honour killings” and worse than this many supposed “honour killings” are actually kidnappings followed by rape and murder, then presented by police as an “honour killing” (6). Russian forces along with Kadyrov’s  have tortured, murdered and raped their way across Chechnya for the last 25 years (7) – (9). When Russian journalist Anna Politskaya wrote articles about Putin and Kadyrov’s involvement in this, she was poisoned and when she survived that, shot dead. After the murder of human rights activist Natalya Estemirova, who was investigating the killings of women in Chechnya, Kadyrov said that she was a woman who “never possessed any honour, dignity or conscience” (10).

You will struggle to find out any of this from Russia Today or Voice of Russia coverage, which includes nothing but Kadyrov and Russian government officials condemning the killings, mixed with fawning interviews of Kadyrov telling them that all human rights activists are after is money and that all murders in Chechnya are caused by agents of the US, years after the US ended all support for Chechen rebels to get Russian support for UN resolution 1441 on Iraq (11) – (12). RT and Voice of Russia are the propaganda arms of the Russian government.

(1) = Voice of Russia 23 Feb 2011 ‘Libya riots kill 111 troops, 189 civilians’,http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/02/23/45700481.html

(2) = Xinua news 19 Feb 2011 ‘Two policemen hanged in Libya protests’,http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-02/19/c_13739109.htm

(3) = Xinua news 14 Mar 2011 ‘Gaddafi urges Russia, China, India to invest in Libya's oil sector’,http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-03/14/c_13778113.htm

(4) = guardian.co.uk 08 Nov 2010 ‘Russian journalist beaten unconscious outside office’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/08/russian-journalist-beaten-unconscious-office

(5) = guardian.co.uk 10 Dec 2010 ‘Russian journalist cleared of slander in road controversy’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/10/russia-beketov-cleared-slander-journalist

(6) = St. Petersburg Times 03 Mar 2009 ‘Chechen President Kadyrov Defends Honor Killings’,http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?story_id=28409&action_id=2

(7) = Human Rights Watch 13 Nov 2006 ‘Widespread Torture in the Chechen Republic’,http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2006/11/13/widespread-torture-chechen-republic

(8) = Human Rights Watch 13 Aug 2009 ‘Killing with impunity in Chechnya’,http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/08/13/killing-impunity-chechnya

(9) = Human Rights Watch 09 Mar 2000 ‘Rape Allegations Surface in Chechnya’,http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2000/01/19/rape-allegations-surface-chechnya

(10) = See (6) above

(11) = Russia Today 27 Jan 2011 ‘The US should leave the Caucasus alone – Chechen leader’,http://rt.com/news/kadyrov-chechen-negative-image/

(12) = Guardian 24 Sep 2002, 'Russia lifts objections after Chechen 'deal'', http://www.guardian.co.uk/chechnya/Story/0,,797846,00.html

Predictions for 2011

There will probably be the beginnings of a double dip recession in the UK and the whole of Europe due to 1920s / early 30s style austerity programmes. Growing demonstrations and possibly even riots will take place against the cuts. As unemployment and poverty rise, support for right-wing extremist parties such as the British National Party will increase across Europe, though there will be some revival in the poll ratings of the radical and moderate left and Greens too. Support for pro-austerity conservatives like Cameron in the UK, Merkel in Germany and Sarkozy in France will erode further as cuts start to bite and they're squeezed between the left and centre left on the one hand and the far right on the other.

The SNP will no longer be the largest minority party in the Scottish parliament after the 2011 elections - Labour will be, due to the recession and the SNP being seen as the incumbents in Scotland (plus much misleading Labour, Conservative and media propaganda about Megrahi, who is almost certainly not the Lockerbie bomber and never had a fair trial).

Lib Dems will lose most of their Scottish parliament and council seats. As a result Labour, while taking some seats from the SNP and Lib Dems, will be unable to re-form its past coalition with the Lib Dems - and will be forced to rely on the Greens the way the SNP currently do.

The Greens will have picked up a couple of seats from the Lib Dem collapse on the second vote and from the ongoing civil war between the SSP and Solidarity (unless that’s been patched up by May, which seems unlikely) and will have more influence than they do now.

Labour will win the Oldham by-election with a greatly increased majority, with Lib Dem votes slipping away to Labour and the Conservatives.

Republican control of congress will make it impossible for Obama to get any further meaningful continued welfare support for the unemployed or economic stimulus through congress and put more pressure on him to be more nationalistic and belligerent in foreign policy.

The growing extremism of the Israeli government will make another Gaza style war likely - and wars with Lebanon, Syria or even Iran a high risk.

If the double dip recession spreads globally (with about the only thing currently militating against it being Chinese economic stimulus programmes and increased minimum wages) World War Three over disputes between the allies of the US on the one hand and China and Russia on the other becomes a bigger risk (e.g Georgia, the two Koreas, Pakistan vs India).

War between India and Pakistan over Kashmir or continued Pak military support for terrorist groups in Kashmir and India is also a serious risk.

NATO forces will begin a withdrawal from Afghanistan and an attempt to get a coalition government there, as they have no way to defeat the Taliban while our Pakistani military and Saudi "allies" continue to arm them, partly with arms and funds our own governments have given them - and cannot target the Pakistani military as they require its co-operation to get enough supplies through the ports and passes of Pakistan into Afghanistan.

This will not stop the US or its NATO allies continuing to sell arms and provide military aid to these supposed "allies" as a means of making profits for their own arms and oil firms.

Jihadist terrorist attacks worldwide will continue to grow due largely to the continued US and European policy of backing the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Blockade in Gaza, their support for dictatorships in Jordan, Saudi, Yemen and Egypt - and US cruise missile attacks and US and British special forces operations in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Is trade with China benefiting the majority of Chinese people?

Or is it an unintended effect of the "one child" policy? Or a combination of the two?

and will this just lead to production being moved to countries with cheaper, more repressed work-forces if we don't change our trade policies?

And can we get a balance between liberal trade, socialist protections and environmental issues that will affect us all?

Migrant workers in China - have they and the majority of Chinese people begun to benefit from trade with China - and if so is it only or partly because of the 'One Child' policy?

In the past i’ve claimed that trading with China was benefitting neither the majority of Chinese people nor the majority of people in ‘developed’ countries like those of the EU.

It seems I’ve been proven at least partly wrong, though only partly, since this only seems to be the case in Southern China so far - and because the causes may be as much or more the 'one child policy' and jobs created temporarily by the Chinese government- as much as trade. So far there's no sign of greater democracy, an end to the torture, or an end to the jailing of dissidents or execution without fair trial in China. As some of my relatives pointed out to me wages in parts of Southern China are increasing, working hours have come down to something similar to most EU countries and factories now have a shortage of workers though. 

BBC World Service reports confirm this. Some workers laid off during the credit crisis or who went home for the long Chinese New Year holiday never returned to the factories in the cities, but set up their own small businesses instead – and some of them are making much better wages than they were in the factories. However in much of China unemployment remains high and wages remain low - and many of the jobs created by the Chinese government are temporary and many be ended once the effects of the credit crisis end.

The shortage of workers is likely to lead to more increases in wages and better working conditions to try to attract workers back though - and each generation of workers is better educated and demands better wages.

This has happened despite the lack of democracy in China, despite the lack of trade unions independent of the governing party and despite some terrible exploitation of workers in some factories in the past.

My relatives run their own companies and were initially forced to turn to Chinese firms as suppliers in order to compete with other firms that had already done so, but visited their suppliers’ factories and demanded changes or else switched to different suppliers if workers were badly treated. Their actions may well be one of the driving forces behind improvements in wages, hours and working conditions (if others have done the same – either for moral reasons or to avoid losing business to those who can show they only use suppliers who treat employees well), with increased demand and migrant workers starting their own small businesses back in their home villages (with the Chinese government giving new small businesses three years without taxes to become established) probably being another.

This is all great news and the opposite of what I’d expected – and brings hope that democratisation may follow from this, though i still think EU governments and the US should be making new trade deals with the Chinese government conditional on allowing independent trade unions, allowing opposition parties, independent candidates and free speech and on an end to the practice of sending dissidents and trade unionists to jail, lunatic asylums or ‘re-education centres’.

However it also seems to be at least partly due to China’s one child policy leading to economic growth and demand for workers exceeding population growth – the opposite of the situation in most ‘developing’ countries where lack of welfare payments for the ill and unemployed and high infant mortality rates caused by hunger, poverty and lack of clean water and health care lead to most couples having lots of children in the hope that some will survive and in order to support them when they are ill or old. The one child policy is a success in that sense, but has involved some extreme brutality, with many forced abortions and even killings of babies after birth – and some opponents of the policy being jailed or sent for ‘re-education’ to lunatic asylums.

The question is whether China’s improvements in wages and working conditions are an exception to the rule caused by it’s unique one child policy or an example of a general pattern of the majority benefiting from more trade, or whether it’s some combination of the two.

(I can’t claim any personal moral high-ground here as, while i do buy often buy fair-trade tea and bananas, i’ve also bought lots of things on ebay without having any idea where they were made or what wages and working conditions were like for the people who made them – and some arrived with ‘Made in China’ stamped on them)

Nor is everyone in China living well as a result of economic growth – the BBC also reported on 10 migrant workers living in a public toilet – and large numbers of peasants have been forced off their land with minimal compensation and no choice to make way for property developers building houses for sale to those who have benefited. A 2007 property law change did not affect land ownership, giving peasant farmers little legal redress. This suggests that at least some migrant workers are still suffering as the ‘under-class’ Amnesty International described in a 2007 report (and shortages of workers had already begun in 2006)

So far there is no evidence of democratisation nor of any slowing in the jailing, torture and execution of dissidents or Tibetan or Uighur separatists in China. Executions also remain common, often after unfair trials and with confessions extracted by torture.

The other question is whether the improvements in wages and conditions in China will continue, expand to benefit the whole population and gradually improve standards of living and bring democracy worldwide (as classical liberal theory would predict) or whether the largest firms will now move production to places like Nicaragua, Thailand, Haiti and Honduras where US-backed military coups (with civilian fronts for public relations reasons) have crushed previous democratically elected governments’ attempts to improve wages and conditions for the majority (as socialist theories would predict). Some might argue that this is part of the process of levelling up involved in international trade, but in fact wages in these countries have fallen massively due to repeated military coups and US sanctions and conditions on aid. This supports the socialist argument that ‘developed’ governments are operating a policy of backing coups and dictatorships and using their aid and trade deals to create new pools of cheap labour.

The BBC’s News 24 has had some lamentable TV news reporting on Thailand, with pro-democracy protesters giving blood and then pouring it in front of the parliament building as a protest at the military coup which used ‘constitutional measures’ to replace the elected government, followed by the killing and jailing of protesters reduced to ‘what a bizarre way to protest’ by one BBC anchor, though at least the report did mention an alliance between the wealthy and the military and that most of the protesters were from the poorer majority. The BBC News website is better, but doesn’t mention that the judgements that Thaksin Shinawatra’s government had committed electoral fraud and acted unconstitutionally were made by a Supreme Court purged and reconstituted by the military junta, under a new constitution written up by a majority of appointees of the military junta, which also allowed elected MPs to switch party – allowing the new government to co-opt some members of Shinawatra’s party. The new constitution gave immunity from prosecution to everyone involved in the coup – and the new government has extended that immunity to cover security forces involved in torture and extra-judicial killings through executive decrees.

(Shinawatra had declared the power to rule by decree in late 2005. I don’t know nearly enough about Thailand to know whether this was due to political violence and coup attempts by his opponents, or if it was the main cause of the coup. What is certain is that Shinawatra was democratically elected – and that the new government has never been democratically elected but largely installed by the military, just as the new constitution was installed by the military – and that both Shinawatra’s and Abhisit Vejjajiva’s supporters have beaten, shot and sometimes killed one another’s supporters and police and soldiers – and equally that police and soldiers have killed some of them)

Migrant workers and asylum seekers from Thailand have been beaten, deported and killed under Shinawatra, Abhisit and the Thai military – another parallel with China where, until the recent shortage of them, Chinese migrant workers were frequently jailed for ‘vagrancy’. People who have fled the much worse oppression and hunger in North Korea also continue to be refused asylum and deported by the Chinese government (much like many genuine asylum seekers to the UK). The widespread belief in all countries is that deporting as many asylum seekers as possible as ‘illegal’ and ‘fraudulent’ will help avoid citizens being put out of work by them. In reality it allows the most unscrupulous employers to employ people made ‘illegal’ without having committed any real crime – and to pay them below the minimum wage, because if they go to the authorities to complain they will be deported. In the unlikely event that all immigration (by asylum seekers and migrant workers) was made illegal production would simply move to where the cheap labour was. The only way to avoid that would be protectionism or else improving the wages of the poorest abroad by making future trade deals conditional on improvements in their wages, democratisation etc,

Given the fact that i seem to eventually have been proved at least partly wrong on China at least in terms of wages and working conditions for a large minority – and possibly the majority - i don’t know the answer - though i suspect most Chinese would have suffered less and benefited sooner from trade treaties with more conditions attached (and still could) -but it would be as wrong to claim that free trade always benefits everyone (as one of my former lecturers used to claim – in what he would have called a ‘crude analysis’ had anyone else made such a sweeping statement) as it would be to claim that trade and investment are always harmful.

Certainly Haitians have not benefited from free trade, with falling wages and increasing poverty, hunger and starvation since the 1980s. Most Haitians don’t even get the pitiful minimum wage set by the government. Though public pressure in the EU and US has led those countries’ governments to offer to cancel Haiti’s debt you can be sure that these governments will still try to make debt forgiveness conditional on more ‘free market reforms’ and more privatisation of the few public services and nationalised industries still existing there. The US and EU governments frequently preach free trade to the poorest countries in the world, demanding they open their markets to exports from the US and EU. This is never reciprocated by the US or EU allowing imports from those countries into their own without any trade barriers – and it’s arguable that if it was it might well bring the majority down to the level of the poorest rather than level Haitians or Africans up to European levels.

The flood of first world imports has been most damaging to farmers in ‘developing’ countries, whose own government subsidies and protections from foreign imports have been eliminated due to ‘first world’ governments’ pressure, while the ‘first world’ continues to subsidise it’s farmers – with large scale ‘agri-businesses’ getting far more in subsidies than small scale farmers – and so subsidised first world food exports to these countries put many small farmers out of business. This, combined with pressure to grow cash crops for exports, has turned countries like Haiti from being self-sufficient in food to being reliant on first world imports, which much of their population can’t afford to buy. Increasing poverty and hunger is the result. (People in Malawi also starved due to IMF imposed policies in 2002, as did people in Argentina, a ‘Middle Income’ country, after World Bank and IMF imposed ‘reforms’, which the country only escaped due to the Iraq war increasing the price of oil and allowing Venezuela under Chavez to bail Argentina out)

It’s happened to some extent in China too, due to property developers and corrupt Communist party officials hiring thugs to kill peasant farmers or drive them off their land, the compulsory purchase of peasants’ land at a fraction of it’s actual value and the pollution of soil and water supplies by a poorly regulated industrial revolution. As a result China, while having considerably more bargaining power than small countries like Haiti, is having to import food from Latin America. This in turn leads to rain forests being cut down to grow soya beans, just as they have been for decades to grow

Nor is the process as simple as countries being levelled up to the point that everyone is comfortably off. In the US during the credit crisis surveys showed that % of people had missed meals regularly – and in some cases their children missed meals too, which would have an impact on the development of their minds and bodies as adults. Many millions have been homeless and living in tents. These kind of facts suggest the socialist argument that free trade, if unregulated and if not combined with a strong welfare state and public services, could level the majority down while benefiting only a minority.

There are certainly lots of possible benefits to free trade for the majority – as China now seems to be showing – but it can’t be assumed that these are guaranteed without a balance between free trade and regulation; between welfare, public services and profit; and between profit and environmental costs. While we are still using petrol, oil and diesel as our main fuels large scale trade also has environmental impacts which could lead to many millions losing enough water or food to survive, to them being made refugees by these shortages or by floods and sea level rises. Bio-fuels have been shown to be a poor solution to this in practice – many create more CO2 and other pollution in producing them than is saved by using them as fuel – and growing plants for bio-fuel rather than food has increased the price of food, leading to more hunger and starvation for the poorest (and also more global warming as rain forests are cleared to make money from exporting bio-fuels). (Of course without a policy to reduce the birth rate this food shortage might be much worse, though tax breaks for having less children would be a lot less brutal than forced abortions).

That’s why i believe that future trade deals between governments should include many conditions going beyond reciprocal access to markets.

The results are not determined just by letting companies ‘get on with it’, nor can we blame individual company managers for the system they operate in, just as it’s foolish to think that different bank managers would behave better if left in a deregulated financial market that punishes social responsibility and rewards short-term profit. Governments may have been lobbied by some of these companies, but governments are under no obligation to cave in to the worst companies and grant total de-regulation that allows the least responsible managers to be rewarded for their selfishness, while the most responsible are punished for not minimising costs at all costs. As my relatives have shown in their business dealings in China it is possible to behave morally and have concern for workers even in a relatively deregulated market, but it would be a lot easier and commoner in a market which was better regulated.

Sources by subject:

Migrant workers in China and the labour shortage

BBC News 26 Mar 2010 ‘Why migrant workers are shunning China's factories’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8586672.stm

BBC News 22 Feb 2010 ‘China's Pearl River manufacturing hub 'lacks workers'’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8527621.stm

BBC News 02 Feb 2010 ‘Chinese migrant workers live in toilet’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8493743.stm

BBC News 08 Sep 2009 ‘China's workers return to cities’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8244599.stm

Guardian 24 Jan 2008 ‘Beijing to evict 'undesirables' before Games’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2245620,00.html

BBC News 01 Mar 2007 ‘China 'facing migrant underclass'’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6404977.stm

Amnesty International 01 Mar 2007 ‘China's growing underclass’, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/chinas-growing-underclass-20070301

Forced abortions and infanticide in China

Sunday Times 12 Dec 2004 ‘Chinese abortion outcry saves life of prisoner’, https://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1399900,00.html

Sunday Times 18 Sep 2005 ‘China shamed by forced abortions’, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article567921.ece

Guardian 03 Feb 2006 ‘Under house arrest: blind activist who exposed forced abortions’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/feb/03/china.jonathanwatts

Guardian 25 Aug 2006 ‘China jails human rights campaigner’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/aug/25/china.jonathanwatts

Independent 8 Jan 2008 ‘China expels 500 from party over illegal births’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-expels-500-from-party-over-illegal-births-768806.html

Times 15 Apr 2009 ‘Women rebel over forced abortions - Anger at the regime's extreme birth control regime is growing’, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5733835.ece

Times 12 Jan 2010 ‘One-child policy condemns 24m bachelors to life without a wife’, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6983716.ece

Peasant farmers forced off land by property developers and Chinese government

Guardian 4 Apr 2007 ‘Chinese couple bow to the bulldozers’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2049377,00.html

Guardian 12 April 2005 ‘Chinese village protest turns into riot of thousands’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1457243,00.html

Washington Post 05 Oct 2004 ‘China's Land Grabs Raise Specter of Popular Unrest’, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6968-2004Oct4?language=printer

Asia Times 20 Mar 2007 ‘Property law denies farmers the good earth’, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IC20Ad01.html

Christian Science Monitor 21 Mar 2007 ‘China's great leap forward on property’, http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0315/p01s04-woap.html

BBC News 2 Aug 2005 ‘China faces growing land disputes’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4728025.stm

General human rights abuses, torture etc in China

Guardian 09 Dec 2008 ‘Chinese petitioners forced into mental asylums, claims report’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/09/china-human-rights-asylums

Guardian 24 Jan 2008 ‘Beijing to evict 'undesirables' before Games’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2245620,00.html

Amnesty International 10 Nov 2009 ‘Hasty executions in China highlight unfair Xinjiang trials’, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/hasty-executions-china-highlight-unfair-xinjiang-trials-20091110

Channel 4 (UK) Dispatches 31 Mar 2008 ‘Undercover in Tibet’, http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-20/episode-1

Times 02 Apr 2009 ‘Chinese teenagers die in jail from routine police torture’, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6018439.ece

Times 26 Dec 2009 ‘International outcry after Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo sentenced to 11 years’, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6967856.ece

Times 21 Jan 2010 ‘Chinese democracy leader Zhou Yongjun jailed for fraud’, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6994862.ece

Amnesty International World Report 2009 – country report – China, http://thereport.amnesty.org/en/regions/asia-pacific/china , (see http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/china for press releases by date)

Human Rights Watch World Report 2010 – China, http://www.hrw.org/en/node/87491

Food shortages and hunger caused by ‘free trade’ policies imposed by ‘developed’ countries

Guardian 25 Nov 2002 ‘Child hunger deaths shock Argentina’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/25/famine.argentina

Guardian 29 Oct 2002 ‘IMF policies 'led to Malawi famine'’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2002/oct/29/3

Peter Hallward (2007) ‘Damming the Flood : Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment’, Verso, London, 2007

Thailand

BBC 20 Sep 2006 ‘Thai PM deposed in military coup’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5361512.stm

BBC News 16 Mar 2010 ‘Thai red-shirts splash blood in anti-government protest’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8569483.stm

BBC News 17 Mar 2010 ‘Profile: Abhisit Vejjajiva’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7780309.stm

Wikipedia - 2006 Thai coup d'état, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Thai_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

Wikipedia - 2008–2009 Thai political crisis, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932009_Thai_political_crisis

Wikipedia - 2007 Constitution of Thailand, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_constitution_of_Thailand#Prime_Minister

Amnesty International 13 Jan 2009 ‘Thailand: Torture in the southern counter-insurgency’, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA39/001/2009/en

Human Rights Watch 4 Aug 2005 ‘Letter to Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra - Emergency Decree Violates Thai Constitution and Laws’

, http://www.hrw.org/legacy/english/docs/2005/08/04/thaila11592_txt.htm

Human Rights Watch world report 2010 (covering 2009) – Thailand, http://www.hrw.org/en/node/87403

HRW 15 Apr 2009 ‘Thailand: End of Protests Is Time for Accountability’, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/04/15/thailand-end-protests-time-accountability

HRW 20 Jul 2009 ‘Letter to Thai PM Vejjajiva on the Situation in Burma’, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/07/20/letter-thai-pm-vejjajiva-situation-burma

HRW 20 Jan 2010 ‘Thailand: Serious Backsliding on Human Rights’, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/01/20/thailand-serious-backsliding-human-rights

HRW 23 Feb 2010 ‘Thailand: Migrant Workers Face Killings, Extortion, Labor Rights Abuses’, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/02/22/thailand-migrant-workers-face-killings-extortion-labor-rights-abuses

Bio-fuels and industrial and agricultural pollution as causes of food shortages, deforestation and climate change

guardian.co.uk 23 Feb 2010 ‘China's soil deterioration may become growing food crisis, adviser claims’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/23/china-soil-deterioration-food-supply

guardian.co.uk 09 Feb 2010‘Chinese farms cause more pollution than factories, says official survey’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/09/china-farms-pollution

Guardian 20 May 2005 ‘Rainforest loss shocks Brazil’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2005/may/20/brazil.environment

Guardian 28 May 2004 ‘Lula seals deal to feed China's booming cities’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/28/china.brazil

Guardian 10 Jan 2010 ‘China becomes world's biggest exporter’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/10/china-tops-germany-exports (2nd sentence of 6th paragraph reads ‘Soya bean imports hit a record 4.78m tonnes in the month, with a surge in supplies from the United States and Brazil.’)

Institute of Science in Society 11/12/06 ‘Biofuels: Biodevastation, Hunger & False Carbon Credits’, http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BiofuelsBiodevastationHunger.php

Reuters 05 Mar 2010 ‘EU drafts warn of biofuels' link to hunger’, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62420Y20100305

WFP Crisis Page: High Food Prices, http://one.wfp.org/english/?ModuleID=137&Key=2853