Politics

FOCUS: America's Longest War Takes a Deadly New Turn

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=54287">Jason Owens, Yahoo</a>

Saturday, 06 June 2020 11:13

Excerpt: "The rush of incoming aircraft roused Waheeda and her sleeping family. It was long after dark on a cool spring night in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, a Taliban stronghold of fertile valleys and stark mountains that borders Pakistan."

A woman recovers in a Kunduz hospital after a U.S. airstrike that killed 13 people, including nine children. In the first half of 2019, for the first time, more civilians were killed by U.S. and Afghan forces than by the Taliban, according to the U.N. (photo: Andrew Quilty)

America's Longest War Takes a Deadly New Turn

By Jason Motlagh and Kavitha Chekuru, Rolling Stone

06 June 20

Under the Trump administration, the U.S. military has ramped up a reckless air war that is killing Afghan civilians in record numbers

he rush of incoming aircraft roused Waheeda and her sleeping family. It was long after dark on a cool spring night in Afghanistan�s Nangarhar province, a Taliban stronghold of fertile valleys and stark mountains that borders Pakistan. The sound of warplanes is a familiar echo across the skies here, but it had never come so close to Waheeda�s mud-brick home. Her father, a village doctor named Nazar Gul, got up to see what was going on when the first bomb struck the family compound, killing five of her cousins. Her father was moving toward the blast site when a second bomb exploded, she says. In an instant, both of her parents and five of her sisters vanished. �It was dark and dusty, and nothing was visible,� the 14-year-old remembers. �I just knew they were all martyred.�

Two of Waheeda�s little sisters, one of them just five days old, lay crying on the ground as helicopter gunships began strafing what remained of the compound. Waheeda was hit in the leg. She wanted to flee, but it was impossible to discern a clear path out in the darkness, so she swept up her sisters and took cover under an eave of the blown-out kitchen. When the attack finally ended, Waheeda picked her way over mounds of dirt and rubble and made it to the village center to find help. Under the light of cellphones, relatives and neighbors worked past dawn to retrieve the bodies. Twelve people in all.

�When I saw my nieces and sister-in-law, I could not control myself,� Waheeda�s uncle and now guardian, Sherif Khan, recalls, breaking into sobs at the memory. �I thought that my heart would explode, but human beings have tough hearts.� The March 9th, 2019, attack was carried out by U.S. air support, the American-led NATO mission would later confirm, and had been called in by Afghan forces in an operation against the Taliban. But more than a year later, Khan has not received answers from the U.S. military as to why the home of his brother, the only doctor in the village, was targeted. He says the U.S.-led mission, Resolute Support, has made no recognition of his loss. �We Afghans are very kind and compassionate people. Our hearts are full of mercy,� he says. �But no one has come.�

We heard the same story from several families in Afghanistan while making an Al Jazeera English documentary in March, in partnership with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, an independent news organization based in London that has been tracking civilian casualties from U.S. airstrikes since 2015. Civilians are being wiped out by U.S. bombs, with zero acknowledgment made, much less an apology or compensation. It is a stark departure from the first half of the decade, when civilian deaths were declining and allegations of harm were more thoroughly examined on the ground. �Survivors are often left completely in the dark over the results of U.S. investigations into their case,� says Jessica Purkiss, a reporter with the BIJ. �This is about owning your mistakes and saying sorry. And this is about accountability, in a largely unaccountable war.�

Last year, the U.S. dropped more bombs on Afghanistan than in any year in the past decade. There were more than 1,000 civilian casualties, 700 dead and 345 wounded, from U.S. and Afghan airstrikes, the fifth year in a row airstrike casualties have risen, according to the U.N. But by the Pentagon�s tally, U.S. military operations killed only 108 civilians, a vast disparity that watchdogs who conduct on-the-ground investigations contend is part of a consistent pattern of grossly undercounting casualties. Confronted by journalists and human rights monitors with witness testimonies, visual and material evidence, and timelines of attacks that confirm U.S. military involvement, the U.S. frequently provides no response or denies responsibility. (Resolute Support officials declined our requests for an interview.)

According to the U.N., more than 35,000 Afghans have perished since it began tracking civilian casualties, in 2009. And while insurgents continue to be responsible for the vast majority of these deaths, the first half of 2019 marked a grim milestone: For the first time, the U.S. and Afghan militaries were responsible for more civilian deaths than the Taliban.

Since Donald Trump was elected in 2016 on a pledge to end endless wars, he has compensated for the drawdown of U.S. ground forces � there are around 10,000 in Afghanistan, down from a peak of more than 100,000 in 2010-11 � by loosening restrictions on airstrikes. The ramped-up air war was intended to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table with the U.S., which finally happened in February, when the two sides set conditions for the U.S. withdrawal. But experts say the airstrikes and resultant spike in civilian deaths only help the Taliban�s cause and undermine a central government the U.S. has spent billions of dollars propping up over almost two decades. In areas where �people are not politically connected, they will support whoever can keep them safest,� says Andrea Prasow, the Washington, D.C., director of Human Rights Watch. �And when the U.S. is killing civilians, it�s not the U.S. and it�s not the Afghan government that can keep them safe.�

A 2017 change in U.S. policy dictated that instead of having to be in contact with enemy combatants to call in a strike, U.S. forces can now remotely order them on areas where the Taliban is known to mix with the civilian population. The drastic spike in civilian deaths has been the predictable result. �Almost no civilian in Afghanistan has escaped being personally affected in some way by the ongoing violence,� Tadamichi Yamamoto, the U.N. special representative for Afghanistan, said in February. Trump�s gloves-off attitude was perhaps epitomized by the April 2017 dropping of the Mother of All Bombs, a $16 million, 21,600-pound explosive deployed against Islamic State fighters in Nangarhar. The U.S. military insisted it �took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties,� but within days local politicians were reporting several people killed.

There has also been a change of protocol that allows Afghan army forces, which are now doing the bulk of the fighting, to radio for U.S. air support on their own. Poorly trained and often outgunned by battle-hardened Taliban fighters, Afghan soldiers are calling in more airstrikes than ever before, often based on less reliable intelligence, according to Human Rights Watch.

Meanwhile, with fewer U.S. troops on the ground, the onus of investigating allegations of civilian harm is increasingly falling on Afghan authorities with limited capacity and political will. In the rare instances when cases have been reopened by the U.S. military, it�s usually thanks to third-party reporting by independent investigators and journalists. In response to a query by the BIJ regarding the airstrike that hit Waheeda�s village, a U.S. military representative ultimately said it was �possible� there were civilian casualties in the attack, and that their investigation was closed.

�There was a time when U.S. forces would actually investigate on-the-ground civilian harm in Afghanistan,� says Marc Garlasco, a former civilian-protection officer for the U.N. mission in Afghanistan and a veteran war-crimes investigator. �Today, that just doesn�t happen anymore.� Instead of visiting attack sites and hospitals and interviewing survivors, the U.S. military relies primarily on Afghan-military accounts, pilot testimonies, satellite images, and drone feeds. �They�re getting an inadequate picture, frequently concluding that no civilians have been harmed in strikes, where, in fact, they have been,� says Prasow.

�Well-substantiated incidents can be discarded if they cannot be independently proven with U.S. internal data,� which is often limited, according to Larry Lewis, a researcher at the Center for Naval Analyses and the co-author of a landmark 2010 study on civilian protection in Afghanistan commissioned by the U.S. military. Lewis believes �U.S. numbers tend to be too low, and outside estimates tend to be too high. The truth is in the middle.�

�While the Trump administration expanded the use of lethal strikes,� adds Lewis, �both the Trump and Obama administrations were marked by a fatal flaw in their counterterrorism policies: an overemphasis on killing individuals, which is a holding action at best, while neglecting accompanying actions to reduce the factors that lead to violent extremism in the first place. We are no better off than when we started counterterrorism operations after 9/11, and arguably in a worse position because of that narrow and flawed approach.�

Absent lessons learned, avoidable errors that kill civilians are compounding the torment of Afghans, whose support was once seen as critical to defeating the Taliban. And civilian survivors like Waheeda, searching for answers as to why their families were targeted, are condemned to grieve without closure, enduring a collective trauma that has locked Afghanistan in a cycle of war for the past four decades. �In our time, there�s only been war � we haven�t had a peaceful life for one day,� says Waheeda. �Innocent people are killed. Why does this happen?�

On a brisk morning, we drive through Kunduz City, a northern provincial capital of more than 300,000 people. In the absence of U.S. and NATO ground forces, Kunduz has degenerated under the heel of corrupt, abusive local militias and ethnic rivalries. In 2015, the Taliban seized the city for 15 days, the first takeover of any Afghan city since the U.S. invasion, and a shocking indictment of the Afghan army�s capacity to defend vital urban centers. Though the government generally has more support in cities, Kunduz remains one of the most contested. A bomb detonates overnight during our stay, said to be part of a militant attack that never materializes. Afghan army convoys of pickups and armored Humvees topped with masked gunners swiveling .50-caliber machine guns patrol the streets. We pass the derelict Doctors Without Borders trauma hospital, where at least 42 people were killed in an October 2015 errant airstrike by the U.S.

About 20 miles southwest of the city, we turn onto a dirt track that rumbles past fallow fields, bullet-pocked walls, and earthen army bunkers with tattered Afghan flags: This is where the writ of the government ends and Taliban country begins. A few minutes later and we pull into a destroyed compound that was once the home of a government agriculture employee named Imamulldin (some Afghan men use only one name), who joins us along with a half-dozen of his family members.

An elegant man with a salt-white beard and striped black turban, Imamulldin surveys the rubble. �There was my brother�s wife along with her two kids,� he points to a patch of ground. �She held them tightly in her arms.� The compound had been destroyed by a U.S. airstrike in July 2018. �I pulled 12 family members out myself,� he says. Among them were his sister and her children. His nephew, Abdul Jabar, lost his wife and two daughters; Jabar�s two-year-old son somehow survived. Since that day, Imamulldin feels like �a walking dead body,� he says. �I move around, but I don�t feel alive.�

Abdul Jabar is holding up family belongings left over from the bombing � a shredded blue tunic, part of a refrigerator, a suitcase � when the hum of an airplane snaps everyone�s head to the sky. We are standing in the open between two front lines. Feet begin to shift, uneasy.

A neighbor who was present the day of the bombing walks up and introduces himself. �It was the worst incident I ever witnessed in my life,� says Qari Fazal Hadi, a local teacher. �The ground and soil [from the explosion] reached our house.� But he stresses that airstrikes like it had done nothing to diminish the Taliban�s power around Kunduz. Two days after the U.S. signed a deal with the militants in February, he added, �the Taliban were coming here and carrying out attacks on checkpoints.� In late May, there was another attempt to take the city.

Another plane passes high overhead, followed by the incoming thump of a pair of Afghan army helicopters. Suddenly, a burst of gunfire rings out from the Taliban position, no more than a hundred yards away. It is time to leave.

The Afghan army and U.S. military at first asserted that all the casualties at Imamulldin�s compound were Taliban fighters. But the bodies of women and children delivered to Kunduz�s main hospital said otherwise, moving local officials to declare that civilians had died in the attack. The Afghan military then acknowledged the civilian deaths, but claimed the Taliban, not the U.S., must have been responsible. In yet another version of events, a U.S. military spokesman in Kabul maintained there were no civilian casualties (without providing any details as to how that assessment was conducted), but did confirm there were U.S. airstrikes.

It was not the first time doubts were cast on the rigor of U.S.-military investigations in Kunduz, where airstrikes have been blamed for civilian deaths at least six times since 2015. Seven months before the attack on Imamulldin�s home, a strike in the Chahar Dara district killed civilians during fierce clashes between the Taliban and U.S. and Afghan forces. Faiz Mohammad, an elderly milk seller with a gentle smile, tells us he arrived at the scene to find his son Bashir Ahmad �in pieces� on the ground. �I collected
him in my shirt, and then we buried him,� he says. The nine-year-old son of neighbor Mohammad Nabi lost part of his right leg in the attack.

The U.N. mission said at least 10 civilians had been killed (district officials said it was 16 civilians, according to documents we reviewed). But the U.S. military insisted there were no civilian deaths, and that it confirmed this after speaking to hospitals and clinics in the region. Yet when the BIJ contacted regional medical facilities, they all confirmed that they had, in fact, treated civilian casualties but had not heard from the U.S. military. Indeed, the director of the Kunduz Regional Hospital, Dr. Naeem Mangal, told us that the U.S. military had never contacted him about any airstrikes alleged to have harmed civilians in the region.

Imamulldin eventually had a bit more luck. Unlike many poor Afghans who are easily brushed aside, he is educated and well-connected in Kunduz. He and other families petitioned provincial officials and the Afghan Ministry of Defense to investigate, and they ultimately confirmed that 14 civilians � and no Taliban � were killed in the strike on his compound. But the U.S. military, fully aware of the Afghans� about-face, reiterated its position that no civilians were killed. �It was hard to take,� says Abdul Jabar of the U.S. dismissal. �The entire world knows there were no Taliban; they were all my family.�

Several months later, they learned that the U.N. had succeeded in pushing the U.S. military to reopen its investigation � and admit civilians were killed. The U.S. admission of guilt was buried on page 41 of the annual U.N. report on civilian harm. Imamulldin and his family have received condolence payments from the Afghan government, but they have still not received what they want most: an acknowledgment from those responsible for their loss and an explanation as to why their home was hit.

The dwindling number of ground troops helps explain some of the U.S. military�s failure to conduct thorough on-scene investigations of civilian airstrikes, but critics say it�s not an excuse. Officers could easily create more direct ways for people to report civilian harm, and could cooperate better with the U.N. and Afghan monitors. They could interview witnesses and relatives by phone, or bring them to safe places for questioning, common-sense protocol that the U.S. military is not carrying out.

�The U.S. has shown and proven in the past that it can implement tactics, techniques, and procedures that minimize civilian harm,� says Garlasco, the former U.N. investigator. �You can�t always zero out civilian casualties, but we owe the Afghan population better than what we�re doing now.�

When the war began in 2001, U.S. military planners saw the Taliban as a ragtag movement that could be bombed into oblivion for harboring the Al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11th attacks. But with each passing year, civilian casualties from U.S. and NATO airstrikes climbed steadily. By 2008, the death toll from the airstrikes reached a then-high of 552, according to the U.N., with overall civilian deaths jumping nearly 40 percent from the previous year. Public outrage helped propel a Taliban resurgence in the backcountry and inflamed tensions with the Afghan government, compelling U.S. war planners to take civilian harm more seriously. The next summer, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, introduced new counterinsurgency tactics that championed boots-on-the-ground engagement and protecting civilians at all costs � a �tactical directive� to limit airstrikes that were corroding public support.

�I don�t think we understood the level of frustration among the civilian population,� says a former senior Defense Department official who served in Afghanistan. �McChrystal was the one commander I truly believed had a civilian-first mindset and knew that civilian casualties hurt us over the long run in terms of making more enemies. It was not about a body count, and we could not shoot our way to a solution.� A year later, Gen. David Petraeus, McChrystal�s replacement, ordered a study on the patterns of errant airstrikes that resulted in even stricter guidelines.

Between 2008 and 2011, �we see people like McChrystal and Petraeus putting in tactical directives, constantly saying �You will not kill civilians� � and it works,� says Garlasco. In 2011, the civilian death toll from U.S. airstrikes plummeted to around 100 people, a pattern that would hold for several years. �Leadership makes a difference,� says Garlasco. �Then when the Trump administration comes in, we see a complete flip. And it really goes to the idea that we�re going to bomb the Taliban into submission and bomb them to the peace table.�

The Pentagon is in the process of developing a new policy to improve transparency and the rigor of investigations following a 2018 study that found U.S. civilian-casualty assessments in Iraq and Syria were unrealistically low. But Afghanistan was not included
in that study, notes Lewis of the Center for Naval Analyses, �and there seems to be little appetite for additional assessments� there as the Trump administration pulls out. �The danger now,� says Jason Lyall, a professor of transnational studies at Dartmouth who has advised the U.S. government on Afghanistan, �is that U.S. airpower is becoming increasingly indiscriminate as local sources of intelligence dry up in the face of a hasty U.S. withdrawal.�

The Trump administration insists the airstrike strategy forced the Taliban to the negotiating table, but the fallout from civilian casualties suggests the opposite. �The Taliban clearly did not come to the table out of desperation,� says Andrew Watkins of the International Crisis Group. �They continue to operate at a high capacity around the country and control wide swaths of the rural countryside.�

Indeed, as public trust in the Afghan central government, mired in corruption and infighting, is at a nadir, the insurgency is as robust as ever, with the Taliban controlling or holding sway over roughly half the country. Under the terms of the U.S.-Taliban agreement in February, the U.S. pledged to withdraw all its troops within 14 months if the Taliban reduces violence, enters peace talks with the Afghan government, and assures the country will not become a safe haven for terrorists. But nowhere does the U.S. state it will abandon its commitment to leave if the Taliban violates its promises, which it is already doing. �I wouldn�t call it a �strategy� so much as a fast walk to the exit,� says Lyall. �There�s no real conditions-based thinking here.�

Moreover, should the Taliban enter serious negotiations with the Afghan government, there are no provisions in the U.S. deal to protect Afghans from the Taliban�s extremist agenda, nor guarantees for women�s rights or any kind of transitional justice. All these years later, at a cost of more than 2,400 American soldiers, tens of thousands of Afghan lives, and some $2 trillion dollars, the U.S. is getting no more out of the agreement than political cover to get out of a war most Americans have forgotten.

With prospects for official recognition of civilian deaths receding, some Afghans who have lost family members to violence are coming together to acknowledge one another. In a cool, dimly-lit basement in the capital, Kabul, the Memory Box project aims to dignify the dead and let their families decide how their stories will be recorded and remembered. Glass boxes hold personal mementos from civilians killed over 40 years of conflict: a father disappeared by the Soviet-backed government, a husband killed during civil-war shelling, a teenage boy executed by the Taliban, a schoolgirl blown up by an Islamic State suicide bomber. And, at the end of the exhibit, a box yet to be filled: a reminder of the families we met who may never receive any recognition of their loss.

The people gathered here are a diverse mix of ethnicities, men and women, young and old, some of them maimed by war. There are angry rants and tears, but the experience is healing: Strangers are holding space for one another, united in grief. �The majority of people in this country are war victims,� says Salim Rajabi of the Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization, which launched the Memory Box project. �No one is listening to these people � they are completely forgotten. We are trying to create a shared history. This history must be told by war victims.�

Bringing the session to a close, Rajabi has everyone stand in a circle and hold hands in prayer. He leads the group in three deep breaths: One is for those who are gone, a second is for unity, and a third, �For what?� he asks the group. �For justice,� they exhale.

A hundred miles away, in the city of Jalalabad, Sherif Khan still wakes up every day aching for answers about what happened to his brother, wracked by a sense of helplessness. �You get confused and anxious when you fail to get justice,� he says, wincing. �The children left behind require bearing, and they need the love of their parents.�

Waheeda now lives under his care. �I lost my parents. I lost my sisters. I lost my home and my good life,� she says. �I have no one now.� Confined to a concrete-block apartment in a cramped corner of the city, she looks after her two younger sisters, far from the simple country life she knew, spent playing in apple orchards and watching cricket matches with her family. Now, she is haunted each day by the helicopters and planes taking off around-the-clock at a nearby military airfield, and by all the questions that seem destined to go unanswered.

10 comments

FOCUS: By Deploying Police Without Badges, Barr Threatens Force Without Accountability

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=44720">The Washington Post Editorial Board</a>

Saturday, 06 June 2020 11:05

Excerpt: "Attorney General William P. Barr oversaw the deployment of a show of military force in the District in response to protests in recent days."

William Barr. (photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

By Deploying Police Without Badges, Barr Threatens Force Without Accountability

By The Washington Post Editorial Board

06 June 20

ttorney General William P. Barr oversaw the deployment of a show of military force in the District in response to protests in recent days. His �flood the zone� strategy included the use of men in military tactical gear without any markings to indicate their names or agencies where they work. He thus took a page from the dictator�s handbook, threatening force without any accountability. It was entirely unnecessary.

In 2014, in Crimea, special forces with no insignia occupied strategic positions on the peninsula, then part of Ukraine, and with stunning swiftness, Russia seized it. Who were those �little green men� with guns and no badges? President Vladimir Putin of Russia later acknowledged they were his country�s forces. The same deception was also used when Russia instigated war in eastern Ukraine.

Mr. Putin had something to hide � his violent subterfuge. Who has something to hide now on the streets of the District? Why did these unmarked troops refuse to identify themselves when asked by journalists and protesters? A Justice Department official told The Post�s Devlin Barrett that there has been no instruction for federal agents not to identify themselves, and that it may have happened because �the mobilization happened so quickly.� This is an inadequate response. Troops do not run out the door and just forget to wear insignia. Was Mr. Barr in control of his forces? Were they were ordered to hide something?

In September 2014, the Justice Department�s Civil Rights Division criticized the Ferguson, Mo., police department for allowing officers to work without wearing nameplates. The Justice Department said, �Officers wearing name plates while in uniform is a basic component of transparency and accountability. It is a near-universal requirement of sound policing practices and required under some state laws.� Failure to do so �contributes to mistrust and undermines accountability� and conveys a message that officers �may seek to act with impunity.�

The Daily Beast reported that some of the mystery forces in the District were �special operations teams from the Bureau of Prisons.� The bureau confirmed this in a statement to NBC, saying the �crisis management teams� were sent to Washington and Miami at Mr. Barr�s request, and carry badges but were �not wearing BOP specific clothing as they are serving a broader mission.� This is another lame explanation. Mr. Barr also personally authorized the clearing of peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square on Monday so President Trump could walk to his photo op at St. John�s Episcopal Church. Two U.S. Park Police officers have been put on administrative leave after video showed Australian reporter Amanda Brace and cameraman Tim Myers being assaulted while reporting live on that melee. Was Mr. Barr in control of the Park Police, too?

The Justice Department�s inspector general and Congress ought to seek answers. In a democracy, where law enforcement works for the people and not against them, it must be identifiable � and accountable.

39 comments

Inflection Point

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=54596">Al Franken, AlFranken.com</a>

Saturday, 06 June 2020 08:12

Franken writes: "Late last week Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson said that outrage at the murder of George Floyd 'may be an inflection point.'"

Al Franken. (photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Inflection Point

By Al Franken, AlFranken.com

06 June 20

ate last week Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson said that outrage at the murder of George Floyd �may be an inflection point.�

That�s when I thought to myself, �I hope he�s right. I hope this is an inflection point. But, inexplicably, it never is. It wasn�t after Michael Brown, or after Trayvon Martin, or Philando Castile, or Ahmaud Arbery.

Then a few things happened. Demonstrations across the country continued to increase in size and number, showing that an incredibly diverse and growing number of Americans are, yes, angry, but also deadly serious and not going away.

Then came the president�s insane photo op and the indictments of the three Minneapolis police officers who abetted Derek Chauvin�s murder of George Floyd. Americans began to feel that justice might actually be served this time. The demonstrations swelled yet again across the nation.

It�s beginning to look as if this might actually be an inflection point after all. But real, nationwide reform will be possible only if Democrats beat Donald Trump and his enablers in the Senate. If Democrats win both the White House and the Senate, Americans will expect them to comprehensively take on the brutalization of people of color that has been an unrelenting part our country�s history.

These are just some of the elements of reform that I would propose that Democrats take up in the first 100 days:

A National Use-of-Force Standard � Here�s a shocking fact: We do not know how many Americans are killed every year by police. As of today, agencies representing only 40% of law enforcement officers report data to the National Use-of-Force Data Base. The day Joe Biden is sworn in, Congress needs to pass and the president sign legislation requiring every law enforcement agency in the country to report its data. The same day Biden should appoint a commission to study the data with the goal of writing a National-Use-of-Force Standard. Police forces that do not meet the standard must then be required to sign onto a consent-decree with the federal government like the dozen or so that the Obama Administration enforced in places like Ferguson.

Consent Decrees � The Obama Administration entered into fifteen consent decree agreements with law enforcement agencies that had been using excessive force. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions� last act going out the door was to make it far more difficult for the Justice Department to enter into and enforce consent decrees with police departments that have a record of bad behavior. The new AG should reverse Sessions� final order on Day One.

Make it Easier to Get Rid of Bad Cops � Police have an essential and enormously difficult job. It is in the public�s interest that police be able to organize and bargain for their salaries and benefits. But too often police unions have used their strong negotiating position to make it harder to get rid of bad cops like Derek Chauvin who have an extensive history of excessively violent, racist behavior. Local independent review boards need the authority to override the unions to get rid of the Derek Chauvins. And those officers should not be able simply to move on to another police department in a separate jurisdiction where they can continue terrorizing members of that community.

Training � In the Senate I led efforts to reauthorize and fund Crisis Intervention Training, which teaches police and corrections officers to recognize and successfully manage situations fueled by mental illness. A crucial piece of CIT is De-Escalation Training. After Miami Dade County adopted CIT training for each and every cop, police shootings plummeted from an average of two per month to a total of six over the next eight years. That�s not only saved lives. It has saved Miami taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements and improved bond ratings. And yet, four Republican senators (Coburn, Lee, Lankford, and Cruz) each placed holds on my bill to reduce the $25 million authorization I was seeking. (I tricked them and got it passed in an omnibus bill at a higher authorization.)

Implicit Bias Training � This training is designed to expose people to their own unconscious biases. We all have them. For example, I think Jews are, on average, funnier than non-Jews like Coburn, Lee, Lankford, and Cruz. See what I did there? Police officers really need to be exposed to their own implicit biases and be given the tools to adjust their unconscious patterns of thinking and eliminate, or at least reduce, their own discriminatory behaviors. Implicit Bias Training has been proven to be more effective than giving police departments armored vehicles.

Reform Qualified Immunity � Qualified immunity is a legal concept that protects public officials from being sued by civilians who have been harmed by their actions. It serves the purpose of allowing government officials to carry out their duties without fear of constantly being harassed by lawsuits. But in practice it can give sweeping legal immunity to officials (say, cops) who can inflict violence on citizens and even take their lives. Because of a few Supreme Court decisions, the balance has swung in the direction of providing protection to some bad actors. Congress has the power to change that. And it should.

Earlier this week, Terrence Floyd wiped away tears as he spoke to a crowd gathered at the site of his brother�s murder. Hate and destruction, he implored them, �won�t bring my brother back.� The crowd roared. �Let�s do this another way,� he shouted. �Let�s stop thinking that our voice don�t matter, and vote.� Another roar. �Educate yourself�Educate yourself and know who you�re voting for. And that�s how we�re going to hit them, because it�s a lot of us. It�s a lot of us.�

Donald Trump didn�t count on Terrence Floyd. He didn�t count on the millions of peaceful protesters, mostly young people � African American, Latino, Native American, Asian-American, and White Americans. They, like George Floyd�s brother, Terrence, have taken the lead. Let�s follow through � past November. And to a more just and joyful future.

24 comments

The Way We Produce and Patent Drugs Will Kill COVID-19 Patients

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=54594">Leigh Phillips, Jacobin</a>

Saturday, 06 June 2020 08:06

Phillips writes: "It's hard to overstate the wickedness of Big Pharma's lobbying efforts to ensure patent protection for COVID-19 drugs and potential vaccines. But the real architect of these crimes is not CEOs or shareholders, but the market."

'There is no guarantee that any drugs, vaccines, or tests will be provided to whoever requires them regardless of ability to pay.' (photo: Thana Prasongsin/Getty Images)

The Way We Produce and Patent Drugs Will Kill COVID-19 Patients

By Leigh Phillips, Jacobin

06 June 20

It�s hard to overstate the wickedness of Big Pharma�s lobbying efforts to ensure patent protection for COVID-19 drugs and potential vaccines. But the real architect of these crimes is not CEOs or shareholders, but the market.

s the veil is starting to be lifted on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to our initial, very limited understanding, we are also learning how, far from viewing all of humanity as being �in this together,� pharmaceutical firms and their lobbyists view this disaster as a golden opportunity.

The vicious fights we�ve seen in the last couple of months between US states and EU member states over access to tests, ventilators, and personal protective equipment (PPE) is nothing compared to the global brawl that is emerging over patents with respect to drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines � even before they have been identified.

The tales we have heard of jurisdictions buying up drugs claimed to be effective against COVID-19 and causing worldwide shortages, of orders suddenly going missing and subsequently found to have been redirected to a wealthier buyer, of prioritization of distribution based on ability to pay rather than on need, and of profiteering that sees the price of the likes of masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer soar, is child�s play compared to the emerging wickedness of patent protection and profiteering with respect to COVID-19 drugs and potential vaccines.

VIP Treatment

In March, drug firm Gilead sought an extension to its patent monopoly on a potential treatment for the coronavirus, the existing drug remdesivir, and only backed down in the face of outrage. It is still likely to charge $4,000 per patient for the drug even though the cost is around $9 per patient.

This month, we have seen the British CEO of French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi, Paul Hudson, declare that the US government would get access to any vaccine first because it had contributed the most funding � a quid pro quo demanded by Washington.

The European Commission responded by saying that the firm had received tens of millions in domestic public funding, while the German press denounced the company as �soulless� and �disloyal� for wanting to squeeze governments into giving greater subsidies. A furious Emmanuel Macron summoned Hudson to the �lys�e Palace to explain himself, and the normally pro-free-market French leader insisted that any vaccine be produced as a �public good for the world, not subject to the laws of the market.� Sanofi quickly rowed back its comments, with its chairman later assuring that no country would receive preferential access.

This is the second time that the Trump administration has been caught trying to poach therapeutics from elsewhere. In March, it was revealed that the US government had offered large sums of money to a German company, CureVac, with a vaccine candidate to relocate its research division to the United States and develop the vaccine �for the United States only.� Berlin denounced the move and offered its own incentives to try to ensure that the firm stays in Germany.

Meanwhile, AstraZeneca�s CEO Pascal Soriot has also said that the UK will enjoy priority for the fruits of its COVID-19 research endeavors.

But Gilead, Sanofi, AstraZeneca, and Washington are far from the only villains. In May, diplomats from the UK, Switzerland, Japan, and other countries with significant pharmaceutical sectors joined the United States in working to have language removed from a World Health Organization (WHO) resolution that referenced the right of countries to override patents during health emergencies.

It is grotesque for nations to be pushing and shoving to get themselves to the front of the line to access COVID-19 therapeutics, but to work to prevent access to them by those least well-off is another order of deviltry.

Uneven and Unnecessary

History is repeating itself in any case. In the mid-1990s after deaths from HIV/AIDS had peaked and begun to decline in the developed world thanks to the discovery of antiretroviral medicines (ARVs), the HIV/AIDS epidemic continued to cripple South Africa primarily due to the high cost of the drugs � some $10,000 per year per patient. The newly democratic nation was threatening to produce or import generic drugs to combat the disease, but the pharmaceutical industry was steadfastly opposed and the Clinton administration, whose health care policy was at the time overseen by Hillary Clinton, threatened Pretoria with trade sanctions.

In 2001, however, after years of campaigning by groups like South Africa�s Treatment Action Group, a militant and science-based AIDS activist organization, and of negotiations by developing nations, the Global South finally managed to win an amendment to the World Trade Organization�s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the �Doha Declaration,� which clarified that governments do not have to respect IP protections during public health emergencies.

Large pharmaceutical firms have never been happy with this defeat. Over the years, the United States in particular has attempted to restrict the number of medicines the declaration covers, while most developing countries have insisted that all drugs should count. The European Union has positioned itself somewhere in the middle, suggesting a long � but still finite � list of drugs that the Doha Declaration covers.

And now, in the past few weeks, diplomats from countries with sizable pharmaceutical sectors have pressed to strip any reference to the Doha Declaration in a resolution on COVID-19 at the World Health Assembly, the WHO�s decision-making body.

Instead, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) and its diplomatic water carriers argued that firms need their patents to recover their investment in therapeutic research, development, and production. The sector�s business model requires high prices in the developed world first for a number of years before it is willing to countenance production of low-cost generic versions.

�We have never needed innovation so much as now, and this is probably the worst possible time to weaken intellectual property,� the trade association said. Equitable access to drugs and vaccines is desirable, they feel, but this should occur essentially through charity, through government donation and partnerships.

The World Health Assembly resolution, which had been sponsored by the European Union, in the end did reference Doha, recognized COVID-19 drugs, tests, or vaccines are a �global public good,� and encourages the development of a voluntary patent pool to support equitable and affordable access to any. The United States did not vote against the resolution, but it immediately distanced itself from the document via an objection note, saying that it �sends the wrong message to innovators who will be essential to the solutions the whole world needs.�

Seizing the opportunity to present China as committed to the global commonwealth in contrast to its American rival, President Xi Jinping immediately declared that the vaccines that it is developing �will be treated as a public good.�

But development and medical NGOs such as Oxfam International and M�decins Sans Frontiers (MSF) were quick to remind that while the passage of the resolution is a victory, it has many flaws. Most egregiously, it does not require pharmaceutical firms to pool their patents, which would have allowed anyone with the capacity to manufacture generic copies of therapeutics to do so. There is also no guarantee that any drugs, vaccines, or tests will be provided to whoever requires them regardless of ability to pay.

This is not merely a question of justice with respect to those who cannot afford treatment; such market-based restriction of access encourages the spread of this infectious disease as those unable to pay � and the poorest billions of the planet count among them � continue to spread the virus. That is, universal, free access is in the interest of all humanity, even the rich.

As a result, these organizations want to see a two-step approach: a mandatory patent pool to allow international collaboration, sharing of knowledge, and a one-stop-shop for generic producers; and what is called compulsory licensing at the national level.

Under compulsory licensing, a government authorizes the use of intellectual property without the need to seek the patent owner�s consent, and pays the rights holder a fee decided via legislation or by some other public body instead of negotiation in the market between buyer and seller. A number of countries, including Canada, Germany, Israel, Chile, and Ecuador have already passed compulsory licensing legislation or resolutions backing compulsory licensing with respect to any COVID-19 therapeutics.

Costa Rica was the initiator of a request that the WHO set up a voluntary patent pool, potentially via the existing UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), which was established in 2010 to expand access to tuberculosis, HIV, and hepatitis therapeutics. The MPP negotiates voluntary patent agreements with pharmaceutical companies to enable greater access for generic manufacturers. Extending this system to cover COVID-19 should make it easier for generic manufacturers to also produce these new drugs and vaccines at a lower cost than if they had to shop around to each patent owner.

But it is crucial to understand that a voluntary system, while perhaps the best we can currently hope for, provides an alternative to compulsory licensing. Even those who are at the forefront of working to extend access to drugs, tests, and vaccines, such as the chair of the MPP, Marie-Paule Kieny (also a special COVID-19 adviser to French president Emmanuel Macron), and the MPP�s director, Charles Gore, feel that right now it is essential that any patent spats that could inhibit product development be avoided at this crucial time.

Without an urgent establishment of a voluntary global master plan, Kieny and Gore argue, �the situation could quickly devolve into a competitive, litigious, country-by-country scrum for interventions in which some regions emerge as winners but most others will be losers � and with deadly consequences.� As with the production of generic HIV/AIDS drugs, some countries were able to stand up to US and other Western intimidation while others weren�t, and their populations suffered as a consequence.

Blame the Game

Prathiba Singh, a judge sitting on the High Court of Delhi, a career intellectual property litigator, and one of the authors of India�s intellectual property legislation, makes a similar argument. Writing in The Hindu, she worries that without a trustworthy and voluntary UN patent pool while patent holders create barriers to use of their IP on the basis of patent rights, there is a risk that �the world will start despising patents� and push forward with compulsory licensing.

Singh, a supporter of IP protections, argues that a rush to compulsory licensing or even state acquisition would inhibit innovation at a time when we need it more than ever. �To protect the sanctity and integrity of patent systems, and in order to ensure that an anti-IP sentiment is not generated globally,� a WHO-orchestrated patent pool is the best option. She reminds pharmaceutical firms that they are still likely to make billions under such a regime. After all, seven billion people is the largest market there has ever been for any product.

But all of this is essentially an admission of defeat, born of a belief that innovation only happens through the market. As Singh puts it, the purpose of creating intellectual property rights is for the common good. The quid pro quo that IP represents that in exchange for the costs of innovation, firms are awarded a limited-term monopoly on their discovery or invention.

However, as economist Mariana Mazzucato has shown in her investigations into innovation policy and the economics of innovation, market actors tend to be loath to spend resources on fundamental research, which typically offers an unknown return on investment. The bulk of innovation across most sectors over the past half-century, from mobile telephony and computer miniaturization to biotechnology and clean energy, was in fact developed in government or university labs, or via public-sector risk-sharing.

A 2015 report from California�s Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy found that of the top 100 pharmaceutical companies, 64 spent twice as much on marketing and sales than on research and development (R&D), 58 spent three times, 43 spent five times, and 27 spent ten times.

Facing down the globalized world�s first pandemic, we don�t have time at the moment to entirely decommodify the pharmaceutical sector. So perhaps a voluntary patent pool is the best we can hope for right now.

But over the long term, as we emerge from this pandemic, we should reject the notion that pharmaceutical discovery and production needs to be performed within the market. Just as many countries recognize that health care is too important to be left to the vagaries of the capitalist mode of allocation of resources, we need to remove the pharmaceutical sector from such competition, as well. We know that the public sector already does most of the work here, anyway.

Equally important, it is essential that we begin to recognize that the villainy of Gilead, Sanofi, AstraZeneca, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations is simply the way that markets work. The US, UK, and Swiss diplomats are not wrong when they say that pharmaceutical firms need patents in order to charge sufficiently high prices to recoup their costs and make a profit. It is not �crude competition� that is at fault, as suggested in a well-meaning open letter signed by some 140 current and former world leaders calling for a patent-free, low-cost �people�s vaccine� that is free at the point of need. It is not �corporate capitalism,� for small businesses are just as beholden to this incentive structure.

All businesses, large and small, whether owned by private individuals, shareholders, or by workers or consumers (in the case of cooperatives) are governed by the same requirement to protect their profits or they will go under.

Thus, it is not the diplomats, lobbyists, or pharma executives who are the anti-humanist criminals, who are merely captives of the blind imperatives of the market, but the market system itself.

At the time firms were making their decisions about patent protection strategy with respect to COVID-19, the projection of deaths by the end of this year was as high as forty million, according to Imperial College London�s COVID-19 Response Team on March 26, in the absence of interventions. About fifteen million of these would occur in the Global South, some two and a half million in sub-Saharan Africa, and just over three million in Latin America and the Caribbean.

This was the infamous report that made everyone pause, the document that, alongside harrowing footage of overwhelmed Italian intensive care units filled with patients dying alone and scared, prompted such profound dread � and such unprecedented responses.

A pair of months later, as more about the disease has been revealed, as the scale of the threat has receded somewhat, and as we now see pharmaceutical firms squabble over threats to the patents for the presumptive suite of drugs, diagnostics, and ultimately vaccines to treat COVID-19, it is worth remembering that dread and those numbers.

Moral Calculation

Of course, there have been interventions, and we know much more about the virus, the disease it causes, and what medical and social interventions are working best to reduce transmission and prevent the worst outcomes.

In the developing world, a number of nations have had remarkable success in flattening the curve. Having been given a head start, many African nations engaged in pandemic planning and imposed social distancing measures (of varying levels of restriction on freedom of movement and association) much earlier than rich countries with respect to the timing of outbreaks. And some of the better-off developing states such as Senegal, Ethiopia, and Ghana might even consider themselves among the first tier of nations with respect to contact tracing, innovative and low-cost testing techniques, and commitment to health care provision regardless of ability to pay.

It also appears that the relative lack of road infrastructure in many parts of Africa that at other times is a frustrating barrier to economic development for its restriction of travel and trade, in the time of COVID-19 also restricts transmission of the disease.

Nevertheless, many countries in the Global South are performing much less well than the likes of Ethiopia and Senegal.

At the time of writing, the likes of Tanzania, Nigeria, and Somalia in Africa and of Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile in South America had been particularly badly hit. On May 20, the number of new daily cases in Latin America overtook the United States and Europe. The test positivity rate is 91 percent in Algeria and 87 percent in Sudan, which means it is very likely that large numbers of cases are going unrecognized � what the Economist magazine is calling �ghost hotspots.�

Doctors and gravediggers from African metropoles like Kano, Nigeria, and Mogadishu, Somalia, report being overwhelmed with infections and burials, again anecdotally suggesting the impacts in these regions are much greater than detailed in official case and mortality reports. Tanzania stopped releasing data three weeks ago after a spike in cases.

It is a mixed bag. Last week, the World Health Organization issued fresh projections for outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa using a model that for the first time took into account these sorts of specificities of the region, including meager road infrastructure and the continent�s younger demographic profile. There is actually a lower risk of exposure and transmission in much of Africa than there is in the developed world. Now with a greater understanding of the epidemiology than just weeks ago, the WHO report is much more optimistic than the early warnings from Imperial College.

Nevertheless, the numbers remain troubling. Even taking into account interventions, a quarter of a billion Africans are likely to be infected this year, the new WHO numbers say, and as many as 190,000 are likely to die. And that�s just 2020. The virus is here to stay until we develop a vaccine. And while transmission is lower than in the Global North, limited health care capacity is at much greater risk of being overwhelmed. The knock-on effects of the disease on other illnesses such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria could double that figure.

And we are learning that survival, as welcome as that is over death, is not akin to recovering from a common cold or seasonal flu � regardless of what region of the world we consider. In its berserk march through the body, the virus is not just capable of inflicting profound potentially long-term or permanent damage to the lungs, but can also cause liver and kidney failure, strokes, seizures, neurological injury, blood clots, and heart attacks. Some 44 million Africans are still projected to have some sort of symptoms, resulting in anything from a couple weeks of sniffles to chronic lung conditions to brain damage.

There will not be 40 million dead, as in the original, worst projections. But when we consider the actions of the presumptive COVID-19 patent holders, at the time they made their decisions, they knew that up to 40 million could die, and still they pressed forward to protect their intellectual property. And in any case, there already have been, at the time of writing, 350,000 deaths and 5.5 million infected. And every effort to overcome patent protections will reduce the numbers of dead and infected and every effort to defend them will increase those numbers.

In terms of moral calculation even if not (yet) in outcome, how is this any different from some of the worst crimes against humanity of the twentieth century, the Ukrainian Holodomor or the Great Chinese Famine, where the crime was not that decision-makers consciously set out to kill millions as in the Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide, but rather the crime lay in that they knew that millions could be killed as the result of their policies?

Such comparisons are not tossed out thoughtlessly, but deliberately, soberly, and fully cognizant of the resonances, for the ethics of decisions taken by such firms must have initially been assessed in those early days knowing full well the upper bound of how many could die. And now that the projections are much lower but still truly awful, they continue to act in the same way, always in the knowledge of what the consequences of their actions might be.

And yet, and yet, and yet, they also have had no choice but to do what they do.

The architect of these crimes is not a Big Pharma CEO, but the market.

7 comments

Social Progress Deferred in Chile

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=54593">Angela Vergara, NACLA</a>

Saturday, 06 June 2020 08:05

Vergara writes: "The shopping mall is the icon of neoliberal Chile. Since the last years of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1989), they have mushroomed throughout the country, altering even the most remote landscapes."

Chile's 'historic' protest march from above. (photo: BBC)

Social Progress Deferred in Chile

By Angela Vergara, NACLA

06 June 20

Governmental failures to respond to Covid-19 only reinforce the demands of social movements in Chile.

he shopping mall is the icon of neoliberal Chile. Since the last years of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1989), they have mushroomed throughout the country, altering even the most remote landscapes. Their climate-controlled environment, credit card system, parking lots, and food corners are a popular space of consumption and recreation in a hyper-privatized country. But this model has been built on the backs of workers, most of them women and young employees, who labor long hours for meager wages and with little job security.

Both from an epidemiology and labor perspective, the mall embodies the impact of Covid-19 on Chilean workers. When the government ordered the temporary shutdown of malls to slow down contagion, Ripley, one of Chile�s largest department stores, closed its more than 50 stores throughout the country. Although the successful chain reported revenues beyond $1.7 million in 2019, it left more than 3,200 sales employees in complete uncertainty about their future. Other large companies such as CENCOSUD and La Polar have followed suit, quickly passing the pandemic economic costs to their employees. In other words, the retail sector, a local union declared, has �chosen to safeguard the profits �over the possibility of empathizing with its workers.�

The attitude of the large retail companies reflects the sharp inequality that permeates every aspect of Chileans� everyday life. Seven months after the start of the estallido social (popular uprising) that exposed the fractures of Chile�s neoliberal model built under the Pinochet dictatorship, Covid-19 is a harsh reminder that not all Chileans have the same rights and protections. If working and middle-class families are struggling to isolate themselves in small apartment buildings, members of the elite flew to the beach to avoid the lockdown during the Easter holiday. Emergency laws have benefited the business class. Working families�both wage labor as well as informal and independent workers�are carrying the economic, emotional, and physical tolls of the pandemic.

Covid-19 and Chilean Workers

Chile registered the first Covid-19 cases in early March and traced them back to Chilean tourists traveling to Europe and the stop of cruise ships in the south. As of May 30, the government has confirmed near ly 100 thousand cases and over 1,000 deaths. The numbers keep rising. More than 80 percent of the cases are concentrated in the metropolitan region and Santiago, the capital city of about 5.6 million people. Because of its overcrowded transportation system and high-rise and low-income apartment buildings, the city has been especially vulnerable to the spread of the virus. In reality, only the rich can afford social distancing. Early government responses were disorganized and uncoordinated. They included partial quarantine measures in specific neighborhoods but not entire cities, unclear reporting, public disagreements regarding the exact figures, and disputes between the Ministry of Public Health and the head of the medical community. President Sebasti�n Pi�era�s low approval ratings and the loss of legitimacy of the country�s most important public institutions, including the police force, have worsened the sanitary crisis.

In response to the economic uncertainty caused by lockdowns, employers have reduced wages and working hours and laid-off the workforce. Large retail stores, intercity bus companies, and international chains such as Starbucks Coffee Chile rushed to announce cuts and downsizing.

The devastating impact of Covid-19 on employment and working arrangements in Chile does not come as a surprise. On the eve of the global pandemic, near 20 percent of the workforce was employed in the retail sector. At the same time, self-employment and independent work were the fastest job growing sector, employing 30 .4 percent of the workforce. These are the hardest sectors hit by the pandemic, but also include the most vulnerable workers and some of the most anti-union employers. After the government expanded the lockdown to cover most of Santiago and part of the northern region of Tarapac�, the Central �nica de Trabajadores (CUT), Chile�s most important labor confederation, urged businesses not to use the sanitary crisis as an excuse to lay off workers and impose �unilateral and authoritarian� agreements.

Neoliberalism has intensified the crisis. One of the legacies of the military dictatorship is an extremely privatized pension system. Based on individual saving accounts, pensions are meager and, in many cases, way below the minimum wage. A large number of people over 60 years old can never afford to retire and continues working, most of them without a contract. This situation is also especially dangerous since they are the population most vulnerable to contract the virus and have little legal protection as informal workers.

Additionally, Chilean labor laws offer few protections. A long work-week, one of the highest among OECD countries, low wages, post-strike retaliation, unfair firing, and job insecurity are the norm, not the exception. As the CUT argued in the weeks following the October national uprising, the social movement stemmed from the �long history of abuses, corruption, and inequality, not only of income but also of privileges and treatment that millions of workers live daily.�

Government Responses

The government responses to the impact of the pandemic on employment have benefited large capital enterprises over workers. In March, the Ministry of Labor announced new regulations for remote work to protect employees� rights when working from home. While the law guarantees salary and benefits, labor leaders and social organizations are concerned about the re-negotiation of the work-day in extraordinary circumstances and with little input from unions. They have expressed concerns about the difficulties in enforcing the law and denounce that remote work, as it is currently defined, will further flexibilize work and the workweek, increase subcontracting, and erode traditional benefits. Women�s organizations have warned authorities that remote work without a discussion about childcare, unpaid labor, and domestic violence would further exploit female workers.

A more controversial measure is the law of employment protection. The emergency law, enacted in early April, allows businesses to suspend labor contracts temporarily. Employers would be free from the contractual obligation to pay salaries, and, to survive, employees would access unemployment funds. The law benefits the business class and not workers. First, it authorizes workers to cash unemployment funds. These are individual saving accounts built from worker, employer, and state contributions. In other words, the CUT declared on May 1, �The Government chooses to impose a law that transfers the entire cost of the crisis to the workers themselves,� who will subsidize employers with their unemployment savings. Second, although large companies, including RIPLEY, LATAM, and CENCOSUD, claimed to be unable to pay workers� salaries, they distributed huge benefits among their shareholders.

Covid-19 has become a dramatic display of the country�s economic and social inequality, the disparities in access to health care and social assistance, and the persistence of a neoliberal framework that has systematically undermined labor rights. Since October 2019, protesters across the country have questioned the neoliberal model of economic growth and the political and economic legacies of the period of military dictatorship. The brutal repression unleashed by the police reminded people of the legacy of human rights violations and the persistence of a culture of abuse and corruption within the police force.

One of the movement�s accomplishments was the call for a referendum to decide whether and how to replace the 1980 Constitution, the most important political legacies of the military dictatorship. Because of the sanitary crisis, the National Congress postponed the plebiscite until October 25.

The pandemic may have disrupted social mobilization, but it has not stopped it. Moreover, the unequal impact compounded with the government�s controversial responses have demonstrated the legitimacy of the movement�s core demands, including the right to social security, health care, and work protection.

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