Editorial from KP20, September 29, 2001
Close to the opening of the new parliamentary session, Denmark's political agenda has been considerably changed due to the upcoming US war. The government and the bourgeois opposition are intensely campaigning on the US war policy. Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen of the Social Democratic Party has not hesitated to declare Denmark ready for war. Even now, some of the consequences are appearing; a number of law reforms and decisions meant to be quickly adopted by the national parliament are in the making. The Budget is being switched over to a budget of war. A series of attacks on the democratic rights are going to be carried out by implementing a new "terror act". At increased speed the building of the EU is being carried out.
The government wants to change its draft budget by taking advantage of the
war rearmament and war hysteria. Both the government and the "opposition"
are ready to give up social key issues in favour of business, war research,
military and intelligence.
According to Foreign Minister Mogens Lykketoft, the government will change the
order of the priorities of its draft budget so that it matches the scandalous
handshake of the EU and Prime Minister Nyrup Rasmussen on participating in the
US terror war.
Neither the former nor the present Minister of Finance, Pia Gjellerup, wants
to explain from where the money shall be taken. Only one thing is sure: The
working class and the general population are the ones who are going to pay.
Pia Gjellerup says there is not yet an estimate of how much the terrorist attacks
on the US are going to cost the Danish state!
Two of the issues being present in the public debate have been the establishment
of a classified security laboratory - amounting to at least 50 million DKr.
- for testing against biological terrorist attacks, and the substantial improvement
of all what is called "civil readiness". Apart from this, the only
thing the government wants to say about the switch-over is that it is going
to be expensive. The same holds for the government proposals of increasing appropriations
to the "anti-terror work" of the police and the intelligence services.
Minister of Justice Frank Jensen has announced a package of terror laws for
November. Even now, it is already clear that his package will be a more or less
copy of the corresponding package, which is on the way in the EU. Among other
things, the package will illegalise organizations, however not Nazi organizations,
and collections of money for certain organizations. The police access to telephone
tapping and surveillance of the Internet are going to be extended. The intelligence
services will get more money as well as more personnel, and they are to an even
larger extent than now going to be under the command of the US and the EU. The
Aliens Law will be changed, permitting the intelligence services to interfere
in asylum cases and legalizing the extradition of asylum seekers to persecution
in foreign countries.
The chairman of the Socialist People's Party (SF) Holger K. Nielsen says the
SF is ready to revise its policy up till now in the light of the new political
agenda, and that the SF will unconditionally support a proposal of more money
for the intelligence services: "A terrorist could be your neighbour. He
is not some kind of imam who looks strange. Cells at the moment functioning
in the West have presumably been made," he told the Berlingske Tidende.
In the EU, the EU top has decided the establishment of a joint "anti-terror corps", the acceleration of the construction of the military units of the EU army till before the scheduled 2003, and the strengthening of the Europol and the other intelligence services of the EU. That is a bill, which the working class in the EU countries has been picked out to pay as well. The German federal government has already proposed a "war tax" in Germany.
At extraordinary meetings, the Ministers of Economy and Finance have also decided
that the European monopolies - not at least the airline industry which accounts
for a considerable part of the advanced war industry of the EU - shall get large
government funds.
The war lunacy will influence the agenda of all the fields of the class struggle.
Regarding the struggle against the EU, the construction of the political and
military union, that is, the common foreign and security policy, has taken big
steps forward. The EU nightmare is unfolding. The rulers of Denmark are demanding
the abandonment of the Danish EU opt-outs. And now a downright smear campaign
against the opt-outs and the Danish "no" to the euro is going on.
In its editorial of September 22, the Boersen, the daily of finance capital,
wrote: "We have almost withdrawn from the international community as much
as the Taliban regime in Afghanistan."
Consequently, supporters of the opt-outs are equal to the Talibans. Then who
are the consistent opponents of the EU? People of Bin Laden?
The stage has been set for a dark autumn where all reactionary forces, using
the terror bombings and the war, will sharpen the class struggle. The answer
to this is a broad coalition against the US war and to raise the struggle in
all fields being attacked, defending democracy and conditions of life.
September 25, 2001