cross-posted from: ibbit.at/post/70089

Demonstration on October 24, 2019, Conakry (Wikipedia Commons).

Following Guinea’s widely contested (and largely boycotted) constitutional referendum on September 21, 2025, Professor Mohamed Saliou Camara argues that the military junta has exploited the electoral process to establish authoritarian rule at the expense of social democracy.

In this exclusive interview for CounterPunch, Camara, Professor of History, Philosophy, and Journalism and Chair of the Department of African Studies at Howard University in Washington, DC, shares his analysis of Guinea’s political crisis. As an authority on Guinean political and social history, Dr. Camara is the author of several works such as, His Master’s Voice: Mass Communication and Single‑Party Politics in Guinea under Sékou Touré, Political History of Guinea since World War Two, and Health and Human Security in the Mano River Union. In his work, he also analyzes the country’s democratic transitions and derailments by the military junta under Colonel Mamady Doumbouya. Doumbouya promised a return to civilian rule but never delivered.

In this discussion, Camara delves into the junta’s suspension of oppositional political parties, independent electoral institutions, and the revision of the transition charter which basically amounts to allowing military figures to manipulate current and future elections. He summarizes the importance of civil society movements (youth-led) and heroic people like activists and journalists Foniké Mengué and Habib Marouane Camara. Their enforced disappearances in violation of international law symbolize the cost of resistance in today’s Guinean political climate.

Daniel Falcone: How do you explain the suspension of Guinea’s main opposition parties so close to the constitutional referendum and how does it compromise Guinean legitimacy?

Mohamed Saliou Camara: The only logical way the CNRD’s unilateral suspension of Guinea’s main opposition parties so close to the constitutional referendum can be explained is by considering it within the broader political climate of intimidation, cooptation, and exclusionary governance that the Doumbouya government has instituted with one thing in mind: having Mamady Doumbouya maintained in power through a highly undemocratic plebiscite.

In the past three years or so, Doumbouya and his CNRD have shown their true colors, turning the transition that they had pledged to lead in accordance with the will of the people and the common good of the country to a democratically elected leadership into a nationwide campaign of intimidation of democratic actors and civic leaders, many of whom have been silenced or forced into exile. Opposition leaders like Cellou Dalein Diallo of the UFDG, Sidya Touré of the UFR and, of course, former President Alpha Condé of the RPG are considered persona non grata while members of their parties are subjected to all kinds of political manipulation. Evidently, this unfolding climate of undemocratic governance does tarnish Guinea’s international image and, worse of all, it takes the country years back by undoing the political, economic, and sociocultural progress it has made against all odds.

The massive propaganda that the CNRD has been spreading notwithstanding, most Guineans are disappointed and worried, because when Doumbouya’s junta overthrew Alpha Condé and justified the coup by citing Condé’s falsification of the existing constitution to run for a third term, Guineans welcomed the change and were encouraged by Doumbouya’s pledge to return the country the constitutional order in a timely and democratic manner. Now, Guineans are disappointed by his betrayal of the people’s trust and expectations. Furthermore, they blame Alpha Condé for having made Doumbouya the powerful head of the newly created Special Forces and having provided him with the opportunity or excuse to orchestrate the September 2021 coup.

Daniel Falcone: What are the consequences of the newly created Directorate General of Elections (DGE) for “fairness and transparency” in the recent referendum? (This may impact the general elections upcoming in December).

Mohamed Saliou Camara: Just like the constitution being touted for a referendum, the DGE is customized to give legitimacy to Doumbouya’s desire and determination to stay in power against the pledge he made when he overthrew Alpha Condé. To be fair, though, the CENI (Independent Electoral National Commission) that it replaced also catered to the powers that be when it came to managing elections and tallying the results. For instance, the Guinean electorate is still baffled by the CENI’s decision to declare Condé winner of the second round of the 2010 presidential election over Cellou Dalein Diallo who had won the first round with 40% of the votes against Condé with only 18%. In fact, CENI’s bad reputation can be traced back to the Lansana Conté era.

Therefore, I would argue that keeping that agency or replacing it with a DGE makes little difference in the general context of what one may call Guinea’s non-democratic electoralism. We should not, however, lower the standards or our expectations, if for no other reason because two wrongs don’t make a right. Yet, we should point out that elections in Guinea have very rarely been transparent, free, and fair; regardless of what national officials or foreign observers say. We, who have experienced, witnessed, and been caught up in the whirlwind of Guinean politics, we know what it has been and why the current situation is a culmination of a long spiral.

Daniel Falcone: To what extent does the draft constitution impact the transition charter’s promise that junta leaders would not be eligible to run in future elections? It looks like political groundwork is being laid for Mamady Doumbouya to stay in power.

Mohamed Saliou Camara: The short answer to this question is that the draft constitution alters everything in the original transition Charter. In fact, and as indicated earlier, before the issuance of the Charter itself, Doumbouya had made a solemn pledge that neither he nor another member of his junta would be a candidate in the elections that will come at the end of the transition. Guineans, Africans, and the International Community gave that pledge the value and momentum that it should carry as the word of honor of a military officer to his nation. In the last three years, however, a massive campaign has been developed through comités de soutien that popped up across the country in highly corrupt circles to advocate for Doumbouya to be the candidate in the next presidential election.

Doumbouya’s CNRD has been distributing large amounts of money, cars, and similar gifts to people of all walks of life who are eager to create or adhere to such support committees and promote the “Oui” vote in the constitutional referendum. This is happening while Guinea’s Central Bank is running out of cash even to pay government employees. Where is that money and those cars coming from to fuel the rampant trend of political corruption? Many Guineans suspect that they are coming from the massive amounts of gold, bauxite, iron ore and similar mineral resources that foreign countries and industries are extracting from their country that remains impoverished despite its immense natural resources.

Daniel Falcone: What role are civil society actors and youth-led movements playing in the current moment and could you speak to the significance of figures like Foniké Mengué and Habib Marouane Camara in the pro-democracy struggle? I met organizers protesting by the UN that commented on the invisibility of their rights and human rights issues.

Mohamed Saliou Camara: Civil society actors, especially youth-led movements, rose against the CNRD’s campaign after it reneged its pledge to lead a legitimate transition and let the people choose democratically the country’s next leadership. They began to hold peaceful protests and town halls to mobilize, inform, sensitize, and guide civil society communities so they can decisively stand their ground and help preserve the legitimate rights and interests of the nation. This is exactly when the CNRD began showing its true colors by arresting, kidnapping, detaining, and killing leaders and members of these movements.

Such leaders as Fonikè Mengué and Habib Marouane Camara, whose fate remains unknown to this day, are henceforth heroes whose example many more are determined to follow, especially within the Guinean Diaspora. Despite what the protesters around the UN told you, Guinean Diaspora protests are more visible because the junta has unleashed a campaign of intolerance against anyone who challenges its intentions and dictatorial actions inside the country.

The post Guinea and the Challenges for Social Democracy and the Left appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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cross-posted from: ibbit.at/post/70103

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

On Sept 23, 2025, the Foreign Policy Association and the Committee of 100 hosted a debate on the topic “Is Deglobalization Inevitable?,” with Walden Bello, co-chair of the Board of Focus on the Global South, and Edward Ashbee of the Copenhagen Business School, with Bello defending the affirmative side, after a fireside chat with Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz. The audience judged Bello’s position the more persuasive of the two sides.

In the 1990s, we were told that we were entering an era, known as globalization, that, owing to free trade and unobstructed capital flows in a borderless global economy, would lead to the best of all possible worlds. Most of the West’s economic, political, and intellectual elites bought into this vision. I still remember how the venerable Thomas Friedman of The New York Timeslampooned those of us who resisted this vision as “flat-earthers,” or believers in a flat earth. I still recall the equally venerable Economist magazine singling me out as coining the word “deglobalization,” not with the aim of hailing me as a prophet but as a fool preaching a return to a Jurassic past.

Thirty years on, this flat-earther takes no pride in having forecast the mess we are in, to which unfettered globalization has been a central contributor: the highest rates of inequality in decades, growing poverty in both the Global North and the Global South, deindustrialization in the United States and many other countries, massive indebtedness of consumers in the Global North and whole countries in the Global South, financial crisis after financial crisis, the rise of the far right, and intensifying geopolitical conflict.

Globalization did not lead to a new world order but to the Brave New World.

Snapshots of a Dreary Era

Let me present three snapshots of that era of globalization that we are now leaving:

Snapshot No 1: Apple was one of the main beneficiaries of globalization. Apple led the escape away from the confines of the national economy to create global supply chains propped up by cheap labor. Let me just quote The New York Times in this regard:

Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple’s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States. Instead, they work for foreign companies in Asia, Europe, and elsewhere, at factories that almost all electronics designers rely upon to build their wares.

Apple, of course, was not alone in the drive to deindustrialize America. It was accompanied by fellow IT corporations Microsoft, Intel, and Invidia; automakers GM, Ford, and Tesla; pharmaceutical giants Johnson and Johnson and Pfizer; and other leaders in other industries and services, such as Procter and Gamble, Coca Cola, Walmart, and Amazon, to name just a few. The favorite destination was China, where wages were 3-5 percent of wages of workers in the United States. The “China Shock” is estimated, conservatively, to have led to the loss of 2.4 million U.S. jobs. Employment in manufacturing dropped to 11.7 million in October 2009, a loss of 5.5 million or 32 percent of all manufacturing jobs since October 2000. The last time fewer than 12 million people worked in the manufacturing sector was before World War II, in 1941.

Snapshot 2: The removal of the barriers to the free flow of capital globally led to the Third World Debt Crisis in the early 1980s, which almost brought down the Citibank and other U.S. financial institutions, and the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, which brought down the so-called Asian miracle economies. Removing global capital controls was accompanied by the deregulation of the U.S. financial system, which led to the creation of massive profit-making scams through the so-called magic of financial engineering like the frenzied trading in sub-prime mortgages. Not only were millions bankrupted and lost their homes when the subprime securities were exposed as rotten, but the whole global system stood on the brink of collapse in 2008, and it was saved only by the bailout of U.S. banks, with U.S. taxpayers money, to the tune of over $1 trillion.

Snapshot 3 is the famous French economist Thomas Piketty’s summing up of the U.S. economic tragedy of the first quarter of the twenty-first century.

[I] want to stress that the word “collapse” [in the case of the United States] is no exaggeration. The bottom 50 percent of the income distribution claimed around 20 percent of national income from 1950 to 1980; but that share has been divided almost in half, falling to just 12 per cent in 2010–2015. The top centile’s share has moved in the opposite direction, from barely 11 per cent to more than 20 percent.

Accompanying this massive increase in inequality in the United States has been an increase in poverty. Globally, according to available data, since the financial crises of 2007-08, wealth inequality has risen, and now the top one percent owns half the world’s total household wealth.

Let me turn from this nostalgic recounting of the past, and once more, let me focus on our good friend Apple. It is now leading the so-called reshoring process. It has read the handwriting on the wall and, though this will negatively affect its bottom line and scramble its operations, to protect the remainder of its super profits, it is leading the reshoring of its supply chains, with a planned $600 billion investment in the manufacture within the United States of its iPhone, iPad, MacBook, as well as in the fabrication of semi-conductor chips. Boasting that Apple manufacturing plans will create 450,000 jobs in the United States, CEO Tim Cook admitted to being a hostage to Trump’s push to deglobalize the operations of American firms, saying, “The president has said he wants more in the United States…so we want more in the United States.” Where Apple goes, others follow, among them U.S. chipmakers Intel and Nvidia, automotive leader Tesla, and pharmaceutical giant Johnson and Johnson.

But American firms are not the only hostages to politics. Among the foreign firms that have bowed to Trump’s ultra-protectionist push via unilateral tariff increases by regionalizing or nationalizing their supply lines are Hyundai Motors, Honda Motors, Samsung electronics, Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC, and pharmaceutical firm Sanofi.

Although reshoring or relocation has proceeded by fits and starts over the last decade, under the first Trump administration and the Biden administration, it is likely to accelerate over the next few years, despite constraints and inefficiencies, as economic nationalism rises in the United States and the West. In 2023, an exhaustive study of North American firms showed that that more than 90 percent of manufacturing companies in the region had moved at least some of their production or supply chain in the past five years. Another study conducted at the same time showed that by 2026, 65 percent of surveyed companies would be buying most key items from regional suppliers, compared to just 38 percent in 2023. With Trump imposing unilateral tariffs on Mexico and Canada, companies are realizing that relocating to the NAFTA partners may not appease Trump; they will have to relocate to the United States itself, despite the disruption and chaos that might accompany that process, such as that which saw 300 workers vital to the Hyundai facility in Georgia arrested by ICE and deported to Korea.

Rage: Triggered by the Left, Expropriated by the Right

The tremendous global anger and resentment at the dystopia to which corporate-driven globalization has led us is perhaps the biggest reason why deglobalization will be the trend for a long, long while. That rage first came from the left, which inflicted a reversal from which corporate-driven globalization never recovered during the historic Battle of Seattle in December 1999. But it was Donald Trump and other forces of the far right that successfully rode that anger to political triumph in the United States and Europe in the coming decades.

In other words, the politics of rage, not the economics of narrow efficiency in the service of corporate profitability is now in command. In the United States, globalization created two antagonistic communities, one that benefited from it due to their superior education and incomes, the other that suffered from it owing to their lack of both economic and educational advantages. The latter is the vast sector of the population that Hillary Clinton called the “deplorables,” but is better known as the “Make America Great Again” folks or MAGA base. That community will not easily forget either the sufferings brought about by the deindustrialization spearheaded by Apple and other well-known TNCs or the slights they endured from Hillary, whom they regard as being in the pocket of Wall Street.

A second reason for the strength of the deglobalization wave is that the multilateral order that served as the political canopy or system of governance for free trade and unobstructed capital flows is on the brink of collapse. The World Trade Organization, which was once described as the jewel in the crown of multilateralism, no longer functions as a system for governing world trade, partly owing to sabotage by the United States, when under Obama and later Trump and Biden, Washington could no longer rely on favorable rulings in trade disputes. The International Monetary Fund has not recovered from its reputation of promoting austerity in developing countries and its push for unfettered capital flows that brought down the Asian tiger economies. The World Bank also is discredited for its complicity in imposing austerity measures as well as for the wrong-headed policy of export-oriented industrialization for Global North markets that the Bank prescribed as the route to prosperity for developing countries—one that is now especially fatal for those who followed it given the ultra-protectionism sweeping the United States.

Third, national security, both economic security and military security, has displaced prosperity through trade and investment as the principal consideration in relations among countries. Both the Biden and Trump administrations have banned the transfer of advanced computer chips to China, and more such measures will follow. Reorganizing and regionalizing, if not nationalizing, access to and supply lines for key resources for advanced technologies like lithium, rare earth, copper, cobalt, and nickel is now an overriding concern, the aim being not only to monopolize these sensitive commodities but to prevent competitors from getting hold of them.

Two Routes to a Deglobalized World

The issue is not the inevitability of deglobalization but what form deglobalization will take. Deglobalization marked by ultra-protectionism in trade relations, unilateralism and isolationism in economic and military relations, and the creation of a domestic market geared principally towards the interests of the racial and ethnic majority is one way to deglobalize. That is indeed where Trump is leading the United States.

But there is another way to deglobalize, the key elements of which I laid out in my book Deglobalization: Ideas for a New World Economy 25 years ago.

One, we do not demand a withdrawal into autarky but continued participation in the international economy, but in a way that ensures that instead of swamping it, international market forces are harnessed to assist in building the capacity to sustain a vibrant domestic economy.

Two, we propose that via a judicious combination of equality-enhancing redistributive measures and reasonable tariffs and quotas, the internal market will again become the engine of a healthy economy instead of being an appendage of an export-oriented economy.

Third, we promote participation in a plurality of economic groupings–those that allow countries to maintain policy space for development, instead of imprisoning them in a single global body, the World Trade Organization, with a uniform set of rules, one that favors the interests of transnational corporations instead of the interests of their citizens.

Fourth, inspired by the work of Karl Polanyi, we advocate the re-embedding of the market in the community, so that instead of driving the latter, as in global capitalism, the market is subject to the values and rhythms of the community.

And finally, in contrast to the far right, we uphold the notion of community as one where membership is not determined by blood or ethnicity but by a shared belief in democratic values.

That is the alternative we offered a quarter of a century ago. This fluid system of international trade that allows especially the economies of the Global South the space to pursue sustainable development is not far from the flexible global trading system before the takeoff of globalization in the late eighties, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Twenty five years ago, we were promoting and we continue to promote a route of progressive deglobalization, one that avoids the extreme of the doctrinaire dystopia of corporate-driven globalization, on the one hand, and, on the other, savage unilateralism and protectionism. This route to deglobalization is not new, nor, some would claim, particularly radical. Keynes’ common sense advice, addressing the global situation in the 1930s, is very relevant to our times, “Let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and, above all, let finance be primarily national.”

Had we taken this route, I dare say, the chances are great that we would not be in the terrible mess the world is in today, with the threat not only of trade war but of real war at its doorsteps. There is still time to take this route, but the window of opportunity is closing fast.

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Electronic Arts (EA) annuncia l’acquisizione da parte di un consorzio guidato dal Public Investment Fund (PIF) dell’Arabia Saudita e partecipato da Silver Lake e da Affinity Partners, la società d’investimento fondata da Jared Kushner. L’operazione valuta EA circa 55 miliardi di dollari e prevede il delisting dal Nasdaq a completamento del closing.

I DETTAGLI: Ea Sports Fc, Electronic Arts passa al fondo saudita: acquisizione da 55 miliardi guidata da PIF e Affinity Partners

Electronic Arts passa a PIF: acquisizione da 55 miliardi

Electronic Arts (EA) sarà acquisita da un consorzio guidato da PIF. Acquisizione da 55 mld $. Nel deal Silver Lake e Affinity Partners.

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On September 28, hundreds of people took to the streets of Paraguay’s capital, Asunción, to protest the right-wing government of Santiago Peña (2023-present) and the national political structure in general.

The protest call was made on social media under the slogan “We are the 99.9%”, following several days of protests in the capital. According to the protesters, the Peña government continues to uphold a form of power based on corruption and neglects basic services, especially public health and the safety of the population.

Journalist Amado Arrieta told Peoples Dispatch: “What was demanded in the protests was an end to nepotism, an attempt to stop the advance of narco-politics, which has basically taken over the three branches of government, and more opportunities for young people. The children of politicians get the best jobs, sometimes without having the necessary skills.”

According to Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, Paraguay is one of the most corrupt countries in Latin America.

“Here in Paraguay, we are really asking for security, justice, and health in our country … [We reject] corrupt politicians who steal from the people right in front of them,” nursing student Jenifer González told EFE.

Many media outlets have portrayed the protest as a new example of resistance from what is known as “Generation Z”, that is, protesters born between the late 1990s and 2010, who are fed up with current politics and have already demonstrated in France, Nepal, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.

And while certain symbols were repeated, such as the enormous letters Z painted on walls and flags with images from the anime “One Piece”, the truth is that the mobilization included groups of different ages demanding an end to corruption, nepotism, and the interference of drug trafficking in all structures of the Paraguayan state.

However, it is also important to note the similarities in the mood of the protesters and the demands and symbols between the protests in Asunción and those that took place on the same day in Lima, Peru, where hundreds of people protested against the political establishment.

In this regard, analyst Leonardo Berniga told DW: “In this mobilization, there is an international identification with a population group that is extremely frustrated by the corruption, inequality, abuse of the law, and injustice that occur in Paraguay, and that coincide with demonstrations that have taken place in Nepal, Peru, and other countries … The mobilization shows that there is a politically aware youth, but one that is not represented in the electoral process.”

The government’s response: a witch hunt?

On the other hand, it is undeniable that there are also similarities between the responses of Dina Boluarte’s government in Peru and Santiago Peña’s government in Paraguay to the protests. Law enforcement agencies in both countries have shown that they are willing to disperse protesters as quickly as possible and that they can easily arrest those who are demonstrating.

Indeed, the police deployment in Asunción has surprised many. An estimated 3,000 police officers carried out operations against just a few hundred protesters, which shows the force with which the state wanted to act. According to the data, following the protests in Asunción, 10 people were injured and more than 30 were arrested.

In this regard, the Paraguayan Chamber of Deputies condemned what it called “police repression” against the protest: “We condemn the police repression exercised against citizens who demonstrated on Sunday, September 28, 2025, both before and during the demonstration, and against the demonstrators who were arrested during it … Throughout the demonstration, police officers revived the darkest period in national history: the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989).”

Arrieta is more cautious in his estimates of the number of protesters, although he also points to the large police presence: “At its peak, there were between 600 and 700 protesters. But before the protest, there was a campaign in the mainstream media that sought to instill fear in the population, suggesting that the Paraguayan March [a political crisis in 1999] in which many young people died would be repeated. Three thousand police officers were deployed, and almost 30 people were arrested. At night, according to reports, a ‘witch hunt’ began, in which anyone who happened to be in the area was arrested.”

Berniga similarly recounts: “There were police persecution operations in raids in which the security forces went out to hunt down demonstrators without a warrant, without records, without due process, detaining people for more than twelve hours, without the presence of a prosecutor, with clear examples of abuse of force.”

A long struggle by Paraguayan youth

But we must not forget the struggles that Paraguayan youth have waged over several decades, beginning with the resistance of many of them to the US-backed dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989), one of the longest-lasting of the 20th century, in which more than 20,000 people suffered torture, executions, and/or disappearances.

In 1999, thousands of young people protested in the Paraguayan March, a political crisis that shook Paraguay’s nascent democracy, following the assassination of then-Vice President Luis María Argaña. According to some figures, a massacre left eight protesters’ dead and more than 700 injured. They were opposed to the government of Raúl Cubas, who would eventually resign as president.

In more recent years, young people protested in 2015 against irregularities reported at the National University of Asunción. In 2017, several protesters set fire to the Parliament building after a bill was passed allowing indefinite reelection.

And while different generations of young Paraguayans did not always share the same political ideology or objectives, it is important to emphasize their active and political nature in Paraguay’s recent history.

For now, it remains to be seen whether the September 28 protest was merely a spontaneous act that was controlled by law enforcement or whether, on the contrary, more people will join the new calls for action and unleash demonstrations like those seen in Peru, which are leading the government into a genuine crisis of legitimacy.

Diputados repudian «represión» de protesta convocada por la Generación Z en Paraguay

Asunción, 30 sep (EFE).- La Cámara de Diputados de Paraguay repudió este martes la que calificó como "represión policial" contra una protesta convocada por la autodenominada Generación Z, que dejó al menos 10 heridos y 31 arrestados, mientras el titu…

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Meta is about to make your chats with its AI assistant part of its advertising machine, the company announced Wednesday. Beginning December 16, conversations with Meta AI — the company’s chatbot embedded across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and even its new Ray-Ban Display smart glasses — will be used to determine which ads and recommendations show up in your feed.

The company will start formally notifying users of the change on October 7. There’s no opt-out: If you don’t want your chatbot conversations influencing your ads, the only option is not to use Meta AI at all.

Meta is exploiting the ‘illusion of privacy’ to sell you ads based on chatbot conversations, top AI ethics expert says—and you can’t opt out

Linguist and AI critic Emily Bender says the shift could incentivize Meta to design its AI to prod users into even more conversations.

^{Eva Roytburg (Fortune)}