People Before Profit blog

Bush policies blasted At UN

Fri, 31 Jan 2003 03:56:00 +0000

Faced with growing international skepticism, George W. Bush used much of his State of the Union Address in an attempt to build support for his drive to war with Iraq.

His task was made more difficult when weapons inspectors made their first formal report to the United Nations Security Council on Jan. 27. In their statements, chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei said inspectors had carried out 440 inspections at 297 sites and found no evidence that Iraq has any weapons of mass destruction or has revived prohibited weapons programs.

ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said if given a few months the agency should be able to provide “creditable assurance” that Iraq has no nuclear weapons program.

He said those few months “would be a valuable investment in peace, because they could help us avoid war.” Blix, who has come under intense White House pressure, also underscored the value of continuing inspections.

In a departure from general practice, the 15-member Security Council, acting at the request of South Africa, opened its Jan. 27 session to delegations from other countries.

The South African initiative is of particular significance given that is the only nation to have dismantled its nuclear weapons under UN supervision. In urging that inspectors be given “sufficient time to do what we agreed they should be doing,” South African Ambassador Dumisani Shadrack Kumalo noted that it took more than two years to destroy his country’s nuclear arsenal.

In a prepared statement written before the council meeting, U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte charged that Iraq is “back to business as usual,” repeating the “denial and deception” that, he said, characterized Iraqi behavior in earlier inspections.

Others, however, disagreed, viewing the reports essential to a broad effort to restrain the United States in what many consider an already-agreed-to decision to invade Iraq. French, Russian and Chinese diplomats asserted that the reports, far from showing Iraq duplicity, demonstrated that no clear-cut case for action exists. “The jobs has not been completed … and more time is needed,” said Zhang Yishan, China’s deputy UN ambassador.

French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere said the system “is producing results” and inspectors should be given more time.

Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov seconded Sabliere’s call for additional time, saying inspections “continue well” and should be “encouraged. If someone feels time is running out, the question why should be asked from that particular country.”

British Prime Minster Tony Blair also joined in urging the inspectors be given more time to complete their work. “I don’t know if it will take them months … but they should have what ever time they need.”

Bush’s effort to bully the United Nations into blindly following it into war with Iraq is made more difficult by changes in the membership the Security Council. In January German and Pakistan, both staunch opponents of military action against Iraq, assumed their place among the five new members of the council as part of a process where the 10 seats of non-permanent members of the Security Council are rotated among the 200 members of the UN. Germany will become president of the council in February.

Jody Dodd, outreach coordinator for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, said the United States should be working to strengthen the authority of the UN rather than “weakening and depleting” it.

Dodd said the United States was trying to put Iraq in a “no win situation. Instead of being innocent until proven guilty, the U.S. says they guilty until proven innocent,” adding: “The U.S. admits inspectors have found no smoking gun but still insist that we have the right to invade Iraq – or nay other country – just because we say so. And don’t forget,” she added, “We should all be working to build the February 15 peace marches around the country.”

Gene Bruskin, a co-founder of U.S. Labor Against the War, said there is the growing opposition to Bush’s drive to war within the ranks of the labor movement. Pointing to recent statements by the Service Employees, Communications Workers and the Los Angeles County Labor Council, Brisken said, “Bush’s policies are setting him on a collision course with the American people. We have to stay the course,” he said, urging trade unionists to participate in the Feb. 15 events. “Bush is feeling the pressure, out job is to keep it up.”

Gloria Johnson, national president of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), said she believes that union members and leaders have a responsibility to inform working people about issues that affect their lives, jobs and families. “And we should be vocal participants in the national debate on such issues,” she said

Johnson said the billions of dollars a war with Iraq would cost would be taken away from schools, hospitals, housing, Social Security, environmental protection and medical care. “The administration’s call for war is an intended distraction from legitimate concerns such as a failing economy, corporate corruption and greed and increasing layoffs and unemployment,” she said and warned that armed conflict in Iraq will “likely exacerbate the misunderstandings and mistrust that have led to an increase of terrorism around the globe.”

The author can be reached at fgab708@aol.com

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Food crisis in Africa

Thu, 30 Jan 2003 10:58:00 +0000

The United Nations estimates that in sub-Saharan Africa 38 million people are in danger of starvation within months. To give this some perspective, this figure is roughly equivalent to the population of Poland or Spain, and less than ten million less the entire population of the Republic of South Africa. This immense human tragedy goes largely unnoticed by a monopoly media obsessed with the threat of terrorism. And many of those that are aware of this African holocaust perceive it as an unfortunate, but an unforeseeable act of nature, like a hurricane or flood.

But we cannot criminally hide our heads in the sand. The fact is this unimaginable suffering could have been prevented and can still be relieved.

The United States Agency for International Development estimates that this threat would be reduced if the world would supply the needy in sub-Saharan Africa with 4.5 to 5.5 million tons of food relief. This is well less than a tenth of a per cent of world production and an even more minute portion of potential world food production.

Using U.S. wheat, corn or soybean market prices, these needs could be met for less than $1 billion. The U.S. spends more than this on the military every two days and would easily expend an equal amount in only a few days of senseless war against Iraq.

While warding off this impending disaster is urgent, it is also important to search for the causes of this human tragedy. Most of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa were self-sufficient in food 30 and 40 years ago at a time when they were newly liberated from colonial domination.

Some have blamed population growth for the strain on food availability. But most of the population growth is the natural human response to soaring death rates brought on by famine and disease. This Malthusian argument is a non-starter.

The actual cause of sub-Saharan Africa’s crisis is the policies and prescriptions of imperialism. On the one hand, international agencies insist that the poor nations of Africa engage in economic activity that will meet the needs of the world market and not domestic priorities. At the same time they discourage domestic agricultural activity. As reported by The Wall Street Journal (Dec. 3, 2002), agricultural assistance from wealthy countries and international agencies has fallen by half in the nineties, making it harder to sustain agricultural development. By way of contrast, the industrialized countries subsidize their own agriculture to the tune of $311 billion dollars a year. The resulting rewarded overproduction has depressed world grain prices by 50 percent over the last twenty years. Without these subsidies, it is estimated that incomes in poorer countries would increase by $60 billion per year. Thus, the producer in sub-Saharan Africa has neither the assistance nor the potential profit of increased production.

As The Wall Street Journal notes, the scientific means for radically increasing food production are readily available. They cite the use of high yield grains developed by Dr. Norman Borlaug which contributed to making both Mexico and India net exporters of wheat in the past. But the former Nobel Prize winners’ work in Africa is only supported by a small charitable organization. As the authors of the WSJ article duly note, there has been “... a profound shift in the politics of international development,” a shift that leaves the lives of 38 million people in the balance.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

International notes

Thu, 30 Jan 2003 10:44:00 +0000

Britain: Greenpeace blocks military port

Early Monday, Greenpeace’s ship Rainbow Warrior blocked the military supply port at Marchwood, South Hampton, to cut Britain’s military supply chain to Iraq. The port is a dispatch point for ships carrying tanks, helicopters and Royal Marines headed to the Persian Gulf.

In addition, the organization’s spokesperson said two Greenpeace protesters had climbed aboard a military supply ship, while a team of 25 protesters intended to keep the Rainbow Warrior in position at Marchwood as long as possible.

The action came on the heels of a new poll with over two-thirds of Britons saying Prime Minister Tony Blair hasn’t convinced them that military action against Iraq is justified, and only 20 percent think British troops should join a U.S. attack in the absence of UN backing.

Greece: Demonstrators protest war, anti-labor policies

Despite rainy weather, over 20,000 protesters converged on the town of Nafplio last week to greet the European Union’s summit of labor ministers with demonstrations condemning the drive to war against Iraq and the anti labor policies of the European Union. Other mass demonstrations took place in Thassaloniki and many more cities and towns around Greece.

Men and women from the working class and middle strata, and many youth joined the demonstrations organized by the All Workers’ Militant Front (PAME) and “Action-Thessaloniki 2003” against unemployment, poverty, capitalist exploitation and war, under the slogan, “Stop NATO – Stop War.”

Participating were delegations from the Communist Party of Greece as well as trade unionists from over a dozen countries. The next protest has been set for Feb. 15, coinciding with anti-war protests around the world.

Turkey: A gain for civil liberties

The Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) reports its struggle against the law banning the word “communist” from the name of a political party is gaining ground. Though the Law on Political Parties still forbids the word – as it has for 83 years – last week Chief Prosecutor Sabih Kanadoglu retracted the warning he had issued to the TKP, and requested a change in the law to remove the ban. The TKP cautioned, however, that the final decision still rests with the Constitutional Court.

While working to overturn the ban, the TKP took part in the recent election campaign, and has campaigned vigorously against war on Iraq. This week, for example, the TKP helped build a protest of over 10,000 in Istanbul and protests against the arrival of U.S. General Richard Myers at Incirlik Air Base.

Korea: Sides seek peaceful solution of nuclear issue

In a statement issued Jan. 24, delegations from North and South Korea said they had fully exchanged their views on the nuclear issue and pledged to cooperate actively for a peaceful resolution. They said progress has been made in bilateral ties since they signed the South-North Joint Declaration in Pyongyang in June 2000, and agreed to continue the various inter-Korean exchanges and cooperative projects to promote balanced economic development on the peninsula.

The exchanges and projects include reconstruction of inter-Korean railways and roads across the Demilitarized Zone, construction of a special industrial zone in the North Korean city of Kaesong, and opening an overland route to its scenic Mount Geumgang from South Korea.

South Africa: Mbeki calls for peace

President Thabo Mbeki last week urged that issues around Iraq be solved peacefully through the United Nations, and not through war.

In the African National Congress’ on-line publication “ANC Today,” Mbeki said the ANC is keenly interested that any mass destruction weapons Iraq may have should be destroyed. But, he said, “the effort to eradicate any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq should not be used to justify the declaration of war. Rather, this effort should target the elimination of these weapons, precisely to eliminate the necessity to go to war. The inspectors must be allowed to do their work.”

China: Airliner arrives from Taiwan

A Taiwanese China Airlines charter plane made history this week when it left Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport Sunday after a two-hour stopover, becoming the first airliner from Taiwan to arrive on the mainland since 1949. The plane carried families from Taiwan, returning home for the traditional Chinese Spring Festival which starts Feb. 1.

Five other Taiwanese airlines have scheduled charter flights during the Spring Festival holiday.

Shanghai’s Vice Mayor Han Zheng welcomed the first flights, and urged that the indirect flights should be replaced with direct links. “Only when the distance is covered by the one-hour-and-a-half direct flight will the people of Taiwan benefit,” he said.

International notes are compiled weekly by Marilyn Bechtel, Communist Party international secretary. She can be reached at cpusainternat@mindspring.com

Venezuelans march to support their govt

Thu, 30 Jan 2003 10:37:00 +0000

Half a million Venezuelans converged on the capital city, Caracas, Jan. 23 to support the democratically elected government of President Hugo Chavez, and to protest a shutdown declared Dec. 2 by a business-led coalition.

“Chavez won’t go!” was the main slogan of the demonstrators, many of whom wore red clothing and berets and waved placards and flags in the symbolic color of the “Chavistas.”

“This is the man who took away the power of the rich and corrupt who governed for 40 years,” Nancy Coina, a 42-year- old mother who prepares and sells fruit preserves in a small eastern Venezuela town, told Inter Press Service. “He can’t leave, because we won’t let him,” she added.

“The more the fascist oligarchy tries to squash the people, the louder will be the response,” Chavez told the crowd, many of whom rode the hundreds of buses that brought demonstrators from every region of the country.

The day before the march, the Supreme Court had suspended a non-binding referendum the opposition had sought to hold on Feb. 2, in defiance of the constitution.

Many observers have noted that the actual situation in Venezuela is considerably different from that portrayed in most U.S. media. In a Jan. 12 Washington Post article, Mark Weisbrot reported that in Caracas late last month, he saw few signs of the stoppage – often called a “strike” by the media – in poor and working-class areas. “Streets were crowded with holiday shoppers, metro trains and buses were running normally, and shops were open for business. Only in the eastern, wealthier neighborhoods of the capital were businesses mostly closed.”

Weisbrot, co-director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, said that outside the oil industry, few workers are actually staying away from their jobs. He noted that management is leading the shutdown at PDVSA, the state- owned oil company that controls the industry, because it is at odds with the government.

Nor is the Chavez government aiming for totalitarian control, said Francisco Jose Moreno in a Christian Science Monitor article Jan. 22. “Coup and strike not withstanding, the opposition has had no success because it has been unable to convince the world that the unwillingness to abide by Venezuela’s laws and constitution represent a defense of, not an attack on, democracy,” he wrote. The opposition’s claims that Chavez is a dictator “jars with the complete political and journalistic freedom enjoyed in the country,” he pointed out.

“What’s really at stake,” Moreno wrote, “isn’t the ‘radicalization’ of the country or the emergence of a totalitarian dictatorship, but the threat that Venezuela will no longer be in the hands of those who controlled it during the past 30 years of corrupt politics and inept economic policies.”

At its Central Committee meeting in mid-January, the Communist Party of Venezuela pointed out that rank and file workers in the oil industry had foiled the upper management’s sabotage, while ordinary workers had kept the steel and aluminum mills, electric industry, ports, and other basic economic entities open and working.

“The sabotage against PDVSA is being defeated, and very soon the Venezuelan people will be able to rely on an oil company that for the first time ever will truly be at the service of the national interests of Bolivar’s homeland,” the CPV said.

“As we have stated in the past, U.S. imperialism is and has been the driving force and the instigator behind this attack,” the CPV said. “Indeed, the Bolivarian doctrine of Latin American and Caribbean liberation and integration is directly opposed to the free-market agenda and the FTAA project advocated by the U.S. government.”

The author can be reached at cpusainternat@mindspring.com

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Mexico sues U.S. in World Court

Thu, 30 Jan 2003 10:29:00 +0000

Mexico filed suit in the World Court of International Justice in the Hague against the United States, Jan. 21, for violating international law and the human rights of Mexican citizens in this country. Mexican citizens are rarely afforded the right to consult with their country’s counsul, Mexico charged.

The brief to the World Court points out the quality of justice provided to Mexicans arrested in the United States is often abysmally bad, with cases of frame-ups and denial of adequate legal counsel being frequent.

The U.S. death penalty is also at issue. There are currently 51 Mexican citizens on death row in the United States. There were 54 when the suit was prepared, but Governor George Ryan of Illinois commuted the death sentences for three of them; 28 Mexican citizens are under sentence of death in California, 16 in Texas, and one each in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma and Oregon. Mexico does not have the death penalty.

The suit charges the U.S. with violating the rights of both Mexico as a nation and Mexican citizens within the United States, by ignoring its obligations under Article 36 of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Under the Convention, any country that arrests a foreign citizen of a signatory country must give that citizen the right to consult with consular officials of his or her home country.

U.S. citizens arrested in Mexico demand this right and it is generally granted. But Mexico complains that its conformance to the treaty is not reciprocated.

The Mexican brief to the World Court gives a brief synopsis of each of these cases, exposing that both local and federal governments simply ignored the Article 36 requirement to permit consular contact. The Mexican government alleges that in many of the cases, such contact would have greatly improved the defense resources available to the accused Mexican citizen, perhaps keeping many off death row. The brief describes the efforts, which the Mexican government has made over the years to get the U.S. federal government, state governments and federal courts to recognize their obligations under the Vienna Convention.

U.S. courts have turned down Mexico’s request that denial of consular contact be considered in the same light as denial of other due process guarantees, i.e., that it would be a cause for ordering a new trial.

A Texas case, involving the execution of Mexican citizen Ireneo Tristan Montoya in 1997, illustrates the problem. When the Mexican government asked for a stay of execution of Montoya, on the grounds that he was not allowed to consult with the Mexican consulate, it did not even get a response from the Texas authorities (George W. Bush was governor at that time). Subsequently the Texas state government alleged that the Vienna Convention did not apply to Mr. Montoya’s case, as only the U.S. government and not the government of Texas had signed the Convention.

The Mexican government had previously taken the same complaint to the Interamerican Court of Human Rights and got a ruling against the United States in 1999, which the United States has ignored.

This past August, President Fox canceled a meeting with President Bush after another Mexican was executed in the US after having been denied consular contact.

In the past, the United States has defied rulings of the World Court, for example, when the U.S. was convicted of illegally mining the harbors of Nicaragua.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

NAFTA: good for who?

Fri, 24 Jan 2003 08:32:00 +0000

While celebrations were being held in Washington on the successes of the North American Free Trade Agreement’s first ten years by the business elites and the ex-presidents of Mexico, the United States and Canada who signed the international trade pact known as NAFTA into law in 1993 (Carlos Salinas, Bush Sr. and Brian Mulroney) -mass demonstrations were taking place in Mexico to declare the Mexican countryside in a state of economic, social and environmental emergency.

Thousands of Mexican farmers and peasants have taken to the streets in Mexico City demanding a moratorium on NAFTA, provoked by the very real threats to their livelihoods when the tariffs on almost all agriculture products were reduced to zero on Jan. 1, 2003.

Recently, the current president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, announced that the agriculture chapter of NAFTA would be renegotiated because of the serious crisis of the Mexican rural areas. But the following day, due to pressures of the U.S. embassy, warning the Mexican government that “if tariffs are frozen, there will be a violent response of U.S. producers” the Mexican government backed down. This statement of the agriculture advisor from the U.S. embassy was published in one of Mexico’s daily newspapers, “La Jornada,” on Dec. 13.

Now, it is necessary to clarify an important point. When U.S. officials refer to “U.S. farmers” they must be referring to huge agribusiness firms and commodity groups – the same “farmers” promoting trade and benefiting from trade. These “farmers” back U.S. agriculture policies that maintain family farmers in poverty across the globe, while allowing agribusiness to enjoy record profits of up to 300 percent since NAFTA, while taxpayers pay the price.

In fact, family farm organizations wholeheartedly support the actions and arguments that Mexican farmers have presented over the last few weeks for several reasons:

1) Before NAFTA, trade experts predicted that NAFTA would create 170,000 U.S. jobs, while official figures show a loss of over 1,000,000 jobs;

2) Experts predicted a trade surplus with Mexico of up to $12 billion. In reality, in 2000 our trade balance with Mexico was negative $24.2 billion;

3) Commodity prices are at record lows, while prices to consumers have risen by 20 percent;

4) Prices that Mexican farmers receive for their corn have fallen by 48 percent since NAFTA, and the value of other crops has also fallen. The only positive trade balance is for the Mexican products of beer, tequila and mescal.

Mexican farmers are unable to compete with U.S. imports because our farm policy unfairly sets the minimum price far below a farmer’s cost of production whether in the United States or Mexico. In the United States, some of these losses are made up by payments made by taxpayers, not the companies that buy our commodities. Take the case of corn. For Mexico, a corn-producing society, it is cheaper to buy mass-produced U.S. Cargill corn than to grow their own.

Corn is exported to Mexico at prices below Mexico’s cost of production, otherwise known as “dumping”. However, if a farmer’s only source of income is selling their corn crop and they are unable to sell because of cheap Cargill corn in the Mexican market, they have no money to buy the imported corn, and no way to make a living. Not so coincidentally, regions with the highest rates of poverty and thus migration are also primarily producers of basic grains.

The United States and Chile just signed a free trade agreement. The next agreements are with Singapore, then Central America. After that is the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) which will include all of Latin America and the Caribbean except for Cuba, set for 2005. All of these agreements include agriculture, based on the NAFTA model. What will become of our farm economy then? What will become of the millions of small farmers throughout the entire Western Hemisphere who now are forced to compete with corporate agribusinesses who receive millions in farm subsidies?

Food security is equivalent to national security. Agriculture cannot be considered as just another sector of the economy left at the mercy of the “free” market in efforts to maximize profit. Therefore, small farmers in Mexico are right to demand protection for their agriculture products and a revision of NAFTA. We must demand the same. So next time you hear the words “free trade” and “national security” in the same sentence, ask yourself whose interests are truly represented.

Dena Hoff is a farmer in Glendive, Montana. He chairs the Free Trade Task Force of the National Family Farm Coalition, www.nffc.net

Remarkable initiatives in Brazil

Thu, 23 Jan 2003 11:33:00 +0000

It will not be easy to reform Brazil, due to the problems the new government has inherited. Lula and his team will face deteriorated economic and social circumstances that have their own dynamic, limiting the possible actions and the short-term horizon. The international situation of generalized economic hardship and threats of war is turbulent and unfavorable to the sovereign affirmation of nations such as Brazil.

But nothing should tie the Lula administration’s hands and those of its supporting forces. The message President Lula has been transmitting to the nation is one of firmness and determination to face the problems, evidently recognizing the objective difficulties.

The new government has begun work and some messages and initiatives are remarkable. Most notable is the summoning of our society to the civic collective work of fighting famine. We are convinced that the possibility of success of Lula’s administration lies in popular mobilization, in awakening the creative force of the Brazilian people. His visit to the Brazilian Northeastern region, where Brazil’s absolute misery is revealed in a brutal and shocking way, is part of this context. Far from being a marketing move, it will mark the first steps of the new government by the power of its denunciation of the social wretchedness engendered by the Brazilian elites and the iniquitous economic and social system.

The program of fighting illiteracy and Minister of Education Cristovam Buarque’s call to society and students carry the same feeling. It is an ambitious project, a huge challenge, but an absolutely feasible objective. One should have no doubt that we will soon see legions of youth and adults, students, teachers and professionals of all kinds, civilians, members of the clergy and the military, in an extraordinary campaign that will illuminate the vastness of the national territory and the most oppressed strata of the population with the light of learning their first letters.

As far as popular mobilization is concerned, the Minister innovated. In visiting the headquarters of the influential National Union of Students and urging the students to keep mobilized to demand more resources for education, he pedagogically demonstrated that democracy in this new stage of the struggle of the Brazilian people may also be translated as participation and mobilization. And that exerting democratic pressure is legitimate and necessary in order to open the way to solving social problems.

Along the same lines, one could also mention the program of social inclusion through sports designed by the communist Minister of Sports Agnelo Queirós, which has drawn the attention of the United Nations. The Minister intends to mobilize the youth and popularize participation in sports in our country with a view to improve education and promote social inclusion.

Also noteworthy is the effort to establish the Council for Economic and Social Development with the organized participation of all representative segments and sectors of society. To symbolize the institutional importance the Council, it will be under the control of the president of the republic himself.

All the above are still partial initiatives yet to be tested, the first sketches of what could be a democratic administration focused on social issues.

José Reinaldo Carvalho is a journalist and vice-president of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), responsible for international relations. This article originally appeared in the Jan. 8 issue of the Brazilian newspaper Diario Vermelho (Red Daily).

International notes

Thu, 23 Jan 2003 08:46:00 +0000

Europe: Dock strike hits ports

Striking dockworkers protesting a European Union plan to restructure cargo handling slowed and in some cases halted operations at several European ports on Jan. 17.

The one-day strike paralyzed ports in Finland and Belgium and slowed operations at German and Dutch ports.

The dockers say EU proposals to let shippers organize their own port handling, without using local workers, would threaten their jobs and safety.

Workers blocked all roads and halted cargo handling at Antwerp, second largest port in Europe. Some 5,000 German port and maritime workers struck at container terminals in Hamburg, Bremen and Bremerhaven.

Actions were continuing at many ports, with dockers in the Canary Islands starting a three-day strike on Jan. 20, and some actions set for this week in Britain and Sweden.

South Africa: Campaign vs. AIDS discrimination

The South African Communist Party (SACP) and the AIDS Consortium plan to use 2003 to target HIV/AIDS discrimination in the financial sector. The organizations will take consumer cases for litigation and mass mobilization, focusing on the insurance industry’s denial of services and benefits on the basis of individuals’ HIV/AIDS status.

“We call on all poor and working people suffering discrimination from insurance companies to come forward with their cases for court and other action,” said Blade Nzimande, SACP General Secretary.

Also targeted are funeral insurers who have refused payment on grounds the deceased were HIV-positive. Endorsing the campaign are a number of legal and AIDS advocate organizations as well as the Congress of South African Trade Unions.

Colombia: Gov’t raids union offices

Earlier this month agents from Colombia’s Administrative Security Department and attorney general’s office raided the Unitary Workers Federation (CUT) offices in Cali, capital of Valle del Cauca Province. After apparently showing a warrant, the agents inspected numerous documents in the union office. Union leaders say such raids, along with a growing number of arrests, abductions and killings of unionists, are part of the Uribe government’s plan to destroy the labor movement and all opposition to its authoritarian and neoliberal policies.

Carlos Lozano, director of the Colombian Communist Party’s newspaper, Voz, said the raid came the same day Interior Minister Fernando Londono attempted to criminalize a union-led grassroots campaign urging abstention in an upcoming referendum. Uribe is promoting the referendum to build support for his economic and “security” measures; Londono calls the opposition’s request for equal television and radio time “immoral” and “illegal.”

South Korea: Metal workers protest anti-labor repression

Thousands of workers at Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction, in Changwon, struck for eight hours Jan. 16, and workers and students nationwide held a commemoration meeting for Bae Dal-ho, a 50 year old team leader believed to have committed suicide because of the company’s punitive actions.

On Jan. 9, Bae was found burned to death near the plant’s cooling tower. Bae had worked for Doosan for 21 years, and his family depended on his earnings. A note found in his car said, “Due to the company’s provisional seizure of my wage, I had not received any pay for more than six months. In my opinion, no wage will be paid to me the day after tomorrow, either.”

Before his death, Doosan had convinced a court to hold Bae’s wages and restrict his bank access, because of his involvement in a May 2002 strike.

A labor spokesperson blamed the company’s “harsh punishment,” and called the provision seizure of assets “a new kind of labor union suppression.”

El Salvador: Protest health care privatization

On Jan. 8, some 20 masked protesters calling themselves the “People’s Youth Block” occupied San Salvador’s metropolitan cathedral, announcing they would not leave until the government negotiates a solution with striking medical workers of the Salvadoran Social Security Institute. The protesters demanded any privatization of health care be halted and that police be withdrawn from striking hospitals. They also expressed opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), saying it would destroy the country’s agriculture. While church leaders expressed strong disapproval of the occupation, they declined to let police forcibly remove the protesters, who left without incident Jan. 10 after discussing their demands with church leaders and the country’s human rights ombudsperson.

At the same time, in an action they said was unrelated, activists from the Citizen Alliance against Privatization blocked highways throughout the country, also to protest any privatization of health services.

International notes are compiled weekly by Marilyn Bechtel, Communist Party international secretary.

She can be reached at cpusainternat@mindspring.com

World Social Forum opens: 100,000 say no to war and greed

Thu, 23 Jan 2003 08:38:00 +0000

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil – Under the banner “No to militarization and war: another world is possible,” the World Social Forum, a gigantic meeting of the world’s progressive movements, opened Jan. 23 with a march of up to 100,000 people from more than 100 countries, with flags and banners flying, through this lively port city.

With the threat of a U.S. attack on Iraq looming as the Forum opened, this gathering is expressing the overwhelming world opposition to the Bush administration’s drive for war and domination of the planet.

The World Social Forum (WSF) is organized around five thematic areas: democratic sustainable development; principles and values, human rights, diversity and equality; media, culture and counter-hegemony; political power, civil society and democracy; and democratic world order, fight against militarism and promoting peace. Over five days, thousands of people from the four corners of the globe, in a rainbow of colors and languages, are participating in an overwhelming array of conferences, panel debates, testimonies, “dialogue and controversy round tables,” seminars and workshops.

From the United States, the AFL-CIO is represented by a delegation led by its Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson. Jobs with Justice also has a sizable delegation, and there are progressive activists present from numerous other U.S. groups. U.S. participation is estimated at close to 1,000, more than double that of last year’s Forum, making it the second-largest country delegation after the host, Brazil.

The AFL-CIO is one of 50 members of the WSF International Council, which also includes the labor federations of Canada, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea and others, and groups concerned with poverty, hunger, trade, the environment, indigenous peoples, and other humanitarian, social and economic issues. Other U.S. council members include 50 Years is Enough!, Global Exchange, Global Policy Network, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and Public Citizen.

The World Social Forum is not an organization, and does not include political parties. It describes itself as “an open meeting place where social movements, networks, non-governmental organizations and other civil society organizations opposed to neo-liberalism and a world dominated by capital or by any form of imperialism come together to pursue their thinking, to debate ideas democratically, formulate proposals, share their experiences freely and network for effective action.” The common goal: building “another world” where the economy serves the people rather than corporate greed – a more egalitarian, democratic, human-centered society.

The WSF arose out of the growing international anti-globalization movement that emerged in the late 1990s, most notably in the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization, and those in Washington, D.C., against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The movement’s theme was a refusal to accept the scenario of a world wholly controlled by the interests of transnational corporations and the super-rich.

The first World Social Forum met in Porto Alegre in January 2001. Symbolically, the Forum was held in a “third world” country, at the same time as advocates of the “neo-liberal” policies of capitalist globalization were meeting at their annual World Economic Forum in Davos, a luxury ski resort in Switzerland. Approximately 20,000 people from 117 countries participated in WSF 2001.

Since then, the WSF has been held each year in Porto Alegre, on the same dates as the World Economic Forum in Davos. WSF 2002 drew about 50,000 people from 123 countries. Next year’s WSF will be in India. In addition, there are Regional Forums every year.

The WSF Secretariat, which coordinates the planning and international outreach of the Forum, is made up of the organizations that initiated the first WSF: Brazilian Association of Non-Government Organizations (Abong), Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens (Attac), Brazilian Justice and Peace Commission (CBJP), Brazilian Business Association for Citizenship (Cives), Central Workers Federation (CUT), Brazilian Institute for Social and Economic Studies (Ibase), Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) and Social Network for Justice and Human Rights.

Coverage of the World Social Forum will continue next week.

The author can be reached at suewebb@pww.org

Berlin honors two anti-war martyrs

Thu, 23 Jan 2003 08:32:00 +0000

BERLIN – On Jan. 12, over 80,000 people kept alive the tradition of visiting the memorial sites of two great left-wing leaders, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, on the second Sunday in January. Luxemburg and Liebknecht were imprisoned during World War I for opposing the war. The two helped to found the German Communist Party, Jan. 1, 1919, two weeks before they were murdered by far-right army units, predecessors of the Nazis.

Prominent, this year, were two big banners demanding the release of U.S. death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. But the prevailing theme was the threatening war in Iraq. Most of the signs and banners denounced U.S. “warlords” like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and demanded peace – not only from Bush, however, but also from the wavering German Chancellor Schroeder and Foreign Minister Fischer. Both were loudly opposed to the war before the Sept. 2002 elections, but have been slipping and sliding around since then, affirming and denying positions, refusing to withdraw tanks from Kuwait or naval vessels from the Horn of Africa. They repeatedly stress what one journalist called an “absolute and unequivocal MAYBE position.”

The tradition of walking to the grave site, now marked by a large stone slab and ringed by the urns of many leftwing and German Democratic Republic (East Germany) personalities who died in the years that followed, was begun in the 1920s.

The impressive monument, designed by the famous architect Mies van der Rohe, was destroyed by the Nazis, who prevented further marches. But the custom was picked up by the GDR after the war.

After the GDR’s demise the custom was kept alive on a far less formal basis, with thousands of people, old and young, mostly East Berliners, coming with red carnations during the whole Sunday morning.

At the same time, a mostly younger, more militant group, walked several miles with banners waving and loudspeakers. For some years there was antagonism between the two demonstrations. An army of visored police with helicopters, horses and vehicles, attacked the banner-waving section, even brutally arresting random participants.

But with the year-old Social Democratic-PDS coalition government here the police dropped their belligerency.

The two different sections mingled harmoniously on the final part of the route, which is flanked by countless booths offering leftist gazettes, books old and new, petitions as well as sausages or gulash.

Despite some long-standing differences, all were united in opposing a war, and plans are underway for the international march against war on Feb. 15.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Asian Social Forum focuses on privatization

Thu, 23 Jan 2003 08:29:00 +0000

HYDERABAD, India – The Asian Social Forum (ASF) was held in the capital of the Indian state Andra Pradesh from Jan. 2-7. Conceived as a part of international debates that have been taking place after the birth of the World Social Forum in Brazil, ASF has become the venue for organizations, unions, intellectuals, workers, dalits, peasants, tribals and activists who are engaged in creating an alternative world order and socio-economic system. Around 50,000 delegates across Asia attended, representing 42 countries, 840 organizations and coalitions.

Over 300 seminars and workshops were organized from the impact of neo-liberal globalization in developing and under developed nations, to environmental issues, global disarmament, alternative energy resources and the unhealthy and oppressive attitude of the U.S. government and corporations towards third world countries and progressive ideologies.

Trade union representatives and tribal leaders spoke out about the unequal social and economic system prevailing in third world countries, especially after the introduction of neo-liberal globalization.

Privatization-generated problems were highlighted throughout the Forum. The selling of public properties at throw away prices is a major threat to the third world economies. This was a common theme discussed by most of the delegates.

Addressing the opening plenary, noted Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University Prabhat Patnaik explained the major outlines of neo-liberal policies on developing and under-developed governments. “Global finance does not want an active state that is a welfare providing entity. Instead, the state took measures that resulted in the contraction of national economies, particularly focusing on undermining welfare measures and reducing development expenditures,” he said.

“Globalization maniacs” are now vigoursly selling off natural resources such as rivers, pools, riverbeds, seasides and ground water. In India, one major river is now in the hands of the private sector. People who live on the river’s banks lost their right to use the river for their livelihood. The private entrepreneurs control water distribution, once a duty of local governments.

Women participants revealed their personal and sometimes shocking experiences. One woman delegate from the Indo-Nepal border exposed the increase of women-trafficking after India embraced these economic policies. Women in underdeveloped nations are considered only as mere commodities, she said.

Delegates from South America also attended. Oscar Olivera, a labor activist and champion of the anti-privatization movement in Bolivia attended the ASF. His presence livened the whole conference. “Privatization could not be reversed unless government institutions were made more accountable to the people they served,” he told to the media. “Only genuine participatory democracy, which will ensure the community’s control of these institutions, can be the real alternative.”

Kjerd Jakebsen from Brazil’s major labor federation CUT, explained the hardships faced by his country from neo-liberal economic policies. He said foreign direct investment in Brazil is coming only to buy state- owned properties at cheap prices. He expressed great hope for the newly elected government led by President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Israels wretched economy is result of war policy

Thu, 23 Jan 2003 08:23:00 +0000

TEL-AVIV – Israel faces a very deep and dangerous economic crisis. 2002 was the worst year Israel has had since the first few years of austerity after the war of Independence (1949-53). The annual rate of inflation and consumer price index hikes reached 6.5 percent, up from one to two percent over the previous few years. Unemployment at the end of 2002 stood, according to official figures, at 10.4 percent of the civil workforce. Long-term unemployment is at almost 14 percent.

Twenty months ago, when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Likud crowd took over, unemployment stood at 6.3 percent.

For the first time since the State of Israel’s birth, the gross national production has dropped compared with the previous year. The exchange rate of the Israeli New-Shekel (NIS) has lost more than 15 percent of its U.S. dollar and euro values.

The gap between rich and poor has drastically widened. During 2002, almost a third of the Israeli population lived below the poverty line; 22 percent of children below the age of 14 suffer from grave malnutrition and go to bed hungry. Especially hard hit is the one million Arab-Palestinian Israeli citizens.

Many business and financial experts, as well as popular opinion, reject Sharon and his treasurer Silwan Shalom excuses, which put the blame for the economic and social misery completely upon the world-wide economic recession.

Yet, the truth is really much more than meets the eye.

The Finance Ministry, as well as the president of the Bank of Israel, said that the 2003 budget, adopted by the parliamentary majority in the Knesset before the house’s dissolution in December, was not realistic from the outset. It will have to be grossly amended immediately after the convening of the newly elected Knesset.

Drastic cuts, to the extent of many billions, from social services, will have to be introduced, in order to ease the tremendously growing debt burden and growing military “security” expenditures.

Economic experts offered no hope and said the crisis would deteriorate into an abyss.

The correlation between the economic misery and the futile attempt to continue the war against Palestinians by re-occupying their cities and countryside, with gross violations of human rights and war crimes, becomes increasingly obvious.

These ties often find expression in the media. The press recently quoted U.S. Professor Stanley Fisher, introduced as “a friend of Israel,” who said, “There is no military solution to the continuing bloodshed. Renewing the peace process is of enormous importance. Only ending the state of war and renewing the dialogue with the Palestinians will turn the Israeli economy around …”

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Navy still bombing Vieques

Thu, 16 Jan 2003 10:00:00 +0000

The U.S. Navy started another round of military maneuvers and bombing on the island municipality of Vieques, Jan. 13, even though they have officially announced they will leave Vieques by May 1, 2003

Before the new round of bombings, hundreds took part in a 32-mile peace march to San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. On the first day of the bombings protestors entered the bombing area in acts of civil disobedience in order to delay or stop the bombing. At the time of this writing eight people have been arrested.

“The people of Puerto Rico repudiate the restarting of military exercises because these maneuvers are contrary to the desires of the people of Vieques for peace,” wrote Sila María Calderón, governor of Puerto Rico, in a letter of protest to George W. Bush.

According to the U.S. Navy, the bombing practices may last for up to 29 days. The fleet headed by the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is expected to use the island of 9,000 residents to train for an invasion of Iraq.

The Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques (CRDV) issued a statement in which they deplore the renewal of bombing practices and the reasons behind them.

Saying they are “against war and for peace,” the CRDV criticized “the use of waters, air and land to attack Iraq.” The CRDV said that the Navy has used Vieques to train so as to impose U.S. policies on different countries, such as: Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada and Panama in the Americas, as well as Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Palestine.

Studies have shown that Vieques suffers from a cancer rate that is 27 percent higher than in the rest of Puerto Rico. The more than 60 years of military bombing practices in Vieques has left the municipality contaminated with cancer-producing chemicals.

Senator Norma Burgos and Fernando Martin, executive chairman of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), said the U.S. Navy has not shown that it can be trusted and called on people to be vigilant. Burgos, a leader of the annexationist New Progressive Party, headed a multi-party commission that concluded the Navy had to leave immediately so that Vieques can prosper. The commission’s report became official governmental policy of this U.S. colony.

The religious community in Puerto Rico expressed concern over the renewal of military practices as well as the Bush administration’s war policies. Rev. Wilfredo Estrada criticized the announcement, done during the Christmas season. In a press statement he said, “The admirals have taken over our people’s peace … We have no other alternative; we have to, once again, hit the streets to confront the Navy.”

The Catholic Archbishop of San Juan, Monsignor Roberto Gonzalez expressed his concern over the bombing of Vieques and the Administration’s drive for war against Iraq and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Father Nelson Lopez, pastor of the Catholic church in Vieques, criticized the bombing and said that if the Navy does not keep its word to leave by May, the people of Vieques will keep its word to engage in mass civil disobedience. Damaso Serrano, the mayor of Vieques, promised to lead the people of his town and forcefully take down the fence and enter the restricted bombing area.

As though to underline this point, unknown persons removed 485 feet of the fence surrounding the bombing area on New Years Eve.

The author can be reached at jacruz@attbi.com

International notes

Thu, 16 Jan 2003 09:04:00 +0000

Britain: Train drivers refuse war cargo

Two train drivers last week refused to move a freight train carrying ammunition thought to be destined for British forces being deployed in the Persian Gulf. The two – the only drivers at the Motherwell freight depot – refused to run the train between the Glasgow area and the Glan Douglass base on Scotland’s west coast, because they oppose British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s threat to join the U.S. in attacking Iraq.

Railway executives urged rail union leaders to press the drivers to undertake the run, but the union – like the majority of British public opinion – opposes a possible war against Iraq.

The last such action by British workers was the 1973 strike by dockers who refused to load British-made arms destined for Chile after the coup that destroyed the Popular Unity government.

Iraq: ‘Confidential’ UN document cites humanitarian crisis

A “strictly confidential” United Nations document, prepared to aid contingency planning in the event of war with Iraq, predicts high civilian injuries, grave worsening of the current nutritional crisis, and “the outbreak of diseases in epidemic if not pandemic proportions.” The document, “Likely Humanitarian Scenarios,” dated Dec. 10, 2002, was first reported in the London Times on Dec. 23. It is now publicly accessible at www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/war021210.pdf.

It predicts that up to half a million people could be directly or indirectly injured. Some 900,000 refugees will need aid, and 2 million people will need shelter. Over 3 million people will need “therapeutic feeding,” including over 2 million already malnourished children under five and one million pregnant women.

The document says the situation is complicated by the sanctions imposed on Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War, which have made 60 percent of the population totally dependent on government food rations.

Venezuela: Transport workers won’t strike

Following rumors that Venezuela’s transport workers might join the business-led strike against popularly elected President Hugo Chavez, National Transport Commission President Jose Enrique Betancourt assured the government that the transport section will continue to work as usual.

Betancourt said the workers will not join any strike action because they see it as a political protest and contrary to the interests of the transport sector. He also sent best wishes to the transport workers responsible for maintaining gasoline supplies, calling them “heroes” working in the interests of the whole country.

Meanwhile, on Sunday Chavez denounced the opposition’s constant attacks on Cuba. “We sell oil to Cuba on the same terms as to other Caribbean nations, we do not donate anything,” he said. “It would be more accurate to say Cuba donates a lot to us.” Chavez referred to free medical treatment in Cuba for thousands of Venezuelan patients.

Haiti: Aristide urges release of loan funds

At a Christmastime dinner at the National Palace for hundreds of the country’s poor, Haitian President Bertrand Aristide deplored the U.S.-led freeze of $500 million in previously approved aid and loans for his country, observing that if the aid were not blocked, “the holiday would be more beautiful for the Haitian people in general and the poorest Haitians in particular.”

Aristide denounced maneuvers he said were orchestrated by the political opposition together with sectors of the international community, to maintain the poorest Haitians in a state of misery. He urged opposition political leaders to change their behavior towards this social stratum that also deserves respect and consideration.

Canada: Kyoto Climate Protocol ratified

Canada’s Parliament voted last month to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, bringing the treaty to limit greenhouse gases one step closer to coming into force. The Protocol will become law when at least 55 countries, covering at least 55 percent of 1990 greenhouse gas emissions, have ratified it.

Canada’s action brings the total to 98 countries, covering 40.7 pecent of greenhouse emissions. Russia’s ratification, expected this June, would result in the pact becoming effective globally. The Bush administration continues to reject the treaty.

Italy: Police faked evidence vs. Genoa protesters

Transcripts of an inquiry into police actions at the 2001 Genoa G8 summit have confirmed that police admitted planting two gasoline bombs at a school anti-globalization protesters were using as a dormitory. The bombs were the pretext for a July 22, 2001 police raid during which 93 people were arrested and 72 of them injured – all later released without charge.

Demonstrators said police beat them with clubs, smashed windows, and wrecked computers during the raid.

At least 77 police officers have been investigated for alleged brutality, and three police chiefs have been moved to other jobs.

“Now that the investigation into the G8 events is drawing to a close,” said Italy’s TV channel, Rai Uno, “suspected truths which had already emerged are being officially confirmed.”

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel, Communist Party USA international secretary. She can be reached at cpusainternat@mindspring.com

Sharon faces trouble; Supreme Court reverses racist decision

Thu, 16 Jan 2003 08:54:00 +0000

TEL AVIV – Remarkable developments abound as people prepare to go to the polls Jan. 28 to elect a new government and Prime Minister. Incumbent Prime Minister and warhawk Ariel Sharon continues to face major challenges from his and his families’ corruption activities. Besides the massive involvement of organized crime bosses with the inner Likud Party elections of its candidates for Knesset seats, Sharon and his sons, Gideon and Omri, are embroiled in millions of dollars bribe and fund-raising scandal during 1999 election campaign against party rival Benjamin Netanyahu for premiership.

The daily Ha’aretz published documents that the Israeli police criminal investigation department had sent to South Africa, requesting assistance in their secret investigations of Sharon and his dealings with a wealthy Capetown businessman.

On Jan. 9, Sharon held a press conference broadcast on TV to tell his version of the accusations against him and his sons. But, Sharon began his speech with an ugly pre-election tirade against the Labor Party and its main candidate Amram Mitzna. Within minutes the TV screens turned dark and the broadcast of the speech had ended. News anchors announced that on an urgent order of the chairman of the Central Election Board, Supreme Judge Mishael Cheshin, the broadcast was blacked out. Sharon had violated election laws, which prohibit TV and radio electioneering except for special broadcasts.

The other remarkable development concerning eve-of-election Israel, was the Supreme Court ruling to overturn the former decision of the Central Election Board (CEB) to ban two Arab-Palestinian politicians, and one Arab Party from participation at the polls. Full election rights of the outgoing Knesset members, Azmi Bishara and his leftist-nationalist Arab Democratic Balad party, and Ahmad Tibi, chair of the Ta’al Arab party, who was running on the left-Communist Hadash Front list, were restored by the Supreme Court. This decision came on the heels of much criticism and protests, which demanded an overturn of the anti-democratic and racist CEB decision.

The protests reached its climax with a tremendous mass rally in front of the Supreme Court building in Jerusalem, Jan. 7. 40 parties and movements active in the struggles for peace and democracy called the rally.

At this extra-ordinary vigil, much attention was given to the participation of the last, still living signatory to Israel’s Independence Proclamation Charter, former Knesset deputy and former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Israel, Meir Vilner. The World asked Vilner about his feelings during this protest rally.

Vilner explained why the Communist Party agreed to co-sign the Proclamation. It contained two passages, he said, one promised that Israel would cooperate with the United Nations in implementing its resolution of November 29, 1947, which called for the establishment of two independent states in former British Mandated Palestine, a Jewish and an Arab-Palestinian one respectively.

“The other passage promised full social and political freedom to all Israeli citizens, without distinction of religion, race, or sex, and that Israel will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, education and culture, etc. for all citizens,” he said.

“What had become of these two promises is well known,” Vilner said. “Not complying with precisely these two promises from the first moment on until at present, almost 55 years later, particularly the thwarting of both these promises by brutal military means, are at the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the failure to end the sanguinary vicious circle, so many Palestinians and Israelis are still victims of.

“The decision of the Central Election Board to nix the participation of Arab politicians at the forthcoming elections is an outrage, contradicting the state’s Independence Charter,” Vilner said.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Corporate militarism on the rise in Colombia

Thu, 16 Jan 2003 05:55:00 +0000

On December 31, 2002, Alfredo Porras Rueda was detained by the Colombian government. In a televised statement hours later, General Jairo Duvan Pineda, commander of the Fifth Division of the Colombian Army, accused Rueda of being a member of the insurgent group Ejercito de Liberación Nacional (ELN).

Rueda worked at Coca-Cola’s bottling plant in Bucaramanga, and was President of the local National Food Industry Workers Union (SINALTRAINAL).

On August 31, 2002, Adolfo de Jesus Munera – also a Coca-Cola employee and President of the SINALTRAINAL local in the town of Barranquilla – was murdered. Local law enforcement officials have still not launched an investigation into the case.

SINALTRAINAL has been the victim of a systematic campaign of destruction, which has included: the assassination of 14 union leaders, half of which worked at various Coca-Cola plants; death threats; forced displacements; the incarceration of workers and union leaders on false charges; raids of union offices, cooperatives and union members’ homes; union de-certification; extortion and kidnapping of union members in order to force them to renounce their right to association; and the violation of collective agreements.

In addition, hundreds of workers have been fired from their jobs over the past decade. As a result, SINALTRAINAL has seen its membership decrease by over fifty percent.

The Colombian state has been an accomplice to the actions of the transnational corporations, by neither investigating nor punishing those responsible for carrying out these crimes. It continues to promote policies that heighten terror and poverty via the privatization of public sector companies and the creation of “free-trade” zones.

According to the Colombia trade union confederation, CUT, 148 unionists were killed in Columbia in 2002. Of these, 42 were leaders, including five national union presidents.

Write the Colombian Government and demand that they stop their policies of corporate militarism.

Demand:

* the immediate release of Alfredo Porras Rueda;

* an end to harassment and persecution of workers and union leaders;

* an investigation into Coca-Cola management’s role in the death of Adolfo de Jesus Munera.

Tell your Congressional delegation to not support any military aid to Colombia and say no to Plan Colombia.

President of the Republic of Colombia

Dr. Alvaro Uribe Velez

Palacio de Narino

Carrera 8 No. 7-26

Santafe de Bogota, Colombia

auribe@presidencia.gov.co / rdh@presidencia.gov.co

The information here was provided by the Campaign for Labor Rights, www.campaignforlaborrights.org

Venezuela receives gas, food shipments

Thu, 09 Jan 2003 11:13:00 +0000

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuela received its first shipment of 525,000 barrels of oil from Brazil to help relieve the shortages because of a strike against President Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan Constitution. Brazil’s new president, Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva, has agreed to send experienced Brazilian technical experts to get production up at the State-owned oil corporation, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). Chavez had joined the leaders of 120 countries for Lula’s inauguration, Jan. 1.

The 27-day strike – led by Venezuela’s business chamber – began Dec. 2 to demand Chavez call a nonbinding referendum on his rule. Chavez, elected in 2,000, repeatedly has said the only constitutional means of removing him from office is a binding plebiscite halfway through his term, or August.

Venezuela, the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter, is seeking food and fuel abroad. Besides Brazil, Trinidad’s state-owned oil company shipped some 300,000 barrels of gasoline on New Year’s Day to Venezuela. The Dominican Republic sent rice and Colombia sent 180,000 tons of food.

Negotiations between the government and the anti-Chavez forces are being mediated by the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Cesar Gaviria. Talks were suspended until after the holidays and resumed Jan. 2.

Venezuela, a country of 24 million people, is the world’s No. 5 exporter of oil. Venezuela’s opposition-led saboteurs insist that national oil production has been culled to just 190,000 barrels from a full capacity of three million barrels. The government says pre-December levels will be reached again by mid-February.

“For those who have tried to sink the country, we must remind them they won’t be able to do it,” Chavez said Jan. 4 as he decorated workers and merchant marines who refused to join the strike.

Bush forced to talk with North Korea

Thu, 09 Jan 2003 11:07:00 +0000

Retreating under intense pressure from South Korea, China and Japan, the Bush administration announced Jan. 7 that they are willing to hold face-to-face talks with government leaders of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The administration’s new position came as a result of two days of meetings with envoys from South Korea and Japan.

Observers noted that these gestures in support of multilateral, negotiated settlement of differences with North Korea is in marked contrast to George W. Bush’s refusal to meet with Iraqi officials and his threat of unilateral, preemptive war, even though UN inspectors have not reported finding evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The Bush administration has faced a diplomatic blitz led by the newly-elected President Roh Moo-Hyun of the Republic of Korea (ROK) who recently traveled to China and maintains contact with Pyongyang to avert a deadly war on the Korean peninsula. Bush said, he believes “diplomacy will work,” after the Jan. 6 meeting between U.S., ROK and Japan. China and Russia are also in favor of diplomatic solutions.

Last year, Bush had included North Korea in his pro-hawk, yet fictional, “axis of evil.” But the Bush administration had been pursuing an aggressive, unilateral policy for Northeast Asia even before the Sept. 11 attacks.

South Korea has been engaging in a “sunshine policy” with its northern brothers and sisters for a number of years seeking, along with the DPRK, to reunite families and create conditions for unification through diplomatic and political engagement. Both the DPRK and ROK seek to peacefully unify their two countries, which have been in an official state of war for the last 50 years. A peace treaty was never signed when the Korean War ended, and the border between the two countries is one of the most militarized in the world. The U.S. has maintained a military presence on the peninsula since the Korean War, with 37,000 troops presently stationed there. U.S. imperialist strategic plans for the region also include a missile defense shield in nearby Japan.

U.S. nuclear weapons have been deployed on the Korean peninsula. But according to the Nautilus Institute, which published U.S. military documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, all U.S. nuclear weapons were withdrawn from South Korea in 1991. “Yet U.S. authorities have never publicly confirmed the withdrawal from the Peninsula, and rumors have persisted – particularly in North and South Korea – that nuclear weapons might still be present,” the Institute said.

The Status of Forces Agreement signed by South Korea and the U.S. has under heavy criticism after two soldiers were acquitted of any wrong doing in the deaths of two teenage Korean girls mowed down by a U.S. mine sweeper.

SOFA agreements mainly allow the U.S. military to operate with impunity in other countries. Originally signed in 1966, it was renegotiated in 1991 and 2001. Anti-U.S. military sentiments are rising in South Korea with the U.S. military seen more as an occupying force. In 2000, the U.S. military came under fire from Korean environmental groups after it was found to have illegally dumped toxic chemicals into Seoul’s Han River.

The recent tensions were heightened after the DPRK re-started a nuclear power plant mothballed in 1994 after signing a treaty with a U.S.- led “international consortium,” and its announcement of a nuclear weapons program.

As part of the treaty, power plants that produce less weapons-grade fuel than the present facilities would be built to help the DPRK overcome its energy and economic problems. Those plants were to be completed by 2003, but because of political and other delays won’t be completed for another five years.

The DPRK considers that U.S. already broke the agreement. They said they are starting up this plant and expelled UN weapons inspectors, stationed there as part of the 1994 agreement, because of energy needs. The Bush administration cut off oil supplies to the country in October.

But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) gave North Korea a few weeks to come into compliance with its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations, Jan. 6. If the DPRK refuses, the IAEA will refer the matter to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions.

The IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said, “You come into compliance and then all the doors will be open. … There is no fundamental disagreement: The international community is ready to help DPRK, is ready to engage DPRK in a security dialogue, in a dialogue on economic needs…”

China also favors reviving the 1994 agreement under which the DPRK promised to stop work on its nuclear program in exchange for foreign fuel aid from the U.S.-led coalition. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said, “We hope to see a settlement of the issue through dialogue.”

China and many other countries want to see a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, which Zhang said is “important for the region and the world.” Zhang said the DPRK is a “close neighbor,” and Beijing extends help from time to time.

The author can be reached at talbano@pww.org

International notes

Thu, 09 Jan 2003 09:18:00 +0000

Brazil: Lula puts butter before guns

In one of his first actions, Brazil’s new president, Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva, last week postponed a $750 million purchase of fighter aircraft so the money could be used for emergency social spending. New defense minister Jose Viegas said buying the fighters would be delayed for at least a year, in favor of hunger eradication projects. Viegas also said the government had started looking for cheaper alternatives such as renting or buying used aircraft.

In his inaugural address on New Year’s Day, Lula said eliminating hunger – estimated to affect at least 25 million of Brazil’s 175 million people – would be his administration’s top priority.

Lebanon: Unions will protest gov’t tax hikes

Member unions of Lebanon’s General Labor Confederation will demonstrate Jan. 15 to protest government plans to increase taxes on workers while weakening and privatizing the National Social Security Fund (NSSF).

Confederation President Ghassan Ghosn told a conference of labor union representatives last week that the government has forced the social security fund to invest in Treasury bonds with much lower interest rates. He said new laws are being drafted that attempt to eliminate the state’s social welfare system in favor of private insurance companies.

About 1.3 million workers and their families benefit from the NSSF’s social welfare benefits, which include health insurance, medication and retirement packages.

Other labor leaders called attention to last year’s mass layoffs of 20,000 workers, attributing them to loopholes employers were able to find in the Lebanese Labor Law.

Britain: Protests good for health

A new study by psychologists at the University of Sussex has found that people who take part in strikes, political protests and demonstrations experience increased psychological well-being that can help them overcome stress, pain, anxiety and depression.

Researcher Dr. John Drury said the “take-home message” from the study “might be that people should get more involved in campaigns, struggles and social movements, not only in the wider interest of social change but also for their own personal good.”

In interviews, activists from a variety of backgrounds felt they had a collective identity with fellow protesters, and found a sense of unity and mutual support. Positive effects appeared to last for some time.

China: CP head stresses re-employing laid-off workers

Hu Jintao, the Communist Party of China’s new general secretary, last week emphasized the need to step up efforts to re-employ laid-off workers. He called on governments at all levels to work harder to create jobs and opportunities for laid-off workers based on the specific conditions of the local economy. Administrations are also required to provide essential job training and social insurance for laid-off workers, Hu added.

Though the official unemployment rate is usually given as less than 4.5 percent, many analysts believe joblessness exceeds 7 percent in China, largely as a result of the reorganization and streamlining of large state-owned enterprises and the declining need for labor in the countryside.

Germany: Public worker strike likely

After four days of talks between unions and the government ended without progress on Monday, representatives of public-sector workers said they were ready for a long walkout. The action would be the first national public sector strike in over 10 years.

Leaders of the Verdi trade union, representing some 2.8 million public transit workers, nurses, fire fighters and other public workers, said they would walk off their jobs later this month unless agreement is reached at the next round of talks on Wednesday.

The union has called for a minimum wage hike of 3 percent, to compensate for several years of tiny raises. It has also called for abolition of pay differentials between western Germany and the former socialist German Democratic Republic by 2007. After seeking a pay freeze, local and central governments have offered 0.9 percent from January to September, and 1.2 percent more for the following nine months.

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel, Communist Party USA international secretary. She can be reached at cpusainternat@hotmail.com

Afghan civilians harmed by U.S. bombs, aid

Thu, 09 Jan 2003 09:10:00 +0000

Human Rights Watch (HRW) released three reports detailing the harm of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. “Fatally Flawed: Cluster Bombs and Their Use by the United States in Afghanistan,” exposes civilian casualties caused by cluster bombs. Cluster bombs release millions of bomblets covering large areas of land. The U.S. is preparing to use this technology against Iraq.

HRW spoke out against cluster bombs in the 1991 Gulf War and 1999 air campaign against Yugoslavia. “During its air war in Afghanistan, the United States dropped ... cluster bomblets that killed or injured scores of civilians, especially children, both during and after strikes,” according to the report.

A second report, “We Want to Live as Humans: Repression of Women and Girls in Western Afghanistan,” details human rights abuses. A report released in November, “All Our Hopes Are Crushed: Violence and Repression in Western Afghanistan,” dealt with the continuing political oppression in western province of Herat.

The reports explain that, with U.S. help, Ismail Khan, governor of Herat, has used abusive tactics. The U.S. has supported Khan since his days with the Mujadin. The report stipulates that Khan is still receiving major, “military and financial assistance from the United States.”

HRW said “The situation in Herat are (is) symptomatic (of) developments across the country. ... women and girls were facing new restrictions in other regions as well.” Across Afghanistan political abuse is widespread “include[ing] arbitrary and politically-motivated arrests intimidation, extortion and torture.

“The U.S.-led coalition forces are actively backing a warlord in western Afghanistan with a disastrous human rights record,” HRW said. HRW calls for major reforms, including expansion of UN and coalition peacekeepers, political reforms, new leadership and additional resources to the national government.

The reports can be found at www.hrw.org.

The author can be reached at bkishner@pww.org