People Before Profit blog

CIA, Congress intervening in Venezuelas affairs

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:52:00 +0000

CIA chief Michael Hayden recently assured a congressional intelligence committee that the Hugo Chavez government in Venezuela is of prime agency concern.

Outgoing intelligence head John Negroponte testified that Washington had a “good position in terms of intelligence” regarding Venezuela and Cuba. He cited the experience of Norman Bailey, who since November has served as “CIA mission manager” for the two countries, a newly created post.

Lawyer Eva Golinger, writing for , estimates a total U.S. outlay since 2001 of $50 million for projects aimed at removing President Chavez. She is the authority for a Prensa Latina report that over three years the U.S. Agency for International Development has spent $11.2 million on 342 projects in Venezuela, plus $7 million paid out annually to anti-Chavez political parties. Laws in both countries prohibit foreign funding of domestic political activities.

Negroponte told the congressional panel that Venezuela “is probably the second country in the hemisphere” for concentrated intelligence activities. Cuba holds the top position.

atwhit @ megalink.net

Womens rights are a vital issue in Iraq

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 09:58:00 +0000

This is an edited version of a presentation on Iraq’s constitution organized by the Iraqi Centre for Legal Studies last month in London. The constitution was approved in a national referendum Oct. 15, 2005, with a provision that amendments would be considered later.

Women’s rights need to be addressed among essential changes required in Iraq’s constitution.

Starting with its preamble, contradictory formulations are apparent. On one hand, it asserts the aspiration of the Iraqi people to build a united, democratic federal republic. However it fails to maintain the right of the female half of the people to equality, in that it says nothing should contradict the Shari’a — Islamic law dating from about 14 centuries ago (which was progressive compared with pre-Islamic gender relations). Such shortcomings reflect the current balance of power in favor of Islamist parties.

The demand for women rights is not a novelty in our country. Prior to 1959 we had no civil law governing matters of family status. Efforts to draft such a law were made in the second half of the 1940s and the early 1950s.

The first Iraqi women’s organization to struggle for gender equality was the Iraqi Women’s League, which came into being in 1952. I am proud to have been one of its founders. We began to enjoy a better socio-political culture, especially after the revolution of July 14, 1958, which had considerable impact on women’s issues.

In early 1959 we formed a special committee, which included women lawyers, to prepare a draft for a new personal status law. The draft was submitted to the government by the president of the Iraqi Women’s League, Dr. Naziha al-Dulaimi, who was a cabinet minister at the time — the first woman cabinet minister in the Arab world. The draft was studied and revised by a committee of judges, lawyers and clergy. They made a few amendments, and the law was issued on Dec. 30, 1959.

Although based on principles from the Shari’a, the new law contained some daring reforms giving women more stability and security.

For example, the law required a woman’s consent to marriage, which was previously not required, and made positive changes concerning child custody.

The most far-reaching reform was the one which gave men and women equal shares in inheritance. The lawmakers based this article on the Ottoman law regulating the rights of succession to use of government land, which awarded female heirs an equal share to that of their male counterparts in all cases.

Although the 1959 law did not ban polygamy, it set out strict limitations. It provided that marriage to more than one wife was not sanctioned without the permission of a secular judge based on two conditions: (1) the husband’s financial capacity to support more than one wife, and (2) that there was some “lawful benefit” involved. The determination of this would be left to the discretion of the judges.

The law also imposed restrictions on a man’s ability to divorce his wife, and allowed women to seek dissolution of marriage through judicial process on various grounds such as injury, familial discord, inability of the husband to consummate the marriage due to mental or physical illness, or the husband’s failure to pay maintenance.

New amendments in the 1970s regarding polygamy made it illegal to marry more than one wife with certain exceptions such as approval by the first wife and in cases of mental illness or infertility, but those exceptions always required the approval of a secular judge.

The 1959 law stated that the mother had a preferential right to custody of her children. However this right could be forfeited if she were a minor, insane, untrustworthy, unfit for the task, or if she married a foreigner.

In any case, maternal custody was only granted until the child was age 7, allowing the court to extend this period if the welfare of the child so required. A 1978 amendment extended maternal custody until the child reached age 10, and allowed an extension by the court until age 15 if the child’s welfare so demanded.

After the fascist Baath party came to power on Feb. 8, 1963, members of our league not only lost their jobs; many were subjected to imprisonment, kidnapping, torture and execution. The new regime repealed the law and replaced it with Law No. 11, aiming to remove articles relating to inheritance. However they were forced to go back to the 1959 law, with removal of two major articles. It was subsequently amended in the 1970s as mentioned above.

During the 1980s and 1990s, divorce became a weapon of the regime. Women were encouraged to seek divorce if their husbands evaded or deserted military service, defected to the enemy side, were convicted of treason, or held foreign citizenship and did not return to Iraq for more than three years. Men who divorced wives of “Iranian origin” became eligible for government grants. Women under 45 were not allowed to travel alone abroad; they had to be accompanied by a “mahram” male — a husband, father or brother.

Since the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the threat of abolishing Iraq’s progressive personal status law has hung like a dark cloud over the heads of Iraqi women.

On Dec. 29, 2003, the Interim Governing Council passed Decree 137 to abolish that law. In its place, Shari’a was to be applied in matters concerning family status law. In response, activists representing 80 Iraqi women’s organizations held a series of organized meetings and protests. They demanded not only repeal of this decree but also an active role in drafting a new law. Secular political parties also opposed the decree. The interim governing body was forced to reconsider, and the decree was repealed two months later.

Unfortunately, this was not the end of the matter. The supporters of Decree 137 came back with Shari’a law through the new constitution.

Article 41 of the new constitution states that Iraqis are free to practice personal status matters in accordance with their religion, sect, belief or choice, and this will be regulated by a law to be enacted. But this is rather ambiguous.

Thus there is still a danger of replacing the existing family status law with one which strictly adheres to Shari’a.

It is worth noting that, due to political bargaining, the constitution ignored the provision of the previous Transitional Administrative Law honoring international treaties regarding human rights in general and women’s rights in particular. This is a major setback to our country’s commitments towards international bodies, although Iraq is one of the founding members of the United Nations.

In brief, Iraqi women have lost many of their achievements, for which they sacrificed so much over the past decades.

Thousands of years ago, Iraq was the birthplace of the world’s first constitution (the Hammurabi Code). Our lawmakers need to live up to that glorious heritage.

Mubejel Baban worked at the Central Bank of Iraq for 25 years and was one of the founders of the Iraqi Women’s League (Al-Rabita) in 1952. She left Iraq for the U.K. in 1978, fleeing the Saddam Hussein regime. Author of many articles on women’s issues, she has held leading roles in the Iraqi Association in Britain and is currently a member of its advisory committee.

Communist Party leader appears On the Money

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 06:16:00 +0000

Watch New York Communist Party Chair Elena Mora on CNBC’s “On the Money.”

Mora takes on anti-Chavez views and speaks about developments in Venezuela, as well as the U.S. Mora wrote an article about her recent trip to Venezuela on Women and the Bolivarian Revolution for the People’s Weekly World .

Mora is also a contributing editor to Political Affairs.

To make a donation to the Communist Party go to .

Carter condemns Israeli/U.S. policy toward Palestine

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:48:00 +0000

Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid

By Jimmy Carter

Simon & Schuster, 2006

Hardcover, 288 pp., $27

Book review

Books by former presidents are usually the material for historians and history buffs. Readers look for revelations explaining decisions made years ago, and then debate whether these are truly new historical facts or a case of just another politician trying to cover his butt.

Jimmy Carter’s new book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” is no such book.

I’d like to say that Carter has weighed into the debate on U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine, but there has been no such debate in the U.S. corporate-owned media. This book, therefore, might be the opening of a public questioning of U.S. Mideast policy, and it’s about time.

Carter devotes about three-fourths of the book explaining some of the history and geography of the conflict, interspersed with anecdotes about his many visits to Israel, Palestine and other Arab countries.

The history, unfortunately, is the standard official Western version of the conflict, although he does not claim that all 1948 Palestinian refugees left on their own volition.

The 1978 Camp David Accords, which resulted in the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt while Carter was in office, are covered at some length. Here Carter is trying to cover his butt, claiming that he had expected Israel to abide by the terms of the treaty, which called for peace negotiations between Israel and the PLO leading to an independent Palestine in compliance with UN resolutions, etc.

No way. I’m old enough to remember that the whole world knew Camp David was a sellout of the Palestinian people. Egypt’s President Sadat abandoned the Palestinian people’s struggle in return for Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai and Egypt, and Egypt then became the recipient of one-third of total U.S. foreign military aid.

Carter’s contribution is not in detailing the past, but in his willingness to take on Israeli policy and its U.S backers.

In the last few chapters he argues that peace is possible and achievable. He points out that the majority of Palestinians and Israelis support a settlement along the lines of UN resolutions 242 and 338, a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.

Carter sees the main obstacle to peace in the Israeli government’s policy of settlement and colonization and its refusal to abide by the UN resolutions and the Camp David Accords. He condemns Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians, the building of the apartheid wall, and the Israeli government’s refusal to negotiate with the elected Palestinian representatives.

More importantly, he is critical of U.S. policy for “condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories.” He calls for the U.S. to return to a policy of being an impartial peacemaker.

While the U.S. has never been impartial and has always supported the Israeli ruling-class position, it’s still significant that a respected former president would take on the Israeli occupation as an evil that is the root cause for instability in the entire Middle East. No wonder the book has caused such a stir.

The title alone has brought down a furor of savage condemnation from Zionist, right-wing and mainstream sources.

Israeli intransigence is no longer supported in Western Europe and support for Israel has eroded here in America. Last year’s Israeli aggression against Lebanon was condemned by the overwhelming majority of world’s people.

As Israeli policy towards the Palestinian people is shifting further towards barbarism, a growing number of Americans are breaking with pro-Israel orthodoxy.

Carter’s book is a symptom of that shift as it is a symptom of the bankruptcy of U.S Middle East policy.

pwwinaz @ webtv.net

Washington finally brings charges against Posada

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 07:35:00 +0000

On Jan. 11 a federal grand jury indicted Luis Posada Carriles on one charge of fraud and six counts of lying about his illegal arrival in the United States on March 17, 2005. The charges are far removed from accusations of terrorism and murder generally associated with the Cuban exile.

His crimes are well documented. Declassified material made available by the National Security Archives attests to his role in bombing a Cuban airliner off Barbados in 1976 and causing the deaths of its 73 passengers. Ann Louise Bardach, writing for The New York Times, heard him take responsibility for bomb attacks on Havana hotels in 1997, one of them killing an Italian tourist.

Posada is protected by right-wing Cuban Americans. As a former CIA operative during the 1960s, and later on with the Nicaraguan Contras, he has been well poised, should he appear in court, to embarrass his former employer.

Although U.S. immigration authorities have held him since May 17, 2005, he has been charged until now only with illegal entry. Washington has refused to extradite him, as requested, to Venezuela. He is wanted there so that court proceedings on the airliner case might resume. They had been interrupted by his CIA-assisted escape from jail in 1985.

On the other hand, for almost two years worldwide public opinion has condemned the tolerance of a terrorist by the self-proclaimed head of the war on terrorism, George W. Bush. Additionally the contradiction between kid glove treatment of Posada and the brutal persecution of the anti-terrorist Cuban Five, incarcerated in U.S. jails, has generated widespread condemnation.

In September, a federal judge ruled that detained immigrants without documents had to be either deported or released. Deportation became unlikely after six countries refused to take Posada in. The deadline for Posada’s release was Feb. 1, and Washington, perhaps leery of setting the killer free, took action.

Any prosecution on charges of fraud and lying has the potential of keeping him detained. Lawyer Jose Pertierra indicated that a Jan. 17 hearing on bail and other pre-trial conditions will rule on whether Posada is to be released. Pertierra, Venezuela’s U.S. legal representative, added that now, with charges pending, Posada can no longer be extradited to Venezuela. He can still be tried, however, “for being a terrorist, as international treaties oblige.”

The government’s case against Posada rests upon the testimony of Gilbert Abascal, an associate of Santiago Alvarez, a wealthy real estate developer and anti-Cuban terrorist, and Alvarez’s employee Osvaldo Mitat. Abascal contradicted Posada’s story to immigration officials and the press that he had crossed from Mexico into Texas and taken the bus to Miami.

Abascal told prosecutors that Alvarez, Mitat and he had crewed the yacht the Santrina as it transferred Posada from Isla de Mujeres off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula to a Florida marina. Fidel Castro had presented that version of Posada’s arrival in Florida over Cuban television on April 11, 2005, only to provoke denial from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as to Posada’s presence in the state.

Alvarez and Mitat had been summoned from Florida jails to testify on Jan. 11 at the El Paso hearing. They refused and were also indicted. Abascal’s earlier testimony in Florida against Alvarez and Mitat had sent them to jail for illegal weapons possession, their terms reduced by plea-bargaining.

Surprisingly, at least one other federal investigation apparently is looking into some of Posada’s terrorist activities. A federal grand jury in Newark, N.J., has reportedly listened to reports about money transfers from New Jersey’s Cuban American community to Posada in El Salvador as he was organizing bomb attacks on Cuban hotels.

In October prosecutors issued a subpoena to reporter Ann Louise Bardach ordering her to release materials used for her New York Times article on Posada.

atwhit @ megalink.net

Washington finally brings criminal charges against Posada

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:15:00 +0000

On Jan. 11 a federal grand jury in El Paso, Texas, indicted Luis Posada Carriles on one charge of fraud and six counts of lying about his illegal arrival in the United States on March 17, 2005. The charges are far removed from accusations of terrorism and murder generally associated with the Cuban exile.

His crimes are well documented. Declassified material made available by the National Security Archives attest to his role in bombing a Cuban airliner off Barbados in 1976, causing the deaths of 73 passengers. Ann Louise Bardach, writing for The New York Times, heard him take responsibility for bomb attacks on Havana hotels in 1997, one of which killed an Italian tourist.

Posada is protected by right-wing Cuban Americans. As a former CIA operative during the 1960s, and later on with the Nicaraguan Contras, he has been well poised, should he appear in court, to embarrass his former employer.

Although U.S. immigration authorities have held him since May 17, 2005, he has been charged until now only with illegal entry. Washington has refused to extradite him, as requested, to Venezuela. He is wanted there so that court proceedings on the airliner case might resume. They had been interrupted by his CIA-assisted escape from jail in 1985.

On the other hand, for almost two years worldwide public opinion has condemned the tolerance of a terrorist by the self-proclaimed head of the war on terrorism, President George W. Bush. In addition, the contradiction between kid-glove treatment of Posada and the brutal persecution of the anti-terrorist Cuban Five, incarcerated in U.S. jails, has generated widespread condemnation.

In September, a federal judge ruled that immigrants without documents had to be either deported or released. Deportation became unlikely after six countries refused to take Posada in. The deadline for Posada’s release was Feb. 1, and Washington, perhaps leery of setting the killer free, took action.

Any prosecution on charges of fraud and lying has the potential of keeping him detained. Lawyer Jose Pertierra indicated that a Jan. 17 hearing on bail and other pre-trial conditions will rule on whether Posada is to be released. Pertierra, Venezuela’s U.S. legal representative, added that now, with charges pending, Posada can no longer be extradited to Venezuela. He can still be tried, however, “for being a terrorist, as international treaties oblige.”

The government’s case against Posada rests upon the testimony of Gilbert Abascal, an associate of Santiago Alvarez, a wealthy real estate developer and anti-Cuban terrorist, and Alvarez’s employee Osvaldo Mitat. Abascal contradicted Posada’s story to immigration officials and the press that he’d crossed from Mexico into Texas and taken the bus to Miami.

Abascal told prosecutors that Alvarez, Mitat and he had manned the yacht The Santrina as it transferred Posada from Isla de Mujeres off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula to a Florida marina. Fidel Castro had presented that version of Posada’s arrival in Florida over Cuban television on April 11, 2005, only to provoke denial from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as to Posada’s presence in the state.

Alvarez and Mitat had been summoned from Florida jails to testify on Jan. 11 at the El Paso hearing. They refused and were also indicted. Abascal’s earlier testimony in Florida against Alvarez and Mitat had sent them to jail for illegal weapons possession, their terms reduced by plea-bargaining.

Surprisingly, at least one other federal investigation apparently is looking into some of Posada’s terrorist activities. A federal grand jury in Newark, N.J., has reportedly listened to reports about money transfers from New Jersey’s Cuban American community to Posada in El Salvador as he was organizing bomb attacks on Cuban hotels.

In October prosecutors issued a subpoena to reporter Ann Louise Bardach ordering her to release materials used for her New York Times article on Posada.

atwhit @ megalink.net

EDITORIAL: Saddam Husseins execution

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:17:00 +0000

The execution of Saddam Hussein was a crude, bizarre spectacle, following a deeply flawed trial process interrupted before this mass murderer’s crimes, and the ugly role of the U.S. in aiding him, could be laid bare to the world.

The execution was both a mirror image of the lawless viciousness of Hussein’s rule and a sordid byproduct of shameful U.S. foreign policy, up to and including the invasion and occupation.

Now this ugly episode provides a convenient excuse for the Bush administration to try to justify staying in Iraq long-term, and for reactionary forces in the region, allied with the U.S., to pursue their own proxy war on the backs of the Iraqi people.

Hussein was no anti-imperialist hero. He ordered the torture and killing of hundreds of thousands, including communists and trade unionists, with CIA assistance, and personally killed scores himself. His hasty execution saved him from trial for the genocidal 1986-89 Anfal massacres that killed 180,000 Kurds, including many communist partisans, using chemical weapons supplied by the U.S.

The brutal sectarianism displayed in Hussein’s execution and in much of the violence afflicting Iraq only underscores the importance of solidarity with the democratic Iraqi movements struggling, under the most difficult circumstances, for a just, peaceful society — the trade unionists, communists, women, students and others whose opinions and activities are seldom reported by the corporate media.

We applaud the initiatives of U.S. Labor Against the War and the AFL-CIO to support Iraq’s labor movement fighting to keep public control over their country’s oil wealth and for workers’ rights. Individual U.S. unions should also consider reaching out to their Iraqi counterparts.

The sectarian violence is a legacy not only of the U.S.-backed Hussein regime but also of the shock and awe brutality of Bush’s war. Thus it also underscores the importance of the upcoming Jan. 27-29 march and lobbying in Washington and other activities around the nation pressing Congress to put an end to the disastrous U.S. occupation.

Finally, we oppose the death penalty anywhere, and all of us need to work harder to ban it in our own country. In a system riddled with racial and class injustice, 38 states have this barbaric penalty, many times putting to death people who are later proved innocent. It’s a crime.

Somalia, torn by strife, hit by U.S. gunships

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 07:58:00 +0000

As war engulfs Iraq and Afghanistan, another region of the world has been destabilized by war — the Horn of Africa, encompassing Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia.

On Jan. 7-9 the Pentagon launched multiple airstrikes against targets in southern Somalia, purportedly to kill three al Qaeda members suspected of involvement in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies. Somali sources said dozens of people were killed. Most were believed to be innocent civilians.

Since local chieftains, or “warlords,” in Somalia, orchestrated a U.S.-assisted coup to overthrew President Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia has been in turmoil. Interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, 70, of a military background, assumed power in 2004 backed by some of Somalia’s neighbors, the UN, the European Union and most notably the United States, but his government has failed to take full control of the country.

As a result, many groups have moved in to exploit the vacuum created by a failing regime. The militia group the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) has sought to displace what it considers to be a weak transitional government backed by the government of Ethiopia. The ICU, due in large part to its strict interpretation of Islamic law, has been compared to such governments as the Taliban in Afghanistan.

In June 2006, the ICU, after declaring a “holy war,” took control of Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia.

On Dec. 8, the Ethiopian government, led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who has been labeled by some as a “staunch ally” of the U.S., denied reports that the Ethiopian government had sent troops to Somalia, calling them “rumors.” Ethiopian officials stated that they were only supplying military trainers to Somalia.

However, less than one month later Zenawi admitted that his country is in fact at war with “Islamic extremists” and that his government has troops fighting against the ICU in Somalia. Some analysts say up to 15,000 Ethiopian troops have invaded the country.

Bereket Simon, Ethiopia’s minister of information, told a reporter, “The Ethiopian government is bombing non-civilian targets in Somalia in order to disable and prevent the delivery of arms and supplies to the Islamic Courts.”

The U.S. has for quite some time supported the Ethiopian government militarily. The entire region is regarded as critically important to the U.S. because of its strategic position at the southern opening of the Red Sea, where it can control the flow of tankers and other ships into the oil-rich Middle East.

In May 2006, through reports from both U.S. analysts and Somali officials, it was revealed that the U.S. government has also been secretly supporting some warlords in Somalia.

U.S. officials have been unwillingly to admit their direct involvement in this crisis. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States would “work with responsible individuals . . . in fighting terror. It’s a real concern of ours — terror taking root in the Horn of Africa. We don’t want to see another safe haven for terrorists created. Our interest is purely in seeing Somalia achieve a better day.”

Local Somali officials, however, have warned U.S. officials that working with these warlords could prove to be “shortsighted” and “dangerous.”

U.S., Somali and Ethiopian officials have accused the ICU of working with al Qaeda and other foreign Islamic extremists, including some Pakistani and Chechen groups. The ICU denies these charges.

The government of Kenya, led by President Mwai Kibaki, another U.S. ally, has sent troops, armored vehicles and trucks to its borders with Somalia to assist in fighting the ICU. The U.S., in a show of support for its Kenyan allies, has also assigned a counter-terrorism task force to train the Kenyan Coast Guard and has also supplied three boats to patrol the country’s borders.

comradejmb @ yahoo.com

Greeks march to save public higher education

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 15:18:00 +0000

ATHENS, Greece — Pro-education forces throughout Greece geared up this week for an all-out offensive of marches and demonstrations to block a parliamentary vote on privatizing the higher education system. The vote was set for Jan.10, just as the PWW was going to press.

In Parliament, both reformist/social-democratic and conservative forces were trying to push through a vote amending Article 16 of the Greek Constitution, which guarantees the public nature of higher education.

Article 16 stipulates that higher education is publicly owned and free for everyone. The social-democratic (PASOK) and conservative (New Democracy) parties, following the directives of the European Union as set out in the Bologna Treaty of 1999, have been collaborating to amend this article (as well as others) in order to permit the establishment of privately owned universities whose degrees would be fully recognized by the Greek state.

Although private universities and colleges have been operating in Greece for years, the degrees they confer lack universal recognition.

Both the previous PASOK government and current New Democracy government systematically neglected and undermined public education, paving the way in the public consciousness for the approval of the amendment. New Democracy, for example, was elected on an “education platform” that promised 5 percent of the state budget for education. Yet on their watch state expenditure for education has dropped from 3.6 percent to 3.2 percent.

If the amendment to Article 16 were to pass, it would open the doors to mass privatization of the higher education system, effectively assimilating it into the global capitalist system of pay as you go. Universities would compete to gain funding from the state and multinational corporations.

Amendment supporters argue that placing education in private hands would “upgrade” it, “make it more competitive” and stop the brain drain of Greek youth to other countries. The reality is that education would be drastically downgraded and universities would become commercial enterprises.

A two-tier university system would be developed, with a few select universities for those who can afford it and many more downgraded commercial enterprises where working-class youth could “buy” a degree of questionable value, despite their hard work and sacrifice. Those who could afford to would continue to be educated abroad.

Mass social struggle here in Greece has effectively delayed the implementation of many neoliberal education reforms that have already been put in place in other European countries. The marches, mobilizations and school takeovers by the students starting last summer grew larger and more dynamic in the fall (see the students’ web site www.mathites.gr/photos.html for photos) as the government refused to back down and its hypocritical calls for dialogue with educators and students ended in the tear-gassing of demonstrators.

Collective action was planned this week all over Greece. A Greek-wide day of protest was planned for Wednesday, the 10th, where rallies were to be held in over 40 major cities and islands. Organizing for this day has taken on a significant mass character as students, parents and teachers planned to hit the streets with trade unionists, farmers and retirees to protect the people’s right to free, universal, public education.

The movement will not stop there, however. The PASOK/New Democracy duo are promoting similar measures at all levels of education, paving the way for full-scale privatization of the Greek educational system.

laurajopetricola@yahoo.com