People Before Profit blog

The dog ate my WMDs

Fri, 20 Jun 2003 03:28:00 +0000

After several years teaching high school, I’ve heard all the excuses. I didn’t get my homework done because my computer crashed, because my project partner didn’t do their part, because I feel sick, because I left it on the bus, because I had a dance recital, because I was abducted by aliens and viciously probed. Houdini doesn’t have as many tricks. No one on earth is more inventive than a high school sophomore backed into a corner and faced with a zero on an assignment.

No one, perhaps, except Bush administration officials forced now to account for their astounding claims made since September 2002 regarding Iraq’s alleged weapons program.

After roughly 280 days’ worth of fearful descriptions of the formidable Iraqi arsenal, coming on the heels of seven years of UNSCOM weapons inspections, four years of surveillance, months of UNMOVIC weapons inspections, the investiture of an entire nation by American and British forces, after which said forces searched “everywhere” per the words of the Marine commander over there and “found nothing,” after interrogating dozens of the scientists and officers who have nothing to hide anymore because Hussein is gone, after finding out that the dreaded “mobile labs” were weather balloon platforms sold to Iraq by the British, George W. Bush and his people suddenly have a few things to answer for.

You may recall this instance where a bombastic claim was made by Bush. During his constitutionally-mandated State of the Union address on January 28, Mr. Bush said, “Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.” Nearly five months later, those 500 tons are nowhere to be found. A few seconds with a calculator can help us understand exactly what this means.

Five hundred tons of gas equals one million pounds. After UNSCOM, after UNMOVIC, after the war, after the U.S. Army inspectors, after all the satellite surveillance, it is difficult in the extreme to imagine how one million pounds of anything could refuse to be located. Bear in mind, also, that this one million pounds is but a part of the Iraqi weapons arsenal described by Bush and his administration.

Maybe the dog ate it. Or maybe it was never there to begin with, having been destroyed years ago by the first UN inspectors and by the Iraqis themselves. Maybe we went to war on a big lie, one that killed over 3,500 Iraqi civilians to date, one that killed some 170 American soldiers, one that has been costing us one American soldier’s life per day thus far.

If you listen to the Republicans on Capitol Hill, however, this is all just about “politics.” An in-depth investigation into how exactly we came to go to war on the WMD word of the Bush administration has been quashed by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Closed-door hearings by the Intelligence Committee are planned next week, but an open investigation has been shunted aside by Bush allies who control the gavel and the agenda. If there is nothing to hide, as the administration insists, if nothing was done wrong, one must wonder why they fear to have these questions asked in public.

The questions are being asked anyway. Thirty-five representatives have signed House Resolution 260, which demands with specificity that the administration back up its oft-repeated claims about the Iraqi weapons arsenal with evidence and fact. The guts of the resolution are as follows:

Resolved, That the President is requested to transmit to the House of Representatives not later than four days after the date of the adoption of this resolution documents or other materials in the President’s possession that provides specific evidence for the following claims relating to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction:

(1) On Aug. 26, 2002, the Vice President in a speech stated: “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. … What he wants is time, and more time to husband his resources to invest in his ongoing chemical and biological weapons program, and to gain possession of nuclear weapons.”

(2) On Sept. 12, 2002, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, the President stated: “Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons. Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.”

(3) On Oct. 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, the President stated: “It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons.”

(4) On Jan. 7, 2003, the Secretary of Defense at a press briefing stated: “There is no doubt in my mind but that they currently have chemical and biological weapons.”

(5) On Jan. 9, 2003, in his daily press briefing, the White House spokesperson stated: “We know for a fact that there are weapons in Iraq.”

(6) On March 16, 2003, in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” the Vice President stated: “We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. El Baradei frankly is wrong.”

(7) On March 17, 2003, in an address to the nation, the President stated: “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”

(8) On March 21, 2003, in his daily press briefing the White House spokesperson stated: “Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly. All this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes.”

(9) On March 24, 2003, in an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” the Secretary of Defense stated: “We have seen intelligence over many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they’re weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established.”

(10) On March 30, 2003, in an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” the Secretary of Defense stated: “We know where they are, they are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.”

On June 10, 2003, Rep. Henry Waxman transmitted a letter to Condoleezza Rice demanding answers to a specific area of concern in this whole mess. His letter goes on to repeat, in scathing detail, the multifaceted claims made by the Bush administration regarding an Iraqi nuclear weapons program, and deconstructs those claims with a fine scalpel.

“What I want to know is the answer to a simple question: Why did the President use forged evidence in the State of the Union address?” Waxman’s letter concludes. “This is a question that bears directly on the credibility of the United States, and it should be answered in a prompt and forthright manner, with full disclosure of all the relevant facts.”

It is this aspect, the nuclear claims, that has led the Bush administration to do what many observers expected them to do for a while now: They have blamed it all on the CIA. A report in the June 12, 2003, edition of the Washington Post cites an unnamed Bush administration official who claims that the CIA knew the evidence of Iraqi nuclear plans had been forged, but that the CIA failed to give this information to Bush. The Post story states, “A senior intelligence official said the CIA’s action was the result of ‘extremely sloppy’ handling of a central piece of evidence in the administration’s case against then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.”

Ergo, it wasn’t the dog who ate the WMDs. It was the CIA. Unfortunately for Bush and his people, this blame game will not hold water.

Early in October of 2002, Bush went before the American people and delivered yet another vat of nightmarish descriptions of what Saddam Hussein could do to America and the world with his vast array of weaponry. One week before this speech, however, the CIA had publicly stated that Hussein and Iraq were less of a threat than they had been for the last ten years.

Columnist Robert Scheer reported on Oct. 9, 2002, that, “In its report, the CIA concludes that years of UN inspections combined with U.S. and British bombing of selected targets have left Iraq far weaker militarily than in the 1980s, when it was supported in its war against Iran by the United States. The CIA report also concedes that the agency has no evidence that Iraq possesses nuclear weapons.”

Certainly, if citizen Scheer was able to read and understand the CIA report on Iraq’s nuclear capabilities, the President of the United States could easily do so as well.

The scandal which laid Bill Clinton low centered around his lying under oath about sex. The scandal which took down Richard Nixon was certainly more profound, as he was accused of misusing the CIA and FBI to spy on political opponents while paying off people to lie about his actions. Lying under oath and misusing the intelligence community are both serious transgressions, to be sure. The matter of Iraq’s weapons program, however, leaves both of these in deep shade.

George W. Bush and his people used the fear and terror that still roils within the American people in the aftermath of Sept. 11 to fob off an unnerving fiction about a faraway nation, and then used that fiction to justify a war that killed thousands and thousands of people.

Latter-day justifications about “liberating” the Iraqi people or demonstrating the strength of America to the world do not obscure this fact. They lied us into a war that, beyond the death toll, served as the greatest Al Qaeda recruiting drive in the history of the world. They lied about a war that cost billions of dollars which could have been better used to bolster America’s amazingly substandard anti-terror defenses. They are attempting, in the aftermath, to misuse the CIA by blaming them for all of it.

Blaming the CIA will not solve this problem, for the CIA is well able to defend itself. Quashing investigations in the House will not stem the questions that come now at a fast and furious clip.

They lied. Period. Trust a teacher on this. We can spot liars who have not done their homework a mile away.

William Rivers Pitt (william.pitt@mail.truthout.org) is a New York Times best-selling author of two books – War On Iraq from Context Books, and The Greatest Sedition is Silence, available from Pluto Press at www.SilenceIsSedition.com. Scott Lowery contributed research to this report. This article was originally published on truthout’s web site, www.truthout.org

Arab Americans meet hits detentions, war

Fri, 20 Jun 2003 01:45:00 +0000

CRYSTAL CITY, Va. – Delegates at the 20th convention of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) here June 12-15 called for ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq, creation of a Palestinian state, and termination of Attorney General John Ashcroft’s mass detention of Arabs and Muslims.

The convention opened with lobbying on Capitol Hill to demand that Congress reject Ashcroft’s demands for “Patriot Act II” granting the federal government even more sweeping police state powers. Stopping Patriot Act II “is one of our three or four biggest issues,” said ADC Communications Director Hussein Ibish. “We also asked Congress to enact Rep. John Conyers’ anti-hate-crime bill and urged Congress to play a constructive role in creating a just peace in the Middle East.”

Maha Munayyer of Morristown, N.J., noting a recent Justice Department report on the abuses of 762 detainees after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, told the World that members of her ADC chapter have visited detainees at the New Jersey federal detention center. “I can’t believe the level of abuse of their constitutional rights,” she said. “It’s like the Japanese internment all over again.”

In a workshop, “Ecumenical Voices for Peace,” led by a panel of Muslim, Jewish and Christian leaders, ADC leader Talat Othman, a Chicago investment banker, read aloud a “Manifesto for Peace: An Urgent Appeal Concerning Peace Between Palestinians and Israelis.” Drafted by a committee of lay Christians, Muslims and Jews under the auspices of the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Center in Chicago, it endorses an independent Palestinian state living at peace with Israel (www.manifestoforpeace.org).

Panelist Cherie Brown, vice president of the Chicago-based Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, told the crowd, “We love Israel. We completely oppose the occupation and we want it to end.”

She cited a poll showing that 80 percent of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza “could be convinced to leave. We are calling on the U.S. government to use all its aid to resettle the settlers within Israel’s 1967 borders,” she said, adding, “It is absolutely essential that we speak out against the violence both of the military occupation and the suicide bombers. It is not anti-Semitic to be against the Israeli government and the occupation.”

She noted the peace initiative by the Jewish peace group Tikkun, which has drafted a resolution to make the so-called “road map” a highway to a real peace. The resolution was introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) two weeks ago. The mostly Arab-American audience gave her a warm ovation.

But the crowd booed at another workshop, “Life in America Today: Security, Liberty, or Neither,” when neo-conservative lawyer Bruce Fein of the Heritage Foundation defended Ashcroft’s racial profiling and mass detentions of Arabs and Muslims as “civilization’s finest hour.”

Outrage ran high because airline pilot Aziz Baroody had just recounted his post-9/11 ordeal. He was interrogated by security agents of his employer, Columbia, S.C.-based, BankAir. Despite his flawless record and pleas of innocence, the company fired him summarily. When he sued to get his job back, BankAir filed a countersuit. “I know from the bottom of my heart the only reason this is happening is because I am an Arab,” Baroody said.

Jonathan Turley, a constitutional scholar, called Ashcroft a “menace to liberty,” warning that Ashcroft is using a new category, “enemy combatant,” to strip U.S. citizens of their Constitutional rights.

Fein claimed the government “can’t wait around to find out if there is ‘probable cause’” in carrying out warrantless searches and arrests. Besides, he said, the detainees “are not citizens.”

A young woman at a floor microphone retorted, “Mr. Fein, what country do you live in that you would say ‘we can’t wait around’ for probable cause? Immigrants are being held for the equivalent of jaywalking, often in solitary confinement, in shackles, for months. This is unacceptable whether they are citizens or not.”

John Russell, representing the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said his office has investigated many hate crimes since 9/11, citing the May 19 conviction of Robert Goldstein of Seminole, Fla., for violating civil rights.

But a Florida delegate pointed out that when police arrested Goldstein they found in his basement 50-caliber machine guns, anti-tank missiles, landmines, and high explosives, together with detailed plans to blow up mosques. “Why wasn’t this hate criminal charged as a terrorist?” the delegate demanded.

The ADC approved resolutions supporting an end to the occupation of Iraq, restoration of Iraqi independence and free election of a democratic Iraqi government.

Another resolution called for a “just and lasting peace between Arabs and Israelis” including a “fully independent sovereign Palestinian state” and “upholding the principle of the right of return” for Palestinian refugees.

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com

International notes

Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:16:00 +0000

South Africa: Gov’t releases AIDS guidelines

South Africa’s Department of Labor last week released guidelines to help employers, workers and trade unions deal with the impact of HIV/AIDS in the workplace, including preventing unfair discrimination, conducting education and awareness programs, and prevention.

“HIV/AIDS is having a devastating effect on all South African workplaces and the economy,” Labor Minister Membathisi Mdladlana told Parliament on June 4. “Its impact can be seen through an increase in absenteeism and sick leave, staff turnover and lower staff morale. Since there is no known cure for AIDS, prevention of HIV infection remains critical.”

The Department of Labor forecasts that by 2010, about 3 percent of the country’s workforce, or about half a million people, could have full-blown AIDS.

The Johannesburg Mail & Guardian reported that two major employers – Anglogold and Goldfields – have already concluded pacts with trade unions to provide anti-retroviral treatment and co-fund immune system boosters, while banning discrimination against HIV-infected workers.

Nepal: Workers back anti-monarchy movement

Some 2,000 trade unionists marched in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, June 15, to support an anti-monarchy movement launched last month by the country’s five main political parties. Members of five unions, including the Nepal Trade Union Congress and Nepal Trade Union Federation, stopped traffic for half an hour as they marched through the city shouting slogans.

“As a protest, laborers and workers also laid down their tools in factories in the capital Sunday,” the General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions said in a press release.

The five political parties last month launched a protest campaign against King Gyanendra after he dismissed the elected prime minister last October, replacing him with royalist Lokendra Bahadur Chand, and indefinitely postponed elections. When Chand resigned last month, saying he wanted to end the discord, the king’s decision to replace him with veteran politician Surya Bahadur Thapa further angered the five parties.

Britain: Steelworker retirees protest pension losses

Some 500 former steelworkers protested outside Prime Minister Tony Blair’s home, June 8, against pension rules that are robbing them of much of their retirement income, though they had contributed for up to four decades.

The workers were employed by Allied Steel and Wire before it went into receivership 11 months ago. Under current law, only those already on pension are protected when a firm goes under. Those who aren’t on pension yet are listed among the firm’s many creditors, competing for a share of remaining funds. Workers often lose most or all of their pension.

The former ASW workers tried to press the government to compensate them. But, said Andrew Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, “When it comes to investments and markets, there is no such thing as total security.”

Many British workers whose firms have gone bankrupt or been sold face similar problems, while some employers, in response to even minimal government efforts to regulate pensions, have closed their pension plans to new employees.

Haiti: Health ministry receives donation

Haitians from the Diaspora, working in an association called “Ajoupa,” on June 13 delivered a major shipment of medical supplies to the Ministry of Public Health, the Haitian Press Agency reported.

Ajoupa coordinator Alina Sixto said the shipment of beds, mattresses, operating tables and crutches is worth about $3 million. She said the material is part of a concerted effort by Haitians living abroad to help the government, which is in dire straits for resources because of the economic sanctions imposed on Haiti by the world community. Public Health Minister Henry Claude Voltaire expressed great appreciation for the solidarity expressed by the Haitian Diaspora, and said the aid will be distributed to health centers throughout the country.

Guatemala: Teachers hit the bricks, again

Ending three months of relative calm following their 52-day strike earlier this year, Guatemalan public school teachers took to the streets again, June 9, to demand the government live up to the pact that ended their earlier walkout.

Demonstrators in Guatemala City and other communities demanded that the government live up to its pledges to provide acceptable food conditions for students, equip classrooms with furniture, textbooks and other essential equipment, and institute other educational reforms.

The agreement that ended the January-March strike obligated the Education Ministry to accept a major reform of the teaching system, take teachers into consideration, institute a program of “professionalization” and raise salaries by 150 quetzals (U.S. $20).

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

Iraqi civilian outrage mounts against U.S.

Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:06:00 +0000

As U.S. attacks intensified this week against continuing armed resistance in Iraq, reports also grew of civilian outrage at sweeps, house searches and mass detentions conducted by the U.S. troops.

U.S. military activity has focused on a region north of Baghdad, including Fallujah and other communities considered to be centers of armed insurgency.

The U.S. military command launched the intensified campaign, called “Operation Desert Scorpion,” after at least 11 soldiers had been killed during the first two weeks in June. Initial claims that combat had ended have given way to open acknowledgement by military officials that combat will continue for a prolonged period. “It’s still a combat operation, but it takes on, as you can imagine, a significantly different nature than the decisive combat operations which have ended,” Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, commander of ground forces in Iraq, told the Guardian of London this week.

In an effort to neutralize the opposition of Iraqi civilians to the U.S. campaign, Operation Desert Scorpion also features humanitarian aid, with soldiers bringing food, medicine, school books and toys to residents, while authorities promise to repair the infrastructure. But many civilians are unconvinced. “The Americans come here just to provoke,” Hamed Kalouf, whose neighbors’ house had just been raided, told The New York Times. “This can only cause more trouble.”

An example of the U.S. attacks’ tragic consequences to civilians occurred June 13 in Elheer, a mud-brick village north of Baghdad, whose residents initially supported the U.S. and British drive to remove Saddam Hussein. Following a middle-of-the-night attack on a U.S. convoy, villagers were warned by shouts that U.S. troops were approaching. Men, women and children fleeing into nearby fields of wheat stubble were caught in machine gun fire from an armored personnel carrier, which also set the wheat stubble ablaze. When the firing stopped, village patriarch Ali Jassim al-Khazraki was dead, along with three of his sons and his grandson. Relatives and fellow villagers told journalists the tragedy had turned them against the occupation forces. “This is our fortune,” said Rassaq Ali Jassim, who lost his father and three brothers. “First we were persecuted by Saddam Hussein, and now by the Americans.”

Also arousing civilian opposition are the detentions of whole groups of civilians. In Duluiyah, also north of Baghdad, some 400 people were arrested in a sweep ostensibly against “terrorist elements.” But within days all but 60 had been let go without charges. Said 82-year-old Khalaf Abid Shabibh, held for 10 days with his four sons after a raid in Fallujah, “Under our law you are innocent until proved guilty, but the Americans punish us before we are found guilty.”

Meanwhile, the New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged June 17 that the U.S. military gave an incorrect account of how 20 Iraqis died in two protests in April, and called for an independent investigation. HRW took issue with the military’s claim that soldiers were directly fired on in incidents April 28 and 30.

The organization also disputed the claim that troops used “precision fire” against presumed Iraqi gunmen. HRW based its 18-page report, “Violent Response: The U.S. Army in Al-Fallujah,” on interviews with soldiers, officers, townspeople and other witnesses, as well as ballistic evidence at the scene. Its report charges that the military responded with excessive and possibly indiscriminate fire.

Giving added weight to concerns over civilian deaths, Iraq Body Count – a group of volunteer U.S. and British academics and researchers – has compiled statistics on civilian casualties showing between 5,000 and 7,000 civilians may have been killed during the invasion of Iraq. The group said that as more evidence is collected, the total could rise as high as 10,000.

On June 16, the BBC published a survey of over 11,000 people in 11 countries, that it said showed 57 percent of respondents having “a very unfavorable or fairly unfavorable attitude toward the American president,” though attitudes were less negative toward the U.S. as a country. In five of the 11 countries, a majority of respondents called the U.S. more dangerous than Iran and North Korea – countries the Bush administration has named as part of an “axis of evil.”

The author can be reached at cpusainternat@mindspring.com

World confronting many epidemics

Thu, 12 Jun 2003 09:33:00 +0000

The recently concluded 56th session of the World Health Organization (WHO) highlighted the many-faceted ongoing world health crisis. The meeting, with 2,000 participants from 192 member states, dramatized the incredible dangers facing children, people living in poverty and, in fact, the whole planet. By looking more closely at the meeting’s proceedings, you can see the damage being done by the destructive hand of corporate globalization that is putting profits before health and welfare.

Middle East

The WHO took special recognition of the health crisis in Palestine. A resolution entitled “Health condition of, and assistance to, the Arab population in the occupied Arab territories” called upon the WHO director-general to take immediate steps to guarantee the free movement of health workers, emergency services and patients, and the provision of medicines and medical supplies to Palestinian health facilities.

Preventable diseases

WHO reported that 90 percent of the world’s 45 million blind and 135 million visually-impaired are suffering from conditions that are totally preventable. In 2001, there were 30 million cases of measles resulting in 750,000 deaths. WHO, reports that “5 million children up to the age of 14 die every year from diseases associated with the environments in which they live, learn and play.” Over 1.4 million adolescents die each year due to violence, suicide, depression, alcohol use, tobacco and HIV/AIDS. The conference closing statement says, “Available data indicate that of over 1,400 new products developed by the pharmaceutical industry between 1975 and 1999, only 13 were for tropical diseases and three were for tuberculosis,” diseases that are ravaging the underdeveloped nations, especially.

New funding? Not enough

To begin to reverse these crises, including measures to contain and eradicate the SARS virus, funds are necessary. But the new budget for the WHO is being increased by a paltry 2.9 percent. To add insult to injury, the new WHO Director-General, Dr. Jong-Wook Lee, from the Republic of Korea, intends to continue to rely on “public-private” money to solve the problems. This was the strategy originated by the previous WHO leader, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, who – while making many high-sounding pronouncements – began a reliance on private monies to fund WHO activities. This has resulted in disaster.

Authority to act

It’s obvious that to meet the world’s health care crises WHO needs an enormous financial boost. It also needs the authority to identify problems and take action. Moving in that direction, apparently in response to the SARS epidemic, a new resolution was passed that, “… confirms and underlines the World Health Organization’s authority to verify disease outbreaks from all available official and unofficial sources, and, when necessary, to determine the severity of an outbreak through on-the-spot investigations to ensure it is appropriately controlled.”

Most experts believe that the WHO already had that authority. Well, it now explicitly has it, and the utilization of this authority must go beyond the SARS crisis to include actions to improve the lot of millions of children and adolescents and the planet’s poor.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Activists say Bring down the wall

Thu, 12 Jun 2003 09:27:00 +0000

TUCSON, Ariz. – Kicking off a campaign to “Bring down the wall” on the border with Mexico, a broad-based coalition of community organizations and individuals held a teach-in here May 31. Organizers of the teach-in, which included environmentalists, human rights activists and indigenous people, are determined to reverse U.S. Border Patrol plans that would expand the existing 15-foot-high solid metal wall and physically seal off three-quarters of the state of Arizona from Mexico.

Sean Garcia from the Washington, D.C.-based Latin American Working Group displayed a graph prepared by the U.S. Border Patrol, “Apprehensions of Undocumented Migrants by Sector, 1993-2003,” that dramatically depicted both the undiminished numbers and the shift in migration patterns resulting from Border Patrol policies over the last decade.

No wall or fence will stop the migration of people desperate for work, he said. Sealing off areas has never diminished, let alone stopped, the flow north, but only funnels traffic to even harsher terrain, causing yet more deaths, he added.

Participants said current plans to expand the wall will further force migrant crossers into the most inhospitable, mountainous, and dangerous terrain of the Sonoran Desert in the western quarter of Arizona and through vast isolated stretches of the uninhabited Chihuahuan desert of New Mexico where the fence would end.

The Border Patrol’s plan would plunder the desert with over 255 additional miles of solid 15-foot-high wall, 880 more miles of border roads, 145 remote surveillance cameras, and 410 stadium-style lights with generators, according to documents distributed to participants.

The Border Patrol has yet to reveal what types of materials will be used to build the massive structure, its exact location, or its actual cost. Estimates range up to $1 million per mile (a total of $255 million) for the wall alone. At an average estimated cost of $150,000 for each fixture, lighting would come to an additional $22 million.

There are no estimated figures for the remote cameras, helicopters, vehicles, maintenance, agents, or the road construction that will run through seven environmentally-sensitive areas including the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge.

The conferees expressed outrage at Republican Arizona Congressman Jim Kolbe, a big booster of the wall policy, comparing him to Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), who supported the building of a wall through his district between San Diego and Tijuana. According to figures from Rep. Hunter’s office, this 14-mile double fence with cameras, lights and roads cost $3 million per mile. Lauren Altes, speaking for San Diego’s Safe Border Coalition, reported, “The wall did not slow migration, it only shifted it to Arizona, and the deaths soared.”

Arizona human rights activists charge that U.S. immigration policy and Border Patrol actions have resulted in over 2,000 migrants’ deaths recorded since 1996.

Already this year, people are dying in the desert around Tucson at a rate of one every other day and summer has not even begun. “This area has become a vast killing field for migrants,” said Isabel Garcia, spokesperson for Derechos Humanos of Tucson. “Last year, 145 died in Arizona alone,” Garcia continued, “and who knows how many more whose bodies were never found in this remote vast oven where the desert floor reaches temperatures of 175 degrees – it is impossible to know. Bring down the wall!”

Note: In next week’s World, correspondent Susan Thorpe’s report continues with an analysis of the environmental impact of the wall.

The author can be reached at Susan@SusanThorpe.com

International notes

Thu, 12 Jun 2003 09:10:00 +0000

Cuba-Africa: Over 25,000 Africans educated in Cuba

In the last 30 years, over 25,000 African young people have been educated in Cuba and another 3,000 are now studying there, including 1,000 in medical school.

In a recent interview with Africa Today magazine, Cuban ambassador to Portugal Reinaldo Calviac said Cuba is currently aiding 21 nations, 12 of them in Africa, despite the U.S. blockade of the island nation. He cited Angola, Guinea Bissau, Zimbabwe and South Africa, where 400 Cuban doctors are working.

Calviac, who worked as a diplomat in Angola for nearly 12 years, said Cuban cooperation is totally free and serves the most inaccessible areas. He said Cuba had offered to provide the United Nations with 4,000 doctors for a program to combat AIDS in Africa. Cuba maintains historic relations with the continent, he said, since a great part of the Cuban population is of African descent.

France: New strike wave vs. pension reforms

On the day the right-wing government put its pension reform plan in the hands of parliament, public workers’ unions across the country held their third 24-hour strike in as many weeks, slowing and in some cases halting road, rail and air travel. Strikers also included police and customs officers, health care providers, dock workers, postal and telecommunications workers, bank staff, truck drivers and chemical and metallurgical workers. The government’s proposed reform would increase the years of service before workers can receive their pensions.

For the country’s 800,000 teachers – fed up over restructuring plans affecting university autonomy and the transfer of staff as well as pension issues – the stoppage marked the 11th strike since the school year began.

The left-led CGT union federation proposed further action by railway workers on June 12 and 15.

The strikes haven’t been limited to France. An inter-union demonstration in Tahiti brought up to 7,000 marchers to the streets of downtown Papeete on June 6. Unions said up to 10,000 participated in the one-day strike throughout French Polynesia.

China: Work starts on longest bridge

After 10 years of preparation, construction will start June 15 on China’s first transoceanic bridge, linking Cixi city on the southern bank of the Hangzhou Bay with Jiaxing City on the northern bank. Construction is estimated to take five years.

The 36 km stayed cable bridge will be the longest of its type in the world. With a designated life span of 100 years, it will carry six lanes in two directions, with a designated driving speed of 100 km per hour. In its first year of operation, daily traffic on the bridge is expected to reach 45,000 vehicles.

The bridge will shorten the journey between the cities of Shanghai and Ningbo by about 40 percent, making the distance 179 km. It is expected to help economic development of the Yangtze River Delta region, one of the country’s most productive regions.

Canada-France-USA: Joint Day of Action

At press time, thousands of union members at over 60 worksites in Canada, France and the U.S. were poised for an international Day of Action June 11 in support of United Auto Workers union members at Norton Abrasives in Worcester, Mass. The firm is a subsidiary of the French-based Saint-Gobain Industries.

Among other actions, Canada Newswire reported that workers in all three countries will wear bilingual stickers calling for “Justice for UAW Saint-Gobain Workers in Worcester, Mass.” The stickers depict the Statue of Liberty, the traditional symbol of partnership between the U.S. and France.

Besides the UAW, participants include French chemical workers, U.S. and Canadian steelworkers, and U.S. teamsters, molders, chemical workers and glass workers. Overcoming intense company opposition, workers voted for the UAW in August 2001. They have been trying ever since to win a first contract. But the highly profitable company has stepped up its resistance, insisting on cutting benefits for active and retired workers in Worcester while neglecting long-standing health and safety issues.

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

Action needed on bills to end Cuba travel ban

Thu, 12 Jun 2003 08:59:00 +0000

While aggression against Cuba reached a new low when Bush administration officials expelled 14 Cuban diplomats on allegations of espionage, very important advances are being made in ending the embargo. Members of Congress recently introduced bills in both chambers to end the ban on travel to Cuba.

One of the most positive developments of the current congressional session was the formation of a Senate Cuba Working Group (CWG) in late March. The Senate CWG’s mission is to “examine U.S. policies toward Cuba, including current trade and travel restrictions,” and they believe that “the sanction policy of the United States has been ineffective since it was adopted in 1962.”

Senator Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.) and members of the Senate CWG introduced the “Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act of 2003,” April 30. The bill has 11 co-sponsors. The House Cuba Working Group, led by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), introduced a bill with identical language. The House version of the bill was introduced with 55 co-sponsors, including all the members of the House CWG. If passed, these bills would lift all restrictions on travel to Cuba permanently.

On March 24, the Treasury Department, the agency charged with enforcing the ban on travel to Cuba, announced the elimination of “people-to-people” educational licenses, which will effectively end more than 60 percent of the legal, non-Cuban American travel to Cuba.

Travel groups and ordinary citizens expressed outrage over the change and reportedly overwhelmed the Treasury Department with negative responses during the 60-day comment period.

The expulsion of the diplomats was the latest in a series of events which have provoked rising tensions between the U.S. and Cuba. The Cuban Foreign Ministry denied the espionage charges and called the expulsions part of a larger administration plan to increase tensions and provoke a crisis. According to a May 15 New York Times article, “the decision to expel Cubans was made ‘at the highest levels’ in the State Department and the White House, and the policy makers then turned to the bureau [FBI] for names of intelligence operatives.”

In mid-March, 78 Cuban dissidents were arrested, tried and imprisoned on charges of conspiracy to harm the national security of Cuba. The Cuban government said the charges were a direct result of U.S. organizing, advising, equipping, and support of the dissidents. Cuban officials said the actions of these dissidents were more akin to working for a foreign government – one whose stated policy is the overthrow of the Cuban government – than acting as a legitimate opposition.

A number of organizations have issued statements of concern over Cuba’s actions. These groups and others also took issue with Cuba’s re-institution of the death penalty for three Cubans convicted of hijacking.

The Cuban government said a U.S. slowdown in issuing visas for Cubans is leading some Cuba’s desperation migration attempts like the hijackings. The U.S.-Cuban migration accords of 1994 require the U.S. to provide a minimum of 20,000 immigration visas to Cubans yearly. So far this year, fewer than 1,000 visas have been issued.

International notes

Fri, 06 Jun 2003 02:21:00 +0000

Peru: Protests vs. state of emergency

Labor unions, agricultural producers’ associations, students and people’s organizations continued their vigorous protests this week against the nationwide 30-day state of emergency proclaimed by Peru’s government on May 27.

Several demonstrators have been killed, and many more injured, in attacks by police and soldiers wielding guns, teargas and water hoses.

Teachers, on strike since May 12, have been joined by court workers, health workers, farmers, students and others in protesting the neoliberal austerity policies of President Alejandro Toledo, a Stanford University graduate and former World Bank advisor whose approval rating has now sunk to 14 percent.

The General Federation of Workers of Peru (CGTP) called the state of emergency a “senseless measure” to block the justified protests of labor organizations, the National Council of Irrigation Users and others, and condemned the use of troops to maintain order. Stressing that the government is acting in the interests of right-wing business sectors linked to transnational capital, CGTP demanded an immediate end to the state of emergency and reopening of dialogue to resolve the country’s fundamental problems.

The Peruvian Communist Party said the emergency declaration “is an extreme and unnecessary measure, calculated by the government to impede the growing popular protest and ensure continuance of neoliberal policies until 2006.” Besides lifting the state of emergency, the PCP demanded “complete restoration of constitutional guarantees, unrestricted respect for the rights of workers and the people, and opening of dialogue to find solutions to the conflict.”

The World Federation of Trade Unions called on “all affiliates and friends” to express solidarity and give active support to the unions and organizations in struggle in Peru.

China: Public health system gets upgrade

The Health Ministry announced in Beijing last week that the central government will make major investments in the country’s health care system with emphasis on rural areas. The ministry said that in the next year it will establish a network of state and local Centers for Disease Control featuring well-trained and equipped mobile medical teams. Executive Vice Minister of Health Gao Qiang told journalists May 30 that China has allocated 4.6 billion yuan (about $575 million) for the CDCs. “We will not allow problems such as SARS to happen in the future,” Gao said.

In an interview with People’s Daily, Wang Lusheng, vice director of China National Health Economics Institute, said the country’s health care system, especially in rural areas, is quite backward in many respects such as grassroots medical facilities and medical insurance for farmers. Wang said that in the coming years the central government’s investment in the health system is likely to reach “dozens of billions of yuan.”

United Nations: Indigenous leaders demand compensation

Leaders of the world’s 350 million indigenous peoples gathered at the UN May 17 to discuss ways to protect their culture and environment. They demanded that transnational corporations accept legal responsibility for practices that destroy their people’s lands and lifestyles.

Participants told how oil, gas, lumber and mining projects by the transnationals, and sometimes by national governments, threaten their communities’ survival.

The World Bank has launched a $700,000 fund, “The Grants Facility for Indigenous People,” for projects on development themes recommended by the UN. But indigenous leaders called the fund “a cruel joke” because many World Bank officials are paid more than that each year, and the WB has loaned millions for projects that have destroyed indigenous communities and their environments. They demanded that the World Bank also address the issue of compensation for that devastation.

Australia: Detention center horrors continue

The Australian weekly newspaper The Guardian said last week that overcrowding and abusive conditions continue in detention centers around Australia, resulting in depression, self-harm and disastrous psychological problems among detainees.

The newspaper cited reports by the organization A Just Australia that some 1,125 people, including 97 children, are still being held in “extremely grim” conditions.

Some 450 detainees have been held for two years or more, and at least one for three years. About half of these are from Iran, and almost all say they would be at serious risk if forced to return. The Australian government has offered them a free flight and $2,000 to return voluntarily, and has threatened to return them forcibly unless they accept. But so far only two or three are said to have taken the offer.

Most centers are run by Australian Correctional Management, a subsidiary of the U.S. prison firm Wakenhutt. For a long time after it opened, the 1,500 inmates at the Woomera Detention Center were served by three toilets and five washing machines. Allegations of abuse were covered up and reports destroyed. Former staff and inmates said ACM had deliberately understaffed the center to maximize profits.

Compiled by Marilyn Bechtel, who can be reached at cpusainternat@mindspring.com

Protests and splits mark G8 summit

Fri, 06 Jun 2003 01:58:00 +0000

President Bush’s effort to win world support for his unilateral, superpower policies ran into resistance in the Group of 8 (G8) meeting and on the streets outside. The G8 represents the heads of the world’s richest capitalist countries.

Prevented from gathering at the heavily-guarded meeting site in Evian, France, near the Swiss border, tens of thousands protested in nearby French and Swiss cities against war, militarism and “neo-liberal” globalization that “destroys the environment and widens the gap between wealthy and poor.” Three days of festival-like protests by participants from throughout Europe and elsewhere included marches, teach-ins, and an alternative “Summit for Another World.”

The mass outpouring showed the growing convergence of the world movements for peace and for social justice, said Stasy McDougall of the 50 Years is Enough Network, a U.S.-based global economic justice coalition (“50 years” refers to the decades of inequitable policies imposed on developing countries by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund).

The June 1-3 G8 meeting reflected divisions among the leaders of the major capitalist countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. – over the Bush administration’s unilateral war on Iraq, its projection of global dominance and its rejection of multilateral diplomacy. The BBC’s diplomatic correspondent termed the summit “a damage limitation exercise.” The Reuters news agency noted, “There was no sign of a meeting of minds either on Iraq or on the shape of the postwar world order.”

A new world public opinion poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press shows the image of the U.S. has plummeted since its Iraq war. The Bush administration, along with Britain’s Tony Blair, is on the defensive over the use of fake evidence of weapons of mass destruction to justify attacking Iraq. The U.S. Congress and British lawmakers are launching official inquiries into what the leading French newspaper Le Monde called “the biggest State Lie of recent years.” The U.S. occupation of Iraq is enmeshed in one difficulty after another. American troops are being killed almost daily by hostile fire. Former Iraqi government workers and soldiers are demonstrating for pay and jobs. Cholera has broken out in Basra. And the U.S. refusal to turn over authority to a democratic, representative Iraqi government is generating mounting anger among the Iraqi people. This was an unspoken subtext for the G8 summit.

A vague final declaration called for “a fully sovereign, stable and democratic Iraq,” but avoided any endorsement of the U.S. invasion. Following publication of the statement, French President Jacques Chirac sharply reaffirmed his opposition to the U.S. attack, telling reporters all military action not endorsed by the international community, in particular by the United Nations Security Council, is “illegitimate and illegal.”

Bush put his priority on getting the G8 to endorse his endless war on terrorism. The final declaration called for diplomacy, weapons inspections and “if necessary, other measures” to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction. But it did not endorse preemptive war and did not mention Bush’s proposal to stop and seize ships or planes “suspected” of carrying parts for such weapons. Chirac and Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi rejected U.S. claims that the declaration implicitly authorized use of force. “This interpretation, my dear sir, seems to me to be extremely daring,” Chirac told a reporter. “There was never any question of using force against anybody, in any quarter.” Koizumi said efforts to deal with North Korea’s possible nuclear weapons must be peaceful.

Directly challenging Bush’s go-it-alone sole-superpower doctrine, Chirac told a news conference he had “no doubt whatsoever that the multipolar vision of the world that I’ve discussed many times is supported by a large majority of countries.”

After Bush left the meeting to attend talks on the Israel-Palestine crisis, the G8 leaders added a line in the final declaration expressing determination to implement the Kyoto treaty to reduce global warming. Bush pulled the U.S. out of the treaty, turning his back on the international effort to protect the environment.

Brazil’s President Luis Inacio (Lula) da Silva was among 12 leaders of developing countries invited by Chirac to an opening session on global issues. Lula challenged G8/WTO trade policies that provide “billionaire subsidies” at the expense of the Third World. He called for establishment of a fund to end hunger, financed from developing countries’ debt payments, a tax on the international weapons trade, or a “Tobin tax” on international financial transactions.

Anti-corporate-globalization groups criticized the summit for “watered down rhetoric” that failed to seriously address economic inequality and environmental degradation. Friends of the Earth International called the G8’s proposals “another list of business-friendly initiatives aimed at restoring confidence in financial markets.”

The G8 should comply with promises previously made to reduce the growing gap between rich and poor nations, McDougall, of 50 Years is Enough, told the World. But she pointed out that the G8 members are capitalist countries with corporate interests to protect.

The author can be reached at suewebb@pww.org