People Before Profit blog

Millions mourn Chilean heroine

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 05:19:00 +0000

Thousands of Chileans poured into the streets to pay tribute to Chile’s fiery Communist leader, Gladys Marin, who died March 6 at age 63 after a long battle with brain cancer. Crowds estimated at half a million lined the streets outside La Moneda government palace in Santiago March 8 as her funeral procession passed by.

Marin, chairwoman of the Communist Party of Chile, was revered as a symbol of the resistance to the bloody dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and as the embodiment of Chile’s left.

The Chilean government decreed a two-day period of national mourning. Marin’s body lay in state in the old National Congress building, where she served as a legislator. Some 500,000 Chileans lined up to pay their last respects.

Marin, the only woman heading a political party in Chile, was respected by friend and foe alike for her courage and firmness in upholding her communist ideals, undaunted by personal and political tragedy.

Thirty-two years ago, La Moneda was the scene of the U.S.-backed coup that overthrew the elected Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende and installed Pinochet. Pinochet unleashed a reign of terror, with mass arrests, kidnappings, torture and executions. Thousands simply “disappeared.” Among the disappeared was Marin’s husband, Jorge Muñoz, a member of the Communist Party’s political commission. He was arrested in 1976 and never seen again.

Marin worked against the Pinochet regime from the moment it came to power. As the coup was under way, she rushed to a radio station and called on the Chilean people to resist.

After the 17-year dictatorship ended in 1990, she was a leader of the struggle to bring Pinochet to justice. In 1998, she was the first person to file suit against Pinochet for his crimes. When Marin demanded that Pinochet be tried, calling him a “psychopath who gained power using intrigue, treason and crime,” Pinochet filed suit and she was arrested and jailed. After mass protests she was released two days later. The Chilean Supreme Court eventually revoked Pinochet’s immunity from prosecution and he is now finally facing criminal charges.

Marin was actively involved in the continuing fight to change the Pinochet constitution and laws imposed by the dictatorship — including a two-party electoral system that makes it impossible for all political viewpoints to be represented.

She became the first woman to run for the presidency, as the candidate of the left in 1998. The previous year she ran for the Senate.

At the time of the 1973 coup, Marin was the leader of the Communist Youth of Chile, and a member of the country’s Parliament. After the coup, following a decision of the Chilean Communist Party, she went underground for several months and then sought asylum at the Dutch Embassy. After eight months of worldwide protests, Pinochet was forced to allow her safe conduct out of the country. She left Chile to build international solidarity with the Chilean democratic movement.

Marin returned to Chile in 1978 to lead the underground movement and build the Communist Party. She was one of the leaders of the first large protests against Pinochet in the 1980s, often facing police tear gas and water cannons.

Marin joined the Communist Party at age 16. She was born in the city of Curepto and lived there until her mother, a schoolteacher, moved the family to Talagante, a town just southwest of Santiago, after her father, a farmer, left. In Talagante, she became a leader in the Catholic youth organization.

As a youth and student activist, she met members of the Communist Youth of Chile, and became a member herself in 1958 after she went to Santiago to go to school. Continuing her student activism, she was elected president of the Federation of Teachers College Student Unions.

In 1963 Marin was elected general secretary of the Communist Youth. Two years later Marin was elected to the nation’s Parliament. She was re-elected twice.

After the 1970 victory of the Popular Unity slate, headed by Allende, Marin worked in Parliament to raise wages, freeze prices, halve the unemployment rate, create public works jobs and nationalize the copper industry as a resource for the Chilean people. Her legislative term was ended by the 1973 fascist coup.

For a period of at least 13 years, while she was living in exile and engaged in underground work, Marin was separated from her sons, Alvaro and Rodrigo. Extraordinary precautions had to be taken for her to be able to see them, crossing secretly into neighboring Argentina.

After Marin’s cancer was discovered in 2003, she went to Stockholm for surgery. She spent months in Cuba receiving therapy, then returned to Chile, but was forced to go back to Cuba for another operation. She returned to Chile for the last time in December 2004.

Even while undergoing treatment, Marin played an active part in Chilean politics, writing articles and letters, holding press conferences, and meeting with her Party leadership.

While in Cuba for treatment, she wrote a second volume of her autobiography. In addition to her mother and assassinated husband, she dedicated the book to those who through “dignity, optimism and struggle will make sure that another world is possible.”

j.a.cruz@comcast.netclick here for Spanish text

Iranian people oppose foreign intervention

Fri, 04 Mar 2005 06:45:00 +0000

The Bush administration has begun a new round of aggressive posturing towards Iran’s regime. Under the pretext of the “war against terror” and “spreading democracy,” the U.S. is attempting to rally international support for its policy against Iran. In her recent tour of European capitals, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice didn’t rule out the possibility of military assault against Iran, but stated “military attack by the United States on Iran is simply not on the agenda at this point.” In response, Iran’s regime has embarked on a round of brinkmanship not too dissimilar to Saddam Hussein’s empty boasts.

Iran’s nuclear industry is used as a dangerous bargaining tool by both the U.S. and Iran’s theocratic regime. The Bush administration’s discredited record on Iraq’s alleged WMDs points to a similar pattern regarding Iran’s perceived nuclear threat. On the other hand, this issue forms the basis of the regime’s dangerous and unsustainable foreign policy.

Given the state of the U.S. government’s messy involvement in Iraq, it is not necessarily able to initiate another full-scale military adventure in Iran right now. Invasion of a vast country such as Iran undoubtedly would pose enormous problems for the U.S. The Bush administration, in line with its overall strategy, may consider a limited airborne operation against selected targets. However, a limited attack may not lead to a “regime change.” And as recently explained in The New York Times by the Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, “For human rights defenders in Iran, the possibility of a foreign military attack on their country represents an utter disaster for their cause.”

If at present a full-scale military attack is not practical, the unstable nature of Iran’s politics presents the U.S. with other opportunities instead. By taking advantage of the upcoming presidential election in Iran on June 17, the U.S. could achieve its objectives without an all-out assault. Undoubtedly Washington’s neoconservatives are not interested in the emergence of truly democratic processes in Iran. A democratic state and a free society would be an obstacle to the U.S. plans for economic and political hegemony in the region. Historically, for the U.S., lack of democracy and civic society in countries such as Iran has been instrumental in exploiting their national resources.

The U.S. economic model has not changed and its energy needs are greater than ever. Consequently its policies towards the countries of the Middle East cannot be significantly altered. The so-called plan for a “Greater Middle East” should therefore be judged against the strategic needs of the U.S. economy.

Therefore, in the absence of a total regime change in Iran, the emergence of an oligarchy led by a pragmatic and powerful figure will be a suitable alternative. Such a “strong leader” and a corrupt political economic structure are conducive towards the U.S. regional interests.

Among the possible contenders in the forthcoming election, former president Rafsanjani is the best fit for the U.S. objectives. As one of the most powerful and wealthy figures within the regime, he is also well connected within the mercantile capitalist class in Iran. In 1984-85 he was the key figure in the Iran-Contra affair. In a recent interview with USA Today, he offered himself as someone that the U.S. “can do business with.” He is certainly qualified for the job, as during his presidency Iran experienced one of its darkest periods of repression, while at the same time the regime zealously implemented a destructive “economic adjustment” program prescribed by the International Monetary Fund.

However, the majority of the Iranian people loathe the regime and its leaders such as Rafsanjani because of their continued betrayal of the national interests. Experience shows that even under the current undemocratic conditions these reactionary elements would fail to rally any popular electoral support. Shielding Iran from a perceived U.S. military attack is the only message that a candidate such as Rafsanjani would try to offer.

It is against this background of politics within Iran that the Bush administration’s increasingly confrontational and threatening language should be considered.

The people and democratic progressive forces fighting the dictatorship strongly oppose any sort of foreign intervention in Iran. The popular movement for freedom and democracy in Iran needs and deserves the active support and solidarity of all those who oppose war and strive for peace and progress.

Nima Kamran is a correspondent from the Tudeh Party of Iran.

2 jailed Haitian leaders go on hunger strike

Fri, 04 Mar 2005 06:36:00 +0000

After surviving an attack by gunmen that left one prison guard dead, Haiti’s ousted and jailed Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert have gone on a hunger strike to force the U.S.-imposed interim government to ensure their safety.

Speaking from the Haitian National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital, Neptune and Privert vowed not to eat until the government takes measures to protect them in jail. Privert has been in prison since April 2004 and Neptune since June 2004. Neither one has a trial date yet.

“My life has been in real danger since the elected president of our country was removed in February of 2004,” said Neptune, referring to the U.S.-backed ouster of democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. “This is the third time my life has been put in danger in prison. There was an assassination plot against me in the fall confirmed by the National Police. Then there was the prison massacre on December 1, 2004, in which unknown numbers of prisoners were killed.

“When the prison was attacked this weekend,” Neptune continued, “my life was again clearly and seriously in danger. I could easily have been killed by people inside or outside of the prison. Who is it that keeps putting me in situations where I might be killed?”

On Feb. 19 six armed men stormed the penitentiary. The gunmen managed to get past dozens of guards and free more than a third of the inmates before police and UN troops arrived. One guard was killed and 490 prisoners fled the prison.

Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue said that police were involved in the assault on the penitentiary and announced he was forming a commission to investigate the incident. Apparently, the police did not conceal their participation in the attack. One witness told Reuters that some of the gunmen wore T-shirts with “Haitian National Police” printed on them. Lawyer Reynold Georges said several of his clients who had escaped told him the attackers appeared to be police officers.

The penitentiary is located in downtown Port-au-Prince just three blocks from the national palace and police headquarters, where UN riot police and Haitian police officers are stationed. UN troops have taken control of the prison.

Marguerite Laurent of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network charged that “the prison break was not only an inside job planned from Latortue’s ministry ... the guards opened the cell doors and told the detainees to leave.”

Laurent stated that jailed former soldier Anel Belizaire admitted that someone from Latortue’s office visited him, wanting the ousted prime minister killed. Belizaire said he was given a pistol and told to kill Neptune on Feb. 19, but instead removed Neptune and Privert from their jail cells when the shooting began, to protect them.

Police also reported that they had captured the former Lavalas government ministers who they claim took advantage of the attack to escape. However, UN spokesman Damian Onses-Cardona said that during the gunmen’s assault, Neptune and Privert had taken refuge in the house of another escapee. The two then contacted the UN and asked to be returned.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) sent a letter to President George W. Bush urging him to protect Neptune and Privert, have them released from prison and offer them political asylum in the United States.

Neptune concluded, “We have been patient for over eight months. We have given time for the government and the international community to act. Enough is enough.”

tpelzer@shaw.ca