People Before Profit blog

Brazilian communist holds presidency for 24 hours

Sat, 18 Nov 2006 06:00:00 +0000

SAN PÃULO, Brazil — At 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 12, the government of the Federative Republic of Brazil was headed by Aldo Rebelo, a parliamentary deputy and a member of the central committee of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB). It was the first time a communist has held the presidency in the nation’s history, albeit only for one day.

At that hour the recently re-elected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was embarking on a trip to Venezuela, temporarily handed over his presidential powers Rebelo at a ceremony at Congonhas’ Airport in São Paulo, the nation’s largest city.

Normally Brazil’s vice president, José de Alencar, would have assumed the role of acting president in Lula’s absence. But Alencar was in the U.S. for cancer treatment. Since Rebelo is speaker of the House of Representatives, he was next in line to assume the top post.

At a press conference at the airport, Rebelo said the handover must be viewed as “a normal act of government.”

But this was not exactly a common occurrence in Brazilian history. Rebelo acknowledged as much, saying, “The fight of many generations of progressive and democratic Brazilians to conquer democracy and liberty allowed us to live this rare moment. And today it is possible for a communist, a member of a Communist Party, even for a few hours, run the nation in normality, tolerance and respect.”

Rebelo said it is important to remember that Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, the founders of scientific socialism, “planted the seeds of the ideals of democracy, liberty and independence of nations.”

“Others have made contributions, too — and they were not necessarily Marxists — men of struggle like Simon Bolívar in the Latin America and Abraham Lincoln in United States,” Rebelo said. He also invoked the memory of those “who have struggled for independence, for the Republic as Tiradentes — José Bonifácio, Frei Caneca, Luís Carlos Prestes, João Amazonas, Getúlio Vargas, Floriano Peixoto and Juscelino Kubitschek. A lot of people have struggled in order to create a country where people respect each other.”

Rebelo said the Communist Party of Brazil has tried in every possible way to make its contribution to the construction of a sovereign, democratic Brazil in the almost 85 years of the party’s history.

The party was founded in 1922 and for most of its existence, because of the fierce repression by the country’s reactionary forces, has had to operate underground. That is not the case today.

Rebelo added that Brazil’s communists have dedicated their best energies to promoting the defense of the country’s sovereignty and the independence, as well as to increasing grassroots democratization, so as to free the country of poverty, guarantee political freedom, reaffirm Brazil’s national identity and promote a form of economic development that values and honors the role of labor.

Rebelo is expected to assume the presidency again on Nov. 30, when President Lula visits Nigeria.

Movie REVIEW: Bamako: An African indictment of the World Bank

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 09:49:00 +0000

Movie REVIEW

Bamako

Written and directed by Abderrahmane Sissako

115 minutes

By Bill Meyer

From the cinema of the Third World comes “Bamako,” a fascinating and thought-provoking exposé of the World Bank and the effects of its policies on Africa.

Local officials and townspeople gather in a dusty courtyard in Bamako, the capital city of Mali, to debate and hear testimony from villagers. In a mock trial, they testify about the tragic effects that World Bank-dictated “structural adjustment plans” have had on their country.

One official reveals a confidential letter she received stating “that if we refuse to privatize the transport system, the World Bank will withdraw funding for education and health care in Mali.”

As witnesses describe how the bank’s policies have produced nothing but destruction and poverty, the camera cuts to one of the bank’s officials, who claims the people waste grant money.

In a clever diversion during the film, actor Danny Glover shows up as an American cowboy in a made-for-TV movie. The movie, aptly titled “Death in Timbuktu,” depicts Glover as an outlaw who rides in on a horse and shoots up the town. It serves as a metaphor for the way in which the West comes in, steals the wealth and reduces a country to poverty.

The tragic reality is that, unless action is taken now, 50 million African children are expected to die needlessly in the next five years. Average life expectancy on the continent has dropped to 46 years of age.

Villagers in the courtyard describe the World Bank debt as a stone hanging around Africa’s neck, “the slave’s sign of allegiance to his master.”

The film includes a statement that the ultimate goal of the World Bank should be “community service for all of humanity for all eternity.” As the anger swells among the speakers and townspeople, however, it becomes clear that they believe the real aim of the bank is “profits for eternity.”

Thus from Mali comes one of the most progressive films at this year’s Toronto Film Festival.

Swimming to the other side, memoirs of Victor Grossman

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 09:43:00 +0000

BOOKREVIEW

Crossing the River: A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War and Life in East Germany

By Victor Grossman

University of Massachusetts Press, 2003

Softcover, 328 pp., $24.95

“Thinking of Germany in the night,” wrote the exiled 19th century poet Heinrich Heine, “I lie awake and sleep takes flight.” Indeed, who, pondering that nation’s history, by turns exalted and utterly tragic, has not had more than a few sleepless nights?

The wall separating East and West Germany went up in 1963, but long before that, Winston Churchill had rung down an Iron Curtain. I confess that as a child in central Kansas during that time, having one side of my family of German ancestry, I used to wonder: what was it really like there?

Longtime readers of the People’s Weekly World will be familiar with Victor Grossman’s reports from Germany, generally focusing on current political developments. But now we have a substantial volume of his memoirs, which not only satisfies one’s natural curiosity about a notable journalist’s life, but reveals a great deal of exactly how life really was in the German Democratic Republic during its entire existence.

Born Stephen Wechsler, he was the son of an art dealer in New York City during the Great Depression. When hard times hit, the art market sank, so the family frequently moved. There were happy years at the Free Acres community in the Wachtung Mountains of New Jersey, where everyone experienced a variety of progressive ideas, customs and folkways. His mother arranged his admission to the prestigious Dalton School in New York, followed by admission to Harvard, where he soon became involved with communist student circles. While he gained a decent education there, Wechsler always felt himself to be an outsider in a WASP enclave.

Wechsler moved to Buffalo, N.Y., where he found work in factories, and associations with local Communist Party USA friends, while suppressing his Harvard past.

One day, he recalls, “I witnessed a prank that would become legendary.” Men in the acid room of the plant “made a dummy with rubber boots, apron, and slouch hat, dozing defiantly in a chair. When shift boss Charley turned up, he circled the lazy worker — scolding, shouting and finally grabbing. Everyone watched with intense enjoyment, and Charley’s aggressiveness softened noticeably in the next weeks.”

During the Korean War, Wechsler was drafted into the Army, but was sent to Germany instead of Asia. There he received an ominous letter from the brass, summoning him for a political investigation. Instead, lonely and frightened, he decided to desert, and swam across the Danube to the Soviet Zone of Austria.

At first the Russians didn’t know quite what to make of him, and even suspected that he was a spy. But after a while, they found English books for him, and even boots that fit perfectly. Finally they took him to the GDR, the newly established socialist eastern part of Germany, where he began a new life, and where he received his new name, Victor Grossman.

There are amusing descriptions of his fellow exiles, some of them not “political” at all. And details of what it was like to work in factories, hauling heavy wooden planks. But Grossman, having done this kind of work before, was tough enough to make it.

Eventually he went to journalism school in Leipzig, embarking on a career of writing and translation. There are descriptions of tours by famous people like Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, but also details of German musical personalities. Ernst Busch, the great Brechtian singer and actor, “was known as a grump but I was pleasantly surprised to find him playing happily with a little son, caroling from room to room.”

And when our composer Earl Robinson (“I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night”) visited Leipzig, “at Bach’s grave in the Thomas Church he suddenly dropped to his knees and kissed the flat stone.”

From his radical student days in the U.S., Grossman was familiar with the whole folk music revival, and thus he was not only able to serve as a guide and interpreter for our musicians in the GDR, but also had a radio show devoted to folk music. When he wrote books, they were printed in editions of 10,000 for a reading audience he rightly calls “voracious.”

In addition to music and literature, Grossman presents a vivid picture of daily life in the GDR, including a complex assessment of its political culture. I came away from this book feeling like I had had a valuable opportunity to understand all the pluses and minuses of the GDR’s history.

Grossman remains a partisan of socialism, and he acidly observes that as soon as the Christian Democrats took over the eastern region, all the “libraries, clubhouses, polyclinics, vacation homes, sport and cultural activity” were ruthlessly trimmed. Gaudy advertising was plastered everywhere, papering over, as it were, unemployment, insecurity and anxiety.

There’s a valuable afterward by Mark Solomon, which locates the narrative’s context in recent scholarly studies and assessments of the GDR, which are further annotated in a bibliography. This is a book that should be taken up in school and college courses as well as progressive study circles, and by anyone who wishes to understand the history of German socialism in the latter half of the 20th century.

Citgo donates $400,000 to Chicago school clinic

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 06:50:00 +0000

CHICAGO — Citgo Petroleum Corp., the U.S.-based subsidiary of Venezuela’s publicly owned oil company, announced Nov. 2 it was giving $400,000 to help kick-start a new health clinic at Little Village Lawndale High School on the city’s southwest side.

Citgo President Felix Rodriguez made the announcement during a Mexican Day of the Dead celebration at the school, an event filled with food, music and poetry, attended by teachers, parents and students. The school is 70 percent Latino and 30 percent African American.

“Citgo has a social responsibility, like all companies should,” Rodriguez said, “and we want to help youth and students and give to those who do not have.” Citgo wants to help the people of Chicago, he told the crowd, saying, “This is very important for Venezuela, to develop relationships with the people. Our employees need to be involved in the community.”

Rodriguez told the World that Venezuela is working on organizing people-to-people exchanges between the two countries. He pointed out that “a lot of people don’t know that Citgo is a Venezuelan-owned company.” Citgo’s parent company is the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).

The event was organized by the Little Village Community Development Corp. In a press release, the group said, “The school-based health center will make it easier for students to receive the type of health education, awareness and services they need to lead healthy lives and do well in school.”

Jesus Garcia, the group’s executive director, related the history of the collaboration, saying he set up meetings with Citgo representatives, gave them a tour of the neighborhood and showed them a list of projects in the planning.

“They asked ‘how can we invest?’ and liked the clinic idea,” and were interested in outreach to the Latino and African American communities, Garcia said. “We hit it off. They were very down to earth people, easy going, and wanted to connect with the community to make a difference. So we created a partnership with three-year installments.” Garcia said he hopes this is the beginning of a long-lasting partnership.

Dr. Juliet Bradley of the Dr. Jorge Prieto Community Health Center, a partner with the project, told the gathering of the importance of the school-based clinic. “Students every day deal with migraines, asthma, seizures, eating disorders, anxiety and depression, and they need somewhere to go during school hours,” she said.

One of the school’s four principals, Martha Irizarry, thanked Citgo for the donation. “We are a part of a struggle,” she said, “and now I see we are being supported, our dreams continue. Thank you so much. So many lives will be touched because of this.”

Student Melanie Caldera, 16, said Citgo’s contribution is “great for our school … because they are helping us out, and it’s about time that we are being recognized as a school and a community.”

Lolita Jackson, a parent from the North Lawndale neighborhood, called Citgo’s partnership with the health clinic a “wonderful idea and a blessing.” Jackson’s daughter, a sophomore at the school and on the honor roll, is asthmatic and has frequent attacks. “She needs the clinic,” said Jackson, because sometimes she “leaves her inhaler at home and ends up missing school.” Noting that “education is very important, the more you have the more successful you are,” Jackson said she is thankful for the clinic.

Venezuela’s general consul in Chicago, Martin Sanchez, told the World that this project is an “expression of friendship and solidarity between the two people.”

Sanchez said ideas are being discussed for programs in which U.S. families will host Venezuelan families for a few months to learn English and share cultures.

Last winter Citgo launched an “oil-for-the-poor” campaign with programs in New York and Massachusetts that delivered millions of gallons of heating oil at 45 percent below the market price to low-income communities in need.

“People to people connecting is very important to Venezuela and that needs to be strengthened,” Sanchez said.

Film captures horror of repression in Haiti

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 10:27:00 +0000

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — After U.S. Marines seized Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29, 2004, and flew him to the Central African Republic, the newly installed interim government unleashed a campaign of terror against Aristide’s supporters.

U.S. filmmaker and journalist Kevin Pina captures the horror of this period in his new documentary “Haiti: We Must Kill the Bandits.” He spoke to the World during a brief stopover here to screen his new film.

“We Must Kill the Bandits” is a disturbingly powerful account of the 22-month period between February 2004 and March 2006, when the U.S./Canadian/

French-backed interim government ruled the country. Pina lived in Haiti from January 1999 until March 2006.

After Aristide’s ouster, Haitians began to spontaneously pour into the streets to demand his return. Rather than put up an armed resistance to the U.S. troops and the UN’s military stabilization mission (Minustah), Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas Party decided to employ peaceful, civil resistance.

Such resistance met with brutal repression. The documentary reveals how the Haitian National Police (HNP) and former soldiers carried out many massacres while the Brazilian-led Minustah and U.S. Marines stood by.

Pina recalls one demonstration against the interim government in the poverty-stricken Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Bel Air on May 18, 2004, that he attended. After U.S. Marines — driving around in armored vehicles with guns pointed at the crowds — failed to discourage protesters from demonstrating, the troops disappeared.

Shortly thereafter, a SWAT team with HNP sharpshooters arrived and began shooting people in the head.

“This kid was in front of me and his head burst open like a cantaloupe hit by a rock,” Pina recalled. He said that this scenario — with Minustah and U.S. troops suddenly disappearing, and HNP forces then arriving to shoot unarmed demonstrators — became “a pattern that I saw repeated over and over again.”

In the Bel Air incident, Pina began filming the HNP sharpshooters. They responded by shooting at him.

“I ducked behind two overturned refrigerators and got out my phone and pretended I was calling my embassy really loudly and they stopped and left,” Pina said. Afterwards, he approached a group of U.S. Marines and called them “cowards” for allowing the police attack. An officer told Pina “to leave my men alone” and threatened to arrest him.

In several scenes in the film, Pina approaches Minustah soldiers and asks them why they are refusing to protect pro-Aristide demonstrators, who in plain view are being shot at by Haitian police. In one clip, a Brazilian soldier repeatedly tells him to “f—- off.” Pina said that the soldier also threatened to provide his name and photo to the Haitian police.

In another clip, HNP forces in black uniforms block a road and get ready to fire on marchers. However, when they see Pina and his camera crew, they leave the scene.

Pina also shows that Minustah forces took part in the repression. One of the most gruesome scenes in the film is an interview with a 29-year-old man whose two young sons and wife lay dead on a nearby bed. The man says that Minustah forces had thrown a tear gas canister into his house. He ran out and wrongly assumed that his family had followed him. He returned to his house to find his family dead, bullet holes in their heads.

Pina said he made a point of challenging Minustah, U.S. troops and the HNP every time he could.

“Where we were, we noticed they weren’t opening fire so it just became a question of getting around to as many places as we could ... and try and film as much as we could, just to let them know that someone was watching them,” he said.

Pina artfully includes old black-and-white newsreel clips of U.S. Marines seizing control of the island in 1915, hunting down rebels and installing a friendly government. It’s a reminder of the history of U.S. intervention in Haiti.

Pina stated that he is working on a director’s cut of his documentary and hopes to have it available on DVD soon.

tpelzer@shaw.ca

EDITORIAL: Global warming: act now

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 09:50:00 +0000

A new British government study considered the most comprehensive review on the economic impact of global warming says “staying the course” will have dire consequences for human social and economic activity. At the same time, it says the most catastrophic consequences can be averted if concerted international action is taken now.

The 16-month study, released this week, was led by Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank who now heads Britain’s Government Economic Service. It predicts that without prompt action, global warming could have effects comparable to those of the world wars and Great Depression of the 20th century, leaving hundreds of millions of people hungry and thirsty, increasingly threatened by diseases and displaced by rising sea levels and drought.

“There is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we act now and act internationally,” Stern said as the report was released. “But the task is urgent. Delaying action, even by a decade or two, will take us into dangerous territory,” he added. “We must not let this window of opportunity close.”

In a statement released together with the report, its framers said global warming’s effects will be worldwide, but the poorest countries will suffer most. They pointed out that the cost of doing nothing could be as high as 20 percent of the world’s gross domestic product each year, but avoiding the worst impacts of climate change would be vastly cheaper, about 1 percent of global GDP.

The report emphasizes the urgency of a global policy response, with a common international understanding of goals and a strong framework for cooperation.

As the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, the United States has a special responsibility in averting this looming disaster. But the Bush administration has adamantly rejected earlier warnings about climate change, and has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the world’s first international agreement requiring cuts in global warming emissions.

The Stern report offers yet another reason for Americans to vote to end the extreme right’s domination of Congress, and to retake the White House from Republican control in 2008.

Immigrant mother defends sons future

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 07:35:00 +0000

CHICAGO — Two and half months have passed since Elvira Arellano took sanctuary here at a northwest side church, defying U.S. government efforts to deport her to Mexico. Arellano is optimistic about her prospects, and says her struggle to resist deportation to remain with her 7-year-old son Saul, who is a U.S. citizen, is worth the fight.

“If I don’t fight, nothing will happen,” Arellano told the World in Spanish during an Oct. 30 interview at Adalberto United Methodist Church. “I have a lot to gain if I stand up against deportation.”

As president of the locally based group La Familia Latina Unida, Arellano has become a national symbol of undocumented parents who want to stay in the U.S. with their citizen children. She said her group is dedicated to helping families who are being separated by flawed immigration laws to stay together.

“Our aim is a collective demand to end the unjust deportations of parents,” Arellano said. “It’s ironic that immigration laws are being proposed and debated, yet daily deportations, raids and unjust immigration policies continue to be enforced by the Department of Homeland Security.”

President Bush recently signed legislation to create a 700-mile border fence that would stretch along a third of the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, saying that his administration and the Republican-controlled Congress are getting tough on border security and taking aggressive steps to combat “illegal immigration.”

“It’s a political game employed by the Republicans to gain the conservative vote in the November elections,” said Arellano. “I tell people to register and go out and vote, especially the youth who could vote on behalf of their immigrant parents. If the elections go well, and the Democrats win back Congress, there is a better chance for my case and for the immigrant rights movement as a whole.”

“We are just parents who came here to work,” she said. “None of us came here to be called terrorists or criminals. We came here in search of our dreams.”

Arellano said unity with non-Latino communities is important. “As undocumented workers we suffer the same racism and discrimination as the African American community,” she said. “Our communities need to support one another.”

Last September, a federal judge rejected a lawsuit filed on behalf of Saul that argued his civil rights would be violated if his mother were deported.

In mid-October Arellano filed a national class action lawsuit on behalf of millions of U.S. citizen children against the U.S. government, President Bush, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff. The lawsuit argues that U.S. deportation policies that tear apart families are essentially a form of child abuse.

La Familia Latina Unida organized a busload of citizen children, their parents and supporters to travel to Washington on Nov. 2 to support the lawsuit.

Cook County Commissioner Roberto Maldonado, inspired by Arellano’s courage, drafted a bill calling for the county, which includes Chicago, to be designated a sanctuary for immigrants. The measure would prohibit county employees from asking people about their immigration status, thereby ensuring that undocumented immigrants would have access to all county services.

Elvira Arellano’s son Saul told the World, “I want the president to stop the raids and to help children stay with their moms and dads.” He said his mother is special because “she wants to stay here with me.”

“Saulito” said he wants to be a fireman when he grows up because he likes helping people. He loves the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Bears. His favorite subjects in school are math and working with computers. Superman, Spiderman and Batman are his favorite comic super-heroes. If he had to leave, he said, he would miss his school and friends.

Elvira Arellano said Saulito’s father “does not play a role in our family.”

“I am his mother and his father right now,” she said.

Arellano said she does not feel like a prisoner holed up in the church. She has everything she needs, including her computer and a phone. “At least I don’t have to worry about paying for gas right now,” she said, smiling.

She wished she could have attended a friend’s recent wedding, or another friend’s Quinceanera birthday party. But “ultimately,” she said, “my time and my complete energy is dedicated to my organization and my son.”

“In everything I do, I am always trying to fight for Saulito’s future,” she said. “I want a life full of security, to protect his rights and to be a good role model in his life, an example, to struggle and fight for justice, to teach him what is right and fair.”

plozano@pww.org