People Before Profit blog

International notes

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 05:02:00 +0000

S. Africa: Shoprite strikers march

A thousand striking Shoprite Checkers workers marched through Johannesburg Oct. 24 before presenting their demands at the company’s headquarters. Strikers planned similar marches in other cities.

The workers were accompanied by Willie Madishu, President of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), with which their Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union is affiliated. Among the messages on their picket signs: “Shoprite Checkers beware: we destroyed apartheid, your greed and exploitation is next.”

Issues include the conditions of employment for casual and part time workers, denial of a uniform allowance and the requirement that part time workers undergo a HIV test. The union said an estimated 98 percent of the workers had joined the strike, which it called historic because it united part-time and full-time workers.

The strike is also backed by organizations including the Congress of South African Students, the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party.

Greece: Anti-NATO activists on trial again

Last November, five anti-NATO protesters were acquitted of charges they obstructed the passage of NATO troops in 1999, during the assault on Yugoslavia by the U.S. and NATO. But the public prosecutor has ordered a new trial for the five – including Communist Party Central Committee member Nikos Christianis – starting Oct. 29.

The overwhelming majority of Greeks opposed the war on Yugoslavia, and waves of demonstrators sought for more than two months to halt the passage of NATO troops through Greece in violation of the Greek constitution.

The CP organization in Thessaloniki called the trial “part of the effort to impose the silence of the grave at a time when the situation in the Balkans, Palestine, Iraq is becoming more and more dangerous and requires popular mass reaction against the plans of the U.S., NATO and the European Union.”

It called for protest letters to the Prime Minister of Greece, at mail@primeminister.gr, with copies to cpg@int.kke.gr.

Australia: Maritime firm stranded Pacific Island workers

The ITF maritime workers union is accusing the Australian Faymon shipping company of “racist exploitation” after Faymon stranded seafarers from Fiji and Vanuatu for months in Bangladesh without food or water, and robbed them of their wages.

The ITF was alerted to the plight of 33 seafarers aboard the Pacific Emerald after they were left in Chittagong without food or water last August, forcing them to depend for months on the generosity of local trade unionists. Some were eventually sent home by the company, while others were repatriated by their governments.

“Faymon Shipping has bought a post box in Vanuatu and used it to evade its basic responsibilities,” said ITF coordinator Dean Summers. “It’s a racist thing. If our guys were Australians they would at least pay them but because these workers are Fijians and Vanuatuans they think they can get away with it.”

Sudan: East Africa leaders say peace deal close

Regional leaders from Eastern Africa meeting in Uganda last week expressed optimism that a comprehensive agreement to end the longstanding civil war in Sudan would be reached by the end of the year.

The leaders, attending a one-day summit in Kampala with a specific focus on regional conflict resolution and security, praised progress in the talks though some issues remain unresolved.

The meeting brought together leaders from Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea. It was also attended by Mozambique’s President Joaquim Chissano, who chairs the African Union.

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel (cpusainternat@mindspring.com)

Israeli CP attacked

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 04:55:00 +0000

HAIFA, Israel – General Secretary of the Communist Party of Israel and Arab Israeli lawmaker Issam Mahoul and wife, Su’ad, survived a car bomb explosion and fire on Oct. 24. Mahoul represents the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) in Israel’s parliament (Knesset). Police are investigating the attack.

Hadash supporters staged a solidarity demonstration near Mahoul’s home and denounced the bombing, as did Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav and Knesset member Amram Mitzna. The Speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin, phoned Mahoul and expressed his shock at the incident.

The Communist Party of Israel also condemned the bombing, linking it to the radical right policies, racism and the occupation of Palestinian lands. “We place the responsibility for this wretched murder attempt on the radical right, which draws its inspiration from the war crimes committed daily in the occupied territories. Again we state our position that the 37 year long occupation not only is destroying the Palestinian people, but also the Israeli society and is undermining the foundations of democracy,” the statement said.

The CPI called on the Israeli army to withdraw from the territories and for a just peace between Israel and “the Palestinian state-to-be.” Calling on Jews and Arabs to act together for a just peace, the CPI also warned against the “threat of fascism.”

The explosion happened while Su’ad was backing out of their driveway to pick up their twins from school. She jumped out as the car was engulfed in flames. Mahoul told the World he was sitting in the second family car at the time of the explosion.

Later Su’ad told reporters she had to hail a taxi in order to pick up their children. There was no doubt that it was an attempt to assassinate her husband, she said.

Mahoul said he has no personal enemies, but received several threats by phone.

“I see this attack as a threat to democracy in Israel,” he said.

Mahoul has been an outspoken advocate against the occupation, for a Palestinian state and a just peace. He is one of the 10 Arab-Palestinian lawmakers in the 120-member Knesset.

Hans Lebrecht contributed to this story.

Senate rebukes Bush on Cuba

Thu, 30 Oct 2003 10:42:00 +0000

By a voice vote, the U.S. Senate last week approved an amendment to the Department of Transportation bill that would strip the government of all funding for the enforcement of its much-criticized ban on travel to Cuba. The vote came after a motion to strip the amendment from the Transportation and Treasury Department appropriations bill failed 59-36.

The Senate action was notable for the number of Republican senators (16) who broke with party discipline to vote against the president. A total of five Democrats (Corzine, Graham, Lautenberg, Lieberman, Nelson and Reid) voted with the administration, but this was not enough to stop this important measure.

The vote followed a similar one on Sept. 9 in the House (227-118). As the wording of the House and Senate versions of the amendment is identical, normal procedure would not allow it to be changed in the House-Senate conference committee. Last year, Congress passed a similar amendment only to see it eliminated by parliamentary trickery at the conference committee stage, and opponents of the U.S.-imposed Cuba blockade are calling for vigilance so that this does not happen again.

President Bush has said he will veto the whole bill if the amendment is not somehow removed.

The dynamic that is driving the Republican defections from the Bush policy on Cuba has mostly to do with the desire of farm states to expand trade with Cuba, which at present can only be conducted on a cash basis. However, there is also an element of annoyance with the administration for wasting resources of the Homeland Security Department on the Cuban non-threat while there is supposedly a war on terrorism going on.

Most observers of congressional action on Cuba are of the opinion that the blow against travel sanctions reflects a much wider desire in Congress and in the U.S. public to find a new opening in U.S.-Cuba relations.

However, the Bush administration is continuing to increase the pressure on Cuba and on people who have dealings with Cuba. It is reported that government agents are now boarding airplanes leaving Miami bound for Havana, to interrogate Cuba-bound travelers as to the legality of their trips. Academic and other licenses to visit Cuba legally are to be cut back, in conformity with a promise President Bush made this month to one of his principal ally groups, right-wing Cuban exiles in South Florida.

The U.S. government is also telling scientific journals that they may not edit for publication articles sent to them by Cuban scientists. A letter from the Office of Foreign Asset Controls sent to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers informed the Institute that if they accepted such articles for publication, they would not be allowed to make changes in grammar without a government license, because to do so would be to provide “material aid” to the authors and thus, by extension, to Cuba.

The author, who would like to thank Jane B. Franklin and Debra Evenson for their information, can be reached at

International notes

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 11:10:00 +0000

South Africa: Bram Fischer reinstated

The South African Communist Party last week welcomed the posthumous reinstatement of Abram (Bram) Fischer as an attorney. Fischer, a leading SACP member, was disbarred and imprisoned by the apartheid regime. He died of cancer while in prison in 1975.

The SACP called Fischer’s reinstatement “a recognition of the role he played as a Communist in the struggle against apartheid. ... Born into a powerful Afrikaner family, he had all the benefits of apartheid to savor, but he followed his consciousness into the Communist Party of South Africa. He sacrificed wealth, fame, comfort, high position, a privileged life in an already privileged white society.”

Fischer himself said during his trial, “Whatever labels may be attached to the 15 charges brought against me, they all arise from my having been a member of the Communist Party and from my activities as a member. ... I hold and have for many years held the view that politics can only be properly understood and that our immediate political problems can only be satisfactorily solved without violence and civil war by the application of that scientific system of political knowledge known as Marxism.”

Serbia: U.S. Steel hit by strike

Little over a month after their bankrupt factory was bought by U.S. Steel, workers at the former Sartid steel plant walked out Oct. 14 over the company’s refusal to grant their demand for wages of 55 dinars per hour, or slightly less than $1.

Trade union leader Mileta Gujanicic said the average monthly wage at Sartid was equivalent to $159 – 10 percent below the average wage in Serbia. “We demand U.S. Steel increase to 55 dinars from 33 dinars the hourly wage, which is still well below what U.S. Steel workers get in other countries,” Gujanicic said in a phone interview with Reuters.

Last month U.S. Steel paid about $23 million for the plant, which is located 25 miles outside the capital city, Belgrade. U.S. Steel pledged to continue some 9,000 jobs for three years, and invest over $150 million to upgrade the plant and provide services to the community.

Benin: Child laborers freed

Last week 74 child laborers – some as young as 4 years old – were returned from Nigeria to Benin, where they were receiving food, clothing and medical care. Under an agreement reached in August between presidents of the two countries, they were rescued from the traffickers who sold them into heavy labor in the granite industry of southern Nigeria.

U.N. officials said the children told their rescuers that at least 13 of their young companions had died in the past three months, worn out by smashing and carrying rocks and sleeping in the open, without adequate food.

With many west African families plunged into deep poverty as local economies are destroyed by transnational corporations, many children are thrust into heavy labor at an early age. Over 15,000 children from Benin are estimated to be working in Nigerian granite pits. Thousands are expected to be repatriated in the near future.

Britain: Thousands still don’t get minimum

Over four and a half years after the minimum wage was introduced, the Trades Union Congress says dishonest employers are still cheating as many as 170,000 workers out of their mandated pay. The current minimum wage equals about $7.20 per hour (or just over $6 for those 18-21 years old). The TUC and the Low Wage Network have issued a new enforcement guide to help track down those employers who are deliberately violating the law.

Workers most likely to be cheated out of the minimum wage are employed in the clothing, footwear and retail industries, or work as hairdressers, domestic workers or housekeepers, the TUC said. Many migrant workers employed by contractors in agriculture and food production, as well as in sweatshops, are paid less than the national minimum.

Latin America: Water crisis affects 130 million

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said earlier this month that over 130 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean lack safe drinking water in their homes, and only 86 million are connected to adequate sanitation systems.

In a statement issued Oct. 4 in observance of Inter-American Water Day, PAHO said one of the millennium goals agreed by the countries of the Americas is to cut in half the number of people without safe water and sanitation by the year 2015.

This year’s Inter-American Water Day was held during the International Year of Fresh Water, declared by the U.N. General Assembly. The slogan is “Water: let’s not take it for granted.” Currently, water supplies in Latin America are increasingly threatened with privatization.

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel (cpusainternat@mindspring.com)

Letter from Moscow: Russians fight to restore democracy

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 10:56:00 +0000

MOSCOW – October 4th marked the 10th anniversary of the storming of the Russian White House, the building that used to house the Soviet parliament. On this day in 1993, the city of Moscow erupted as the working people retaliated against then-President Boris Yelstin’s police force and political cronies.

It was a scene of glory and horror, hope and despair, as more than 100 Communists and leftists were martyred while acting under their innate compulsion for freedom, solidarity, and survival. This violent culmination was reached nearly two weeks after Yeltsin’s decision to dissolve the parliament, which followed a yearlong controversy concerning his unconstitutional privatization plans.

Yeltsin initiated the battle by ordering the police to lay siege to the White House, where Communist and progressive legislators had barricaded themselves in to defend the Soviet government. Over 10,000 protestors supporting the legislators then broke through the police blockade in order to reclaim the White House. But, by brute force, Yeltsin’s troops prevailed as tanks shelled the parliament building.

Although the battle lasted for no more than two days, the impact of the event will never be forgotten. It was significant not only for Russians but for people around the world as well. Those men and women, young and old who bravely took up arms to defend their democratic rights on Oct. 4 shared a commitment against the capitalist system. Those who fought for the working people of the world on Oct. 4 will continue to be an inspiration to all of us.

For the 10th anniversary of the battle, the Russian Communists held a rally in October Park, which is located several kilometers from the White House. A crowd of 5,000 and several thousand observers arrived at the park around noon. Leaders of the Communist Party delivered inspiring speeches, under the vigilant eyes of a statue of V.I. Lenin. They elicited cheers from their audience, waving Communist flags as they shouted over and over again, “[Yeltsin’s government] was never democratic! It was never constitutional! They are not our government!”

I made my way through the crowd, over to the stage area. After a short conversation with the Red Guards, who were blocking the backstage entrance, I was granted passage. There, I met F.Kh. Galkin, a high-ranking Communist Party official. After discovering that I was an American, he commented, “Leftist groups and political parties in America have a difficult task, but they are necessary because American politicians are so malicious.” He then explained how the battle of Oct. 4, 1993, had not only affected the Communists, but had also impacted numerous Russian groups and parties, a good number of which were represented at the rally.

After several hours of speeches and songs, a march began from October Park to the White House. The crowd grew larger the closer we got to the White House. En route, I felt a breeze from 1917 as an elderly Russian woman worked to convince police and onlookers to join the procession. After the march, the commemoration concluded without a single reported incident of violence.

To better understand the significance of the Oct. 4 rally, one must be aware of the current condition of Russian society. Since the introduction of “free market” and “democratic liberal” capitalism, the living conditions of the Russian people have plunged to intolerable depths. Exploitation by both foreign and domestic businesses has left the elderly working to supplement their meager pensions, lured desperate young women into prostitution and young men into criminal syndicates, and turned the disabled into street beggars. The price of commodities continues to soar, and the privatization of education leaves a vast majority of the population without any sort of adequate schooling.

As one working class, we should not simply concern ourselves with our own, particular, immediate social situations, but with the state of the working class across the world. As the Russian people move further into an understanding of the perils of capitalism, why should the rest of the world wait, and allow the obvious threats of capitalism to fester into an insurmountable force? We should be inspired by the Communists in Russia today who defend the struggles and accomplishments of the Soviet system and condemn and expose the hypocrisies and injustices of the “new” Russia.

The author is a U.S. student in Moscow and can be reached at a1colecole@aol.com

Rebellion in Bolivia ousts president

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 10:53:00 +0000

Tens of thousands of Bolivian workers, peasants, indigenous people, and students flooded the streets of La Paz, Bolivia’s capital, last week in celebration of the ouster of former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada.

They lost no time in serving notice on the newly sworn-in President Carlos Mesa Gilbert that they expected him to improve their lot quickly or meet the same fate as his predecessor.

Sánchez de Lozada, 73, a millionaire businessman closely aligned with the Bush administration, was forced out of office by a massive popular rebellion against his “free trade” policies. He had pushed for the building of pipeline that would have shipped trillions of cubic feet of Bolivian natural gas to the United States with little or no economic benefit to the Bolivian people. Strikes and roadblocks in opposition to his policies resulted in the country’s paralysis for nearly a month.

After brutally repressing the protests against him – resulting in at least 70 deaths and thousands of injured – Sánchez de Lozada finally offered some token concessions. He then defiantly vowed to never step down. The protests continued, and on Oct. 17 the former president packed his bags and fled to Miami.

“We succeeded in throwing out Goni!” peasant leader Juan Tinkuta told the Associated Press, using Sánchez de Lozada’s nickname. “That shows the sleeping pueblo is finally waking up.” Evo Morales, an indigenous union leader from the Cochabamba region, went further and called for Sánchez de Lozada’s arrest and prosecution for crimes of “economic genocide” against the Bolivian people. Morales, a leader of the Movement Toward Socialism, nearly won the presidency in the last election.

Carlos Mesa, 50, the former vice president, immediately stepped into the breach. Upon donning the presidential sash, he quickly traveled to El Alto, the industrial suburb of La Paz that was a stronghold of the rebellion. Mesa promised to hold a national referendum on the pipeline issue, to investigate workers’ claims that various economic laws are unjust, and to create a constitutional assembly to discuss land questions.

Mesa did not address another contentious issue – the U.S.-inspired defoliation campaign against coca farmers that has led to the widespread ruin of Bolivian farmers who grow the crop for non-narcotic uses. Many coca farmers were in the forefront of the protests.

Mesa appointed a new cabinet of 15 members, and created a new ministry of ethnic affairs, which will be headed by an Indian from eastern Bolivia. Only two of the ministers are Indian, although a strong majority of the nation is composed of indigenous Quechua, Aymara, and other Indian peoples. The domination of Bolivia’s government by a European, non-Indian elite has rankled the Bolivian people for decades. An additional minister for mining is supposed to be appointed soon.

One of Mesa’s most troubling appointments was the naming of Juan Ignacio Siles as foreign minister. Siles is the nephew of Jaime del Valle, who served as foreign minister under the fascist Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile.

President Mesa is variously described as a “historian and journalist.” But he, too, is a millionaire businessman, having made his fortune in the media industry. According to the BBC, he turned his local PAT television network into a national network, making a tidy sum in the process.

Bolivia is among the poorest nations of Latin America, where 63 percent of the people live below the poverty level. Many workers earn less than $2 per day.

Indigenous leader Felipe Quispe, the head of the Single Trade Union of Campesino Workers, said President Mesa has 90 days to implement radically new policies or “he [too] will be our enemy.”

Gertrudes Abarado, a teacher who helped lead the protests, told Reuters much the same thing: “We’ll give the new government time to do things. If it doesn’t, well, we’ll explode again.”

Ominously, the Pentagon’s U.S. Southern Command is said to be closely monitoring the situation, and has dispatched a special military team to assess “the security situation” in Bolivia, even though reportedly neither the State Department nor the Bolivian government has requested it.

The author can be reached at malmberg@pww.org

International notes

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 04:23:00 +0000

Asia: Coca-Cola workers mobilize

Unions representing Coca-Cola workers in Hong Kong, India, Japan, South Korea, Philippines and Sri Lanka met in Manila earlier this month and agreed to coordinate their efforts to build strong bargaining power to protect the interests of all employees including “irregular” workers, the IUF international federation of food, agricultural and related workers reported.

In the conference to prepare for talks between the IUF and global Coca-Cola management on Oct. 21, the unions emphasized concerns about company plans to restructure production through subcontracting and outsourcing.

The meeting paid special attention to the need for “atypical, contract and irregular workers” to have trade union rights including collective bargaining, and condemned the company’s frequent practice of replacing long-time regular workers with subcontracted employees.

“We call on the Coca-Cola system to respect the core labor conventions of the International Labor Organization, in particular freedom of association and collective bargaining, and to honor collective bargaining agreements which have standards that exceed national legislations,” the unions said in a statement.

Russia: Bauxite miners win big

Striking miners at Russia’s largest bauxite mine have won an unprecedented agreement for a substantial increase in miners’ salaries, an end to withholding of past-due payments and elimination of wage cuts linked to productivity, the Russia Journal Daily said last week.

What began as an unsanctioned strike by about 500 underground miners turned into a weeklong strike by several thousand workers at the Northern Urals Bauxite Mine in Sverdlovsk Oblast. The mine, owned by Siberian Ural Aluminum (SUAL), is Russia’s largest producer of bauxite, the raw material for aluminum. The agreement is the first such victory in a labor action by Russian aluminum workers.

Strikers demanded management end its practice of cutting official wage payments according to a scale of rising production targets. They also sought payments of overdue overtime wages and an increase in miners’ base pay. Further improvements are to be negotiated by a special labor-management committee over the next two months.

Greece: Strikes paralyze capital

Massive labor rallies in Athens brought the city to a halt last week, as teachers, sanitation workers, doctors and other medical workers, construction workers, taxi drivers, police and others protested low wages and inadequate benefits.

The government, which included wage hikes for low wage workers including farmers and students in its budget proposal to parliament, maintains it cannot afford an increase for what it calls “privileged sectors” of the workforce.

In the wake of attacks by riot squads against striking police officers, the Associated Press quoted a leader of the police union as calling the attacks “a disgrace,” and demanding the police leadership resign.

The Oct. 9 rallies were part of a month-long series of labor actions that have played havoc with services and transportation throughout the country.

Venezuela: Chavez says, ‘Celebrate resistance’

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on Latin Americans to mark Oct. 12 as the “Day of Indian Resistance” instead of the traditional “Columbus Day” holiday observed in the U.S. and several Latin American countries, Reuters reported this week.

“Christopher Columbus was the spearhead of the biggest invasion and genocide every seen in the history of humanity,” Chavez told a meeting in Caracas of representatives of indigenous people from throughout the continent. He said Spanish, Portuguese and other foreign conquerers slaughtered South American indigenous peoples at an average rate of one every 10 minutes. He said even the continent’s geographical names, like America and Venezuela, were imposed by foreigners.

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel (cpusainternat@mindspring.com)

Pressure builds for probe of Bush WMD distortions

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 03:22:00 +0000

One year after it authorized use of the Armed Forces to defend the nation against the alleged “threat posed by Iraq and to enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions,” Congress is considering an additional $87 billion for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. As it prepares for the vote, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) has authored a “sense of the House of Representatives resolution” for the House not to adjourn this year’s first session of the 108th Congress until either an independent commission or a select House committee is created to investigate questions about U.S. intelligence relating to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Rep. Lee’s draft resolution, which is expected to be officially introduced this week, already has 25 cosponsors. It states that Congress and the American people “have a right to understand the process by which this Nation went to war against Iraq.”

With over 300 dead and 1,200 wounded U.S. forces in Iraq since March 2003, and over a billion dollars spent each week on the war, the resolution says that both an independent commission and a House select committee are needed to investigate “the interpretation and presentation both within the executive branch and in communications from that branch to members of Congress and the American public regarding the potential level of threat posed by Iraq’s alleged attempts to revive its nuclear weapons program, to develop and deploy chemical and biological weapons, and to provide support for terrorist organizations including al Qaeda.”

The resolution asserts that failure of the House to establish an independent commission or select committee now while troops are at risk and money being spent “could seriously undermine the effectiveness of future intelligence interpretation and threat assessment and could adversely affect this Nation’s foreign policy.”

Rep. Lee, in a letter to her congressional colleagues, said, “These questions are critical to today’s debates about the ongoing war … as the American people are asked to pay another installment on this war and as Congress is asked to approve it, we have the right to know how was intelligence used or misused in the process which led to this war.”

Significantly, the first three cosponsors, Democrat Reps. Henry Waxman (Calif.), Elizabeth Tauscher (Calif.), and Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), have all authored major legislation on the Iraq intelligence probe issue. Waxman’s HR 2625 calls for an independent commission. Tauscher’s H. Res. 307 calls for a select House committee. Both bills have been stalled in committee by the House Republican leadership for four months. Kucinich’s H. Res. 260, which called for a detailed report from the administration to Congress on the issue, was killed in committee on a straight party line vote in a hastily called hearing last June.

Shannon Smith, a staff member for Lee, said that House supporters will begin reading statements into the Congressional Record of citizens calling for a serious investigation. Major peace groups will also begin focusing on the issue as well, she said.

Waxman’s bill for an independent commission has 130 cosponsors to date without the support of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) nor the influential ranking Democrat House Intelligence Committee member Jane Harman (Calif.). Should they join in Lee’s resolution, a public showdown on the Republican leadership’s stonewalling of the issue could be damaging for the GOP presidential and congressional campaigns next year.

The author can be reached at rosalio_munoz@sbcglobal.net.

Rights activist gets Nobel Prize

Thu, 16 Oct 2003 10:25:00 +0000

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Iranian human rights activist and lawyer, Shirin Ebadi, on Oct. 10, has significant internal and international implications for the development of political events in Iran. This prize is in effect an international recognition of the people’s struggle for democracy, freedom and an end to the ruling theocratic dictatorship. This award undoubtedly will encourage the popular movement fighting for democracy and democratic reforms while also struggling against any foreign intervention in Iran.

Shirin Ebadi, has a distinguished record of defending imprisoned political activists and persecuted militant students in Iran, which brought her into conflict with the ruling regime. She has been a consistent opponent of U.S. aggression against Iraq.

It is notable that Shirin Ebadi in her first interview after receiving the award has courageously demanded the release of all political prisoners in Iran. She has also expressed opposition towards foreign interference in her country.

While the regime’s reactionary rulers have furiously criticized the Nobel committee’s decision as an act of interference, all democratic and human rights activists inside and outside Iran have overwhelmingly greeted the award. However, the senior reformist figures in Khatami’s government have broadly confined their statements to personal messages and specifically avoided any comment on the effects of this development on the wider movement for reform in Iran. Khatami himself has cautiously welcomed the award but tried to reduce its significant by stating “the Nobel Peace Prize is not as important as the prizes for literature or scientific achievements.”

Shirin Ebadi’s Nobel award will further extend the movement for democracy in Iran beyond the boundaries and the failed actions of the Reformist leadership. And it will specifically affect the struggle of the women’s movement for equality and justice. For the majority of Iranians, this event is not about the first Nobel Prize awarded to a Moslem woman or simply the recognition of an individual’s achievement. It will be seen as a means to rally internal and external support for their struggle against the ruling dictatorship.

Internationally, the award has been greeted by a huge array of public figures and organisations, among them George Bush! However, the many statements issued by Bush’s administration about Iran never acknowledge the existence of a popular movement against the dictatorship. They deliberately ignore the progressive organizations and activists in Iran – amongst them well known political prisoners who are fighting for democracy and justice. The reasons are obvious. The Bush administration needs to portray itself as the only savior of Iran in order to justify its plans to impose a puppet pro-U.S. regime on the country, although the brand of “free-market democracy” on sale by President Bush has been rejected repeatedly by the people of Iran and those striving for change in the country.

The obvious message from this award is that the popular movement for democracy has widespread popular support in Iran. And that outside interventions under any pretext will certainly hinder efforts towards peace and democracy and would be rejected by people and their progressive political forces.

Nima Kamran is a correspondent from the Tudeh Party of Iran and can be reached at pww@pww.org

No votes urged on Bush Iraq bill

Thu, 16 Oct 2003 10:19:00 +0000

With a congressional vote expected shortly on President Bush’s $87 billion request for the occupation of Iraq, a growing number of lawmakers have announced they will vote against it.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) said Tuesday he will vote against the request, saying he supports our troops and believes the U.S. has a responsibility to rebuild Iraq, but that will not happen “unless the president dramatically changes course.” Edwards said Bush “is not going to change direction unless somebody stands up to him and says no.”

Fellow Democratic candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who has made opposition to the administration’s war policy a centerpiece of his campaign, previously said he will oppose the $87 billion request. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) also said this week he was leaning towards voting against the funding.

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) called Bush’s budget-draining request “atrocious,” “ill-conceived,” and “harmful to the future of this nation.” Rush said he would actively lobby his colleagues to get “as many no votes as possible.”

The White House launched a new public relations offensive on Iraq last week, but a cloud of suspicion continues to dog its efforts.

New reports suggest the public relations effort has included manipulation of soldiers serving on the front lines. In an Oct. 13 story widely picked up by major media, the Gannett News Service reported that identical letters from different soldiers serving in Iraq, describing successes in rebuilding Iraq, have recently appeared in the soldiers’ hometown newspapers across the country. The identical letters, all purportedly from soldiers serving with the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, convey a glowing picture of the restoration of quality of life and security in Kirkuk, where the unit is based, and describes people waving at passing troops and children running up to shake their hands and say thank you.

The Olympian, in Olympia, Wash., received identical letters signed by two different soldiers who hail from the area. The paper declined to run either because of its policy not to publish form letters. The Los Angeles Times also received several copies of the letter but did not publish them.

The Olympian noted, “The letters appear to be part of a campaign to present a positive picture of the U.S. occupation.” Bob Bolerjack, editorial page editor of the Everett, Wash., Herald, which did publish the letter, said his newspaper had been “duped.”

Several of the soldiers contacted by Gannett said they agreed with the contents, but hadn’t written the letters, and at least one said he didn’t sign it. Another said he didn’t know about it.

Sgt. Shawn Grueser of Poca, W.Va., told the Gannett reporter that he had spoken to a military public affairs officer about his accomplishments in Iraq for what he thought was a news release to be sent to his hometown paper. But he said he did not sign any letter. Although Grueser said he agrees with the letter’s sentiments, he was uncomfortable that a letter with his signature did not contain his own words or activities. “It makes it look like you cheated on a test, and everybody got the same grade,” he said.

Moya Marois, whose stepson Spc. Alex Marois did sign the letter, said while she is proud of her stepson, she feels the letter is an effort to give legitimacy to an unjustified war. “We’re going to support our son,” she said, but “there are a lot of Americans that are not in support of this war, that would like to see them returned home, and think it’s going to get worse.”

Seeking to counteract the growing public opinion that the war and occupation were based on fraud and are not worth the cost, the administration is trumpeting what it claims are its successes in Iraq. But the White House has also sent the usually hidden Vice President Dick Cheney out on the attack trail, repeating widely discredited assertions that Iraq posed a threat to America’s security. Speaking to a friendly audience at the right-wing Heritage Foundation, Cheney ignored the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the absence of any links between Saddam Hussein and international terrorist groups. Instead, he portrayed the administration’s Iraq war in Armageddon-like terms as a mission to prevent an “ultimate nightmare [that] could bring devastation to our country on a scale we have never experienced.” Similarly turning facts on their head, Bush, speaking at an Air National Guard base in Portsmouth, N.H., compared the U.S. role in Iraq to the post-World War II occupation of Germany and Japan, saying the occupation ensured those countries “no longer waged war on America.” Some observers likened such statements to the “big lie” technique made famous by Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels: if you tell a big enough lie and repeat it often enough, people will eventually come to believe it.

The author can be reached at suewebb@pww.org

Cuban foreign minister speaks in Harlem

Fri, 10 Oct 2003 04:03:00 +0000

NEW YORK – Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Felipe Pérez Roque made a powerful indictment of the United States’ role in harassing and blackmailing the Cuban people and government throughout the last 40 years when he spoke at the Church of the Intercession in Harlem on Sept. 27.

In an environment that was brimming with solidarity, hundreds of people of all races and beliefs listened to Pérez Roque speak about the true nature of Cuba’s foreign policies.

At the beginning of his speech, Pérez Roque said, in reference to the five Cubans held prisoner in different U.S. penitentiaries, “The unfair and biased trials held against my fellow countrymen were flagrant violations of each of their rights, of human rights, as well as international rights.”

He continued, “The jury selected for this trial was not done impartially, but in a selective manner, so that the trial only served the interest of the Miami Cuban mafia, which has kidnapped U.S. policies in regards to Cuba. That was so open that the federal court in Atlanta is reviewing an appeal against that ignominious trial, to appeal the decision, so that an independent jury can be the one that will make a decision in the case.”

He denounced the unequal treatment of anti-Cuban terrorists and the “Cuban Five,” whose only “crime” was to monitor right-wing terrorist groups in Miami so as to prevent an attack on the island.

Pérez Roque said that in 1973 a Cuban airline plane was blown apart in midair. The plane was full of passengers, including the Cuban fencing team. He said that the perpetrators of this horrendous crime were a group of CIA agents headed by one of the most despicable of terrorists, Luis Posada Carriles.

“These criminals were sentenced to a few years in prison because of the enormous international pressure which the Cuban government made through international forums, including the United Nations. Nevertheless, they were freed in a few years and today they walk around freely, with all of their rights, and protected by their ‘front men,’” he said.

The Cuban Foreign Minister denounced the double standards of the U.S. government. He said the U.S. talks about its fight against terrorism all over the world and proclaims itself the champion of that fight on one hand, and then protects terrorists on the other hand. He denounced the U.S. government for refusing on more than one occasion to sign an agreement proposed by Cuba against terrorism, noting that the U.S. has also opposed treaties against drug trafficking and illegal immigration.

Pérez Roque acknowledged that the U.S. embargo against Cuba has adversely affected its development, and has limited, for example, the amount it can spend on health, education, and other social priorities. Even so, he said, Cuba is doing better than many places in the U.S., including Harlem, where the infant mortality rate is more than 14 for every thousand, while in Cuba it is 6 per thousand.

Regarding education, he said that Cuba has the best educational system in the world, with the smallest class size and the lowest per capita level of illiteracy. He said that 99 percent of school-age Cuban youth finish primary, secondary and intermediate education.

Pérez Roque said that Cuba will continue to fight against the embargo because it has no legal nor moral standing, and that the whole of humanity is united with Cuba and its government against this abusive and unjust policy.

He said there needs to be a profound reform of the United Nations, so that no single country can assume for itself the right to act as master of the world, no matter how powerful it is. He observed that many people thought the world would be a more peaceful one with the collapse of the Soviet Union because there would be no more “Soviet threat.” But, on the contrary, there are more armaments, more wars, and more military occupations, as in the recent case of Iraq.

Pérez Roque ended his presentation saying that one proof that Cuba will win, and that justice will reign in the world, is that, last year, during the sessions of the UN, 173 states voted against the embargo, while only three voted for it. In spite of this, he said, the U.S. is stubbornly set upon maintaining the embargo against Cuba and against humanity. “Cuba will win. Of that we are sure.”

More setbacks for Bush on Iraq

Fri, 10 Oct 2003 03:17:00 +0000

The Bush administration’s effort to get international cover for its Iraq occupation suffered a serious setback at the United Nations last week when Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the UN must be given a leading role in restoring Iraqi sovereignty or it would not be involved in Iraq at all.

Annan’s remarks, at a closed-door meeting of the Security Council, were an unprecedented direct criticism of the U.S. occupation and the administration’s insistence on retaining control of Iraq. He was also critical of a revised resolution submitted by the U.S. which gives no timetable for ending the occupation and does not include transfer of significant power to the UN. “Obviously it’s not going in the direction I had recommended,” Annan told reporters.

France, Russia and others also criticized the revised draft. Russia’s UN ambassador said, “We believe that at this stage we should give the United Nations the leading role in the political process, to work with all Iraqis, to develop a timetable which should be clear … leading to the full restoration of sovereignty and that this process could be supported by a multinational force.”

A senior UN official told reporters, “What we want is a sovereign provisional government as soon as possible so we can work in Iraq like we do in other countries instead of being asked to be part of military occupation.”

Bush administration officials now say they may drop their effort to get UN support. With the U.S. public increasingly questioning the occupation’s ballooning costs, the administration has been trying to round up help from individual foreign governments, with little success. Turkey agreed this week to send troops to Iraq, after months of pressure and promise of an $8.5 billion loan from the U.S., but this could be problematic. Turkey’s prime minister said the decision “is not one that will be executed immediately,” and “will depend on developments.” Members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council said they oppose having troops from Turkey or any other neighboring state on their soil. Iraqis, especially the large Kurdish population, particularly object to Turkish military involvement because of Turkey’s history of battling Kurdish autonomy and its 400-year rule over Iraq under the Ottoman Empire.

There has been increasing open friction between the Governing Council and U.S. officials. The Bush administration, trying to keep the UN out of the process of developing a new Iraqi state, has been pressing the council to come up with a quick-fix constitution. But council members have objected to U.S. efforts to control the process and say they favor a larger UN role. UN officials say a provisional Iraqi government should write a constitution and hold elections with UN help.

Meanwhile, Iraqi trade unionists have announced the formation of a new Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), saying they are building “a new democratic trade union movement.” The federation was formed this spring at a Baghdad meeting attended by 400 trade unionists active in the opposition to the Saddam Hussein regime. Unions have been established in key sections of the economy including oil and gas, transportation, communications, food, construction, electrical and service industries, and agriculture. The IFTU, working under difficult conditions with unpaid staff, is appealing for help from the international labor movement.

In Washington, the White House is scrambling to regain a public relations offensive on Iraq. It is under criminal investigation over charges it illegally leaked confidential information to stifle dissent, and there are renewed calls for investigation of its misuse of intelligence to sell the war.

David Kay, head of a U.S. team sent to Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction to justify the Bush rationale for war, was forced to tell Congress Oct. 2 that the group has found no proof Iraq had such weapons.

U.S. troops in Iraq are being attacked 15-20 times a day, on average, suffering an average of three to six deaths and 40 wounded every week, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, told reporters last week. “We should not be surprised if one of these mornings we wake up and ... there has been a major firefight with some casualties or a significant terrorist attack that kills significant numbers of people,” Sanchez said.

A CBS News/New York Times poll released Oct. 2 found that most Americans – 53 percent – believed the war was not worth it, and 56 percent believed this country is on the wrong track. Bush’s approval ratings neared a record low.

The author can be reached at suewebb@pww.org

International notes

Thu, 09 Oct 2003 09:22:00 +0000

Cuba: U.S. charges of bioterrorism a ‘lie’

Cuba’s Foreign Ministry has denounced the resurrection of discredited U.S. claims, originally made last year, that Cuba is developing biological weapons. Such charges constitute a “cynical lie,” the Foreign Ministry said.

Allegations that Cuba possesses or seeks to possess biological weapons were first made by Bush administration official John Bolton in a speech in May 2002. They receded from view after Cuba emphatically rejected the charges and challenged the U.S. to prove them. Former President Jimmy Carter had also demanded to see such proof, casting doubt on Bolton’s claims.

The charges were raised again on Oct. 2 in the testimony of Roger Noriega, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs, at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. Noriega also called for intensifying the blockade and threatened to escalate actions against Cuban diplomats in the U.S.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry said the Bush administration has “shamefully lied” in its bid to win votes from right-wing Cubans in Miami. It rejected what it called “these new imperial threats” and said the Cuban people will not be intimidated.

South Africa: ‘Red October’ focuses on farm workers

The South African Communist Party said last week that this year’s “Red October” campaign will focus on the fightback of farm workers against their employers’ widespread violations of labor law.

In a statement Oct. 3, SACP General Secretary Blade Nzimande said the case of over 1,000 farm workers wrongly dismissed by the ZZ2 farm in Limpopo Province for insisting the farm comply with new minimum wage laws is just one example of the problem. He said a recent report by the South African Human Rights Commission “shows evidence that despite the post-1994 transformation of the labor market in favor of workers, farm workers still do not enjoy rights because of arrogant refusal by employers to comply” and lack of mechanisms to ensure compliance. Most farm workers and domestic workers still face conditions similar to those under apartheid, he said.

India: Unions vs. oil privatization

The All-India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and the Center of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) are strongly condemning the government’s proposal that some of the Indian Oil Company’s operations be privatized.

In a joint statement, the union federations said the decision is neither prudent nor in the national interest. “In fact the decision is directly against national interest, keeping in view the geopolitical importance of the oil sector to the country in the present worsening security scenario,” they said.

The Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment met Oct. 4 to discuss the government’s options after a Supreme Court ruling that the government must seek parliamentary approval before selling equity in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd., which were nationalized by legislation. The Cabinet Committee decided to form a committee to discuss many proposals, including splitting the Indian Oil Corporation and privatizing some of its operations.

Italy: General strike looms over pensions

The country’s three main labor federations – CGIL, CISL and UIL – are calling a four hour walkout on Oct. 24 to protest the Berlusconi government’s plan to raise the retirement age and increase years of service needed for pension eligibility.

Though the official retirement age is 65 for men and 60 for women, pensions may begin when a worker has contributed to the pension fund for 35 years, and is at least age 57. The government’s proposal would raise the years of contribution to 40, and the eligibility threshold to 65 by 2008.

“We ask all workers, young people, and pensioners to take to the streets and defend a system which is not in trouble,” the three federations said in a joint statement. “There is no pensions emergency. The government ... is dramatizing the pensions problem.”

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel (cpusainternat@mindspring.com).

Death on the border: Autumn brings no respite on desert

Fri, 03 Oct 2003 03:07:00 +0000

Tuesday was the first day of autumn. Even in the sun-baked Southwest, this signals a weather change. The days are still killing hot – daytime temperature on the floor of the desert can still reach 190 degrees, a temperature at which flesh cooks and bodies turn to dust. Maybe now, we will see a time out – a halt to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of ordinary men, women and children.

But even as the Immigrant Workers Freedom Riders came to Tucson, we learned that this was not to be the case. A young woman from Michoacan, traveling with her husband as they came north looking for a future, fell and died from exhaustion, dehydration, and cardiogenic shock. The number of known dead in the Tucson sector on this second day of autumn is now 151.

Not all the dead are counted.

Jorge (name changed to protect his privacy), 32 years old, married and father of two little girls, crossed the border southwest of Tucson. Jorge is from the agricultural and ranching area in the Mexican state of Jalisco. He had experience as a field hand and was something of an expert in fixing farm machinery and old trucks. He came to find work.

Since NAFTA, corn farming – and business dependent on this mainstay of the Mexican economy and culture – has collapsed in Mexico, leaving hundreds of thousands of people like Jorge without work. His brother, a documented immigrant, knew he could easily find him a good-paying job in Phoenix.

Where he was found, after wandering for three days without food and water, is one of the most desolate and inhospitable regions on earth. His severe dehydration led to the rapid breakdown of his muscles, a condition called rhabdomyolysis. Rhabdo releases huge amounts of proteins and products of cell breakdown into the person’s blood stream. This sludge clogs up the kidneys and can cause acute kidney failure. Jorge had several small heart attacks. With a damaged heart and failed kidneys, Jorge was transported to a Tucson intensive care unit.

Although his life was saved, his kidneys continued to fail. He reluctantly started dialysis. All he wanted was to see his family and get to work. All we wanted was to help him stay alive until his own kidneys had the chance to start working again, a process that can take a few weeks. Without dialysis, he would die within a couple of days.

He never got the chance. The connection to life saving dialysis was discontinued. He was packed up. His family was going to fly him to Guadalajara and take him home. Although dialysis is available in Jalisco, there is no facility close to his hometown. It is also expensive.

At least he has a small chance. His family can collect together all their meager savings, sell off their homes and land, and become even more impoverished. And, if they are very lucky, they can find some place that will provide treatment. Maybe another brother or sister can risk another life crossing the border, to come up with the month’s wages that may be necessary to pay for one more treatment. More likely, the complexity and cost will be too overwhelming. Jorge will get a chance to see his wife and children again. And then he will quietly die, his two hard-working hands forever idle.

Eliseo did not even get that chance. No one knows how many days he was in exile in the desert. He was 27. He spent a month in the intensive care unit, while a machine breathed for him. While he never regained consciousness, his heart continued to beat. After a month on a ventilator, his heart finally stopped. The nurse called for resuscitation. The team came. After all he was only 27 years old.

The resuscitation was briefly cancelled while the people in suits argued about odds, and dollars, and politics. When his heart again stopped, he was again resuscitated. And then, it stopped for good. His name will never be counted in the body count in the war against a stupid, cruel, and expensive border policy.

Nurses and doctors are pledged to care for the sick. There is nothing in the oaths we take or the Ethics Codes to which we adhere that says we can only take care of those who have the right kind of papers, skin color, national origin, or economic status. We are compelled by our oaths and souls to bind up the wounds, splint the shattered limbs, treat the third degree foot burns and damaged kidneys, and hold the hands of suffering, frightened ordinary men, women, and children who have come to this promised land looking for work, community, and a future. When we are prohibited from providing the care that we know is necessary, it becomes a job that breaks our hearts.

Every year, these scenarios are repeated again and again along the border. Every year, the numbers grow. Each hospital has its own stories of these uncounted patients. The expense, in uncompensated health care dollars, destroyed lives and broken health care workers, increases daily. There are many human rights and health care rights organizations that are fighting to bring an end to this failed border policy that wastes human life. Find one. Start one. Let’s get to work. Basta ya!

Carolyn Trowbridge is a nephrology nurse in Tucson, Ariz. She can be reached at pww@pww.org

Deceit and dirty tricks on Iraq

Fri, 03 Oct 2003 01:30:00 +0000

Accusations that the White House illegally leaked information to stifle dissent over its Iraq war policy are the latest in a series of charges that the administration used deceit and dirty tricks to sell the Iraq war. The charges fueled widening dissatisfaction over the cost of the occupation of Iraq – both in lives and dollars – and further battered President Bush’s sagging credibility.

It was revealed last week that the CIA filed a “crime report” with the Justice Department, asking for an investigation of whether Bush officials illegally leaked to reporters the fact that the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson is an undercover CIA operative. Wilson was sent by the CIA last year to investigate claims that Iraq had

tried to purchase uranium in Africa. Wilson reported that the claims were false. Recently, he has publicly denounced the administration for knowingly using the false information to justify the war, including in Bush’s State of the Union speech this January.

Wilson and others charge that the “outing” of his wife was done for revenge, and to warn others of the consequences of challenging the administration’s policies. Revealing the name of an undercover agent is a federal crime. The Justice Department and FBI have now been forced to launch an investigation of White House involvement. Leading Democrats have called for appointment of an independent prosecutor, saying the Ashcroft Justice Department is incapable of conducting an impartial investigation.

Earlier in the week, the Republican and Democratic heads of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released findings that the administration launched the war even though it had no solid evidence that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction or had ties with terrorists. In a Sept. 25 letter to CIA director George Tenet, the committee’s chair, Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.), a former CIA agent and a longtime supporter of Tenet, and the ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), charged that intelligence agencies’ conclusions about Iraq’s weapons programs were based largely on outdated, “circumstantial” and “fragmentary” information with “too many uncertainties.”

Administration officials have delayed indefinitely the publication of a report by a group they sent to Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction, after the group found no evidence that any such weapons exist, following a four-month search. The report by the “Iraq Survey Group,” consisting of 1,400 U.S. and British scientists, military and intelligence experts, may never be published, British government sources said.

Earlier last month, former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said he believes that Iraq destroyed most of its weapons of mass destruction 10 years ago.

“I’m certainly more and more to the conclusion that Iraq has, as they maintained, destroyed all, almost, of what they had in the summer of 1991,” Blix told an Australian radio station. “The more time that has passed, the more I think it’s unlikely that anything will be found.” His successor, Demetrius Perricos, told Reuters it was becoming “more and more difficult to believe stocks [of WMD] were there” in Iraq.

CNN’s top war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, recently accused the Bush administration of conducting a campaign of “fear” and “disinformation at the highest levels” during the Iraq war. On a CNBC talk show last month, Amanpour said CNN and journalists in general were “intimidated” by the administration, which, with the help of Fox News, created “a climate of fear and self-censorship.”

On Sept. 30, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 29-0 to approve President Bush’s $87 billion “supplemental” request to pay for the occupation of Iraq. Most Senate Democrats are not opposing the bulk of Bush’s request – $67 billion for military operations. They are focusing instead on the $20 billion requested for Iraq’s reconstruction. The fight is expected to continue on the Senate floor until mid-October.

During a nation-wide “call-in” organized by the Win Without War coalition and MoveOn.org, in five hours over 12,000 people called their senators to oppose giving Bush a blank check, saying Congress should require him to hand over control of Iraq to the United Nations, and fire those responsible for mismanaging Iraq, starting with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Bush’s $87 billion request, in the midst of record job losses and budget cuts for domestic needs, has sparked wide public discontent. But rather than challenging the occupation, pressing for transfer of control to the UN, or suggesting that Pentagon funds or war profits pay for repairing the damage caused by U.S. actions, many Democrats are limiting their objections to calls for shifting reconstruction costs to Iraq.

At the UN, the administration is continuing its efforts to push through a resolution that would give a cover for military and financial help from other countries, without ceding real control either to the UN or to Iraqis. Thus far the U.S. remains isolated. “They’re on their own,” a UN official said. “It’s just between them and the American taxpayer.”

The author can be reached at suewebb@pww.org

International notes

Thu, 02 Oct 2003 09:34:00 +0000

Israel: Pilots refuse to commit war crimes

Twenty-seven Israeli F-16 fighter jet pilots of the air force reserve, including nine on active duty, declared on Sept. 25 that, for reasons of conscience, they refuse to carry out targeted assassinations and other attacks against Palestinian militia members and civilians in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and other places.

Air Force Chief Commander Gen. Dan Halutz immediately threatened the pilots with expulsion from the air force, court martial, and lifelong prison terms for high treason.

The pilots rejected these threats, arguing that under international law they can refuse to commit crimes against humanity. They also said the occupation of Palestinian Gaza and the West Bank is imperiling the security and moral fiber of Israel.

The 27 pilots join about 600 army officers and soldiers who have refused to serve in the occupied territories. Many of these have been sentenced to stockade jail terms and have served time; five are currently standing trial.

The peace forces in Israel have expressed their solidarity with the pilots, calling them “the true patriots of Israel” and “the Magnificent 27.”

Bolivia: Big demos vs. gas export plan

Workers, students and indigenous organizations – among them two major labor federations – vowed this week to shut down Bolivia in protest over the government’s plan to export huge gas reserves in the Chaco region. Under the plan put forward by the government of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, the gas would be routed through Chile, where it would be liquefied, to a regasification plant in Mexico and finally to energy firms in California.

The government claims exporting the gas is essential to reduce hunger and create jobs in the impoverished country. But Aymara Indian leader Felipe Quispe, a prominent government opponent, emphasized in an interview with Knight-Ridder newspapers that the gas belongs to Bolivia.

“We should use the gas to industrialize Bolivia,” Quispe said. “Once the country is industrialized, we can sell it abroad.”

Three foreign companies – British Gas, Repsol-YPF of Spain and Pan American Energy– own the gas reserves. The involvement of U.S.-based transnationals in the proposed deal has intensified the popular outrage.

Canada: Gays protected by anti-hate laws

Canadian gays, lesbians and bisexuals achieved another victory with last month’s 141-110 vote in Parliament to okay Bill-250. The measure, sponsored by New Democratic Party MP Svend Robinson, includes the targeting of gays and lesbians under the Criminal Code’s law banning hate propaganda.

Bill-250 adds the term “sexual orientation” to the Hate Propaganda Law under the Canadian Criminal Code. Until recently, the law only banned incitement of hatred against “identifiable groups” distinguished by color, race, religion and ethnic origin. The measure must now be passed by Canada’s Senate to become law.

Meantime, on Sept. 16 Parliament voted 137-132 to oppose a motion by the far-right Canadian Alliance affirming marriage as being between a man and a woman. In June, the federal government presented a draft bill legalizing same sex marriage to the Supreme Court to make sure it is constitutional. However, the bill is not expected to be introduced in Parliament for another year.

Liberia: UNICEF launches emergency appeal

The United Nations children’s fund (UNICEF) is making an emergency appeal for $7 million to get 750,000 children back into school quickly, and demobilize up to 15,000 child soldiers, the UN news service announced last week. Funds will also be used for health and water supply programs helping women and children.

Cyrille Niameogo, UNICEF country representative in Liberia, said the 14-year civil war there has displaced a million people – one-third of the total population.

In the final stages of the war last summer, all remaining schools closed. But even before then, the situation was so serious that in the last two years only about half of school age children were in class. Some 60 percent of Liberians, and 74 percent of women, are illiterate.

Poland: Miners protest restructuring

Polish coal miners launched a protest against government plans to restructure their industry, as thousands blocked roads Sept. 26. Calling their action “the total blockade of Silesia,” the miners peacefully halted traffic on major roadways in Silesia’s industrial core. They expressed outrage that the Social Democratic government refuses to discuss its plan to close four area mines next year. Talks between the government and miners broke down earlier in the week.

Last week’s action was the latest in a wave of protests including a very large rally in Warsaw last month. Unemployment in Silesia is estimated to be twice the already high national rate of 18 percent. But in its efforts to get World Bank funds to bail out the heavily indebted coal industry, the government wants to cut production and lay off 14,000 workers.

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel (cpusainternat@mindspring.com). Hans Lebrecht and Tim Pelzer contributed to this week’s notes.