People Before Profit blog

The beauty and the beast of the Olympics

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:42:00 +0000

Fact: I love everything sports. And I have especially enjoyed watching the Vancouver Winter Olympics the past two weeks.

But truth-be-told it's hard to ignore the ugly side dominating the Games behind the scenes. It's working people in Vancouver that will suffer the brunt of the Olympic financial burdens.

First the good.

It was exciting to see speed skaters Shani Davis and Apolo Ohno win medals for the U.S. Ohno has become the most decorated American winter Olympian of all time. And well Davis, who is African American, is from my home town Chicago. Big ups.

Then there is snowboarder Shaun White, who won the gold in the sport after defying gravity. And Lindsey Vonn who despite her injuries took gold in downhill skiing. Watching both athletes compete and win medals for the U.S. was way cool.

The Chinese veteran duo and couple Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo also won me over. They won gold in the pair's figure-skating on Valentines Day. Their personal story, their focus and determination was truly inspiring and a pleasure to watch.

South Korea's Kim Yuna won the gold in women's figure skating. She was truly beautiful and elegant and nailed every technique in her captivating routine.

Canada's Joannie Rochette won the bronze in women's figure skating. She also won the hearts of millions worldwide. Days before the competition Rochette's mother unexpectedly died. Rochette showed so much strength and emotion on the ice. Skating to honor her mother she showed so much heart and Olympic spirit. It was very moving.

The personal stories and accomplishments of athletes like these personify what it means to compete in the Olympics. Their talents, skills and dedication remind me why I appreciate sportsmanship and why sports are so important to people in every corner of the world.

Okay, now the bad.

The games began on a very somber note with the loss of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili who tragically died when he lost control of his sled during a practice run.

Critics say the International Organizing Committee (IOC) acted in cold-blood and arrogantly despite past complaints that the track was dangerous.

Meanwhile residents of Vancouver are expected to be haunted for years to come due to the rising costs of the Games.

For example security costs alone, first estimated at $165 million, are now headed toward $1 billion. Sources say the operating budget includes a $423 million in emergency money from the IOC. The city and Vancouver taxpayers are looking at nearly $1 billion in debt from bailing out the Olympic Village development.

All this as people in Vancouver and British Columbia, Canada continue to see cuts in services like education, health care and arts financing from their provisional government, which is stuck with other Olympics-related costs.

More costs and debt is expected to mount despite how the global economic crisis has already affected Vancouver and Canada as a whole.

Behind the Olympics there's a dark-side, and it's called money.

Sports columnists Dave Zirin says rather than promoting sportsmanship, the Olympics in the hands of the IOC is all a gigantic fraud and can be a parasite for the host city.

The IOC is a "sewing circle of monarchists, extortionists, and absolved fascists - that like to hide behind the pretense of nobility," wrote Zirin in The Progressive.

The IOC, he says, "claims to care not for profit or personal gain. Just the glory of 'Olympism.'"

But what trumps these grand "ethics," notes Zirin, is the reality of what makes the IOC go 'round: television ratings and corporate dollars.

"And if corporations can't come up with the money, then cities and host countries pay through the nose," says Zirin.

Zirin says the Olympics should be held at one permanent site because it would eliminate the corrupt bidding process, take the pressure off nations to make bids, and remove much of the behind-the-scenes dealings. By blotting out both the corruption and corporate feeding frenzy that surround the Games, there would be more space for the spirit of sport to emerge.

That makes sense to me. Because the Olympics should be about the beauty of sports and competition without the beast of corporate profits.

Photo: South Korea's Kim Yu-Na performs her short program during the women's figure skating competition at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, Feb. 23. Mark Baker/AP

Landmark summit on Latin American integration

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:58:00 +0000

For Cuban President Raul Castro, the results were "historically transcendent." It was "the unity project of Simon Bolivar and Jose Marti beginning to take institutional shape," wrote Angel Guerra Cabrera of visionesalternativas.com.

Presidents and representatives of 33 Latin American and Caribbean nations met February 23 and 24 to form an organization provisionally called the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CLACS). The 21^st Summit of the Rio Group and the Second Latin American Summit on Integration and Development convened together in Cancun, Mexico to constitute the new group.

Bolivian President Evo Morales and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had propelled the initiative with their call for a new Organization of American States (OAS) "without the North, without the empire, without the United States and Canada." Even conservatively inclined Latin American leaders joined in, according to the analyst, because they reject the historic OAS tolerance of violent rule, invasions and coups.

However, Honduran President Porfirio Lobo was not invited, because several regional states still consider his November 29 election to have been illegitimate.

Organizational details of the new group will emerge at the next CLACS summit in Caracas in 2011. The group takes shape 200 years after the beginning of the anti-colonial struggle against Spain.

An 88 point "Declaration of Cancun" outlined goals, purposes and methods. It announced the intention of CLACS "to deepen the political, economic, social and cultural integration of our region", and also to "act to promote sustainable development...within the framework of democracy, unity, solidarity, cooperation, political agreement, and unfettered respect for human rights". The document "took note of "challenges facing small, vulnerable and highly indebted countries."

The founding declaration catalogued specific sectors targeted for integration. Financial proposals came first, covering financial markets, funding for development projects, a common currency, and orderly debt repayments. Sectors to come under the continent-wide agreement include: energy, physical integration of infrastructure, science and technology, food security, hunger and poverty eradication, health care and clean water. Other categories are education and culture, migration, sustainable development, natural disasters, climate change, south-south cooperation, youth services and the fight against terrorism and narco trafficking.

At the concluding session, Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who hosted the meeting, anticipated the "promoting of a regional agenda in world forums, and being positioned more favorably in confronting global developments." The conservative president opined that CLACS posed no threat to other nations and that Mexico would also continue as an OAS member.

Speaking to summit delegates and reporters, the heads of state offered disparate views. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva rejected theories of anti-U.S. motivations, likening the situation to children who, coming of age, go their own way. Lula was alone in assailing the coup last June that removed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. The Brazilian president professed optimism: There will be a U.S. government, he promised "that sees the uselessness of continuing" the blockade against Cuba.

President Chavez toned down anti-imperialist rhetoric and, to preserve unity, called for the CLACS to steer clear of political stridency. He foresaw the new organization as focusing on administrative aspects of integration.

At the end of the summit, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe interrupted a discussion on support for Haiti to assail Chavez verbally. President Evo Morales of Bolivia read the fracas as a provocation by Uribe instigated by his U.S. handlers. President Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Republic and others engineered a temporary peace.

Commentator Cabrera marveled at the changes in Latin America since 1999, when Chavez was elected President of Venezuela. Socialist Cuba was alone then, under severe blockade, but now has joined the community of Latin American and Caribbean nations as a model of independence and an honored practitioner of international solidarity. Cuban President Raul Castro reminded the nation of "our America" (Jose Marti's phrase) of the Cuban independence hero's doctrine that "homeland is humanity". He expressed appreciation for their denunciation of the U.S. blockade against Cuba, called for reconstruction and decolonization in Haiti, and joined the summit in backing Argentina's claims to the Malvinas (Falklands) islands and their offshore oil reserves.

Photo: Brazilian President da Silva and Venezuelan President Chavez visit a refinery in Abreu and Lima, Brazil.Wikimedia/CC

Repression continues under new Honduran government

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:34:00 +0000

Death squads appear to be operating freely in Honduras, in spite of claims by the United States and Honduran leaders that the election of President Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo of the conservative National Party on November 29 would produce peace and normality.

Unions and peasant and other popular organizations have stayed mobilized to be able to respond to efforts to roll back progressive changes instituted by former president Manuel "Mel" Zelaya, such as increases in minimum wage, labor and women's rights and land reform.

On Thursday, February 25, parties unknown murdered an activist of the left wing resistance movement that arose after the April 28, 2009 coup d'état that overthrew Zelaya.

Claudia Larisa Brizuela Rodriguez was shot to death in front of her home in the northern city of San Pedro Sula. The killing happened in broad daylight and in full view of her children, ages 2 and 8.

Ms. Brizuela Rodriguez was an active member of the National People's Resistance Front (FNRP) and the daughter of the host of pro-Zelaya Radio UNO, Pedro Brizuela. The radio station and its staff have been the target of numerous threats because of their opposition to the coup.

She is the third resistance leader to be murdered in this fashion since Lobo was sworn in as president on January 27. On February 3, FNRP activist Vanessa Yaneth Zepeda was kidnapped and later found murdered, her body thrown from a moving vehicle by unknown parties. She too was a mother of three children. At the time of her murder Zepeda was 29 years old and was considered to have great potential as a future mass leader in her country.

The third person to be murdered, on February 15, was Julio Funes, a labor leader in the Water and Sewage Workers Union (SITRASANAA) and also a resistance activist, was shot down by four unknown men who came up to him in a taxi, in the town of Comayaguela.

There are numerous other reports of threats, beatings, rapes and other attacks on people associated with pro-Zelaya and anti-coup unions, civic organizations organizations and media entities. The FNRP says that the total number of such incidents is now in the hundreds just since Lobo took power. The Committee of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared People in Honduras (COFADEH) says that several hundred people have had to flee the country because of persecution. However, Honduran police sources claim that there is no proof that any of these incidents are politically motivated; pointing out that the crime rate in the country is very high.

Most countries in the region are still not affording diplomatic recognition to Lobo's government because of the dubious way the election was carried out, with a coup regime in power and troops in the streets repressing its opponents. The U.S. government has been focusing on getting the Lobo regime recognized as well as promoting a "truth commission" headed by former Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein to find out why the coup happened. Yet, many organizations oppose this, pointing out that the reasons for the coup are hardly a secret, and that the coup leaders have already arranged pardons for themselves while continuing to demand prosecution of Zelaya and several of his cabinet members. The resistance is focusing on the fight for a constituent assembly to rewrite the Honduran constitution to allow for much more mass participation in governance.

The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) is asking that people in the U.S. call the State Department Bureau of Human Rights at 202-647-4000 to ask that the U.S. government exert pressure on the Honduran government to put an end to these abuses. Details can be found on the CISPES website.

Photo: www.tercerainformacion.es/spip.php?article12870

World Notes: Somalia, Cuba, Russia

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:30:00 +0000

Somalia: Danger signs are up

Maneuvering among contending forces is reflecting growing instability in a region of chronic chaos. Islamic Al Shabaab rebels controlling most of southern Somalia have vowed holy war against Kenya in response to reports that 2,500 Kenyan troops had massed along the border poised to invade on behalf of Somalia's fragile transition government. Eritrea was newly accused of providing the rebels with arms, despite a UN ban imposed last December. PressTV reported that troops of Eritrea's enemy Ethiopia entered Somalia on Feb. 6 in a minor-league replay of Ethiopia's U.S.-backed occupation of Somalia in 2006, which ended a year ago. Two days later in the capital Mogadishu, exchanges of mortar and artillery fire left nine people killed and 14 injured. Reuters notes that 21,000 people have been killed in Somalia over three years of near daily clashes. Al Shabaab "confirmed for the first time" its alignment with Al Queda, according to the BBC on Feb. 1.

Cuba: Postcard campaign launched for Cuban Five

People worldwide will soon be signing postcards and sending them to President Barack Obama. They will be demanding that the U.S. president exercise his legal power to free the Cuban Five. Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and René González are serving long, cruel sentences. They were convicted of monitoring and reporting to the Cuban government anti-Cuban terrorist activities of private paramilitary groups in southern Florida.

On the postcards appear the names of 10 Nobel Prize laureates who also spoke out for freedom for the Five. Peace Prize winners include: Máiread Corrigan Maguire (from Ireland, 1976); Rigoberta Menchú (Guatemala, 1992); Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (Argentina, 1980); and José Ramos Horta (East Timor, 1996). Prize winners for literature whose names appear on the cards: José Samarago (Portugal, 1998); Darío Fo (Italy, 1997); Günter Grass (Germany, 1999); Nadime Gordimer (South Africa, 1991); and Wole Soyinka (Nigeria, 1986). The name of Physics Prize winner Zhores Alferov (Belarus, 2000) is included. Wole Soyinka, Günter Grass, and Máiread Corrigan Maguire have themselves been imprisoned. Learn more about the postcards and the campaign here. To order postcards in bulk, contact the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 at info@thecuban5.org.

Russia: Approval for Soviet system remains

Designers of a study asking Russians to assign value to the terms "Soviet" and "anti-Soviet" sought the opinions of 1,600 adults living in 42 widely distributed regions. The survey, carried out over two days in mid-January, had a margin of error of less than 3.4 percent.

To the question "What do you feel on hearing the word ‘Soviet'," 31 percent noted "nostalgia;" 18 percent, "pride;" 17 percent, "approval;" 13 percent, "indifference;" 13 percent, "appreciation"; 10 percent, "admiration;" 10 percent, "hope;" and 6 percent, "deception." Five more choices were offered, each expressing a negative feeling and each selected by 3 percent of respondents or less. Only two choices were allowed per participant. Older people were much more likely than younger to express positive feelings toward the word "Soviet."

Similarly restricted to two choices, respondents reacted to the term "anti-Soviet" as follows: "condemnation," 23 percent; "indifference," 22 percent; "deception," 13 percent; "anger," 11 percent; "shame," 8 percent; "fear", 6 percent; "skepticism," 5 percent; and "hope," 2 percent. Five more expressions of positive feelings were offered as choices with none being selected by more than one percent. The study, described as a sociological inquiry, appeared in Spanish on www.rebelion.org. The original is accessible here.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/virtualsugar/ / CC BY 2.0

Greek workers fight back

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:36:00 +0000

It's a story with which workers in the U.S.A. are very familiar. A right wing government allowed finance capital to run wild with unregulated speculative practices. Then comes the time to pay the piper, and the ruling class tries to force the workers, small farmers and ordinary people to bear the burden.

This is now happening in Greece. Past Greek governments failed to regulate the dangerous behavior of finance capital. Now the world financial crisis which started in the United States has hit Greece hard. The country is running a huge deficit and the national debt now exceeds the GDP. Greece's European Union partners are worrying that the rot will spread.

The EU is trying to force Greece to deal with this problem by austerity measures. The wealthier European countries plus the IMF have joined in to apply the thumbscrews. Though the current Greek government, of the social democratic PASOK party, did not exactly create the present crisis, it is moving to yield to these pressures by laying off public sector workers, increasing regressive taxes, and raising the retirement age, among other measures that put the burden on the shoulders of Greek workers and farmers..

On Tuesday, trade unionists organized by the Greek Communist Party (KKE) blocked the entrance to the Athens Stock Exchange in protest. On Wednesday there was a 24 hour general strike organized by major unions, which tied up Greece's important shipping industry. Farmers had already been blocking roads to protest against the austerity policies.

Similar things are happening all over Europe. The brag of the European Union was always that it had successfully integrated poorer countries (Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain) into a trade block with richer ones. Now each of those poorer countries is undergoing similar experiences to those Greece is suffering. Maybe the model was not so good after all?

We salute the KKE, Greek labor and the whole of the people of Greece for their stand against anti-worker policies. Their situation is not so different from that of the United States. U.S. workers are also hit by a massive economic crisis caused by finance capital and its political enablers, and are fighting back against efforts by the ruling class to make them shoulder the burden of a situation they did not create. Here, as in Greece, unity, solidarity and struggle are the answer.

Photo: KKE International

General strike paralyzes Greece

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:23:00 +0000

ATHENS (Morning Star) - Greece has been brought to a standstill by a general strike, with key union groups GSEE, ADEDY and PAME leading up to two million workers in a 24-hour stoppage against the government's austerity program.

Tens of thousands of protestors filled Syntagma Square in the center of Athens and spilled out beyond, led by unions, activist groups, the Greek Communist Party (KKE) and Syriza, the smaller left coalition.

Beginning in the northern inner area of Athens around Omonia Square, the march came down Stadiou boulevard, taking more than an hour to reach the city center.

More than 40,000 protesters chanted "We won't pay for their crisis" with radical songs blaring from speaker vans coming behind.

The strike shut down the entire public-sector infrastructure, including schools, airports, transport and government offices.

Hospitals were operating with skeleton crews, and many large shops and commercial enterprises closed.

Journalists also came out on strike, as did a wide range of self-employed people such as taxi drivers.

Though police fired tear gas at a separate anarchist contingent near Parliament, the event was largely peaceful and orderly.

However sources said the prospect of separate anarchist action later could not be ruled out, especially as an anti-fascist rally was planned in Amerikis Square, a neighbourhood dominated by supporters of the anti-immigrant LAOS party.

The strike and protests came as officials from the EU, the IMF and other financial bodies arrived in Athens at the invitation of Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou to advise on further efforts to impose austerity measures on the country, in a bid to restructure its economy in line with EU requirements.

On Monday night financial rating agency Fitch downgraded the ratings of the four major Greek banks, in response to what it said was the banks' "weakening asset quality due to anticipated fiscal adjustments in Greece."

The decision will in turn raise yields on Greek bonds, further increasing the deficit.

"We don't deny there is a crisis," KKE MP Yanis Ghiokas told the Morning Star.

"However it is not our crisis and we shouldn't pay for it.

"While Papandreou has talked about tax evasion, the corporate tax rate has been lowered from 45 percent to 25 percent.

"We want it raised back to make up the shortfall, and reduce reliance on indirect taxes."

Ghiokas also rejected widely publicized claims that Papandreou enjoys up to 70 percent support for the measures.

"People are polled and they are asked 'does something need to be done,' and they say Yes. That is then taken as support," he laughed ruefully.

Photo: Members of the Communist-affiliated PAME labor organization stand behind a banner as they blockade the Athens Stock Market, Feb. 23, ahead of the 24-hour general strike called by the country's main unions. (AP/Petros Giannakouris)

This article originally appeared at Morning Star online.

More action needed on Cuba

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:45:00 +0000

On Friday, a delegation of U.S. officials was in Havana for talks on migration issues with the Cuban government. These talks are the latest of a series which began under President Clinton in 1994. They had been quietly resumed earlier this year, after having been suspended for six years by President Bush.

Both sides initially said that the talks went well, but unfortunately the mood was then soured by the decision of the U.S. officials to meet with a group of "dissidents" in Havana, against the will of the Cuban government. Nevertheless, the Cuban government still wants to keep up the discussions.

Friday's talks had a limited agenda of dealing with questions of visas given by the U.S. to Cuban citizens. The U.S. had agreed to give 20,000 legal resident visas to Cubans every year. In the past, there have been disputes when the U.S. has not granted the full number of visas agreed on, and because there has been a tendency to deny visas to people with less education and try to get doctors and other well educated Cubans to emigrate.

The U.S. government must go much further than routine talks on visas. Although the Obama administration made some adjustments to its Cuba policy earlier last year, these do not go to the core issues about which the Cubans are concerned and which would benefit the American people. The U.S. economic blockade of Cuba, the ban on travel by U.S. persons to the island, the case of the five Cuban activists serving long sentences in U.S. prisons for having monitored activities of right-wing terrorists in South Florida, the wet foot-dry foot policy which encourages some Cubans to try to come to the United States in rickety boats, the continued listing without any justification of Cuba as a "state sponsor of terrorism," and the failure to either prosecute or extradite people who have committed terrorist acts against Cuba are critical issues for both U.S. and Cuban security and economic well-being.

Candidate Obama was attacked by his opponents for saying he would meet with our "adversaries" without preconditions. Cuban President Raul Castro has been eager to take him up on this offer, but there has been no response from the U.S. side. This has to change.

Obviously, given the extreme right's focus on Cuba, there has to be lots more solidarity actions from the grassroots, where change usually starts, to pressure our government to end these longstanding Cold War policies.

One way is to organize delegations to visit your congress person and urge him or her to co-sponsor a bipartisan bill, HR 4645, introduced by Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas. The bill would restore U.S. citizens' right to travel to Cuba and help boost agricultural sales (and therefore the U.S. economy and jobs) to the island as well.

Or call your House representative today and ask her/him to co-sponsor HR 4645, Capitol switchboard (202) 224-3121.

Photo: A farmers market in Cuba where all farming is organic. Roberta Wood/PW

Slice of life Cuban-style

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:02:00 +0000

The following slideshow shows just a small slice of life in Cuba, an island that is just 90 miles from U.S. shores, yet very few Americans are allowed to go there because of the U.S. travel ban to that country.

These photos are from Havana, Sancti Spiritus and Santiago, all taken February 2010.

Appeal for solidarity with Iranian people

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:26:00 +0000

The Tudeh Party of Iran, Iran's communist party, has issued an appeal for "solidarity action with the working people of Iran campaigning for peace and progress" and with the broad Iranian progressive and democratic movement.

Since early January, the party's Feb. 21 message says, the Ahmadinejad regime "has embarked upon a new wave of repressive measures designed to suffocate the opposition forces demanding a return to the ideals of the 1979 revolution in Iran: democracy, human rights and social justice."

Thousands of people have been arrested, nearly 100 protesters have been killed either by government security forces during protest demonstrations or under torture in detention centers, and 11 detainees have been condemned to execution, the Tudeh appeal says.

Among those arrested are activists and leaders of Iran's student movement, trade union movement, women's movement and well known academics and progressive writers and journalists.

"International solidarity with these victims of suppression in Iran is of vital importance," the Tudeh Party says. "International pressure on the Iranian regime, to oblige it to abide by the internationally accepted norms and conventions governing treatment of peaceful political protest, needs to be maintained."

The appeal urges messages to the Iranian government supporting the following demands of communist, left, progressive and democratic organization around the world:

* The Iranian government to abide by the UN Charter and the Universal Convention on Human Rights.

* All death sentences to be commuted to terms of imprisonment decided in a court of law convened in accordance with the laws of natural justice and in which the accused have full access to defense lawyers and are able to defend themselves.

* All those detained to be protected from torture or other ill treatment, to be allowed access to their families, lawyers and any necessary medical treatment, and for them to be brought before a judge without delay so that they may challenge the lawfulness of their detention.

* Anyone held solely for their participation in protest demonstrations or for expressing their views to be released immediately and unconditionally.

* The authorities in Iran to ensure that their policing of any further demonstrations meets international policing standards, including a ban on the use of firearms and other lethal weapons

* An impartial investigation be conducted into the deaths of all those killed.

"The situation is very desperate and the need for international solidarity is great," the appeal concludes.

The Tudeh Party (Party of the Masses) has a decades-long history of struggle against the shah's dictatorship and the current theocratic Islamic regime, and has had a mass following with wide support among Iranian trade unionists, intellectuals and artists and others. During that time it has faced vicious persecution, with many of its leaders and members executed under both regimes, and has been forced to work underground and in exile.

Photo: A blood-stained protestor in Iran, June 17, 2009. http://www.flickr.com/photos/arasmus/ / CC BY 2.0

U.S., Iran engage in new round of jockeying

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:02:00 +0000

Iran's Ahmadinejad regime and the White House are engaged in a new round of jockeying.

On the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution, Feb. 11, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that Iran was proceeding with nuclear enrichment and has the ability to create weapons-grade nuclear fuel if it wants to. The government undertook massive security measures before the anniversary to prevent major protests.

On a visit to Qatar and Saudi Arabia last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Iran is becoming a military dictatorship run by its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. She told a Feb. 15 news conference that Iran's religious and political leaders must "take back the authority which they should be exercising on behalf of the people."

A report in the UK Guardian describes the Revolutionary Guards as a political/economic/secret police "business conglomerate" that has amassed growing power through ownership and control over major industries like construction, oil and gas, import/export and telecommunications. It is, the article says, "a behemoth that dominates both Iran's official and black economies."

The Obama administration is drafting new sanctions it will try to get the United Nations to adopt against Iran, aimed specifically at the Revolutionary Guards. However Russia is reluctant and China, another of the five countries with UN Security Council veto power, continues to oppose more sanctions, saying they have been ineffective and arguing for pursuing diplomacy.

The new U.S. sanctions effort is believed to reflect an administration strategy for dealing with the mass opposition movement rocking Iran. By identifying the Revolutionary Guards as the main culprit behind Iran's nuclear enrichment maneuvers as well as its domestic political repression, the White House may hope to show that the U.S. moves against Iran's nuclear program are not directed at the Iranian people.

At the same time, Clinton, as well as Gen. David Petraeus and Joint Chiefs of Staff head Adm. Mike Mullen, who also visited the region, offered beefed up military aid to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, pledging U.S. protection against any Iranian nuclear threat.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz noted that the Obama administration had sent its most senior officials to the Middle East in an attempt to calm both Israeli and Arab leaders.

Haaretz pointed to escalating confrontational language by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad, and noted: "The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chief of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, warned in Tel Aviv on Sunday of the unexpected consequences of an Israeli attack on Iran .... Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Qatar that Iran's neighbors, who are worried about its nuclear plans, must rely on the American defense umbrella. And next week, Vice President Joseph Biden will visit Israel to pass on a similar message."

Haaretz called it a "friendly warning ... from the Obama administration, which opposes a preemptive Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities."

The White House faces a tricky situation in figuring out how to deal with Iran.

Under the headline "What Should Obama Do Next On Iran?" the National Journal says the most frequently discussed options are:

* "continued gradual pressure from the UN Security Council, combined with other U.S.-led, non-U.N.-approved sanctions targeted narrowly at the Revolutionary Guards and hardliners associated with Iran's nuclear and missile programs;

* "'crippling' sanctions, to include a ban or embargo on refined petroleum imports to Iran, as urged by the U.S. House and Senate and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu;

* "full open and clandestine support for the opposition 'green movement';

* "military strikes against Iran's nuclear complex."

Responses from an array of academic, military and intelligence types overwhelmingly reject sanctions, military strikes and involvement in Iran's internal politics, calling all these ineffective or worse. One, Paul Sullivan, an economics professor at National Defense University, comments:

"A question I often wonder about: what if major issues in the region and beyond were to be solved or at least managed better? Could this undercut Iran in some quarters and start to peel off some of its supporters? Maybe the answer is not inside Iran, but outside of Iran."

Food for thought.

Photo: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton walks with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal on her arrival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 15. (AP/Hassan Ammar)

Dresden beats the Nazis

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:53:00 +0000

The Berlin anti-fascists waiting near the Spree River at 4:30 AM for the buses to Dresden were sleepy, cold and nervous. Not without reason. Some had faced the Nazis a year earlier. Every year these latter day storm troopers try to misuse the emotions of Dresdeners mourning the loss of 25,000 to 35 000 people in the bombing inferno which incinerated the city on February 13th 1945 by downplaying the Holocaust and Nazi crimes in general.

The antifascists always oppose them. But last year it was again they who were treated coolly by the authorities. The police took their time at the city limits frisking them for weapons and then concentrated on protecting the Nazis. While driving home, a bus load of union members was severely attacked by Nazis from Sweden; one man's skull was fractured. The attackers have never been apprehended; the police said they were "overburdened." And this year the Nazis threatened to break all records with 10,000 adherents from near and far. Just in case, the antifascists were given maps, telephone numbers and as well as tape for the bus windows in case stones were thrown.

They felt somewhat safer when they got moving, with 1300 people from Berlin. When buses from the state of Brandenburg joined up they formed a convoy of 30 buses for the 2-3 hour trip. The police checkup at the Dresden city limits was quicker and far less unfriendly this time. They had barely arrived when they heard calls to "Hurry up, our blockade is forming!"

Twenty-nine buses rolled in from all parts of Thuringia, others were arriving after a long night's trip from the Rhineland, a group from Vienna had arrived a day earlier. Legislators from The Left held four "open air caucus meetings" and attracted local inhabitants; a famous leftwing singer attracted more. Before long four main groups had formed, with two to five thousand people each, waiting in the icy cold, sitting on mats, stamping their feet or sipping hot tea or soup, and effectively blocking off, from all sides, the big railroad station where the Nazis planned to start their march. Two organizations had joined and prepared this demonstration for a whole year, the main one called "Dresden -Nazi frei" ("free of Nazis"), the other using as its name the Spanish Civil War slogan, "non pasaran."

Two very different events were planned across the Elbe River which bisects Dresden. One was the habitual ceremony at the cemetery, in front of the memorial monument to all those who died during the inferno which engulfed Dresden 65 years ago. The mayor of Dresden, the minister president of Saxony, of which Dresden is the capital, a leading rabbi and Jewish representative and other celebrities were present, but also a menacing contingent of black-clad Neo-Nazis, including some from their small but loud-mouthed caucus in the state legislature.

But this year the Dresden authorities had altered their previous attitude of routine, half-hearted opposition to the Nazis. Looking in their direction, Mayor Helma Orosz, a Christian Democrat, spoke more clearly than many other politicians in recent years:

"By working together and protesting jointly, opponents of the rightist extremists , whether they are radical leftists or Christian Democrats, antifascists or church groups, can prevent them from spreading their inhumane National Socialist ideology, their racism, anti-Semitism, their lies and their distortions of history...

"Before Dresden burned, Semper's synagogue burned, Warsaw, Rotterdam and Coventry burned. These truths must be used in confronting these latter-day warriors. Dresden does not want them."

Last year's images of marching Nazis, sent out throughout the world, had evidently alarmed both Dresden's conservative leaders as well as a large number of its citizens. In the early afternoon, it had been decided, a human chain would link the rebuilt synagogue with City Hall to demonstrate their opposition to the Nazis. There were doubts as to whether the required 5000 people would take part. But they did.

By 2 o'clock there were so many that the single chain became a double line. Then it was extended around the Old Market Square, where thousands of corpses had been collected and burned in 1945, then on to the newly-rebuilt Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) and the grandly rebuilt Opera House. An estimated 15,000 took part, often for the first time in such a demonstration. After the chain was dissolved some tried to cross the river to join the blockades, not easy because both a railroad bridge and some pedestrian bridges had also been blockaded.

Meanwhile tension was mounting at the railroad station, the same one from which a last group of Dresden Jews had been sent off to the death camps just before the bombing raid. Police forces, three deep, protected the Nazis when they marched from their buses to the station, though some smaller gangs vandalized through the area, attacking one left-wing youth center and injuring several of its defenders, one of them severely. There were a few minor skirmishes with less disciplined anti-fascists, the violence-prone types who join in most demonstrations. But most Nazis were finally cordoned off by the police in front of the station, impatient, angry, occasionally violent - but cornered.

Although the courts had given official permission for the Nazi march, against the protest of the city of Dresden, a police spokesman said that the force of almost 5700 in uniform, plus 1700 as reinforcements from other states, was unable to break up the blockades of the antifascists, now at least 10,000 in number, and including both elderly people and women with children. All they could do was maintain the safety of the estimated 6400 fascists in front of the station until 5 PM, when the time allotted them for their demonstration ran out, and then get them away safely.

So the crowd, overwhelmingly young, with many from The Left and from several Communist parties, also from union groups as well as some Greens and leftwing Social Democrats, waited patiently in the cold, kept their ears to their cell phones and pocket radios and waited for new developments. They cheered at 5 o'clock when the police announced that the Nazi march had been canceled but stayed on to make sure and then cheer even louder at about 7 PM when the police refused the Nazi demand to march back to their buses and loaded them instead on trains which kept them off the streets. And then, in a twitter message, the top Nazis made it official: "The mourning march did not take place."

After a final victory meeting the demonstrators ended the ten hour blockades and headed home. It was good that the mayor and the big shots had also opposed the Nazis and that so many people in Dresden had given up their apathy and joined them. It was a surprise that this time the police had been fairer than ever before in recent years. But the real victory lay in stopping the Nazis, and just possibly making them give up Dresden marches in the future. That, the tired antifascists were convinced, as they headed for home, had been achieved by their powerful blockades.

Many of them won't be waiting a year to demonstrate again. Only one week later, Saturday, February 20th, a demonstration is scheduled in Berlin to pressure the Bundestag and German government leaders to pull the troops out of Afghanistan.

Photo: Thousands gather in Dresden, Germany to protest a Nazi parade. http://www.flickr.com/photos/realname/ / CC BY 2.0

South Africa honors 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s freedom

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:12:00 +0000

Thousands of South Africans and political leaders paid tribute to freedom-fighter and world peace crusader Nelson Mandela last week in commemorating the 20th anniversary of his release from prison.

In an emotional re-enactment thousands of prominent members of the African National Congress and supporters marched out of the gates of Victor Verster Thursday, near Cape Town, the last prison where Mandela was held.

Mandela, 91, known as Madiba, his clan name, made a special appearance during the country's opening parliament of the National Assembly in Cape Town later that same day where he was honored.

"President Mandela united this country behind the goal of a nonsexist, nonracial democratic and prosperous South Africa," said President Jacob Zuma Thursday.

"We should reflect on how far we have traveled as a country," he said.

Mandela's life work should inspire us not to rest until we achieve the ideals of a society free of poverty and deprivation, said Zuma.

In the two decades since the Mandela's release "our country has changed fundamentally," he said.

Mandela was set free on Feb. 10, 1990 by then-President F.W. de Klerk after spending 27 years in prison. Mandela went on to lead South Africa in the last remaining years of the nations peaceful revolution from apartheid to democracy.

He became a living symbol of the struggle against the racist system, which was enacted when he was 30 years old. Apartheid was a brutal system of enforced segregation where 4 million whites oppressed 25 million blacks, Asians and non-whites.

Born in 1918 in the Eastern Cape village of Transkei, Mandela was expected to become a traditional advisor to the chief of the 2.6 million-strong Thembu nation.

He was sent to English schools and given the name "Nelson."

Becoming an activist with the African National Congress Mandela led a general strike in 1950. He was later charged with treason in the longest trial in South African history.

After police killed 60 black protestors in the Sharpeville massacre, the ANC radicalized and Mandela formed the military wing becoming its first commander in 1961. Soon after the ANC was banned along with other organizations.

By 1962, Mandela was imprisoned for inciting a strike and sentenced in 1964 to life in prison.

Mandela credits imprisonment with strengthening his character giving him focus, and personal reconciliation with his white captors, which became a theme in his life

Before he was jailed Mandela is remembered as saying, "I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony, and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal, which I hope to live for, and to see realized. But if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

Nearly three decades later Mandela was finally set free at the age of 76. Four years later South Africa held its first democratic elections in 1994 ending white racist rule. Mandela became the country's first black president by a landslide.

Mandela was instrumental in helping lead the country's peaceful racial reconciliation process after the apartheid regime.

his promotion of South Africa's rugby team during the 1995 World Cup endeared him to many whites and symbolized his role in building bridges and to move beyond the country's dark past, as documented in the recently released film "Invictus."

Mandela also helped in bringing soccer's World Cup to South Africa, which is scheduled later this year.

He served one term and retired from political life in 1999, establishing the Nelson Mandela Foundation to fight poverty, AIDS and illiteracy in Africa.

Since 1994 Mandela's presidency and the ANC party has reduced the number of South Africans living in poverty, built houses and schools and continues to deliver basic resources to blacks who suffered under apartheid.

Despite 17 years of economic growth South Africa has endured major setbacks due to the global economic downturn that erupted last year. Critics note unemployment remains above 20 percent and millions of blacks continue to live in shanty towns with little access to running water, electricity or health care.

The nation's HIV-AIDS infection rate continues to be among the highest in the world.

Given the country's current economic and social challenges and 20 years after Mandela's release many South Africans agree the former apartheid nation has come a long way.

Photo: AP Schalk van Zuydam, Former South African president Nelson Mandela waves inside Parliament at Cape Town, South Africa, Feb. 11.

World Notes: Egypt, Sri Lanka, Romania, Brazil

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:41:00 +0000

Egypt: Opposition politicians jailed

Egyptian police last week arrested over 30 members of the Muslim Brotherhood including deputy head Mahmoud Ezzat and two other leaders. The reason given was participation in banned political activities. Speculation is rampant, according to Al Jazeera, that the arrests represent Mubarak government precautions in anticipation of elections later this year, a common scenario in recent years. Although banned since 1954, Brotherhood candidates, running as independents, won 20 percent of parliamentary seats in 2005. The movement chose Mohammed Badi as its new leader in January. The Muslim Brotherhood has pioneered in combining political activity and charity work, observes the BBC. Brotherhood leader Gamal Nassar told Al Jazeera: "The arrests will definitely affect Egypt's image, both internally and externally."

Sri Lanka: Human rights abuses charged

Almost a year after the 30-year-long Tamil insurgency ended, the government faces charges that 11,000 suspected rebels in prison are at risk for torture and are being held incommunicado. Human Rights Watch last month issued a report based on interviews with family members and humanitarian workers claiming that prisoners in "legal limbo for months" are held indefinitely and arbitrarily. Children are included and Red Cross services are denied. Government refusal to release names has fed suspicion that some people languishing in detention camps are mere sympathizers or those forced to assist rebel fighters. Government spokespersons cited by Inter Press Service say prisoners are being rehabilitated for return into society and that some are still being investigated.

Romania: Plans afoot for U.S. missile defense system

President Traian Basescu last week announced his government's approval, pending parliamentary assent, of U.S. missile interceptors deployed in Romania. He emphasized that the Middle East, Iran especially, represents the potential threat, not Russia. Moscow's vociferous objection last year was central to Washington's scrapping of plans to place interceptors in Poland and a radar detection system in the Czech Republic. Romania presently hosts U.S. military training facilities and a base on the Black Sea. Its government also facilitated CIA prisoner transport and detention programs ("extraordinary rendition"), according to euobserver.com. A State Department spokesperson linked anti-missile facilities in Romania, not operational until 2015, to ship-based interceptor systems in the Black Sea. The placing of other missile interceptors in Poland is still under study, he said.

Brazil: Giant dam on track despite protests

The government last week licensed construction of the world's third largest dam and hydroelectric project on condition that investors contribute $800 million toward mitigation of adverse social and environmental effects. Justification of the facility located in the Xingu river basin at Belo Monte, along with 70 other dams on Amazonian waterways, rests on energy needs envisioned for expanding industrialization. Hydroelectricity is touted as a means for reducing atmospheric carbon emissions. Opposition to the project, set for completion in 2014, has reportedly been intense.

Indigenous groups and ecologists say 80 percent of the river water will be diverted, fish will be poisoned, and flooding will ensue. Protesters claim population displacement threatens the cultural integrity and survival of 24 indigenous communities. The dam is seen as emblematic of a wave of privatization spreading throughout the region.

Photo: Tuira Kayapo, right, leader of the indigenous Kayapo tribe, speaks to Aloysio Guapindaia, left, director of the National Indian Foundation, FUNAI, during a public hearing on the Belo Monte dam project, at the Commission of Human Rights of the Federal Senate in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, last December. (AP/Eraldo Peres)

Global warming deniers, like zombies, come back from the dead

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:51:00 +0000

Is global warming a conspiracy concocted to destroy private property and freedom?

According to a powerful lobby of ultra-conservatives, oil and coal corporations and a shadowy network of climate change deniers it is. And these voices alarmingly seem to be gaining credibility.

What is going on? Ever since Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the science seemed to be settled in most people's minds.

Yet, right before the 2009 Copenhagen conference on climate change, unknown computer hackers took over a server containing private e-mails by well-respected scientists at the UK's University of East Anglia who have worked for years on climate change studies. The e-mails wound up on the Air Vent, a blog dedicated to attacking the accepted scientific conclusion that human activity is a major cause of climate change, meaning society is putting way too much carbon and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Combing through the hundreds of e-mails, the climate change deniers seized on a couple of phrases, out of context, to "prove" that the science of human-caused climate change is a conspiracy. The e-mails and all the "proof" of a climate conspiracy have been put together in a book, one of whose co-authors is a U.S. Navy-trained electronic specialist and former analyst for military contractor Northrop.

Now the climate change denier lobby has ratcheted up their smear job. They have set their sights on the head of the UN's Intergovernmental Climate Change Panel, Indian scientist Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, who accepted the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the 4,000-scientist-strong panel and former Vice President Al Gore.

In the carefully detailed, sober and even cautious UN panel's reports, the 4,000 scientists from dozens of countries including the United States relied on solidly established scientific methods, including cross-checking and peer reviewed studies, to arrive at their conclusions.

However, at least one verifiable mistake, and some lesser errors, crept into the hefty and historic report. The main one was that the panel report gave an erroneous year by which a scientist said the Himalayan Glaciers could disappear: 2035 instead of 2350. The panel later acknowledged and apologized for the error.

Dr. Pachauri is also being accused of financial conflict of interest over his work as an adviser to some businesses like Deutsche Bank and Toyota. Pachauri never made the business dealings a secret. "My conscience is clear," Pachauri told The New York Times in a telephone interview. However Pachauri has his critics among scientists who say it was inappropriate.

All this in no way changes the fact that the scientific evidence on climate change is overwhelming. But who cares about that when you have Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming calling for Pachauri's resignation. Oil, gas and coal industries top the campaign contributions to this senator. Barrasso is also not immune from "politicizing science" in the health care debate (the health "industry" is another large donor of his) and on the environment.

According to ThatsMyCongress.org, Barrasso and GOP colleague David Vitter of Louisiana (like Wyoming, an oil/gas-rich state) recently introduced legislation that puts "political convenience" over rational and science-based decisio- making. "Their bill, S 724, would amend the Endangered Species Act in order to 'temporarily prohibit the Secretary of the Interior from considering global climate change as a natural or manmade factor in determining whether a species is a threatened or endangered species.'" Climate change denying is a multiple-headed hydra with far-reaching implications.

The other conservative "star" among the deniers is Britain's Lord Monckton, the Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, who likes to rail against the world's elitists. If that isn't the old pot calling the kettle...

Lord Monckton tried to make a name for himself by putting large ads in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times challenging Al Gore to a debate on global warming. The ads made it sound like a WWF-type climate throwdown. How un-viscount-like.

Nonetheless, Monckton, who is now affiliated with a Washington-based institute that states on its web site "Proved: There is no climate crisis," called the UN panel corrupt and the panel's chair a mere "Indian railroad engineer."

"What on earth is he doing there?" Monckton said. The viscount was an adviser to the ultra-conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who along with Ronald Reagan, ushered in an era of unfettered capitalism, deregulation, tax cuts for the rich and privatization.

Many analysts point to the timing of the smear attacks on scientists and the science of climate change. India based Frontline Magazine reported, "The lobby - in which 770 companies have come together to hire over 2,300 agents in Washington alone, in addition to hundreds of supporters in polluting corporations, powerful think-tanks and the media - is targeting climate science itself." There is Copenhagen, but there is also the climate change/green jobs bill currently being considered in the U.S. Congress that has a whole phalanx of special interest opposition, especially from the deeply embedded oil/coal/gas corporate interests.

These interests feel they can win if they keep pointing to minor - and solvable - problems that have no bearing on the big issues. Scientists and the public cannot afford their victory. Analyst Praful Bidwai, in Frontline, urges a "special commission to cross-check and verify all the references" in the UN reports and urges "full disclosure of the details of the grants and fees" Pachauri and his foundation "received from different sources - in the interest of transparency and the spirit of science."

In the U.S., the media has a special responsibility to look into, and expose, the corporate and energy interests behind the deniers of climate change before they catch hold of public opinion through their scare tactics.

Photo: A favorite piece of propaganda among the ultra-rightwing global warming-denier movement. http://www.flickr.com/photos/genesgraphics/ / CC BY 2.0

People, profits and the uses of Colombia

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:49:00 +0000

In 1921, socialist writer Scott Nearing wrote that the United States "has guaranteed to her by all the leading capitalist powers practically an exclusive privilege for the exploitation of the Western Hemisphere" as part of the post World War I settling of international affairs.

With military cooperation treaties dating back to 1952, Colombia now serves as a prime tool for U.S. regional control. Analyst Narciso Isa Conde notes that with new U.S. bases, Colombia becomes "a factor of regional aggression," part of a "fatal triangulation involving Colombia, Honduras, and now Haiti."

Colombia's assigned role is to provoke Venezuela, claims a recent Bolivarian News Agency report. "The center of gravity of the strategy is the Bolivarian revolution and the leftist ALBA alliance," it indicates. Colombia has been "converted into a gigantic air, naval and land forces base to attack Latin America." Its own military "is being converted into a rapid reaction force."

Bases along Columbia's border with Venezuela are being strengthened. Colombian paramilitaries carry out destabilization forays in Venezuela. Colombia is accused of inserting CIA and Israeli trained assassins into Venezuela to target some of those attending the December congress in Caracas of the anti-imperialist Continental Bolivarian Movement. Panama hosts four U.S. bases, and Curacao and Aruba off Venezuela host one each. Fourth Fleet naval power is on call.

For empires power is of the essence. But what of the Colombian people?

Last December horror overwhelmed visiting British unionists and parliamentarians. They learned that leaders of the FENSUAGRO agricultural union confederation are being attacked, jailed, and killed. Families in Soacha told of young men killed by the Army. Dressed as guerrilla combatants, their bodies were displayed as tokens of anti-guerrilla victories. Congresspersons' telephone calls are monitored. Women political prisoners at the Buen Pastor prison live under "appalling" conditions. The British delegation came under police surveillance.

Community leaders in La Macarena showed them "hundreds of unidentified bodies" in a common grave. The unearthing of 2,000 corpses with British visitors looking on made the news headlines. Azalea Robles' report is titled: "Largest common grave of the continent is uncovered - Colombia in a paroxysm of horror cries out for solidarity."

Paramilitary chieftains had revealed gravesite locations to authorities, who took little action. Victims' families began digging on their own. Under Colombia's 2002 Law of Justice and Peace, paramilitary capos confessing crimes and demobilizing their commands received short jail terms and could keep properties.

According to jurist Jairo Ramírez, the buried victims represented "social leaders, peasants, and community defenders, not as the Army head told us, guerrillas killed in combat." Azalea Robles says terror is used "to dissuade [people] from social commitment and to empty extensive territories." The Army and paramilitaries are engaged in a "dirty war." Paramilitaries are a "tool of the state," engineered in part by the CIA. "They subsist on plunder and payments from landowners and multinational corporations." Sponsoring corporations as determined by the 2008 Permanent Tribunal of the Peoples include CocaCola, Nestle, Chiquita Brands, Monsanto, Dyncorp, BP and Occidental Petroleum among others.

Paramilitary leaders testified to wholesale killings. To inculcate terror, underlings dismembered bodies or threw the dead and dying into crocodile pens and rivers. The Army wanted bodies to vanish so as to exempt the state from legal obligations regarding murder.

Over 25 to 30 years, 50,000 people "disappeared," the Patriotic Union political party died, and 38 indigenous communities approached extinction. A "scorched earth" policy left 4 million people displaced. During President Alvaro Uribe's time, 2.4 million Colombians have lost lands and homes, 286,389 during 2009. Multinationals, large landowners, paramilitary bosses and drug traffickers have appropriated 15 million acres. Some 2,700 labor activists have been murdered since 1986, 40 of them last year.

Azalea Robles explains: "Class struggle in Colombia is at its most absolute paroxysm. To preserve the privileges of the oligarchy and above all the plunder of resources perpetrated by multinationals, the Colombian state has implanted total war against the population."

The Colombian government's symbiotic relation with the U.S. government exacts a ghastly toll. For Washington, Colombia's dedication to landowners, urban elites, and multinational corporations bespeaks reliability. Faith in military power pervades both capitals, even though in Colombia it leads to murder, fear, and land stripped of inhabitants.

To enable Colombia to service its imperial ambitions, the U.S. government provides military training, supplies and funding. Part of the bargain is a blind eye toward terrible suffering.

Photo: U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos and Chairman of Colombia's Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Freddy Padilla hold a press conference in Bogota, Colombia, Jan. 19, 2007. http://www.defense.gov/dodcmsshare/photoessay/2007-01/hires_070119-F-0193C-015.JPG

Cubans help children in Haiti

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:45:00 +0000

Giving child survivors a boost, especially a psychological one, represents a challenge in post-earthquake Haiti. That was true too following the 2005 tsunami in Southeast Asia. A month after that catastrophe, the United Nations children's agency UNICEF tried to identify what worked to protect children's mental health.

Specialists working with surviving children in Sri Lanka, for example, found that "education and play are proving to be among the best ways to help children heal, providing a semblance of normality and an important outlet for self-expression."

The UNICEF station there had "emptied its stores of children's recreation kits" to distribute them among hundreds of relief camps. "The emotional needs of children are one of our main concerns," said UNICEF Child Protection Officer Christine Watkins, quoted at the time on the agency's web site.

Watkins explained that play and games help "because they encourage children to unburden themselves." Children are given an opportunity "to help support each other." She praised "home grown community based approaches" as promoting "children's recovery and resilience," adding that "the best kind of healing comes from the people themselves."

In the Haitian town Croix des Bouquets, outside Port au Prince, lots of children need support. Those gathered at what prior to the earthquake had been a playground seemed dejected. A Cuban field hospital was occupying the space.

But community leaders organized a meeting between parents and Cuban health workers to find ways to help the children, "the most vulnerable population sector in catastrophe situations," according to a Prensa Latina report. Cuban doctor Cristóbal Martínez spoke with the parents and children. An earthquake survivor provided translation into Creole (also known as Kreyol).

Martínez sketched out the "program for mitigation of psychosocial damage" that he and his colleagues knew about. Discussion ensued, and soon there was a green light for a "children's festival." That event featured story readings, singing of Haitian children's songs, and picture painting sessions "permitting children to put their nightmares off to one side, at least for a while."

With skillful rendering of traditional rhythms, teachers at the National School of Haitian Art "filled the spectacle with life". They had children and adults singing words of optimism with the promise that "the country would get by this tragedy and overcome misery."

The children were soon smiling and on the verge of dancing. They insisted that reporter Enrique Torres show them the pictures he took of their drawings. Doctor Martínez observed, "Play for children is a primary psychological necessity. If we satisfy their need to play, we are giving them something."

Martínez suggested that "although there had been a terrible disaster, if children go to school, eat, play, and can enjoy themselves, in their consciousness the disaster has already passed ... When these children are in school and can play and do a sport, which definitely is a game, the battle is practically won."

The Cuban team carries out its program of play, recreation, and sport at the periphery of the health care site. They promised to introduce it in other parts of the devastated area including Leogane, east of Port au Prince. There, 15 Haitian activists belonging to the Simon Bolivar community have been charged with "improving the mental health of their younger compatriots."

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/unitednationsdevelopmentprogramme/ / CC BY 2.0

World Notes: Haiti, Cuba, Bolivia, China, Nigeria, Turkey

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:23:00 +0000

Cuba: Medical outreach to Haiti is long term

Cuban doctors and nurses have worked in dozens of countries offering both long term and emergency care. Three weeks after the earthquake in Haiti, over 1,000 doctors, either Cuban or Cuban trained, are working in and around Port au Prince, with more elsewhere in Haiti. They include Haitian doctors trained in Cuba, Cuban doctors already posted to Haiti, and Cuban specialists in disaster medicine on the scene with nurses immediately after the earthquake.

Since Hurricane George in 1998, hundreds of Cuban doctors have worked in Haiti. Reporter María Laura Carpineta writes: "The Cubans did not land in Haiti in helicopters like heroes ... The Cuban doctors arrived here many years ago and in silence. And in silence they were the first to attend to hurricane victims."

The Cuban team has cared for 45,000 earthquake victims. Its 18 surgical brigades have performed over 3,200 operations. Physicians and surgeons from Spain, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, German, and Argentina have worked "against the clock" in three still intact Port au Prince hospitals managed by Cubans.

Foreign medical contingents are already arranging to leave Haiti, according to Carpineta. "That's a pity. The Haitian people still need us," she heard from Carlos Alberto García Domínguez, head of the Cuban medical mission in Haiti for almost two years. He outlined plans to locate sanitation, epidemiology, and mental health teams throughout the country. "We will be here when everyone has gone," he promised.

The United States and Cuba constitute the largest foreign presence in Haiti, except for UN "peacekeepers." Contact between Cuban and U.S. humanitarian teams on the ground has been nil. Carpineta's full report is here. http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/sociedad/3-139567-2010-02-04.html

The right wing Panamanian government's action last month in ordering the departure of a Cuban ophthalmological team suggests, however, that Cuban medical outreach is not always acceptable. The 16 Cuban eye surgeons returning last week to Havana from three years in Panama had performed vision restoring operations on 50,000 people. They were part of "Operation Miracle," the Cuban - Venezuelan project that over five years has provided eye surgery for 1.8 million people in 35 countries.

Bolivia: Plotter finds U.S. sanctuary

President Evo Morales' adversary Branko Marinkovic is in the United States. The wealthy landowner headed an opposition movement in Eastern Bolivia notable for separatism, racism, and violence. It declined following the 2008 police massacre of Morales supporters in Pando the and foiling of an assassination plot against Morales last April, allegedly funded by Marinkovic. His exodus came to light recently when Morales critiqued security forces for softness on "criminals who endangered the country." He joins former Bolivian presidents and other officials accused of murder and more enjoying U.S. sanctuary. They include recent presidential candidate Manfred Reyes Villa. TeleSUR contrasts U.S. welcome for Marinkovic with "intense inspections" applied to travelers from 14 countries accused of harboring terrorists. Writing from Cuba, which is on that list, Jean-Guy Allard notes ties of the U.S. group Human Rights Foundation with the April plotters. http://www.argenpress.info/2010/02/denunciado-por-terrorismo-en-bolivia.html

Switzerland: Duvalier loot still in limbo

The Swiss Federal Court last week announced that $4.6 million claimed by former Haitian dictator Jean Claude Duvalier would not be returned to the Haitian government. It cited the 2001 expiration of a statute of limitations, according to the BBC. The money has been frozen since 1986, when Duvalier escaped to France. The Swiss government responded to the court's decision by continuing a hold on the funds pending legislation authorizing their confiscation and return to Haiti. The Federal Court decision reversed a lower court ruling rejecting Duvalier's request for transferring the money to a foundation in Liechtenstein controlled by his family. The Duvalier dictators, father and son, are accused of removing $100 million from Haiti under the cover of support for foreign charities.

Nigeria: Presidential absence paralyzes government

President Umaru Yar'Adua's three-month stay in a Saudi Arabian hospital has divided the cabinet and threatened Niger Delta peace. Cabinet members and street protesters are demanding transfer of power to Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan. That's despite a high court ruling that the Vice President may act on Yar'Adua's behalf but not assume presidential power. Schism between Nigeria's Muslim dominated north represented by Yar'Adua and the Christian south loyal to the vice president complicates the impasse. At a meeting in Yenagoa last week, guerrillas of the Niger Delta Network of Freedom Fighters threatened hostilities and advised "the international community" to suspend dealings with Nigeria pending a new president. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta threatened to end a ceasefire introduced last year, reports Vanguard News. http://www.vanguardngr.com/2010/02/04/mend-50-groups-ready-for-fresh-violence/

China: Land seizures and sales fund governments, bring protests

Data cited by People's Daily last week demonstrated that sales during 2009 of 522,000 acres of publicly owned land brought in $233 billion for local governments, a 63.4 percent hike over the previous year. Half was sold for real estate development, one-third for residential use. Transfer fees accounted for 84.2 percent of the revenues, which made up 23.2 percent of all state income last year. Al Jazeera reported that the income-raising potential of land sales has prompted local governments to seize land for development, leading to a 44 percent one-year increase in state owned land. In order to quell ubiquitous land seizure protests, the national government has proposed legislation requiring 90 percent of residents to accept relocation prior to land takeover.

Turkey: Public workers fight for rights

Privatization in 2008 of Tekel, the government tobacco and alcohol monopoly, led to the loss of 12,000 jobs as of Jan. 31. Police violence against workers has marred nationwide protests beginning in mid December. Last week, 8,000 workers demonstrated outside the national headquarters of the Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions, 12 of them carrying out a hunger strike. The dispute centers on a law providing the dismissed workers with new government jobs as "public employees," with lowered wages and benefits. Their union is demanding preservation of the status and income they enjoyed as "public workers." Hürriyet Daily News reported on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's accusation that workers were campaigning against his political party. Six unions organized a one-day general strike, illegal in Turkey, for Feb. 4.

Photo: Relief efforts in Haiti. http://www.flickr.com/photos/unitednationsdevelopmentprogramme/ / CC BY 2.0

Mexican labor leader takes message to Washington

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 11:45:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Humberto Montes de Oca, interior secretary of the Mexican Electricians' Union (Sindicato Mexicano de Electristras - SME), was on his way to Washington, he told a meeting here recently. His mission: to lodge a complaint with NAFTA authorities against the Mexican government for labor violations.

He said he would also be asking the AFL-CIO for solidarity actions and monetary support. Several central labor councils and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) have already agreed to help the Mexican union.

Montes de Oca spoke here to an audience of mainly Latino union and community activists, at a meeting sponsored by the Sacramento chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) on January 24.

Standing in front of a banner reading "Derecho de no emigrar" ("Right not to emigrate") and speaking in Spanish with a translator, Montes de Oca said that Mexico's President Felipe Calderon is trying to exterminate the SME union, privatize the electrical industry, and control the media.

He described how Mexico's federal police and army had attacked the union-built and nationally owned electrical facility and violently removed union workers on October 10, 2009.

Subsequently 44,000 workers were fired and replaced with non-union employees, although Calderon does not have the constitutional authority either to extinguish a public entity or to fire state workers.

At the same time, taxes were raised, subsidies for small electrical consumers withdrawn, the minimum wage decreased and prices for basic needs increased 30 percent.

SME filed a lawsuit over the illegal attack and decree, but a Mexican court rejected it..

Meanwhile, 18,000 workers continue to resist the decree, although they have not been paid in 100 days. The government took over the assets of the SME, which is now in financial crisis and cannot pay its bills or its staff.

SME, Montes de Oca said, was formed in 1914, and is the only union in Mexico which is not tied to any political party or government and in which leaders are elected by secret ballot.

Photo: PW/Gail Ryall

Haiti: Real development or cheap labor haven?

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:28:00 +0000

The government of Haiti is indefinitely postponing the legislative elections scheduled for February 28 because the infrastructure of the country has been so thoroughly wrecked by the January 12 earthquake that it is impossible to carry out the mechanics of the poll. As occasional survivors are still being found, the recognized death toll approaches the predicted 200,000, One out of every 45 Haitians has died in the disaster. Yet Haiti is forced to think about how reconstruction is to be approached.

Now another disaster approaches: Economists.

Much lauded in "development assistance" circles and in the New York Times is a new report to the U.N. Secretary General by Paul Collier, identified as a faculty member of the Department of Economics, Oxford University (Haiti: From National Catastrophe to Economic Security)

If Collier has any knowledge of Haitian history, it is not evident. I am no expert, but even I know that Haiti's troubles have to do with the way the island has been used, over the last 300 years, as a source of profits for various outside interests. Yet most of the Collier report's recommendations are based on continuing the exact same policies which have kept most Haitians poor and foreign investors rich.

Collier's major recommendation is to turn Haiti into a center for garment manufacture by transnational corporations. The main qualification that Haiti has for this role is plentiful "cheap labor" as Collier bluntly puts it. Collier recommends that a number of free trade "export zones" be set up in Haiti. Takeover of land for these zones would be expedited by changes in Haitian law. Power generation would be expanded on a privatized basis to make sure the factories have a source of cheap energy. Haitian customs for these zones would also be privatized to prevent bottlenecks and other problems caused by "corruption". The manufacturing and exporting countries would be "linked" to somebody high in the government. These export zones would be "free trade" operations. If they operate similarly to other such operations in the area, it means that workers would be paid a pittance and Haiti as a nation would get precious little out of them.

Collier would also like to see Haiti move more in the direction of producing cash crops for export (he suggests mangos) rather than subsistence agriculture. He thinks that this will help the Haitian food crisis and stop deforestation, which he attributes to overpopulation and too much people-intensive agriculture. He also suggests that to get the agricultural work done and feed the people, a system might be created for "food for work," which means "work for food" instead of "for money." (Also known as sharecropping.) Collier thinks that this kind of approach might reverse the serious deforestation from which Haiti suffers. To prevent food riots like those which occurred in 2008 when the prices of imported food items suddenly skyrocketed, mostly due to world market trends, Collier recommends that the Haitian government buy "food price insurance" from some private foreign company (enter the Geico caveman).

Since few people in Haiti are rich enough to provide the capital for all of this privatized development, it is assumed capital from transnational corporations will be both the source and the beneficiary of the bonanza of exported profits.

Colliers' recommendations come from the "Washington Consensus" tool kit of neo-liberal policies: Free trade, offshore sweatshops, privatization, austerity and the suppression of protest. Although Collier presents these things as bright new ideas, Haiti for a long time has been part of this system: For example, a large proportion of the world's baseballs are sewn in Haitian sweatshops. The extreme poverty of the Haitian workers may indeed attract manufacturing investment; the trouble is for this to continue to "benefit" Haiti, labor would have to stay cheap. The experience of the "maquiladora" industry in Mexico is instructive: Indeed foreign companies came to Mexico to take advantage of the cheap labor, but the minute they found cheaper labor elsewhere, they closed up shop, leaving Mexican workers with virtually nothing to show for their sweatshop experience. A successful "cheap labor" strategy also requires that any effort on the part of workers to improve their wages and working conditions has to be repressed. This is why Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. has called this kind of policy "the race to the bottom of the barrel."

Haiti used to have a profitable rice industry, which both fed the people and provided an export crop. Starting in the mid 1980s, Haiti, under pressure to lower import tariffs, began to import more rice, mostly from the United States. By the early to mid 1990s, huge rice imports, subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, had so undercut the Haitian rice farmers that thousands of them were driven from the land and into the capital of Port au Prince in search of jobs. According to the Inter Press Service, citing 2008 figures, "of the 420,000 tonnes of rice Haitians consume yearly, 340,000 tonnes are imported. Of the 31 million eggs the Haitian population eats monthly, 30 million are imported from the Dominican Republic. About 80 percent of farmers earn less than 135 dollars a year."

As for the deforestation, a problem which Haiti shares with many other poor countries, it is in part the result of people needing more land to farm, and in part of people cutting firewood because they are too poor to buy kerosene or other fuels. Colliers' idea of growing mangos for export instead of food crops for home consumption is not going to solve the problem.

What other choice does the Haitian government actually have right now? Before the earthquake, President Rene Preval had been coming increasingly close to the ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) group of Latin American and Caribbean states. ALBA, which includes Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, is a trade, aid and political bloc whose purpose is to diminish the dominant control of the United States over the region by stimulating horizontal economic integration among its members and neighboring states. Preval had already hooked Haiti into PETROCARIBE, an ALBA instrument which provides petroleum on good credit terms. Further integration with ALBA would provide Haiti with trade, credit and aid opportunities more generous than what the United States and other wealthy countries are willing to offer. Integration of Bolivia, the Western Hemisphere's second poorest country after Haiti, into ALBA is already producing very positive results.

However, two things that have happened that may impede further Haitian connections with the ALBA nations. First is the coup d'etat in Honduras, which has sent the message that poor countries that try to escape from U.S. hegemony via ALBA face reprisals. (Mauricio Funes, president of El Salvador, has angered his left-wing supporters by announcing that he is not going to bring his country into ALBA for fear of jeopardizing relations with the United States.) Second is the earthquake, which makes it hard for Haiti to turn away any helping hand, no matter what ulterior motives may lurk. Haiti is in no position to antagonize the United States, France, Canada and other wealthy nations, and likely will feel constrained to remain within the "Washington consensus" for the rebuilding period.

Progressives in the United States need to be conscious of these things and prepared to push for some policies that really will help the Haitian people without tying them down to the failed exploitative policies of the past. These include:

• Legalization of undocumented Haitian immigrants in the United States. Haiti depends on remittances sent by its citizens abroad for much of its foreign exchange money. If the 200,000 or more Haitian immigrants estimated to be living without papers in the United States were given legal status, which they would be under the Ortiz-Gutierrez Bill, HR 4321, these remittances could be increased because legal workers are able to earn more. If, on the other hand, these immigrants are deported, it would be like another severe aftershock. The Obama administration has extended Temporary Protected Status to Haitian undocumented immigrants, but it may only last 18 months.

• Fair trade for Haiti: Cut or stop the subsidization of U.S. based agribusiness transnationals such as Riceland Foods Inc. of Stuttgart, Arkansas, and other companies which engage in the dumping which has helped to undermine Haitian agriculture. These subsidies benefit mostly corporate agribusiness, not American small farmers, and are the source major complaints by farmers in many poorer countries.

• Cancel all Haiti's foreign debts. Venezuela, which has its own economic problems and can ill afford to do so, has canceled Haiti's debt for oil and natural gas. President Chavez says that this is in recognition of Haiti's key role in the liberation of all of South America at the beginning of the 1800s. We should join the Jubilee movement in fighting for all Haiti's foreign debts to be canceled (See www.lawg.org for more details.)

• Aid should be in the form of grants not loans, so that the debt problem does not recur.

Haiti owes the United States absolutely nothing in exchange for current aid. On the contrary, since Haiti gained independence in 1804, the United States has collaborated with France and other wealthy countries to keep Haiti poor and indebted. We should continue to send material aid and volunteers to help the earthquake victims, but also take care of the political side by fighting for justice for Haiti.

Photo: Reforesting a Haitian mountainside, 2009. http://www.flickr.com/photos/plant-trees/ / CC BY 2.0

Winners and losers in Honduras as Zelaya goes into exile, Lobo takes power

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:52:00 +0000

Smiling broadly, his chest festooned with medals, General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, head of the armed forces of Honduras, stood beside Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo as the latter was sworn in as President of Honduras on January 27.

The reason for all those medals might be something of a mystery, but the smile on the general's face was quite understandable since he and several of his colleagues had just been pardoned by the Honduran Congress for having invaded the home of former president Manuel "Mel" Zelaya last April 28, arrested him and roughed him up and then sent him into exile, all of which everybody agrees was a violation of Honduran law. For good measure, the Supreme Court had already found the brass hats "innocent" in a joke of a trial.

Along with the generals, Congress decided to pardon every important protagonist on all sides: Zelaya and several of his advisors (accused of treason and abuse of power for having broached the subject of changing the Constitution) and the group of civilian politicians and businessmen who had overthrown him. The leader of the coup government, Roberto Micheletti, who had resisted all efforts to get him to step down, has been made a non-voting member of Congress for life, which extends his parliamentary immunity from prosecution forever.

The vote on the pardons had the support of Lobo's own National Party. It was opposed by the left and much of Zelaya's and Micheletti's deeply divided Liberal Party abstained.

It is not yet clear if ordinary policemen, soldiers and death squad members who have killed, injured or "disappeared" scores of Zelaya supporters are also now protected from prosecution, or indeed if rank-and-file Zelaya supporters who have gone into hiding or exile can now come back without fear of death or arrest. Just before the vote, the attorney general raised questions about the legality of allowing Zelaya to leave and even threatened Lobo with prosecution, but it would appear that the vote in Congress renders this moot.

Meanwhile President Zelaya and his family, accompanied by the President of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernandez, were greeted by tens of thousands of cheering supporters as they headed for the airport. Fernandez had negotiated an agreement with Lobo and Zelaya whereby the deposed president would leave the Brazilian embassy where he has been ensconced since returning to Honduras secretly in September. Zelaya shouted to the crowd "We'll be back", but specifics are not clear. The Honduran resistance is now concentrating on the fight for a constituent assembly to reform the constitution.

Lobo won a very controversial election on November 29. Zelaya and his supporters, along with most regional governments, viewed that election as illegitimate, as it was carried out with troops on the street repressing members of labor unions, peasant organizations and other mass sectors who were demanding Zelaya's return. He now has the problem of restoring legitimacy for his government both in the eyes of the Honduras people and the world. The gesture of authorizing Zelaya's departure was based on that need.

So for now, the coup organizers and their allies in the Honduran ruling class and the U.S. right have won, and Honduran workers, farmers, students, ethnic minorities, women and others who stood to benefit from a continuation of Zelaya's progressive policies have lost. Micheletti and Congress pulled Honduras out of the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our America, which means that for the foreseeable future, Honduras will remain an economic, political and military dependency of the United States, and that the Soto Cano military base, the only such U.S. base in Central America, will not be restored to Honduran national control as Zelaya had attempted to do. Lessons may have been learned among other leaders in the region: Much to the disgust of the FMLN, the political party which brought him to power, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes announced that he would not affiliate his country to ALBA for fear of alienating the U.S., and he also recognized Lobo as President of Honduras.

But the reputation of the U.S. has suffered hemisphere wide as the result of the Honduran developments. Although the Obama administration denounced the coup and repeatedly stated that it considered Zelaya to be the legitimate president, in the end it declared in advance that it would recognize the results of the November election even if constitutional normality had not been restored and the pro-coup troops were still in the streets. Many in Latin America read sinister motives into this, suspecting that the statements against the coup were a smokescreen and that Secretary of State Clinton was really pushing for the coup to succeed in maintaining predominant U.S. control of Honduras and its neighbors.

The U.S. was represented at Lobo's inauguration by Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela, whose appointment was approved by Republicans in the U.S. Senate once the State Department had assured them that they would recognize the elections. Few other countries were represented.

Photo: Honduras has a number of ethnic and indigenous minority groups, like this young Tolupán woman, all of whom are at risk of losing progress made during the Zelaya administration. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lonqueta/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0