People Before Profit blog

Kashmir peace is long climb, shadows Obama trip to India

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:11:00 +0000

There has been much in the news about Kashmir. Most of what you hear regarding Kashmir is violence, separatists and the tensions between India and Pakistan. It is a complex situation with a history of twists and turns and battles.

Kashmir is the last major question to be resolved stemming from India's British colonial past, the freedom struggle and the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan. It has been the cause of war between India and Pakistan. It's also an issue that can be settled by only the two countries: India and Pakistan.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently told reporters from Pakistan who asked the United States to "ease" or "facilitate" the issue that the U.S. cannot intervene if one of the parties (India) does not want it.

As President Barack Obama prepares to visit India in November, reports in the Indian press say the Kashmir issue is "unlikely to figure during talks" between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Obama in New Delhi. The "U.S. considers this an 'internal' matter of India," Indian sources have said.

To understand why India considers this an "internal" matter and something to be settled directly with Pakistan and not a third party facilitator lies in the history of Kashmir and the Indian subcontinent.

When British colonialists faced the first war of India's independence in 1857, they started dividing the subcontinent. First of they separated Burma (now known as Myanmar), followed by Nepal, and then Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Then, in 1905, the British tried to divide Bengal from the rest of "British India" but the Bengalese put up a massive struggle, sacrificing thousands of lives. They won the much sought after unity, until the 1947 partition, which divided Bengal again. Along with the division of Punjab, the partition was made on a religious basis with Muslim-majority districts being part of the newly-created Muslim state of Pakistan. Punjab and Bengal were at the time of independence known as "British ruled" states.

But, there were still 650 princely states at the time of freedom where the rulers -- not the people -- were given the right to accede to India or Pakistan. (Some argue that had it been the "people's choice" Pakistani provinces like Balochistan, Frontier provinces and possibly Sindh would have opted out of Pakistan.)

Kashmir in 1947 was a princely state with Muslims, Hindus, and other religions, ruled by Hindu Kings as part of the larger Muslim-ruled Mughal Empire. At the time of independence Kashmir was ruled by the last of the maharajas, Hari Singh.

About the same time, Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah -- the leader of Kashmir's largest political party and a close friend to India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (who was also from Kashmir) -- became the first chief minister of Kashmir. This occurred after Singh wrote a letter of accession to India addressed to the British governor Lord Mountbatten.

War erupted (one of the four wars between India and Pakistan) fueled by partition and Cold War machinations. Military troops from Pakistan and India were sent to Kashmir. A year or so later, the United Nations voted for a referendum calling for a vote by the Kashmiri people on whether to accede to Pakistan and India.

Nehru out of his unflinching faith in secularism and its roots among the Kashmiri people was confident of winning the plebiscite and wanted one to go forward, however India's federal cabinet never endorsed it. (Years later, Pakistan eventually said they would not insist on a plebiscite.)

After the war in the 1970s, in which East Pakistan won its independence and became Bangladesh, Pakistan's Prime Minister Bhutto and India's Indira Gandhi signed a pact known as the Simla agreement. Both agreed to respect a line of control and not to allow a third party intervention on Kashmir issue, neither the United Nations, nor any nation.

Now, part of Kashmir is with India, and other parts Pakistan, and still a third part is under Chinese control.

The Indian Constitution grants a special status to Jammu and Kashmir, which is the current name of the Indian state, and even an autonomous status is under negotiation between the state legislature and the central government.

Since Kashmir's first Chief Minister Sheikh Abdullah, elections have taken place for Jammu and Kashmir government. The current chief minister is Sheikh Abdullah's grandson, Omar Abdullah, who is, like his grandfather, progressive in political outlook.

Kashmiris of India elected young Abdullah in their most recent general elections ending Dec. 24, 2008. Kashmiri separatist sections called for a boycott. But few seemed to have listened, as there was a massive turn out of voters, with long queues at the 8,000 polling booths.

Kashmir has a relatively higher standard of living than most of India (and Pakistan). Indian Kashmiri women are educated in modern schools and colleges instead of in narrow, strict religious-based schools or no schooling at all. According to a recent survey only six percent of Kashmiris are below India's poverty level. English is spoken at a high rate. Students from neighboring Punjab and Himachal states go to Kashmir for college. Mobile phones and computers are in common use.

Reports say the economic and literacy status of Kashmiris under Pakistani rule are lower.

The recent violence in Indian Kashmir began when police shot a Muslim boy after a group threw rocks at them. In the ensuing protests, more than 60 people were killed. Kashmir and Jammu government came under swift criticism for the way it handled the situation, and eventually made restitution to the victims' families and freed jailed teenagers.

Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury had led some members of an all-party delegation to meet separatist leaders as well as displaced Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus), besides holding talks with other sections of the people there.

At the same time, there are Pakistan-supported criminal gangs and individuals that have focused for years on attacking India and Jammu and Kashmir through violent means. The ideology that sustains such attacks is religious extremism, which is in contradiction to the long history of Indian and Kashmiri secularism.

India's Delhi government recently appointed a three-person team of interlocutors to discuss with all parties in Kashmir (from separatists to ruling Kashmiri parties) a solution "in line with the aspirations of the Kashmiri people."

Kashmir's chief minister and members of parliament from the region warn of the danger of "independence" seekers. Reflecting the regional worries of violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, CM Abdullah said, "You will be engulfed by Al Qaeda movement" if Jammu and Kashmir secede from the Indian Union.

MP Farooq Abdullah also warned that separatists and their supporters do not know the dire security and democratic consequences of forming a separate state. The Taliban from Pakistan and Afghanistan will be ruling Kashmir if independence is obtained, he said.

Teresa Albano contributed to this article.

Former president of Argentina Nestor Kirchner dies

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:58:00 +0000

The sudden death of Nestor Kirchner, the Secretary General of UNASUR (Union of South American Nations), former president of Argentina and husband of the current president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, has saddened and shaken Latin America. And now the right wing associated with the Argentine ruling class and international finance capital have their hopes up that they can reverse his progressive policies.

Kirchner, who was born in 1950, died of a heart attack at his home in el Calafate, Santa Cruz Province, on October 27.

Kirchner came out of the left-wing youth movement of the Justicialist Party, founded by President Juan Peron. But while some sectors of that party had embarked on a fascist trajectory, the Justicialist left had fought against the regime of Isabela Peron and then the bloody right-wing dictatorship which succeeded her.

Once the dictatorship ended, Kirchner entered electoral politics, winning the post of mayor of Rio Gallegos, Santa Cruz province, in 1986. He was elected governor of Santa Cruz province in 1991, and was considered to have provided competent and honest leadership characterized by benefits to the working class, leading to his reelection in 1995. Meanwhile the Justicialist president, Carlos Menem, was disgracing himself with massive corruption scandals. Kirchner began to be seen as the Peronist left's answer to people like Menem. Subsequent to Menem's presidency and that of his successor Eduardo Duhalde, the presidency passed into the hands of the Alliance Party's Fernando de la Rua, who instituted sharper neo-liberal policies.

By 2001, the Argentine economy was on the ropes, and there was massive protest against the austerity program of the regime. Duhalde was brought back and instituted a sharp devaluation of the currency. By this time there was massive rejection of the entire spectrum of parties and leaders at the national level.

Kirchner was elected president on a left wing platform in 2003, but with a low vote total. Initially, many on the left did not trust him and thought he had been put in by the Peronists to pour cold water on the wave of factory seizures that was then going on.

But Kirchner stood up to right wing forces, including the coup prone military, allied himself with other left-wing governments in the hemisphere and, to the amazement of all, successfully forced international lending agencies to restructure Argentina's debt by the simple method of telling them that if they didn't restructure, they would not get a penny.

Kirchner continued to work to integrate the economies and societies of Latin American nations and to help them overcome imperialist hegemony. He and his team have played a role in the creation of key integrative organizations such as MERCOSUR and UNASUR . When his term ended in 2007, his wife, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, was elected by a much bigger vote that he had got. She played a strong role in trying to reverse the coup in Honduras in June of 2009.

But both the traditionalist right and the Peronist right are still strong in Argentina, and they managed to deprive Cristina Fernandez of her legislative majority in 2009. It was thought that Nestor Kirchner would be a strong presidential candidate in the general elections in October of 2011. Thus, while most of Latin America mourned Kirchner's death, there was an instant uptick in the market for Argentine bonds, and business groups were all but openly joyful about the possibility of the right taking over the Argentine presidency once more.

The Secretary General of the Communist Party of Argentina, Patricio Echegaray, summarized in a statement Wednesday what Latin America owes to Nestor Kirchner:

"In the context of the processes of change which are happening in our America, the measures taken by ex-president in favor of the people's sectors, Latin American integration, respect for human rights and the return to political debate, are an integral part of the legacy which Argentine society enjoys today [which allows us] to keep on advancing along the road of justice and social inclusion.

"From the Communist Party we extend our condolences to Madame President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and to his relatives and comrades in the struggle"

These feelings extended beyond Argentina's borders. Prensa Latina reported that Bolivian President Evo Morales praised Kirchner's "great commitment and faithfulness to South American integration", defining his death as "a painful and irreparable loss for Argentina, South America and the world".

Photo: Nestor Kirchner, wikipedia commons

On eight-nation trip, Chavez promotes multi-polar world

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 12:47:00 +0000

On a recent 11-day tour covering eight European, Asian and African nations, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his entourage went non-stop from factory to farm, energy facilities to governmental chambers. He signed 69 agreements covering energy, agriculture, education, technological interchange, trade, and housing.

Along the way, Chavez extolled revolutionary Venezuela's role in seeking to build a multi-polar world. "We want relations with the whole world," he told reporters, insisting that Venezuela's own foreign policy, not Washington's, guides his country's relations with other nations. The Venezuelan president emphasized the necessity of shedding "the perverse model of petroleum mono-production" in favor of export diversity and serving people's needs, especially housing.

Chavez said, "We are now on the offensive," and the "rules of the game have changed radically." As analyst Eva Golinger describes the Chavez policy, "Integration and the union of peoples provide a shield against imperialist aggression."

On his ninth visit to Russia, beginning October 13, Chavez signed 15 documents of "strategic cooperation" with Russian President Dmitry Medvédev, among them joint plans to build Venezuela's first nuclear power plant. Venezuela will buy 35 Russian tanks under previous accords and will be planting 50,000 acres with plantains, flowers and other crops for export to Russia. A new Russian-Venezuelan bank will promote independence from U.S.-controlled international financial institutions.

Chavez' promise to provide Belarus with 200 years of Venezuelan oil provoked a media field day. Over two days, President Chavez did agree to provide 30 million tons of crude oil over three years and purchase petroleum drilling and repair services from Belarus, which is uncertain about continued Russian oil availability after recent diplomatic tiffs. Belarus will help build 5,000 houses in Venezuela, in addition to 10,000 houses promised from Russia, 12,500 from Portugal, and 10,000 from Iran.

At a state-owned Belarus heavy truck factory, Chavez announced a joint venture for building Latin America's first big truck factory. Belarus will participate in shoe and textile manufacture in Venezuela. Chavez pointed to the state-owned, 2,700 employee, Dziarzhynski food production complex as a model for Venezuela and a future trading partner.

In Ukraine, Chavez and President Viktor Yanukovych established bilateral diplomatic relations and discussed trade possibilities. Working groups of both nations will meet in Caracas in November. Chavez toured facilities of the Antonov airplane manufacturing corporation. The state-owned entity operates in 77 countries and is responsible for 6,000 planes in use now.

Visiting Iran for the ninth time on October 19-20, the Venezuelan president signed 11 agreements, making the total 200 since 2001, on technology transfer, industry, agriculture, commerce, housing and mining. Venezuela's state oil company will help open up an Iranian gas field. The two countries will form an oil shipping company and build petrochemical plants. Chavez praised a state-developed housing complex with 90,000 homes as a "new form of popular construction." Bilateral trade is valued now at $5 billion.

In Syria next, Chavez and President Bashar al-Assad signed six accords, including plans for a Syrian-Venezuelan oil refinery, a shipping line and a business bureau. Joint cotton and olive oil production is contemplated. Syria will be joining the Venezuelan-inspired Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) as an observer.

Chavez received an honorary degree in Libya and discussed preparations with leader Muammar Gaddafi for the third Africa-South America Summit to be held in Libya next year.

Chavez concluded his tour in Portugal on October 24. There he visited a computer factory which supplies "Canaima" computers used in Venezuelan schools. The factory owner will be supplying Venezuela with 1.5 million of them over three years, some from a facility near Caracas. Portugal will be receiving Venezuelan crude oil, and shipping services will be developed. Chavez and Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates visited a shipyard and facilities for making wind-powered electrical generators.

Venezuela's independent posture on display during the tour parallels the rising fortunes of the BRIC group of nations - Brazil, Russia, India and China - that account now for 25 percent of the total world Gross Domestic Product. Chinese trade with Latin America has grown at a 30 percent annual rate over the past decade. In other words, as expressed by Argentinean President Cristina Fernández in April: "Latin America is nobody's back yard."

Photo: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez speaking in Caracas. (Mike Gonzalez, cc 2.0)

Mexican union leader jailed in Puebla

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:45:00 +0000

The Mexican Electricians Union, locked in a struggle with the government of right-wing President Felipe Calderon for the past year, now has to take up the cause of one of its own officials, jailed without bail last week in the central state of Puebla.

Miguel Marquez Rios, a member of the national leadership of the union, is being prosecuted on the basis of civil disobedience actions in which he and other union members allegedly participated in a March sit in protest at three electrical installations in Nexcala, Puebla. Marquez is accused of "deprivation of liberty" because employees of the Federal Electrical Commission and federal police who were impeded from leaving.

He is also accused of damage to property and of interfering with the generation of electricity.

The incident in Nexcala is part of a long struggle between the electricians on the one hand and the Calderon government and its agencies, including the electrical commission, on the other. The Electricians Union (SME) is an independent union, which historically has been an organizing center for the Mexican left.

In October 2009, the Mexican government forcefully seized all installations of the SME's employer, Luz y Fuerza del Centro, handed them over to the Federal Electrical Commission, and declared the SME's labor contract to be cancelled and the union leadership to be deposed. Since Luz y Fuerza was the only employer of SME workers, this would destroy the union.

Both the Federal Electrical Commission and Luz y Fuerza del Centro are autonomous publicly run enterprises, but the union at the federal agency is conservative and has faced many accusations of corruption.

The SME and its allies in the Mexican political left accuse the government of making the change so as to be able to set up crooked fiber optic deals with TELEVISA, a telecommunications company that has strong links to the political elite, and other foreign and Mexican companies.

Of the original 44,000 active SME employees, 16,000 have refused to accept severance and have continued the struggle.

The government orchestrated a vicious propaganda campaign against the SME, accusing them of being to blame for poor service and high electric rates. But electrical rates under federal management have risen sharply, while service complaints have skyrocketed as the federal commission has brought in inexperienced subcontractors to do the work formerly done by unionized SME members. So the SME is now working with other organizations to organize electrical service consumers, and is suggesting tactics such as refusing to pay electrical bills and making it hard for agents to read their meters.

During the summer, several electrician union members carried out a hunger strike in the central plaza (Zocalo) of Mexico City. They stopped the strike when the newly appointed interior minister, Francisco Blake Mora, agreed to negotiations. However the electricians charge Calderon's secretary of labor, Javier Lozano Alarcon, of trying to torpedo any negotiated agreement, including a proposal by SME that the Federal Electrical Commission hire the remaining SME members.

Currently, the demand is for a new public entity to be created to provide electrical services for Mexico City and the central part of the country, areas formerly served by Luz y Fuerza del Centro.

Major demonstrations of unionists and consumers are being organized for November. The SME is getting support in this from other independent unions such as telephone and streetcar workers, as well as consumers and community organizations

This is the context in which the delayed-action arrest of Marquez has taken place.

On Sunday, October 24, the SME released a statement which runs in part:

"The Mexican Electricians Union demands the immediate freeing of Miguel Marquez, secretary for divisions of the Central Committee of this organization, [who was] arrested without an arrest warrant and with much violence, in an operation including military and police, in the area of San Martin Texmelucan, Puebla.

"The unionist was returning from delivering a petition to the Puebla legislature which asked to create a public decentralized entity to [provide] electrical service for Central Mexico."

UN General Assembly condemns U.S. Cuba blockade

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:22:00 +0000

For the 19th consecutive year, the United Nations General Assembly has approved a Cuban resolution demanding that the United States "repeal and invalidate" its "economic, commercial, and financial blockade" against Cuba. The blockade is the longest in human history, Cubans say.

The UN vote on Oct. 26 was 187 nations in favor of ending the blockade (similar to last year) and two opposing: Israel and the United States. The Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau abstained, the latter having last year voted against the resolution.

In his address to the Assembly introducing the resolution, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez denounced U.S. policy as a genocidal violation of human rights, condemned under international law. Rodriquez said the U.S. government had failed even to acknowledge Cuban proposals for dialogue.

Cuban spokespersons say U.S. restrictions on Cuban purchases in the United States, restrictions on Cuban imports, denial of Cuba's access to international credit, manipulation of international banking regulations, exclusion of third-nation ships from U.S. ports, and the U.S. travel ban have over 48 years of blockade caused economic losses totaling $751 billion.

According to Prensa Latina news, the overwhelming UN vote "reaffirms principles of sovereign equality among nations, non-intervention and non-interference in other nations' internal affairs, and freedom of international commerce and navigation." The vote served once more to reject the U.S. 1996 Helms Burton law that critics say works to undermine the sovereignty of other nations.

Prior to the vote, at least 15 delegates "virtually pleaded with Washington to change its policy toward Cuba," analyst Jane Franklin reported.

The resolution directs the UN secretary general to prepare a report on U.S. compliance for presentation during the 66th General Assembly session next year, when the matter will be reconsidered.

Foreign Minister Rodriguez pointed out that declarations from multiple international forums and summits have called for the blockade's end, a stand most U.S. citizens agree with. Despite President Barack Obama once having proclaimed "a new beginning with Cuba," last September he renewed the blockade as serving U.S. "national interests." Blockade effects on health care and food availability impinge upon the daily lives of Cubans, Rodriguez said. At issue is Cuban "sovereignty and independence [that] "many generations of Cubans have dedicated the better part of their lives to defending," he said.

The Cuban foreign minister said U.S. policies are "guided still by the logic of Assistant Secretary of State Lester Mallory's memo in 1960 which said: 'The only way to make [Castro] lose internal support is to provoke disillusionment and discouragement by means of economic distress and hardship.'" At that time, Mallory called for "weakening economic life ... with the object of provoking hunger, desperation, and overthrow of the government."

That was half a century ago. As indicated by the latest UN vote, the world thinks it's time for a change.

Photo: USAID IMAGES

Behind the death threats against supporters of Afro-Colombians

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:17:00 +0000

Death threats have been made against U.S. organizations working in solidarity with Colombia. On October 10, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) received its third death threat this year from Colombian "Black Eagles" paramilitaries. Responding to WOLA's complaint, Angelino Garzón, Colombia's Vice President, expressed "profound concern" and promised protection for human rights defenders. WOLA has long backed the Afro-Colombian gold mining community of La Toma, in the Suárez municipality in north Cauca, a community that was established by African slaves and escaped slaves from 1636 on. The threats were apparently made in response to this support.

WOLA had been preparing for an October 25 gathering in Washington to honor the Association for Internally Displaced Afro-Colombians (AFRODES), based in the United States and Colombia. The program included leaders of Colombia's Black Communities Process (PCN). Top billing for AFRODES and PCN may have riled the paramilitaries.

These organizations take the death threats seriously. This year in Suárez, eight miners were killed in April and five more in July. An AFRODES activist was assassinated following earlier threats this year and there was a failed attempt on another activist in Cartagena on October 13.

Why are the Afro-Colombians of La Toma and their supporters under attack? Gold mining companies have descended on the area, among them South African-owned Anglo Gold Ashantio. Last year 1300 Afro-Colombian families in La Toma received eviction notices. Longtime efforts in La Toma to preserve community governance and communal land rights, both constitutionally sanctioned, had come down to fending off gold-mining impresario Héctor Jesús Sarria's claim to 250 acres. In a package that included La Toma, the Colombian government had privatized 25,000 acres in the Suárez municipality, or two thirds of that municipality's land.

Environmental concerns also rank high for those resisting industrialized, open pit gold mining. A lawyer complained that corporations "seize a mountain, dynamite it, and go on to washing with cyanide to obtain gold." Tons of gold are removed every day. In sharp contrast the daily yield for the local artisanal miners seldom exceeds 100 kilograms. And trees are left standing, the lawyer said.

Angela Davis' visit to La Toma on September 18 helped focus worldwide attention there. César Rodríguez Garavito's wide-ranging interview with Davis took place "only a few steps from gold mines the black communities have worked in artisan fashion for over three centuries."

Asked how La Toma related to "other causes you have defended," Davis declared, "Capitalism's obsession with profit and disregard for humanity, culture, and history are clearer here in La Toma, in struggles for ancestral lands, than in any other part of the world. Afro-Colombian and indigenous peoples trying to preserve connection with their lands, which is also connection with their history and culture, are being trampled on by transnational corporations."

Davis denounced "U. S. support for the creation of a repressive apparatus in Colombia similar to the U.S. prison-industrial complex." She castigated Washington's certification September 15 of Colombian human rights compliance, required for continuation of military aid.

In Cali she told interviewer Jaime Arocha that, "My visit to La Toma was one of the most intense of my entire life. If the people of La Toma are successful," she said, "struggles will go on to liberate indigenous and the Afro-Colombian peoples in the Pacific [Coast], in the Caribbean, and elsewhere."

Last year the Colombian government agreed before the Inter-America Commission of Human Rights to review mining permits granted without the La Toma Community Council's consent. So far, this has not happened.

This year PCN and AFRODES are seeking a judgment from the UN Human Rights Committee, due December 20, regarding U.S. government complicity with Afro-Colombian repression. Their plea covers Plan Colombia, the U.S. role in internal armed conflict, and U.S. support for Colombian militarization. They allege U.S. intervention in Colombia fosters discrimination, displacement, violence, and subjugation of African descended women.

The complainants call upon the UN to recognize enhanced vulnerability of Afro - Colombians to U.S. meddling due to already dire circumstances. Almost half of the Afro-Colombians (who make up 26 percent of Colombia's population) are internally displaced and 89 percent live in extreme poverty. Along Colombia's Pacific coast, 72 percent have lost access to land and/or jobs. Since 1991, the number of Afro-Colombians owning property there has fallen from 82 percent to a mere 3.5 percent.

La Toma's Community Council has pledged to remain alert to new threats and renewed their pleas for solidarity. The Council declared that "we will be here as always ... the voice of La Toma, which is the voice of all the Afro-Colombian mining communities of northern Cauca, is going to resound and grow stronger."

Photo: Local Afro-Colombian artisanal miners.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Colombia License.

U.S. lawmakers call for halt to Honduras military aid

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:32:00 +0000

Thirty members of the United States House of Representatives have sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asking her to cut off U.S. aid to the armed forces and police in Honduras, until that country's government can demonstrate and end to human rights violations that have escalated since the June 28, 2009 coup. (Honduras coup reverberations continue)

The letter thanks the Obama administration for having sent an observer, Maria Otero, to look into what is going on in Honduras, but expresses a need for more decisive action.

"We have received credible reports from Honduran human rights organizations that abuses continue with near impunity. Members of the human rights community, journalists and activists continue to be attacked and intimidated ...

"Since the beginning of August 2010, at least six individuals identified with the opposition movement against the [President Pepe] Lobo administration have been murdered, including several rural activists, a teachers' union leader and a journalist. Several journalists known for their criticism of the coup d'état have been arbitrarily detained or suffered physical attacks ... There is serious concern that the rule of law is being threatened by the Honduran police and armed forces."

On the weekend of September 17, 2010, a leader in the Social Security labor union, Juan Bustillo, was assassinated while riding in a car with the union's president, Hector Escoto, who was hospitalized. Earlier in September, four peasants were murdered in the Aguan region where rural activists are involved in a dispute with a landowner who is part of the ruling oligarchy of Honduras, Miguel Facussé Barjóm. (Crisis in Honduras: labor takes hold)

In response to these conditions, many major Latin American and other countries have refused to restore full diplomatic relations with the Honduran government. President Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo of the National Party came to power after a deeply flawed election in November 2009, after progressive president Manuel Zelaya was overthrown on June 28. Internally, over a million Hondurans, out of a national population of 7.5 million, have signed a petition calling for a constituent assembly to rewrite the Honduran constitution to augment grassroots democracy and guarantee social justice. The murders of labor union leaders and others have taken place in the context of this titanic struggle.

The Honduran authorities, however, tend to claim that these are just ordinary street crimes without political motivation. The Clinton State Department has given full recognition to the Lobo government and is pushing other countries to do likewise and to readmit Honduras to the Organization of American States (OAS) from which it was suspended in the wake of the coup .

The congressional letter calls for a change in this policy. "It is our expectation that the Obama administration will advance justice by urging the Lobo administration to vigorously investigate and prosecute threats and attacks against activists and journalists, and to suspend any members of the police or military credibly alleged to be involved in such crimes while investigations take place ... we believe it is inappropriate to provide direct assistance to Honduran authorities, particularly to the police or military" until such benchmarks are achieved.

The letter finishes by saying "We also urge the Obama administration to refrain from supporting the immediate re-entry of Honduras into the Organization of American States. The Obama administration does a great disservice to democracy and human rights across the Western Hemisphere by making an exception of Honduras, while the Lobo Administration continues to include perpetrators of the June 28, 2009 coup d'état and fails to prosecute politically motivated crimes."

The last sentence refers to, among others, General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, the main military leader of the coup, who now serves as head of Hondutel, the government run telecommunications enterprise, under President Lobo.

Signatories of the letter, all Democrats, include Congresspersons Sam Farr (Calif.), Jesse Jackson (Ill.), Lynn Woolsey (Calif.), Danny Davis (Ill.), Jan Schakowsky (Ill.), Bobby Rush (Ill.), Fortney Pete Stark (Calif.), James Oberstar (Minn.), Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), Maxine Waters (Calif.), Raul Grijalva (Ariz.), Mike Capuano (Mass.), Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), Donald Payne (N.J.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), John Olver (Mass.), Mike Honda (Calif.), Linda Sanchez (Calif.), James McGovern (Mass.), Donna Edwards (Md.), Sheila Jackson-Lee (Tex.), John Garamendi (Calif.),Keith Ellison (Minn.), William Lacy Clay (Mo.), Jose Serrano (N.Y.), Bob Filner (Calif.), Laura Richardson (Calif.), Elijah Cummings (Md.), Mike Quigley (Ill.) and Luis Gutierrez (Ill.).

The full text of the letter can be read here .

Photo: Protest against violence in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, May 3. International human rights monitors were investigating the murders of 6 journalists killed in Honduras in two months. The banner reads in Spanish "Journalists for life, truth and justice." Fernando Antonio/AP

Dangerous cholera outbreak in Haiti

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:37:00 +0000

More than 200 people have died in Haiti so far as the result of a cholera outbreak, and at least 1,500 to 2,000 have become ill. Haitian and international health and aid authorities are scrambling to intervene to help those already sick and to prevent the epidemic from spreading both within Haiti and possibly to the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Cholera is a diseased caused by the bacteria Vibrio cholerae. It is transmitted through water, and outbreaks result from conditions of poor sanitation affecting drinking water and water used to prepare food. Symptoms include vomiting and extreme diarrhea which in turn causes rapid dehydration of the body, resulting in organ failure, the immediate cause of death.

If it is detected quickly, it can be cured by a variety of procedures including, crucially, replacing the body fluids. But speed of intervention is essential.

However, in the settings where cholera typically occurs, there may not be clean water and food available, and local health institutions may be quickly overwhelmed by the number of patients produced by the virulence of the disease. Currently, cholera is ravaging Nigeria and Cameroon in Africa. It also broke out in the context of the recent massive flooding in Pakistan.

In Haiti, the first cases believed to be cholera arose as early as last Sunday, in the Artibonite and Mirbalais regions in central Haiti. These areas were not severely damaged by the earthquake which virtually destroyed the capital, Port au Prince, in January, directly killing more than a quarter of a million people. However, many refugees from Port au Prince had moved northward into the Artibonite Valley and have found themselves living in substandard and overcrowded conditions.

That the cholera might spread to Port au Prince, where thousands and thousands of people are still living in makeshift camps, is a very real danger. Since Cholera has not been seen in Haiti for many years there is the added worry that many people probably don't have much resistance to it.

Initially the World Health Organization was hesitant to classify the disease symptoms as indicating cholera, but Haitian Minister of Public Health Alex Larsen announced that Cuban researchers working with the Haitian ministry of health had confirmed the diagnosis.

Cuba has had a long term health mission in Haiti which usually has 400 or more doctors and other medical personnel scattered around the country. After the January earthquake, many other countries sent in doctors, but most of them have left while the Cubans remain.

The initial cases of cholera showed up at a hospital run by the U.S. based N.G.O. "Partners in Health" in the city of St. Marc on the coast, whose staff were quickly overwhelmed. Now the Haitian Ministry of Health is getting support from the Red Cross, the Pan American Health Organization and other institutions to try to stem the epidemic.

The Haitian Ministry of Health believes that the cholera is being spread by the waters of the Artibonite River, on which hundreds of thousands of people depend. The Artibonite valley happens to be the main rice growing area of Haiti. Some varieties of rice there are grown in flooded fields, similar to those used in Asia. Haitian rice farmers are extremely poor and have been getting poorer.

So-called "free trade" imposed upon Haiti by the United States in the 1990s as a condition for helping former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide return to power after a military coup, had a disastrous effect on Haitian rice agriculture. The virtual elimination of import tariffs on rice has so undermined Haitian rice agriculture that thousands of farmers have had to give it up entirely and seek work in the capital. This is one reason Port au Prince was so overcrowded when the earthquake hit.

This April, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, now assigned by the United Nations to coordinate international help for Haiti, admitted that this U.S. policy benefited large rice producers in his home state of Arkansas but hurt the Haitian people . However, the trade policy continues, as the international community focuses on setting up offshore industries in Haiti which will attract direct foreign investment (DFI) by offering a low-wage work force.

After the January earthquake, many countries promised massive aid to Haiti. Venezuela cancelled Haiti's debts and Cuba increased its already substantial medical aid. However aid needed to reconstruct housing and crucial infrastructure has been moving very slowly.

Photo: People receive serum in the parking lot of a crowded hospital, in Saint Marc, Haiti, Oct. 21. Dieu Nalio Chery/AP

Cuba continues to change, independence for Western Sahara - and more

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 13:21:00 +0000

Palestine: World leaders protest resumed West Bank housing construction

A month ago Israel lifted its 10 month moratorium on new housing starts in the Palestinian West Bank. Since then, according to an October 22 Associated Press report, construction has begun on almost 550 homes for Israeli settlers. The rate is four times that of recent years. UN Peace Process coordinator Robert Serry observed, "This figure is alarming and is another indicator that Israel is not serious about the peace process." Visiting East Jerusalem with a high level international delegation, former U.S. President Jimmie Carter reacted similarly. Referring to "the suffering here under the occupation and the privations of the people of Gaza," he condemned "the improper policies of Israel," and called for Hamas' inclusion in the peace process.

Western Sahara: Independence agitation mounts as negotiations resume

Protesting Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara, abandoned by Spain in 1975, over 10,000 Sahrawis have left smaller cities in the region and are encamped outside Smara, Dakhla, El Aaiun, and Bujador cities. Afrol News reported that as of October 21 Moroccan security forces were engaging in violence and preventing supplies from reaching the camps. Meanwhile, in preparation for repeat UN sponsored negotiations on the status of Western Sahara in November, UN envoy Christopher Ross is conferring with leaders of Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, and the Western Sahara independence movement known as the Polisario Front. Some 150,000 Sahrawis live in refugee camps in Algeria. Morocco refuses to implement a UN independence referendum which has been mandated since 1991.

Germany: Prejudice takes center stage

The Friedrich Ebert Foundation's release October 13 of polling data on German attitudes towards Islam coincides with a flood of political expressions of intolerance for Muslim Germans. Der Spiegel online reported that 58 percent of respondents believe that "religious practice for Muslims in Germany should be seriously limited." In addition, 55 percent don't like Muslims, 25 percent hold xenophobic attitudes, and 10 percent want a "Führer." President Christian Wulff's speech October 3 espousing tolerance prompted calls for schools to ban all non-German speech and place blame on Turkish students for falling academic standards. Chancellor Angela Merkel followed suit when on October 16 she told conservative youth activists that multiculturalism had failed. "We feel tied to Christian values," she said.

India: Workers take on giant electronics manufacturer

Since Oct 9, security officials in Tamil Nadu state have arrested and jailed 500 striking Foxconn Corporation workers, most of them being released on bail. Factory managers are refusing to negotiate with sit-in strikers demanding recognition for their union and a monthly wage increase from $106 to $221. The Taiwan - owned entity, employer worldwide of 925,000 workers, took in $2.3 billion in net income last year, a 37 percent one year increase. Foxconn makes electronic equipment for corporations that include Apple, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard. Philippines Online Chronicles reports that of 7,500 striking workers, 6,400 are listed as temporary or contract workers. Foxconn factories in China gained notoriety earlier this year from the suicide deaths of 13 workers.

Cuba: New tax laws are announced

The government on October 22 unveiled a new tax code aimed at easing the transition to self employment, which has surfaced as a priority following the announcement last month that 500,000 workers would be released from state employment. The Reuters report indicates generous deductions will be allowed for business expenses. Authorities will be strengthening enforcement of tax payments, instituting new taxes, and issuing 250,000 self employment licenses to complement last year's total of 143,000 self-employed. The self - employed will for the first time be allowed to hire workers, and for each one hired they will pay a deductible 25 percent social security tax. The new tax system is described as regulatory in nature to prevent wealth concentrations.

Image: Thousands demonstrate for Western Sahara's independence in Spain, which, in the 20th century, put that nation under Moroccan control. Wikimedia commons // CC BY-SA 2.0

Political climate change a worry in Germany

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:32:00 +0000

BERTLIN - It's those foreigners again! In June and July, during the World Championship, Germans cheered their soccer team's every skilled pass, every goal - and seemed proud that so many of its players had immigrant backgrounds, from Tunisia, Nigeria, Spain, Kosovo, Cameroun, Ghana, Poland and Turkey. Hurrah!

But now it's October. The leaves have changed color and so have the sentiments. Hurrahs are forgotten. Millions, it seems, dislike immigrants and old slogans like "The boat is full" gain ground. Or the new one: "Multi-kulti is dead"! And dangerous wintry storms threaten on the political field.

As pressures grow, the normally smiling Angela Merkel looks less and less angelic. Is she too joining the "defenders of German culture" crusade? A motive is all too clear; her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), is sinking in all the polls. Her big business partner, the Free Democratic Party, is doing even worse.

State elections chip away at their strength. The brutal police attacks on peaceful demonstrators trying to save a central rail station in Stuttgart cost her dearly in March elections there, and national elections in 2013 are gradually approaching.

Yet on she goes, come what may, with harsh new measures and cuts, painful to all but the wealthy. There is a tried and true therapy for all the contradictions, not only in Germany: appeals to primitive emotions, super-patriotic pride in one's own nationality, language or religion, coupled with ancient fears and dislike of anyone who seems "different." Of course such nationalism or chauvinism inevitably leads to hatred.

Most recently it was the financier Thilo Sarrazin from the Social Democratic Party, one of its wealthy set, who loudly opted for a chauvinist gambit. He had earlier gained notoriety by claiming that the jobless should be happy with their meager dole money; after all, sauerkraut and a sausage made a healthy, inexpensive dinner. And they could "get along quite well at home at 15-16 degrees (60 degrees F.) by wearing a heavy sweater."

Then he narrowed his attack: "I don't have to recognize anyone who lives off this state while rejecting this state, and who doesn't care properly for his children's education but keeps on producing more and more little girls to wear head cloths." As finance minister in Berlin he asked: "How can I manage things so that only those people get children who can take care of them. Some women have two, three or more children even though they lack the ‘wherewithal' or ‘personal characteristics' to see to their education."

On August 30th Sarrazin published his book, "Deutschland schafft sich ab," (Germany Does Away with Itself") which grimly warns that unless German women hurry and have more children the country will be overrun and ruled by Muslims within a few decades. They are already making Germany dumber, he asserted. In one interview he claimed that there are Jewish genes and Basque genes, mental characteristics are inherited, and Muslim genes pulled down the average.

When leaders of the Jewish Congregation objected to references to "Jewish genes," good or bad, he backed down a bit. He hadn't really meant it genetically, not against Jews. But he strengthened the fears of those good citizens who may accept a nun's headdress but not a Muslim head covering, a bank skyscraper but not a minaret.

The Springer press (akin to Murdoch's empire) serialized Sarrazin's book, which soon topped the charts, selling over a million copies. He was invited to countless talk shows and debates. At first, some political leaders slammed the book as racist. The head of the Social Democrats said Sarrazin should be expelled from the party (which still hasn't happened). And Angela Merkel also objected to it. Sarrazin had to quit his new Federal Bank job, though with a big pension.

But the hefty media promotion kept on arousing old prejudices. More and more prominent men, even Social Democratic elder statesmen, began to backtrack: "Maybe Sarrazin exaggerated, but he is finally naming the problems openly. And after all, we support freedom of speech."

Of course, there are indeed problems, though they were never secret. All of American history shows how each wave of immigrants required a few generations to integrate into the general population. If they were unfortunate enough to look different and faced heightened discrimination in housing, schooling and job-hunting, it took longer and still needs battling. But this is not the fault of the victims, even when some young men, usually hit worst, sometime grow rebellious.

In Germany, as elsewhere, attention to the problems and action is definitely required; many efforts are being made, by immigrants and Germans, often against severe rightwing pressure. But with 4 million Muslims, mostly Turkish, out of a total population of about 80 million, and with the number of immigrants steadily dropping, the "Muslim menace" threat is arrant nonsense. Yet it is dangerous racist nonsense.

But as the government parties continued to wane in popularity, Horst Seehofer, head of the Bavarian wing of Merkel's party, decided that he must get into the act, and into the headlines. He declared that the concept of a multi-cultural society had collapsed. The slang word for this was "multi-kulti". "As reality has shown, multi-kulti is dead." German must prevail as "leading culture," he said, and Turks or Arabs who did not conform and learn the German language and culture might as well leave.

His fellow Bavarian and very blue-blooded national Minister of Defense, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, seconded his threat and called on Bavarian party members not to repress the "values of Christian culture, but to convey them openly with open hearts." Outside very Catholic Bavaria, other Christian Democrats were slightly more careful; they spoke of long-established "Judeo-Christian traditions" which must be defended against alien incursions.

Then Merkel's Minister for Family Affairs discovered suddenly and dramatically on TV that in some schools with a Turkish or Arab majority, German girls were called names for not wearing a head covering or for eating pork.

Her outcry was aimed directly at all good German citizens, thus insulted in their own country - but disregarded the fact that only children were involved and that expletives, overwhelmingly, are aimed in the opposite direction, and also that some schools are working hard, and succeeding, in overcoming prejudices in both directions.

At this point the recently-elected German president, Christian Wulff, surprised nearly everyone by stating in a major speech that Islam, too, had become a part of German culture, along with Christian and Jewish traditions. He followed this courageous statement with a state visit to Turkey to mend some fences. High ranking rightists immediately attacked him, and the heated arguments continued.

At a meeting of career-minded young Christian Democrats, Angela Merkel, while pedantically careful in her choice of words, ended by agreeing with the coded but clear statement they had demanded:

"We are a country which, at the beginning of the 1960s, actually brought guest workers to Germany. Now they live with us, and we lied to ourselves for a while, saying that they won't stay and that they will disappear one day. That's not the reality. This multi-kulti approach, saying that we simply live side by side and are happy about each other, this approach has failed, utterly failed."

But it would seem that her tactic of keeping the chauvinists happy may also fail, or even backfire. A group called PRO-Berlin, or also PRO-Cologne, even PRO-Deutschland, and based on anti-foreigner action, plans to found a new legal party on October 29th, first of all in Berlin and provocatively in the borough with the largest number of immigrants.

It hopes to enter the Berlin elections next year and could well win ten or more percent. This could change the entire political scene in Berlin, and then Germany. A former city councilor from Merkel's CDU party recently invited the Dutch anti-Muslim crusader Geert Wilders to Berlin; he boasted that the new anti-Muslim movement now holds key positions in the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and Austria, and is related to government anti-foreigner trends in Italy, France and other countries. He might have mentioned the Ground Zero anti-Muslim hysteria in the USA, where he has spoken to large audiences.

An excursion to handsome little Arnstadt might offer an appropriate closing note. This oldest town in the state of Thuringia, founded in 704 AD, a quaint little place where Johann Sebastian Bach began his career, now has a mayor belonging to this party, which calls itself PRO Arnstadt here. After grabbing nearly half of all Christian Democratic votes, but then allying itself with that party, it obtained a majority in the city council, beating out a combination of Social Democrats and the LEFT.

Mayor Hans-Christian Koellmer, referring to the late pro-Nazi Austrian politician Joerg Haider, said, "He always impressed me. If I am a rightist because I love my country then I am indeed a rightist." He opposes foreigners. When he was told that there are very few in Arnstadt he answered, "We must nip things in the bud!" And foreign tourists? We don't want them either, was his reply. But he made an exception.

For its so-called "Thuringia Day," Arnstadt welcomed the biggest gathering of pro-Nazis, domestic and foreign, in all Thuringia, and not on the outskirts of town, as is usual with such gatherings, but right in the main square. And Mayor Koellmer is considering running for a seat in the national Bundestag. PRO-Arnstadt, PRO-Berlin, PRO-Deutschland: a political climate change threatens to hit hard right in the center of Europe. The roughest winds would now be aimed not at Jews but at Muslims, but the dangers again threaten everyone.

French workers angry about pensions and more

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:56:00 +0000

Tuesday, for the second time in seven days, more than 3.5 million people turned out in militant demonstrations across France. Led by workers and students, the protests demanded defeat of legislation to raise the retirement age for pensions in the state and private sectors. The Parliament was scheduled to act on Wednesday but postponed the vote till later in the week.

In addition to the demonstrations, oil workers and longshore workers continued strikes that shut down all 12 of France's oil refineries. Gas and diesel shortages were reported in hundreds of gas stations, including hours long lines of anxious motorists hoping to fill their tanks. An estimated 2500 of Frances 12,000 gas stations reported running out of some or all of their product.

Truck drivers blocked major highways and intersections around the country with slow moving caravans. Airline and rail workers continued rolling job actions causing major air and rail transportation disruptions. Unions reported additional stoppages in construction, armored car and security, infrastructure and chemical sectors. Rolling strike action also hit public sectors including garbage removal, teachers and school workers.

Perhaps one of the most dramatic changes in the demonstrations is the marked increase in youth and student participation. Over 1100 schools were shut down for the demonstrations as students joined marches and rallies. This compares to some 300 shut down in last week's protests. Polling shows parental support for the student involvement, citing fear for their children's futures. In some areas the student built physical barriers to block intersections and highways. Riot police have clashed with the students in several places. A 16 year old, Geoffery Tidjani was struck in the eye by a rubber bullet and may lose it.

Labor and left activists in France note that the protest go far beyond the issue of pension reform. As a labor expert put it, "maybe we are witnessing a more global rejection that goes beyond the pension reform to a rejection of the government." This at a time when Nicolas Sarkozy and his government's popularity are at all time lows. This 18 months before presidential elections. Polls show that if the election were held today the left would win.

Several labor leaders are saying that the actions are about a more general feeling of rising anger. Workers feel they are being forced to bear the brunt of the economic crisis while the corporations and the rich continue with their lavish free spending lifestyles.
While the French protests are the largest and are getting the most attention worldwide, protest movements and anger are growing all over Europe. In Greece riot police used tear gas to break up a strike by culture ministry workers who has shut down the Acropolis, Greece's top tourist attraction, for three days last week. In Prague there were large street protests against government efforts to cut unemployment benefits, halt infrastructure projects, and cut public sector wages by 10%. In Italy thousands of students and teachers protested planned cuts in education. And in Britain the coalition government has just announced plans for drastic cuts that will result in the loss of 500,000 public sector jobs. Needless to say the unions are discussing "industrial action."

Photo: Demonstration in Amiens, France. Jean-Marie Faucillon correspondent of l'Humanité, www.humanite.fr

Dutch probe company over Israeli wall, settlement construction

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 10:07:00 +0000

A few days ago, the Dutch police's National Crime Squad raided the offices of the Riwal Holding Group in the city of Dordrecht, confiscating computer files and documents relating to the leasing of cranes owned by the company's Israeli branch for the construction of the Israeli "separation wall" and of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Police findings have been passed on to the Dutch State Prosecution, which should decide whether or not to prosecute the corporate executives - including the Israeli businessman Doron Livnat - on charges of violating international law.

The affair started with the 2004 ruling by the International Court in The Hague, which determined that construction of the "separation wall" within the West Bank territory constituted a violation of international law, and that if Israel wants to build a border fence to prevent infiltration into its territory it should have been placed on the border, i.e. on the 1967 Green Line. Accordingly, the International Court judges called upon all UN member states and Geneva Convention signatories not to cooperate with erection of the wall and to prevent their citizens from any such cooperation.

In 2006, a Dutch television crew filmed cranes active in construction of the separation fence and of settlements, which bore the Riwal company logo. Dutch Labour Party MPs raised the issue and addressed parliamentary questions to the minister of foreign affairs. As a result, the Dutch government in 2008 warned the Riwal Company not to engage in activities in the Occupied Territories. But the organization United Civilians for Peace in Amsterdam found evidence that the company ignored the government warning and continued this activity.

Last year the Palestinian human rights organization Al Haq of Ramallah engaged the Dutch law firm Bohler. On its behalf, attorney Liesbeth Zegveld lodged a complaint with the legal authorities this year. The Oct. 13 raid on the Riwal Dordrecht offices is a tangible result of this activity.

Gush Shalom, the Israeli Peace Bloc, regards this episode as yet another alarming sign of Israel's deteriorating international position, fast slipping down to a disastrous total isolation. "A decade ago, authorities in the Netherlands would not have considered taking such measures," Gush Shalom said. "The Israeli government, renewing settlement construction, promoting loyalty oaths and ever new provocations, confronts the entire world, alienates Israel's best friends and takes us on a mad gallop into the abyss".

Riwal is the largest company in the Netherlands in the field of building cranes, and among the largest in the world. The Riwal Israel company, active also under the name Lia Holding, was in the news a few years ago when a business dispute between it and the competing Avi Cranes escalated into violence and the setting of cranes on fire.

Adam Keller is a spokesperson for Gush Shalom.

Photo: Construction of an Israeli settlement in Palestinian East Jerusalem, in 2007. (PW/Susan Webb)

Urzúa, miner number 33

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:23:00 +0000

(Pagina12) He stood before President Sebastián Piñera and, chief to chief, said, "I hope that this will never happen again." And also, "I'm proud to live in this country."

Later, Chilean miner #33, Luis Urzúa, hugged Piñera, gave a big hug to Andrés Sougarret, engineer for the Corporación del Cobre [Copper Corporation], gave a giant hug to his son, spoke with them all and with others, and broke medical protocol. For him there would be no stretcher, no urgency. He ended up singing the national anthem, the hymn that describes Chile as the "tomb of the free" or the "refuge against oppression."

If one were to judge it by the life of Urzúa, the way it was described for the daily El Mundo de España by journalist Jorge Barreno, until last night his country was more of a tomb than a refuge. Urzúa's father was labor union director of the Communist Party. He became one of the "disappeared" at the beginning of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who on September 11^th, 1973, overthrew Salvador Allende.

His stepfather, Benito Tapia, was a copper miners' union leader and member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Youth organization. In October of 1973, he was murdered in the Copiapó cemetery and buried without a casket in a mass grave, together with two of his comrades. He was one of the victims of the Caravan of Death, the extermination squad that left Santiago in a helicopter with orders from general Sergio Arellano Stark to selectively murder social leaders and those who held office during the Allende government. Tapia was 32-years-old. Luis Urzúa was barely 17.

Luis Urzúa, who NASA advisors described as "a natural leader," is now 54 years old and has been a miner since 1979. He was the most experienced of the 33 miners who were trapped below ground, and it was he who organized them after the collapse and who resolved, as he elegantly described it to Piñera, "to administer the supplies." He also told how, when rocks blocked the shaft, the first thing he asked was about the fate of the others. They were spared, but he and his companions did not know it yet. They were beneath a sea of dust that took three hours to clear.

And, he did not trust the owners of the mine. "When we heard a noise some days later, we thought that they were still working the mine," said Urzúa. That is, he was thinking that they were not looking for survivors among the miners, but rather for more copper, given that the metal that Allende once called "the wages of Chile" had just reached its highest international price in the last fifty years.

History is not a straight line. Allende nationalized the large-scale copper mines (but not the San Jose mine, which in Chile is considered mid-scale) in 1971, naming one of his young advisors, Jorge Arrate, to head the state copper corporation, Codelco.

The nationalization sped up the coup d'etat.

Pinochet reversed most of Allende's economic decisions, but he did not re-privatize copper, which continued to guarantee the flow of foreign exchange earnings for Chile and financing for its Armed Forces. Pinochet even wrote it into law.

Codelco continued to train technical cadres and to pass on skilled trades and technical knowledge, and during the past two months was able to successfully organize a rescue which the private sector was totally incapable of managing.

And down below, 622 meters below the parched surface of the Atacama Desert, one day a son of the victims of the dictatorship would write a note giving the news that the 33 were alive, and would organize a daily routine, and stay on alert even when the morale of the group was flagging.

Nelly Iribarren, his 78 year old mother, said that "I was imagining how my dark-skinned son would be making the rounds of the shelter, making lists for his comrades, rationing the food and assigning them tasks, because that's how he is, bossy but orderly." She described Urzúa as "very disciplined," and said that "in the house, he was the one who always took the lead among his seven brothers."

A society with an authoritarian tradition and which sometimes seems divided into castes, Chile has not treated its workers well, and in fact went on the rampage against them, against their lives, their organizations, their wages, their working conditions, since 1973.

But for a miner, it is no surprise how another miner lives. Mario Castillo, union leader of the Rio Turbio state-owned mines, remembers that when he began working they would still bring a canary down into the mine. "If the bird was able to live, there was enough oxygen," he said. "Or, we would light a flame and check the color to see if there were any dangerous gases in the atmosphere."

In June, 2004 fourteen workers died in the Rio Turbio mine. The corporation, property of Sergio Taselli, had been running the mine since 2001, shrugged off any responsibility.

"Safety improved after the accident," says Castillo.

According to the International Labor Organization, currently headed by Juan Somavia, a Chilean, there is data to suggest that more than two million people die each year around the world as a direct result of their working conditions or due to illnesses contracted at work.

Nobody can seriously contend that just televising the problem from Copiapó to a billion people is going to solve the problem. But if political and labor union action can be successfully dovetailed with public disclosure, we will have one thing in our favor: the rescue that was completed last week showed the world how the life of a miner really is, and the kind of risks he faces when corporate profits take priority over worker safety.

For this reason, we owe a special toast to Luis Urzúa, miner number 33, the last of the group to leave the shaft, the last one to whom they shouted "Chichichi/lelele/ miners of Chile!"

Translated by Owen Williamson from Argentina-based Pagina 12.

Photo: Luis Urzúa raises his fist in jubilation after being the last miner rescued. (CC)

Amnesty urges Cuban Five case review

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:22:00 +0000

Few would deny that U. S. public awareness of judicial miscarriage in the case of the Cuban Five prisoners remains low, despite a worldwide movement on their behalf. A tool with the potential to help change that situation is at hand, however.

On October 4, Amnesty International communicated with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder concerning Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, and René González. In a 20-page document released October 13, Amnesty called for a review of the case by the "U.S. executive authorities through the clemency process or other appropriate means."

The London-based group's summary of the prosecution, trial, sentencing, and appeals process avoids comment on the prisoners' guilt or innocence. It steers away from the well used anti-terrorist rationale for Cuban Five actions in the 1990s.

Amnesty's appeal, by contrast, focuses on human rights, judicial rectitude, and fairness, considerations perhaps more palatable across the political spectrum in the United States. By and large, reiteration of the anti- terrorist bona fides of the Five has fallen upon deaf ears among U.S. officials, and the corporate controlled press has made sure that the U.S. public is unaware of the whole issue.

The authors observed the defendants were never shown to have "handled or transmitted a single classified document or piece of information." In the trial judge's refusal to move the trial because of Miami prejudice, they diagnosed violations of international law. "The right to a trial by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal is guaranteed under Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," they said.

Additionally, the prisoners' trial violated the legal doctrine of "equality of arms" between prosecution and defense. The defendants lost pre-trial access to attorneys because they were in solitary confinement. Prosecutors barred defense lawyers from easy access to potentially exculpatory evidence.

Regarding prisoner Gerardo Hernández, Amnesty says evidence presented at the trial was insufficient to convict him on murder conspiracy in the shoot-down deaths of Brothers to the Rescue pilots in 1996. The human rights group accuses the court of abandoning the presumption of innocence and criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court for refusing to review these and other judicial shortcomings.

Amnesty reiterated previous support for two wives of Cuban Five prisoners seeking to visit their husbands in jail. The U. S. government has barred Adriana Pérez from seeing husband Gerardo Hernández for twelve years. Olga Salanueva has been prevented from visiting her husband René González for ten years.

In its appeal, Amnesty provides a clear, cogent, and comprehensive review of prosecution and judicial proceedings over twelve years, plus a running summary of issues in contention. The statement could well serve as a readily available repository of background facts useful for advocacy and agitation on behalf of the Cuban Five. Its usefulness on that score may extend well beyond that of amicus curiae briefs submitted before courts, statements and signatures from notable public figures, and declarations from international and U.S. lawyers' groups.

The document harks back to the May 2005 judgment of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that critiqued a biased trial environment, impediments placed upon defense attorneys, and outlandish sentences. The published version of that opinion, lacking in readability and detail, never became part of Cuban Five supporters' intellectual weaponry.

Asking "U. S. executive authorities" to consider clemency for the Five, Amnesty treads on uncertain ground. U.S. governments have handed over veto power on Cuba decision making to a Cuban-American old guard. Coincident with release of the appeal, the nature of that power structure was on full display.

On October 12 in Coral Gables, Fla., honchos of the "Institute of Cuban Historical Memory against Totalitarianism" awarded a plaque to elderly pediatrician Orlando Bosch "for his struggle for more than 70 years for democracy in Cuba." At the head table, Bosch sat next to businessman Enrique Ros, father of powerful Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. In 1990 she helped persuade President George H.W. Bush to release Bosch from jail, enabling him to live with honor in Miami.

Bosch it was who, with Luis Posada, in 1976 engineered the bombing off Barbados of a Cuban airliner. All 73 passengers and crew died. In effect, Amnesty International is asking the present U.S. government to choose between toadying before a culture of criminality and simply respecting the law and common decency. The full Amnesty statement is available here.

World Notes: Egypt, Cuba, Kenya, Italy, Venezuela, India

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:49:00 +0000

Egypt: Regional conference condemns death penalty

Alexandria was the venue late last month for a two-day gathering directed at reviewing progress toward abolition of the death penalty in Arab countries, where 860 prisoners - 269 in Egypt - received death sentences last year. Egypt and Saudi Arabia apply capital punishment to "dozens of crimes," and many countries rely upon torture to extract confessions, according to the report available here.

It points out that Islamic law, often used to justify capital punishment, provides for alternatives.

The conference, attended by human rights activists and NGO representatives from throughout the Middle East and northern Africa, called for a moratorium on state sanctioned executions, in line with a 2007 UN General Assembly resolution. They envision a campaign undertaken by regional coalition.

Kenya: Continent-wide campaign for women's rights launched

Welcoming delegates to a Women's Summit in Nairobi on October 11, government and UN officials called for women's empowerment and gender equality. The event served to introduce African Women's Decade, an initiative supported by the African Union which is launching a women's grassroots organizing campaign. On October 12, the World Economic Forum released its Gender Gap Index that, with data from 2007, ranked South Africa first in overall women's equality for Sub Sahara Africa and 20th in the world. Lesotho, ranking second and 26th place respectively, was unique in Africa for gender equality in the health and education areas. The report, available here, documented other gains there for women, particularly in work force participation, wage equality, and parliamentary representation.

India: High per capita income co-exists with malnutrition

The International Food Policy Research Institute released its 2010 Global Hunger Index (GHI) on October 11. India ranked 67th out of the 84 countries surveyed with China achieving 9th place and Pakistan, 52nd place. Of three parameters contributing to the results, child malnutrition exerted more impact than elevated child mortality or caloric deficiency affecting entire populations. The study highlighted the urgency of correcting nutritional deficits early in life to avoid irremediable physical and intellectual damage. African and Asian countries account for 90 percent of all children whose development has been damaged by malnutrition, with 42% of them living in India. An Institute press release claimed that "countries with high per capita levels of national income...tend to have low 2010 GHI scores," and vice versa. See the report here.

Italy: China lends a hand

Visiting Italy as part of a European tour, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in early October joined Prime Minister Berlusconi to pledge a five year doubling of bilateral trade to $100 billion. He signed commercial agreements valued at $3 billion and invited increased Italian investments in China, which presently total $ 5 billion. Quoted by UPI, Wen reminded his hosts that China has "stayed at Europe's side to overcome the crisis and allow the recovery." In Greece, Wen signaled Chinese intentions to buy Greek bonds and increase trade. Later in Turkey, Wen announced plans to expand Chinese investments from $17 billion to $50 billion in 2015. China will help build 2,700 miles of railway there.

Venezuela: Chavez calls for unity

President Hugo Chavez on October 10 called for re-founding of the coalition behind his electoral victory in 1998. He projected a revived Patriotic Pole as promoting socialist change at the grassroots level, drawing in social movements, and assuring a Chavez victory in 2012 presidential voting.

"We can not allow for sectarianism," said Chavez who specified as coalition partners his own United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the Venezuelan Communist Party, the Popular Unity Party, and the Electoral People's Party. Communist Party leader Oscar Figuera approved, telling reporters that his Party had long sought "collective political leadership" and "lines of action derived from collective discussion." Edgar Melendez told rebelión.org readers that in 1958 a "patriotic union" joined by communists had overthrown the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship.

Cuba: Jazz breaks blockade

In Havana on October 4-9, Wynton Marsalis told reporters he wanted "to bring people together through swing." The famous U.S. trumpeter and his Lincoln Center Jazz band jammed with young Cuban musicians and played for a recording session featuring singer Omara Portuondo and legendary pianist Chucho Valdes. Marsalis and his group also offered Mella Theater programs highlighting big band jazz and U.S. - Cuban jazz connections. They engaged in musical give and take with Valdes and his players - "a veritable jazz summit," according to Granma newspaper. Marsalis concluded with a young people's jazz concert and a program with selected Cuban music students. Marsalis and Valdes will play together in New York in late October, as Valdes and his Afro-Cuban Messengers embark upon a U.S. tour.

Photo: Musician Wynton Marsalis, accompanied by students, performs during a visit to Cuba's National School of Music in Havana, Cuba, Oct. 8. (Franklin Reyes/AP)

Protests, pepper spray rock German city

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 11:09:00 +0000

STUTTGART, Germany - A retired engineer of 66 loses an eye, forced from its socket by water cannon at short range. High school kids in an approved protest demonstration get beaten and excruciatingly blinded by pepper gas; over 400 people are injured in a major police attack, which failed completely in its aim: to end the protests. It happened on the now historic date of September 30. A whole city was in a state of near shock and anger. And all that because of a railroad station and some ancient trees?

It sounds implausible in the usually calm, relatively well-off city of Stuttgart, the home of Mercedes-Daimler and Porsche. The capital of the southwest German state of Baden-Wurttemberg, which has been ruled since 1953 by Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), together currently with the even more right-wing Free Democrats. What in the world moves thousands, tens of thousands, sometimes a hundred thousand usually rather unpolitical people to shout, sing, pray, climb trees and jam the main square with their banners, posters, whistles and drums?

The excitement began in August, when people became aware that their big central station was to be leveled in order to build a modern underground station for high-speed trains. Few people had anything against modern or high speed, but they liked the almost 100-year-old landmark in the middle of town with its big tower. They loved the open space around it, a park near the former royal palace with 282 tall, 200-year-old chestnut trees. And not many Stuttgart people were eager to have one more business district erected there, even though some apartments would be thrown in. Even fewer liked the idea when they heard that the price of the dubious "Stuttgart 21" project, instead of the originally announced 3 billion Euros or the revised 5 or 7 billion, would most likely total 18 or 19 billion. Lots of schools and other good public buildings could be built or repaired with money like that, while Angela Merkel and her ministers were whining incessantly that "we must all tighten our belts," which means cutting benefits for those who need them most.

The mayor, a CDU man, the governor of the state, also a CDU man, and Angela Merkel in Berlin, a CDU woman, all pointed out that the project had been approved by lawmakers years ago and could not be dropped now, when work had already begun. Yet somehow this legally correct argument just didn't get across, and thousands started wearing buttons with a line drawn through the Stuttgart 21 logo, and they started gathering in front of the station, more and more of them, louder and louder. For a while they demonstrated Monday evenings, like the famous demonstrators in East German Leipzig 21 years earlier. Then they gathered on weekends too, or any other day, sometimes in immense crowds for a city of 600,000 inhabitants.

The mayor sent more and more police, wrecking crews tore down one wing of the station, which only made people madder. Then came that terrible attack on September 30, and the pictures of the elderly engineer with both eyes smashed and bloody and of youngsters moaning with burning pepper-sprayed eyes shook the entire nation. The videos of giant old trees being felled further enraged the nature-lovers, who got an injunction against further felling when it was found that a rare, endangered beetle species lives almost only in those trees.

Motivating many people, certainly, was an increasing awareness that a small number of wealthy, powerful companies with close political connections would rake in billions, and also the feeling that, despite all parliamentary processes, they had been kept almost entirely in the dark. The official line in Germany has been that voters should elect parties and politicians to represent them and then leave it to them to govern, otherwise keeping their mouths shut. Often that is just what happens. But in recent months they have seen the government chopping away at their livelihoods in so many ways while the big fish profit, largely untaxed and untroubled. Resentment has been growing, and there seem to be many, perhaps after watching demonstrators in France, Greece and elsewhere, who want to make their voices heard. Merkel said they should wait for election day in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg on March 27. But by then the trees and the station would be gone.

Politics are indeed involved. The Left party, still unrepresented in the parliament there and few in number, has largely gone unmentioned, even when Left leader Gregor Gysi called a special session of the Bundestag in Berlin to take action against the police brutality. The Social Democrats, who had long approved the Stuttgart 21 project, finally climbed onto the bandwagon, but their wishy-washy opposition wins them few friends. It has been the Greens who have pushed their way into the limelight and who will probably prosper most, not only in the southwest but everywhere. As for the two governing parties in the state, both Christian Democrats and Free Democrats stand to lose immensely, unless they can somehow alter the situation before next March. For weeks and weeks they remained absolutely stubborn, but finally had to agree to a mediation attempt by a retired politician, one of the very rare progressive Christian Democrats. A possible solution would be a referendum, common in neighboring Switzerland but almost unknown here. Yet thus far this has been rejected. The end remains uncertain, while the demonstrations continue, rain or shine.

Photo: Till Westermayer CC 2.0

Don't let Party of No stop new START treaty!

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 14:38:00 +0000

After years out of the headlines - and out of most people's minds - this year nuclear weapons policy and the path to complete abolition has come to the fore again, through developments including the unveiling of the new U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, the Nonproliferation Treaty review conference, and the signing of the New START treaty by President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The momentum has continued with last month's bipartisan 14-4 vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to send New START to the full Senate for ratification.

Nuclear weapons policy, and in particular New START, has even become an issue in at least one Senate campaign. As they contest an open seat in Utah, Democrat Sam Granato advocates a nuclear-free world and calls for the treaty's ratification, while Republican candidate and Tea Party favorite Mike Lee opposes the pact, asserting it would restrict U.S. national security possibilities.

A vote on ratification could be on the Senate's agenda during the "lame duck" session after Nov. 2. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said last month she'd like to see a vote before the current Congress disbands at the end of the year.

The U.S. and Russia, between them, have the overwhelming majority of the world's nuclear weapons. The treaty would make modest, 30 percent cuts in the two countries' long-range offensive nuclear weapons, limiting them to 1,550 each.

To get even a handful of Republicans to vote for New START, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee added a nonbinding "resolution of ratification" stating the pact imposes virtually no limitations on U.S. development of anti-missile defense systems.

Peace and nuclear disarmament advocates regard such systems as having little chance of successful development, and if they were to succeed, as potential triggers for an arms race that could bring on the very wars they are supposed to forestall.

But despite the resolution, most peace organizations see the U.S.-Russian treaty itself as a modest but vital step toward the total worldwide abolition of nuclear weapons.

While the Foreign Relations Committee's 14-vote majority included three Republicans, among them Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, other powerful Republican senators have signaled their objections to the pact. Some Republicans are even pressing to hold off the vote until 2011, hoping they'll have more Senate seats then.

Just before the Foreign Relations Committee vote, Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Armed Service Committee's ranking Republican - who hasn't said which way he plans to vote - called for a binding ban on limiting missile defenses. McCain is also among those, including Sens. Jon Kyle, R-Ariz. and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., demanding more funds to modernize the nuclear arsenal.

The Intelligence Committee's ranking Republican, Missouri Sen. Kit Bond, has called the pact "very weak" on verification, while fellow committee member, Idaho Republican Sen. Jim Risch, has raised other, unspecified intelligence concerns.

Other Republicans including Foreign Relations Committee member Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who was absent from the committee vote, have said they are likely to vote no.

Backing for the pact is coming from a broad range of viewpoints, including peace, environmental and scientific organizations, the faith community, defense officials and military leaders.

Writing before the Senate committee vote, Dr. Ira Helfand, co-founder and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, called ratification "critical to our relationship with Russia ... and to countries around the world that view this vote as a test of our sincerity about meeting our obligations to decrease our nuclear arsenal." Helfand, whose organization is the U.S. affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, said that with the treaty, "we will start to create a more manageable and stable world without nuclear weapons."

Helfand contrasted the Senate Republicans' reluctance to back the treaty with the support it has received from "the Republican defense establishment" starting with Secretary of Defense Gates, and including such luminaries as Henry Kissinger, James Schlesinger and Colin Powell. The treaty is also backed by the current Pentagon leadership.

Immediately after the committee vote, Peace Action political director Paul Kawika Martin called New START "a small but necessary step towards President Obama's vision of a world free of nuclear weapons," and noted that Americans across party lines as well as bipartisan national security and military leaders overwhelmingly agree that "fewer nuclear weapons make the world a safer place."

Matthew McKinzie, senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council's nuclear program, urged prompt ratification, observing that while the treaty is not enough by itself, "when viewed as part of a continuing process of cooperation and communication between the United States and Russia, New START is a critical step forward."

Noting the importance of a bipartisan vote "in a time of partisanship," Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (Tri-Valley CAREs) executive director Marylia Kelley said the treaty's ratification "would make us all - Americans, Russians and peoples everywhere - a bit more safe and secure." But she observed that Kyl and other senators seek to hold New START "hostage to funding for new and modified U.S. nuclear weapons and new bomb plants to produce them," and warned that implementing such activities "would effectively drown the nonproliferation benefits of the treaty."

Now is the time to urge your senators to back this crucial New START on the road to a nuclear-free world, and to oppose funds for new or modified nukes.

Photo: White.gov

World cheers Chilean miners rescue

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:50:00 +0000

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile - The miners who spent 69 agonizing days deep under the Chilean earth were hoisted one by one to freedom Oct. 13, their rescue moving with remarkable speed while their countrymen erupted in cheers and the world watched transfixed.

Beginning at midnight and sometimes as quickly as once every 40 minutes, the men climbed into a slender cage nearly a half-mile underground and made a smooth ascent into fresh air. By early afternoon, more than half the men - 21 of 33 - had been rescued.

In a meticulously planned operation, they were monitored by video on the way up for any sign of panic. They had oxygen masks, dark glasses to protect their eyes from unfamiliar daylight and sweaters for the jarring climate change, subterranean swelter to the chillier air above.

They emerged looking healthier than many had expected and even clean-shaven, and at least one, Mario Sepulveda, the second to taste freedom, bounded out and thrust a fist upward like a prizefighter.

The anxiety that had accompanied the careful final days of preparation broke at 12:11 a.m., with the first rescue - Florencio Avalos, who emerged from the missile-like chamber and smiled broadly after his half-mile journey. He hugged his sobbing 7-year-old son and wife and then Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, who has been deeply involved in an effort that had become a matter of national pride.

Avalos was followed an hour later by the most ebullient of the group, Sepulveda, whose shouts were heard even before the capsule peeked above the surface. He hugged his wife and handed out souvenir rocks from the mine to laughing rescuers.

The rescue has so far proceeded at a quicker pace than engineers first expected.

No one in recorded history has survived as long trapped underground as the 33 men. For the first 17 days, no one even knew whether they were alive. In the weeks that followed, the world was captivated by their endurance and unity.

Chile exploded in joy and relief at the first, breakthrough rescue just after midnight in the coastal Atacama desert.

In the capital, Santiago, a cacophony of car horns sounded. In the nearby regional capital of Copiapo, from which 24 of the miners hail, the mayor canceled school so parents and children could "watch the rescue in the warmth of the home."

News channels from North America to Europe and the Middle East carried live coverage, captivating the world.

The images beamed worldwide were extraordinary: Grainy footage from beneath the earth showed each miner climbing into the 13-foot-tall capsule, then disappearing upward through an opening. Then a camera showed the pod steadily rising through the dark, smooth-walled tunnel.

The ninth miner to be rescued, Mario Gomez, who at 63 is the oldest miner, dropped to his knees after he emerged, bowed his head in prayer and clutched the Chilean flag. His wife, Liliane Ramirez, pulled him up from the ground and embraced him.

Gomez is most experienced of the group, first entering a mine shaft to labor at age 12, and suffers from silicosis, a lung disease common to miners. He has been on antibiotics and bronchial inflammation medicine.

The lone foreigner among the miners, Carlos Mamani of Bolivia, was visited at a nearby clinic by Pinera and Bolivian President Evo Morales. The miner could be heard telling the Chilean president how nice it was to breathe fresh air and see the stars.

Mining is Chile's lifeblood, providing 40 percent of state earnings, and Pinera put his mining minister and the operations chief of state-owned Codelco, the country's biggest company, in charge of the rescue.

The entire rescue operation was meticulously choreographed, with no expense spared in bringing in topflight drillers and equipment - and boring three separate holes into the copper and gold mine.

The operation started just before midnight, when a Codelco rescuer made the sign of the cross and was lowered to the trapped men. A navy paramedic went down after Avalos came up - a surprise improvisation as officials had said the two would go down to oversee the miners' ascent before the first went up.

U.S. President Barack Obama praised rescuers, including a team from Center Rock Inc. of Berlin, Pa., that built and managed the piston-driven hammers that pounded open the hole. (Story continues after video.)

The last miner was slated to be shift foreman Luis Urzua, whose leadership was credited with helping the men endure the first two and a half weeks without outside contact. The men made 48 hours' worth of rations last before rescuers reached them with a narrow bore hole to send down more food.

Janette Marin, sister-in-law of miner Dario Segovia, said the order of rescue didn't matter. "This won't be a success unless they all get out," she said.

The harrowing ordeal began Aug. 5 when part of an underground copper mine in the Chilean desert collapsed, trapping the miners more than 2,000 feet below ground. On Aug. 22, a narrow bore hole broke through to their refuge and the miners stunned the world with a note, scrawled in red ink, disclosing their survival.

Messages of solidarity for the Chilean and Bolivian miners came in from around the world, including from other miners. Solidarity among miners worldwide is legendary.

From Triangle, Va., United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts said UMWA members and "miners everywhere cheer the fulfillment of our hopes and prayers as the heroic rescue of the 33 trapped miners in Chile continues. A huge debt of thanks is owed to the many rescuers who worked tirelessly to bring them to the surface."

Roberts continued, urging the public to look at this rescue as a "learning opportunity for those who regulate mining at home and abroad" to put the safety of miners above everything else.

"Far too often, as we have seen most recently in the United States at the Upper Big Branch mine, safety takes a back seat to production and profits, often with tragic results. Listening to reports of alleged safety violations at the San Jose mine, it is clear that this is a problem that recognizes no borders."

Indeed, the secretary of the union representing employees of Compañia Minera San Esteban Primera, the owners of the San Jose deposit where the 33 have been trapped, said the company operates "without listening to the voice of the workers when they say that there is danger or risk."

The union leader, Javier Castillo, said he used to work for the company and said they were very anti-union.

"Our main concern is that the comrades (trapped in the mine) get out," he said. "But there are deeper issues, and the union movement is going to unite, it's going to be one body, and we're going to lobby so that from this tragedy a new way of seeing labor relations in Chile emerges."

Numerous accidents, safety violations and even deaths have happened at the mines operated by San Estaban. The company has posted millions in profits even during period while the miners have been trapped.

Meanwhile, El Siglo, the newspaper of the Chilean Communist Party, reports that the 300 other employees of the San Jose mine have also been struggling without any paychecks or monetary help to survive since the mine shut down. A demonstration was held recently to call attention to these other miners. They charged the government has been indifferent to their plight and the company has been insensitive.

Photo: Jorge Galleguillos, 55, receives an embrace from Bolivian President Evo Morales after exiting from the mine. Galleguillos becomes the eleventh trapped miner to be rescued from the San Jose mine near Copiapo, Chile on October 13, 2010. (Hugo Infante/Government of Chile/CC )

Millions protest pension "reform" in France

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:12:00 +0000

More than 3.5 million took to the streets throughout France on Tuesday protesting moves to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. The protests included strikes by rail workers, bus drivers, teachers, other public workers, longshore workers and oil workers who shut down 11 of France's 12 refineries.

The actions shut down many rail and mass transportation lines. Flights were also cancelled or delayed at many French airports causing travel delays throughout Europe. The action by longshore and oil workers raised concerns about gasoline shortages.

This was the largest protest action in France since 1995 when a month of strikes and protest forced the right-wing government of Alain Juppé to abandon similar pension reforms.

This was also the largest action so far in a month of actions against president Nicolas Sarkozy's proposed pension reform. There have been 4 nationwide demonstrations in the last 5 weeks. Each bigger than the previous. The pension plan working its way through the French parliament, would also raise the minimum age to receive a full state pension from 65 to 67.

According to left and labor sources in France what distinguished Tuesday's actions was the growing breadth of those joining the protest. Polls show that 70% oppose the proposed pension law and support the protests. Tuesdays actions not only saw increased union and worker participation, but it also saw mass mobilizations of women and youth. This included high school students from over 300 schools.

The Sarkozy government shows no sign of backing off. In public statements following Tuesday's actions Sarkozy and several government ministers vowed to press on with the pension legislation. It is clear from French labor and left sources that the movement to stop these attacks on retirees will continue and "radicalize" as some put it.

Railway and transport workers voted to continue their strikes on Wednesday while several other unions, in key sectors of the economy decided to continue strike action indefinitely. They plan to have a day by day vote of the members. Others are organizing rolling strikes. Another major action is planned for October 16th.

Many governments in the developed capitalist countries, including the US, are thinking about and proposing similar attacks on pensions (in the U.S. Social Security). Raising age requirements and cutting benefits are favorite themes of the right for shifting the economic crisis onto the backs of older workers. European and even US lawmakers are watching these developments in France. The actions of the French unions and workers will not be lost on workers facing similar attacks in their own countries.

China angry at Nobel Prize award

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 13:54:00 +0000

China reacted angrily after the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Liu Xiaobo this year's Nobel Peace Prize. The Liu Xiaobo is serving an 11-year prison sentence for "agitation aimed at subverting the government."

The decision to award the prize, made by a committee appointed by Norway's parliament, "could harm Norway-China ties," the Chinese foreign ministry said, October 8, the same day the prize was awarded.

Even before the decision was made, China's foreign ministry warned the Nobel Committee against picking Liu as the recipient, implying that to do so could potentially harm relations.

Norway's foreign ministry stressed that the committee reached its decision independently, though it is appointed by the government and Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg supported it.

Liu, who has been in Chinese prisons several times since his participation in Tiananmen Square in 1989, started his current sentence in December 2009, after being arrested in June of that year for signing the Charter 08 statement, which called for various changes in the Chinese system.

According to the committee, the prize was awarded to Liu "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."

According to the Norwegian foreign ministry, China canceled at least four diplomatic trips to Norway. The Nordic state was forced to cancel its own delegation to China after Beijing authorities informed Oslo that no Chinese officials had time to receive the dignitaries.

A spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, when asked, said that Beijing - Oslo relations had been harmed, but stopped short of suggesting a diplomatic break.

China argues that awarding the Nobel to Liu "discredits" the prize, because "the Nobel Peace Prize," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ma Zhaoxu, quoting from the mission statement of the committee, "should be awarded to the person who ‘shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.'"