People Before Profit blog

Colombian senator under investigation for relations with FARC

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:27:00 +0000

Manuel Santos was sworn in this summer as Columbia's new president. His tenure is likely to have profound significance for the future of all of Latin America, because his predecessor, Alvaro Uribe, was a polarizing figure who had fought with Colombia's neighbors and had taken a hard line against a negotiated solution to the country's long-running civil war. Even though Santos had been minister of defense under Uribe, his early actions, such as extending an olive branch to neighboring Ecuador and Venezuela, seemed promising.

But the Colombian Inspector General, Alejandro Ordoñez, announced on Monday that a major opposition leader, Senator Piedad Cordoba Ruiz of the Liberal Party, has been declared guilty of "relations with the FARC" (the larger of two main left wing guerrilla organizations), threatening national unity and treason, among other things. Pending appeal and a final decision by the Council of State, Cordoba was removed from her Senate seat and forbidden from holding public office for 18 years.

FARC is the Spanish acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Senator Piedad is an Afro-Colombian who has been a leader of movements for women's, minorities' and workers' rights. In recent years, she has been an outspoken voice for a negotiated peace with the guerrillas. She has also been instrumental in negotiations with the FARC that have resulted in the freeing of 14 hostages the FARC had been holding, possibly saving them from an early death due to the harsh prison conditions. For her pains, she has been demonized, kidnapped and exiled at various points. She has also been suggested as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The civil war between the Colombian state and the guerrilla armies of the FARC and a smaller group, the ELN (National Liberation Army, by its Spanish initials) has deep roots in Colombian history, going back at least to the 1940s. At various times there have been efforts to find a peaceful solution. In the 1980s, an effort to channel the left's grievances into an electoral program broke up in disorder as the right-wing paramilitaries and Pablo Escobar's drug mafias massacred thousands of left political candidates and labor and mass leaders. Again, at the end of the 1990s, there was an effort to find a negotiated solution, but that broke down partly because of the impending massive U.S. intervention through George W. Bush's "Plan Colombia."

In 2008, the Colombian military raided a FARC camp in the Ecuadorian jungle. The military killed Raul Reyes (a pseudonym for Luis Devia), a major FARC leader, and captured computer hard drives. Since then, Colombian authorities have been claiming that a wide range of people in Colombia and far beyond are recorded in the hard drive as having "relations" with the FARC. This has become a major right-wing tactic in today's Latin America.

The accusations against Senator Cordoba originate partly with this "magic computer." Even though Cordoba had been authorized to be in communication with the FARC as part of her effort to free hostages, Ordoñez claims that she went far beyond the authorized role and "flirted" guerilla leaders, giving them advice regarding the negotiation process. Things she has said openly at meetings in Mexico and Europe, including calling for left-led countries in Latin America to break relations with Uribe's government because of its ghastly human rights record, were deemed seditious by Ordoñez,.

Interviewed by TELESUR, Cordoba accused the Inspector General of attempting a "criminalization of the struggle for peace, for human rights, for the humanization of conflicts and for the freeing of hostages."

As of now, there is no sign that the Obama administration and the Clinton State Department are going to break from the Bush policy of helping the Colombian government to achieve full military victory by funneling huge amounts of U.S. resources to it.

On Friday, President Obama met Colombian President Santos at the U.N. and congratulated him for the killing of FARC commander Victor Julio Suarez-Rojas, alias Mono Jojoy. The Colombian military says that they captured more computers in this attack, and they are analyzing them to see what more information can be gleaned about the FARC's networks in Colombia and beyond.

Human rights groups in the United States and beyond are not giving up the effort to change U.S. policy toward support for peaceful negotiations. The church-based Latin American Working Group is among many U.S. organizations that are educating public opinion and lobbying Congress to change U.S. Colombia policy. The School of the Americas Watch and others are also working for such policy changes.

Image: Senator Cordoba http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Piedad-Cordoba.jpg#file

World Notes: China, Afghanistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria, Germany, Cuba

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 12:35:00 +0000

China: Energy deals advance Russian partnership

On September 27, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, on a three-day state visit, signed two joint statements with President Hu Jintao, one "deepening their strategic partnership," the other commemorating the end of the Second World War. The two leaders agreed to commercial arrangements in the coal, nuclear energy and banking areas. Their joint inauguration of the Chinese stretch of a pipeline connecting Siberian oil fields and the Pacific Ocean coincided with the launching, according to People's Daily, of a large, joint venture oil refinery near Shanghai. It will consume mostly Russian crude oil. Agreements were also signed on fighting terrorism and separatism. Tass news reported that Russia's state-owned Gazprom Corporation will "completely assure China's growing demand for gas."

Afghanistan: Civilian deaths and war crimes

Philip Alston, former UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, recently called for investigation by the UN Human Rights Council of high levels of civilian casualties caused by U.S. and British forces, as well as by the Taliban. The UK Guardian newspaper reported that multifaceted warfare has accounted for at least 1,000 Afghan civilian deaths during the first half of 2010. The International Criminal Court has questioned British authorities regarding investigations of alleged war crimes, which are not being prosecuted, says Alston. Any war crimes committed in Afghanistan, a signatory of the treaty establishing the ICC, are subject to its jurisdiction. Because the United States never signed that treaty, suggests Alston, the UN Human Rights Council becomes the appropriate venue for investigation.

Trinidad and Tobago: New leader axes international industrial project

Kamla Persad Bissessar, leader of the People's Partnership Coalition that swamped the Patrick Manley government in elections last May, made good early in September on a campaign pledge. Her finance minister announced cessation of construction of an aluminum smelter plant owned jointly with the Brazilian Votorantim conglomerate and financed by China's Exim Bank. Legal challenges are likely. Spokespersons cited by Inter Press Service mentioned potential health and environmental risks plus excessive distance from raw materials and aluminum markets. Plans are afoot to use the abandoned construction site for manufacture of alternative energy and agro-business products. Nevertheless, almost two weeks later work was continuing at the site, reported the Miami Herald. Persad Bissessar is her nation's first female prime minister.

Nigeria: Unions want say in major oil legislation

The two major oil workers unions threatened in late September to close oil and gas facilities if the pending Petroleum Industry Bill, 10 years in the making, passes. Their joint statement, reported on allAfrica.com, denounced lack of labor input in legislative and review processes and apparent governmental willingness to promote temporary labor contracts, outsourcing of work, and reduced fuel subsidies for the population. Aiming to restore an oil export industry buffeted by insurgencies, corruption, environmental abuse, and deteriorating facilities, the government has attempted to mollify oil corporations, who are displeased with the bill's provisions for tax increases and reduced profits. Increased revenue would be directed at improving services in the Niger River Delta, as per demands of insurgents there.

Germany: Corporation promises lifetime jobs

Trade union analyst Hagen Lesch opined, "I have never heard of anything similar." The reference was to a pledge by Siemans engineering conglomerate, employer of 420,000 people worldwide, to avoid "forced redundancies among its 128,000 German workforce." As reported September 22 by the Financial Times, the promise of long-term, even lifetime, employment builds upon the response by the German corporation to the current recession, one centering on "state-sponsored shorter working hours and on other flexible measures." The Siemans pledge followed "warning strikes" by steelworkers demanding a 6 percent wage increase as their IG Metall workers union sought an end to 10 years of wage restraint. The union-company relationship "has survived the acid test of the financial crisis," said a union spokesperson.

Cuba: Restrictions on U.S. food sales cuts both ways

Over the past year, Cuba's food importing company Alimport lost $102.9 million due to U.S. restrictions affecting food sales to Cuba. They include a requirement for cash payments and a ban on U.S.-affiliated foreign companies making contact with Alimport. That money could have been used to buy 337,000 tons of wheat, 451,000 tons of corn, or 109,000 tons of poultry. The Cuban News Agency in late September suggested removal of restrictions would hike U.S. food exporters' income to around $1 billion annually and the U.S. share of Cuban food imports to 64 percent. U.S. food sales to Cuba were down 35 percent from May to June over the previous year, with $710 million in 2008 sales dropping to $528 million in 2009.

Chavez socialists win National Assembly elections

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 03:55:00 +0000

In elections September 26 for the National Assembly, the slate led by President Hugo Chavez' Venezuelan United Socialist Party (PSUV) took 98 of the 165 seats in contention. The PSUV, allied to the much smaller Venezuelan Communist Party, which contributed one delegate, and the People's Electoral Movement, fell short of the 110 seats required for the two-thirds majority control Chavez forces had exercised over the parliamentary session beginning in 2005. Right-wing opposition forces had boycotted elections then. One delegate elected by an indigenous party will also join the PSUV bloc.

A two thirds majority is required for passage of organic laws, which "organize public powers, develop constitutional rights," or provide framework for other laws.

The upcoming PSUV bench, however, barely misses the three-fifths majority required to pass "enabling laws" authorizing the Assembly to delegate matters to the president.

Turnout at the polls was high with 66 percent of 17,575,975 people registered to vote showing up. Absenteeism rates were up slightly in poorer districts. The Democratic Unity Roundtable, a right-wing coalition, took 63 seats; the center-left Fatherland for All Party that broke from the PSUV, two seats; and indigenous candidates with divided allegiances, three seats. The popular vote was close, as indicated by parallel voting that day for the Latin American Parliament: 5.268.939 votes for six PSUV delegates and 5.077.043 votes for six Democratic Unity delegates.

The PSUV was victorious in 18 of Venezuela's 23 states plus metropolitan Caracas. The party lost decisively in the right-wing, separatist strongholds Zulia and Tachira, in Nueva Esparta, and surprisingly in Anzoátegui. The PSUV governor there, Tarek William Saab, had lost credibility among workers through his coddling of manufacturers and business persons. Venezuela's Communist party ran candidates under its own banner gaining 162.830 votes and placing one delegate each in the National Assembly and Latin American Parliament.

Establishment media reports have trumpeted, or at least underscored, opposition gains. Explanations, however, are not lacking. Voters, say observers, were reacting to inflation, food distribution problems, energy shortfalls, transportation deficiencies, high crime rates and threats to personal security, bureaucratic inefficiencies rampant in state agencies, and revelations of corruption attributed to PSUV functionaries. Heavy rains prevented many in poor urban districts from voting.

Much of this was twisted into an intense anti-Chavez domestic and international media mill that produced a "cataract of lies," according to analyst Atilio Boron. He noted that $80 million had arrived from Washington as payoffs for U.S. and European NGO's busy with "empowering civil society" and "citizen education." Boron pointed out that in previous elections, those involving Chavez as a candidate, the Bolivarian movement had dominated the proceedings.

Some leftist critics took the results as a warning. The opposition's new foothold in the National Assembly opens doors for anti-government harassment and conspiracies, according to Gonzalo Gomez, director of the Aporrea web site. He attributes the outcome to slowdown instincts evident in some PSUV leaders and to capitalist domination of an economy where the private sector produces 70% of the GDP. Argentinean Marcelo Colussi saw signs that "the country is not constructing a true socialist culture" and has failed so far in "establishing a genuine popular power from below.

In any event, within the framework of electoral politics, the Chavez phenomenon wins points for having emerged victorious 15 of 16 times since 1998 in rigorously monitored elections.

President Chavez told reporters afterwards, "We are passing the stage of utopian socialism. He promised "an acceleration of new social, educational, technological, and petroleum programs" aimed at building socialism "in concrete form." He proclaimed the need for improved and more widely available housing, an insight, he said, that came from campaigning and from visualizing effects of recent heavy rains and floods. Polling data assign a 55 - 60 percent approval rating for the Chavez presidency.

While expressing disappointment at the PSUV failure to achieve the goal of 110 parliamentary seats PSUV campaign head Aristóbulo Istúriz took comfort in "guaranteeing the defense of President Hugo Chavez and the policies of the revolutionary government, and having won sufficient forces to propel structural changes in this era of the construction of socialism,"

Honduran struggle grows, repression continues

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 08:33:00 +0000

President Porfirio Lobo inherited the mantle of a government taking power through a military coup. Perhaps his invitation to a U.S. reception September 23 for heads of state attending UN meetings in New York hints at burgeoning respectability in such circles.

That's not the case at home. On September 17 Juan Barahona, leader of the National Front for Popular Resistance (FNRP), announced that 1.342.876 signatures had been collected over four months, each signifying approval of constituent assembly to shape a government with democratic possibilities. The Honduran population is 7.5 million.

One of the pretexts for the June 28, 2009 military coup deposing President Jose Manuel Zelaya had been the vote his government sought that day on approving a future constituent assembly. Its object would have been to institutionalize a government with democratic possibilities.

Coup plotters are not having a free ride. Independence Day commemorations on September 15 morphed into multiple parallel demonstrations involving unions and resistance activists. In Tegucigalpa, Porfiro Lobo and dignitaries held forth amidst high school bands and military display, while thousands of marchers mobilized by the FNRP filled nearby streets. "For repressors of the people, no pardon, no forgetting," some cried out.

In San Pedro Sula, 50,000 FNRP marchers ran into tear gas assaults, water hoses, militarized police action, and armored vehicles. Dozens were wounded, 31 detained, and one killed. Radio broadcasters were dispersed and Café Guancasco band members were pummeled and their instruments destroyed. FNRP militants initiated a hunger strike at the mayor's office.

Ten journalists have been killed so far this year, foreign journalists are threatened with expulsion, and the murder September 10 of Francisco Miranda Ortega represented the fifth assassination in less than three months of peasant union activists in Aguan province. Rich land grabbers there are expanding biofuel production. On September 12, 150 Special Forces troops, army trucks, and a tank defended the U.S. embassy against demonstrators in support of the Cuban Five political prisoners.

Social security unionists face serious repression. The murder September 17 of nurse Juana Bustillo followed other killings recently of leaders whose union is fighting social security privatization. The week before, Bustillo led a demonstration against state outsourcing of obligations. Her union belongs to the CUTH labor federation, a FNRP ally formed by leftist unions.

The CTH labor federation, created by North American unionists in the 1950's, has backed post-coup governments. The Christian Democrat CGT federation moved from opposition to the coup to inaction when its leader Felicito Ávila entered the Lobo government as labor minister.

Striking teachers and National University employees are under the gun. University Rector Julieta Castellanos promoted charges of sedition and aggravated assault against 20 university employees. Three went to jail on September 11.

In the wake of its successful signature campaign, the FNRP will communicate results to international groups, and according to Barahona, will be "gathering in collectives of resistance in all regions" Focusing on a future constituent assembly and exit of the present regime, the FNRP does not espouse a political program. Zelaya, exiled in the Dominican Republic, was recently sworn in as Honduras' deputy to the Central American Parliament, a post that, affording him diplomatic immunity, could facilitate his eventual return.

In communications disseminated September 23-24 on the FNRP web site, Zelaya, the group's coordinator general, called for "creating consciousness of the roots of our difficulties." The purpose of the coup, he suggested was "to stop transformative processes and realization of my socialist conception of development."

"Indications and proofs of U.S. participation in the coup are multiple and conclusive," he affirmed. He condemned the U.S. government for destroying "entire societies" though "violent acts and unjustified wars," that achieve "the level of state terrorism." Zelaya advised putting off electoral politics for now; they are "a trap to divide us and legitimize atrocities."

Zelaya cited Wikileaks revelations on CIA death squads operating in Honduras. The CIA aside, a "Planning Workshop on National Security Strategy" unfolded recently at the Presidential House in Tegucigalpa, organized by the Washington- based Center for Hemispheric Defence Studies and attended by its own functionaries and Honduran military, congressional, and governmental figures, President Lobo included.

Two new U.S. naval bases appeared along this Honduran coast this year. And Florida's Harris Corporation is into the first of a five-year $38 million contract to run communications at Washington's Palmerola air base there.

Germans fight nuclear plants, railroad stations, Nazis

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 16:31:00 +0000

German Chancellor Angela Merkel always seems to smile when she faces a camera. Only once in a while does an unnoticed camera show her looking tired, if not worn and slightly haggard.

Things are not all going her way. More and more people are moving in Germany, mostly in the wrong direction, at least for Merkel.

In the center of Berlin last weekend over 100,000 people demonstrated against her government's deal with giant atomic energy corporations. In a meeting with industry leaders she had smiled sweetly while agreeing completely to keep the 17 atomic power plants operating for an additional 12 to 15 years, meaning until 2040 at the earliest, while the extra taxes earlier demanded of the companies, proposed as a balance against harsh cuts in support for the jobless, poorer parents and senior citizens, would now be reduced to a minimum.

Angela had not only caved in completely, she had totally ignored and embarrassed young Ecology Minister Norbert Ruettgen, from her own party, who had promised there would be no such far-reaching deals. He had lost out to Economics Minister Rainer Bruederle from the coalition partner, the Free Democrats, who cared less about public opinion. His party has lost so much sympathy through its utter disregard for all but the wealthy that current polls give it hardly even the 5 percent needed to enter the next Bundestag. But that election is not due until 2013.

Although there have been many flukes and mishaps in older atomic plants in recent years, mostly unreported as long as possible, and the mine where radioactive remains are stored is far from secure, most media dwelled instead on possible job losses if the atomic plants are shut down sooner. The name Chernobyl was carefully avoided. But not in the huge demonstrations on September 18!

There were two smaller gatherings in Berlin that day. Two hundred neo-Nazis from the NPD party (National Democratic Party of Germany) held a rally, far from downtown, with music and anti-foreigner tirades. They were outnumbered as usual by 500 antifascists but protected by police. Also outnumbered by 800 opponents was a march of very religious anti-abortion ladies. Somehow many of their white crosses landed in the Spree River in downtown Berlin, but luckily there was no violence. Abortion is possible in Germany, though with a number of conditions and costs borrowed from the laws of West Germany (abortion was legal and free in Eastern Germany).

Far from Berlin, in the southwestern city of Stuttgart, angry demonstrations have been going on for months every Monday and every weekend in a very different matter. The city, the state of Baden-Wurttemberg and the nationally owned, independently run railroad system had decided to tear down Stuttgart's central station, one of the few central buildings to survive the war, and replace it with a subterranean station adapted to high-speed connections with other parts of Germany and Europe. But a large number of Stuttgart people decided they liked their old station. They didn't want it to disappear while 250 acres where it had been would be largely filled with modern office buildings. Three hundred handsome old beeches and other trees, some over 200 years old, would have go. The cost, officially 7 billion euros, would in the end probably top 10-18 billion. How many other more needed projects could be paid for with such a sum!

The demonstrations grew larger: 15,000, 25.000, possibly up to 70,000, week for week. People climbed the trees and the cranes, refusing to give in even after one station wing was demolished. Preachers preached, some prayed or sang "We Shall Overcome." Others blew whistles or even vuvuzelas. A local artist became moral leader by common agreement.

At first the Christian Democratic mayor and the state government, a coalition of Christian Democrats and Free Democrats, refused even to meet the protesters, but as the weeks wore on and the demonstrations did not decrease the officials began to weaken, though sticking to impossible conditions. The matter is still undecided. The Social Democrats, who originally supported the plans, have been trying to extricate themselves from them. Like the others they are thinking of the state elections on March 4. The tree-saving Greens are in the strongest political position.

Very many Germans, like Americans, are enraged about banks which were bailed out with taxpayers' money and, also like in the USA, are shamelessly reverting to former methods, even big bonuses. This does not make the government more popular. Nor do its plans to raise appreciably the amount people must pay for medical coverage. The slick minister of health, with a smile worthy of his boss, Merkel, camouflages his plans under many fancy words. But they all add up to higher payments for working people, and less for the wealthy.

Both the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens are profiting from all this. The SPD is slowly regaining the ground it lost so disastrously in last year's elections while the Greens have climbed into a position where they might be the Number 1 party in the city-state of Berlin and head a coalition government there after elections next year.

With the help of the media, now occasionally more critical of the government, the past record of the SPD and Greens is forgotten. It was they, when they ran the government, who initiated many cuts in living standards, who raised the pension age to 67, cut help for the jobless, increased sales taxes for average consumers but cut taxes for the wealthy and the corporations. Even their time limits for atomic energy power plants, now to be dropped, were a weak compromise. It was while Social Democrats and Greens were in charge that construction of many such plants began.

This should be a time for the Left Party to grow rapidly; it is the only Bundestag party with a clean record on economic issues, on military spending, foreign adventures in Afghanistan as well as atomic power. Sadly, it has been occupied in recent months with internal worries. Its presence in the demonstrations on atomic power and the Stuttgart railroad station was hardly visible, while the media does what it can to downplay the Left's spokespersons. The party has been debating questions like the need to change the social system, the pros and cons of joining government coalitions and participation in future UN military actions. These are important, no doubt, but hardly the issues able to bring lots of people out in the streets again, like those in France or Greece. Those who support the Left can only hope it will get its act together and start fighting on issues urgent to people here and now.

The importance of such struggles is underlined by the menace of a possible new party on the right, appealing to nationalism, feelings against immigrants, Islamophobia. This danger is growing everywhere, from tea party shouters in Nevada or Delaware to some boroughs of Berlin and to cities in Holland, England and now Sweden, where such a new party has had marked success. Recent discussions in Germany fostered by most media in connection with the banker Thilo Sarrazin and his anti-Turkish, anti-Arab racism, also statements by the head of an organization claiming to represent Germans thrown out of Poland and other eastern countries after World War II, have found a frightening resonance, even among some top men in the SPD (the party Sarrazin still belongs to, despite plans to throw him out). An estimated 10 to 20 percent might be reached by such demagogues, it is estimated.

The dangers are great, but democratic-minded Germans have shown a willingness to fight back. The right issues and the right paths must urgently be scouted out.

Photo: A protester, wearing a giant mask depicting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, tries to catch "atomic balloons" during a Berlin demonstration against the extending of nuclear power plants operating time, Sept. 5. Posters read: "Nuclear power: the only sure thing is the risk." (AP/Michael Sohn)

Bolivian president rallies New Yorkers to protect nature

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 11:40:00 +0000

NEW YORK—The earth has its own rights, and we are responsible for protecting them, Bolivian President Evo Morales told a standing room-only crowd at the Community Church of New York in Midtown. These rights, he said, must be taken into account when we consider environmental and climate change policies.

The church was full to capacity; 600 people turned out to hear Morales. The audience reflected the city of New York in all its glory, including many young people.

The president waxed nostalgic, speaking about his childhood and how his family related to the environment. The indigenous community, of which he is a part, shared the resources. But now, he said, referring to people in his country and elsewhere who have waged fights against corporate agricultural interests, "those of us who want to protect Mother Earth are labeled terrorists."

The church's pastor, Bruce Southworth, recognized the connection between his church's mission and having Morales speak. According to the mission statement, the congregation promotes "a just world in which all persons can share equitably in the wealth of the world, and freely develop their gifts and potential."

Southworth highlighted the similarities between that mission and the Bolivian president, saying that putting faith into action means being part of the movement against neoliberal economic policies, which Morales helps to lead.

Tiokasin Ghosthorse, a member of the Lakota people, a Native American tribe whose land is in the Dakotas, is an activist for the rights of indigenous people. In his introduction, he praised Moralas for his struggle to protect the environment. He said, "We must change our thinking about the earth's resources" and that President Moralas is a voice for change, especially in his appeal to the industrialized nations.

Morales spoke in calm yet passionate tones. Those who came before him who also wanted to preserve the earth's resources are heroes, he said, but were demonized as "terrorists, communists" and killed. And now, he said, "the same powers accuse me of being a terrorist. When people organize for peace and protection of the earth's resources, we once again are accused of being terrorists. We know these lies will be spread against us, but the people continue to push back."

Morales said that in Bolivia the seasons are "mixed up." Drilling for water and getting water is becoming more and more difficult. Globally, he opined, there is a lot of money available for war and destruction but money to find solutions to the coming global crisis is hardly available.

"We must have a strong movement in the 21st century for the rights of Mother Earth," Morales said. "This is the most important thing for humankind if we are to survive."

Image: Evo Morales http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Evo_Morales.jpg

At UN, Obama highlights break with Bush policies

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:13:00 +0000

UNITED NATIONS - President Barack Obama was one of the first world leaders to speak here this morning at the opening of the 65th UN General Assembly. He painted a dire yet hopeful picture of the world, highlighting the continuing problems of economic turmoil, war, environmental degradation and terrorism.

The president walked a fine line. He took pains to show respect for all the world's cultures - for example, he referred to Iran by its full name, the Islamic Republic of Iran. But he also stressed a universal concept of freedom, democracy and human rights, saying that "each country will pursue a path rooted in the culture of its own people, yet experience shows us that history is on the side of liberty."

He spoke hawkishly about North Korea, calling it a "regime that enslaves its own people." But he rejected former President Bush's militarist foreign policy, saying, "Make no mistake, the ultimate success of democracy in the world won't come because the United States dictates it. It will come because individual citizens demand a say in how they are governed."

Obama's boldest statements came in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He noted progress in the fact that the leaders of Israel and Palestine met at the White House and are continuing direct face-to-face negotiations.

Dismissing "cynics" who say a solution to the conflict is impossible, Obama told the assembled heads of state that, if all goes well, "when we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations - an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel." (Currently, the Palestinians' official UN status is as representatives of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.)

Obama urged world leaders, and the public, to "think not of ourselves, but of the young girl in Gaza who wants to have no ceiling on her dreams, or the young boy in Sderot who wants to sleep without the nightmare of rocket fire."

He urged supporters of both sides to help advance a peaceful resolution. "Those of us who consider ourselves friends of Israel must understand that true security for the Jewish state requires an independent Palestine, one that allows the Palestinian people to live with dignity and opportunity," he said.

On the other hand, he said, the Arab countries who have put forward the Arab Peace Initiative, widely accepted as the basis for a peace agreement, need to turn words into action. He chastizeed certain countries, without naming them, to accept that "Israel's existence is not a subject for debate" and that "the slaughter of innocent Israelis is not resistance; it's injustice."

On the issue of terror, Obama said, "Underneath these challenges lie deeper fears: that a world which has grown more interconnected has somehow slipped beyond our control." Global coordination is necessary to address the problem, he said.

He also emphasized global coordination and equality in regard to the economy. "We made the G-20 the focal point for international cooperation," he said, "because in a world where prosperity is more diffuse, we must broaden our circle of cooperation to include emerging economies."

Previously, the G-8, or Group of Eight, which included only the world's richest countries, worked to coordinate economic policy without any voice from developing countries. The move to working through the G-20, which includes Brazil, Saudi Arabia, China, India and countries from every region of the world, has been hailed as a move towards a more equitable global order.

"The global economy has been pulled back from the brink of depression," the president said, and then vowed not to rest until the "seeds of progress grow into a broader prosperity, for all Americans, and for people around the globe."

Obama also highlighted the withdrawal of 100,000 troops from Iraq and his plan to begin drawing down in Afghanistan. He also noted work with Russia on a new nuclear treaty.

While speaking of progress on reversing the growing trend towards nuclear armament, the president chastised Iran for being, of all the signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the only nation unable to demonstrate its compliance. "Actions have consequences," he said, but added, "the door remains open to diplomacy should Iran choose to walk through it."

The UN gathering, which will be attended by a total of 190 leaders, is the largest meeting of heads of state in history.

Photo: President Obama addresses world leaders at the UN General Assembly, Sept. 23. (United Nations photo)

World Notes: Colombia, Iraq, South Africa, Cambodia, Romania, Cuba

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 12:13:00 +0000

Colombia: U.S. military aid continues despite labor killings

Just as the U.S. State Department announced that Colombian progress in securing human rights justified release by Congress of $30 million in aid to the Colombian military, a new report from the CUT labor federation put the toll of murdered trade unionists so far this year at 36, 10 more than at the same time last year. CUT spokesperson Luis Alberto Vanegas indicated that five murders had occurred in Antioquia state and that 2,737 unionists have been murdered since 1986. He attributed most of the killings to paramilitary groups hired by big landowners, although over the years perpetrators have gone undiscovered in over 95 percent of the cases. Threatening pamphlets directed at union leaders are endemic throughout Colombia, he reported.

Iraq: A country of orphans

Using data from the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, Azzaman News claimed on September 13 that the number of orphaned children has risen from 1.5 million prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion to 5 million now. The report likened the 16 percent of orphaned Iraqis to "the equivalent of nearly 50 million U.S. orphans." According to Islamonline.net, 600,000 children remain homeless without regular food. An anonymous Iraqi Red Crescent employee is cited testifying to the striking lack of government programs and NGO assistance for street children and orphans. Resources were apparently sufficient, however, on September 9 for the government to agree to pay $400 million toward U.S. civilians' claims for damages incurred during the 1990 war over Kuwait.

South Africa: Agribusiness giants merge

DuPont subsidiary Pioneer Hi-Bred announced on September 15 plans to acquire Africa's largest seed company. Purchase of the KwaZulu-Natal-based Pannar Corporation will allow Pioneer to "expand the company's footprint in sub-Saharan Africa," the Wall Street Journal reported. Eying sub-Saharan Africa's 75 million acres of land available for corn and soybean cultivation, DuPont agricultural division Vice President Jim Borel has encouraged investors in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait to fund agricultural infrastructure projects in Africa. The report on Farmlandgrag.org indicates also that Gulf states have already purchased large tracts of arable land in the region. The stage for industrial agriculture was set, claims IPS, when governments complied with neo-liberal structural adjustment strictures by emphasizing cash crops rather than production for local markets.

Cambodia: Garment workers fight for living wage

A four-day walkout by mostly women garment workers ended September 16 with manufacturers agreeing to negotiate on wages, overtime pay, and incentives. Strikers, estimated variously at 50,000 to 200,000, were demanding a $93 monthly minimum wage, having rejected a joint industry-government offer of $61 per month. Inflation has devastated workers' salaries, while the global economic crisis recently finished off 70,000 industry jobs. As the prime source of foreign currency, the garment sector is crucial to Cambodia's economic survival. In preparation for the strike, workers amassed food, water, and supplies. The strike, involving workers at exporting and subcontracting factories alike, unfolded within a regional context, observed the Los Angeles Times, referring to recent strikes in Vietnam, Bangladesh and China.

Romania: Health system flounders

The recent burning deaths of five newborns at the Brasov Children's Hospital have drawn attention to a health system characterized by severe staffing shortages, malfunctioning equipment, and exodus of physician specialists. Health care funding remains below 4 percent of the GDP with hospitals handicapped by high debt loads. Governmental subsidies for patients' medications and hospital supplies fall far short of needs. For 20 years, state-sponsored care has co-existed with private clinics, although fewer than 400,000 Romanians have private insurance. Inter Press Service reports the government will soon be imposing copayments in order to reduce health care spending. Patient advocates warn that rising costs and hospitals closed through decentralization strategies will put care out of reach for many, especially the chronically ill.

Cuba: Health care outreach to Syria

Agreements signed in mid September by Syrian Health Minister Rida Adnan and Cuban Science and Technology Minister Jose Miyar Barruecos opened up access for Syria to a variety of Cuban pharmaceutical products. They include an anti-cancer vaccine and drugs along with sophisticated technology aimed at creating a center for producing therapeutic human placenta derivatives. Syria will also gain materials and advice enabling health workers to employ monoclonal antibodies in diagnostic testing. Additionally, the Middle Eastern nation will be availing itself of Cuban specialists' experience demonstrated throughout Latin America and the Caribbean in assessing the health needs of people with disabilities. Miyar Barruecos, quoted by Cubadebate, characterized the accords as a "transcendent step toward an integrated future."

Photo: Striking Cambodian garment workers rally in front of a factory on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sept. 13. (AP/Heng Sinith)

With layoffs come opportunities in Cuba

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 13:28:00 +0000

The Cuban government recently announced plans to eliminate a half million government jobs by April 1, 2011, while opening up new opportunities in cooperatives, in self-employment and in private business. The plan is to eventually transfer about 1 million people from Cuba's labor force of 5.1 million out of the state sector, where 95 percent now work, into other forms of employment. Cuba's total population is 11.2 million people.

Cubans have not been satisfied by the performance of the economy for a long time. Officials complain too many people are on the payroll of state enterprises in proportion to the productive capacity of the country, and too little actual productive work getting done. For example, the country imports too much food when its fertile soil and balmy climate could yield much more, but it is difficult to attract people to agricultural occupations. President Raul Castro said in a speech to the National Assembly, "We have to get rid forever of the notion that Cuba is the only country in the world where one can live without working."

On top of long-term stagnation problems, Cuba has been hit by the shock waves of the world financial and economic crisis which started in 2008. Two important sources of income -- namely tourism and remittances of cash from Cubans living overseas -- have dropped sharply.

According to government announcements, some state workers slated to lose their jobs will be placed in other state enterprises, which do not have enough workers or are expanding. Some state enterprises will be turned into worker-run and -owned cooperatives, generating perhaps 200,000 jobs. More licenses will be issued for people to be self employed, increasing this sector by a possible 250,000, while laws and regulations will be modified to make it much easier for coops and private businesses to purchase supplies and services and employ people. There will also be changes in wage and salary structures to move further away from "leveling" tendencies and toward rationalizing the relationship of remuneration to productivity level.

The government says key aspects of the economy, such as industry, finance and the educational system, will remain under state control, and that socialism will not be abandoned. Up to now, 95 percent of Cubans have been working for the state, and the announced cuts, which amount to 10 percent of the labor force, will take a big bite out of this.

Cuba has done something like this before, only a smaller scale, during the 1990s. At that point, Cuba was in difficulties because of the abrupt loss of favorable trade relations with the Soviet Union. and Eastern Europe, whose socialist governments had collapsed. Unable to keep so many people on the government payroll, Cuba began to give out licenses for several types of small-scale private initiatives, including small scale restaurants in people's homes.

Neither the government, nor people who took advantage of these openings, were very satisfied with the results. In the intervening period, the number of such enterprises has dropped as people have given up or licenses have not been renewed.

Today, about 169,000 people in Cuba are self-employed or employed by cooperatives or private businesses, down from a high of around 200,000 in 1996.

However, the number of people thought to be doing basically the same kind of thing at the margins of the law is much higher. So in one sense, the government will be catching up with what is already going on, and regulating and taxing it. This time around, there will be a much greater effort to make sure that the cooperatives and individual enterprises can succeed, by streamlining the mechanisms whereby they get supplies and other support needed to prosper and contribute to the overall economy.

The Cuban Central Federation of Labor (CTC) whose member unions represent the vast majority of Cuban workers, said on Sept. 12 that the changes are necessary. But, citing the vital question of the unity of workers, the CTC announced that it will be taking control over the specific processes whereby jobs will be eliminated, and workers oriented toward other opportunities . In addition to the unions, the Cuban Communist Party and the neighborhood-based Committees for the Defense of the Revolution will be holding meetings in worksites to discuss the changes.

Meanwhile, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez pointed out the damage that the U.S. trade blockade instituted against Cuba shortly after the revolution is another heavy burden on the economy. He stated on September 15 that, adjusted for inflation and currency fluctuations, the U.S. policy has cost Cuba over $751 billion.

Photo: Farmers from the Granma Cooperative, just outside of Havana, share the fruits of their labor. (John Bachtell/PW)

Celebrating Mexico's bicentennial is bittersweet

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 17:59:00 +0000

On Sept. 16, Mexico will celebrate its bicentennial and honor the heroes that first declared the nation's independence from Spain in 1810. At the same time, Mexicans around the world will also commemorate those who rose up to defend Mexico's ideals of democracy, liberty and justice during the country's November 1910 revolution.

Despite the importance of celebrating 200 years of independence and its many accomplishments (plus what's expected to be a very expensive party) many say it's also time to take a hard look at Mexico today with the deadly violence, corruption and extreme disparities facing most Mexicans.

This author, who is Mexican American, decided to ask his Mexican American friends on Facebook what it means to celebrate Mexico's bicentennial and 1910 revolution.

Armando Ramirez, from California said, "1810 helped to end Spanish colonialism in all Latin America, but it didn't do much for the peasants and workers." He added, "1910 was about correcting those shortcomings, but again, it didn't go far enough as today's Mexico testifies."

Bicentennial celebrations that should inspire hope come at a time of deep crisis in Mexico.

The country is undergoing a four-year drug war that has taken more than 28,000 lives. The bloodiest town, Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, has seen more than 4,000 people die to drug violence since 2009, making it one of the deadliest cities in the world. Just last month drug cartel gunmen were responsible for massacring 72 mainly Central American migrants in northern Mexico.

Under Mexico's current President Felipe Calderon's conservative and right-wing National Action Party, the gap between the wealthy few and the majority poor are extreme. Half of the country's 107 million people live in poverty. Mexico is home to both the world's richest man, Carlos Slim, whose fortune is estimated at about $53.5 billion, and about 20 million Mexicans who live on less than $3 per day.

"I think the revolutionaries of 1910 would be sickened and heartbroken to see that the corruption they fought and died for has risen to the level it has today," said one friend on Facebook.

Critics note Mexico's antiquated labor laws make it nearly impossible for millions of workers to organize unions. Chinese auto workers, who once earned wages their Mexican counterparts wouldn't stoop to take, now earn more, they add.

Mexico's rich oil lands are disappearing and neoliberal policies under the North American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S., signed in 1993, have failed. The NAFTA, once believed to be the country's roadmap to prosperity, has been a disaster for millions of Mexican farmers leading to rampant unemployment, low wages and mass migration to the north.

A recent Pew Research Center poll shows that 79 percent of Mexicans are dissatisfied with the country's direction. Roughly 10 percent of the population has migrated abroad and another 33 percent would like to do so.

At least two dozen towns, including Ciudad Juarez, have canceled bicentennial celebrations due to the worsening situation with drug cartels.

The show will go on, nevertheless. President Calderon is expected to deliver the traditional grito, shout of independence, to a crowd of tens of thousands just before midnight Thursday at the Zocalo, the center of Mexico City.

The extravaganza is expected to be the largest the country has ever seen, costing tens of millions of dollars.

Critics say it's a useless expense especially now when so many Mexicans are in mourning. That money could go toward schools, health care and other pressing social needs, they say.

Another friend said she has very mixed feelings about Mexico's celebrations and is saddened by the increasing violence and mayhem. "It's said that Mexico erupts every 100 years in social upheaval," she wrote. "As Mexico marks its bicentennial, I will be thinking of my extended family and hoping that the coming years bring peace and progress... Que viva Mexico."

All over Mexico, streets, buildings, monuments and cities are named after national heroes, nearly all of whom, including the father of independence, Miguel Hidalgo, and the leader of the 1910 revolution, Emiliano Zapata, died tragic deaths.

This author's fiancé, whose family migrated to the U.S. from Uriangato, Guanajuato, said celebrating Mexico's bicentennial is about "all the men and women who gave up their lives fighting against injustices." She added, "It gives me pride to know that I come from a strong willed people who stand up and fight for a better tomorrow."

Most agree celebrating Mexico's accomplishments today are bittersweet and there's still a long road ahead. Others note Mexico needs a new revolution with champions that will fight for land, liberty, justice and the rights of working people, as revolutionaries did in 1910.

Photo: (Bicentennial Mexico 2010)

Saint Vincent PM: U.S. business seek to topple government

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +0000

The prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph E. Gonsalves, has accused U.S. and other foreign interests of meddling in his country's internal affairs with the purpose of removing him from power and disrupting Saint Vincent's increasingly close ties with the left-wing ALBA group of countries. ALBA is a trading bloc made up of left-wing led Latin American and Caribbean nations.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is a tiny and impoverished former British colony (population about 120,000) . The largely African-descended and English-speaking population has historically been highly dependent on cultivation of bananas for export to Britain and Europe. This puts its small-scale banana cultivators into competition with major transnationals such as Chiquita and Dole, who are able to produce bananas cheaply on huge plantations in Central and South America.

Saint Vincent and some of its neighbors had, for a long time, special arrangements with the former European colonial powers whereby they could export their bananas to Europe duty free, while the Latin American bananas had to face high import taxes.

The United States and the Latin American countries had gone to the World Trade Organization to complain. In late 2009, an agreement was reached between the European Union and the Latin American banana exporters whereby tariffs on Latin American bananas would be cut and the Asian, African and Caribbean banana producers would receive some aid in compensation.

In the meantime, the government of Saint Vincent, headed by Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of the left-leaning Unity Labour Party, has concluded that both trade wars and increasingly destructive storms make it urgent that his country move away banana monoculture. Service industries, including tourism, have been taking up a little of the slack, but Saint Vincent's airport facilities are not considered to be adequate for a large increase in visitors.

Gonsalves' party won a big victory in the legislative elections of 2005 and was able to move forward on a number of issues, including negotiating entry into the Bolivarian Alliance for America (ALBA), which includes Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Antigua and Barbuda, and Dominica. Through ALBA, Gonsalves thought to get aid, particularly in building a new airport that could contribute to an expansion in tourism.

Parliamentary elections are due this year, though the date has not been announced. In spite of Gonsalves' big victory in 2005, his party lost a 2009 referendum to make Saint Vincent and the Grenadines into a Republic. This has encouraged the right-wing opposition party, the New Democratic Party (NDP).

So in his August 24 "Open Letter to the People of the Caribbean," Gonsalves complained that since 2009 "foreign elements out of Britain and the United States of America have aligned themselves to the opposition New Democratic Party of St. Vincent and the Grenadnes in an insidious campaign of defamation of this blessed country and of attempting to destabilize the Unity Labor Party government led by me."

Gonzalves singled out two U.S. businessmen as among the main perpetrators: David Copps of the Pure Discovery Corporation, a Texas based IT applications firm whose CEO, David Copps, has had past contracts with the CIA, FBI and Pentagon, and Blake Burris of Dynamo Labs, an electronic social networking enterprise. The two companies appear to work closely together, sharing a Dallas workspace.

Here is what you can read on Dynamo Labs' Website http://dynamo-labs.com, in a piece signed by one Ajay Waghray.

"I don't know about y'all, but we here at Dynamo Labs 'love' democracy. The smell of sweet freedom fills our lungs in the mornings before we set out to change the world...So when we were told about what's happening in the island [sic] of Saint Vincent in [sic] the Grenadines, we knew that we had to help.

"...the current Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has aligned himself with Venezuela and Hugo Chavez. The New Democratic Party, led by Arnhim Eustance, wants to save SVG by raising the standard of living and guarantees of civil liberties (for more information on NDP's campaign, click here....)."

The blurb goes on to tell people in the United States and beyond how they can contribute money ("Save Democracy for Just $5") to the New Democratic Party of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It makes clear there is a formal relationship between NDP and Dynamo Labs. So Gonsalves is not just blowing smoke.

Gonsalves' letter finishes: "Solidarity, struggle, advancement and resistance are our watchwords. St. Vincent and the Grenadines is a vital beach-head in this enterprise of Caribbean solidarity. The foreigners who come to control us, divide us, ravage our resources and dull our consciousness with backward ideas, are antithetical to everything in our Caribbean civilization. We must resist them firmly!"

Gonsalves' letter and attached materials can be read in full at http://www.normangrivan.info/pmgonsalves-open-letter

Photo: A woman in traditional West Indian dress with Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, center, of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Chen Shui-bian, left, the president of Taiwan, in 2005. (AP)

Puerto Rican independence leader Juan Mari Bras dies at 82

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:32:00 +0000

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Juan Mari Bras, an elder statesman of Puerto Rico's independence movement who gave up U.S. citizenship in an act that inspired hundreds of other activists, died Friday, Sept. 10. He was 82.

Mari Bras died at his home in the San Juan suburb of Rio Piedras, said Elaine Mulet Hocking, a spokeswoman for his Hostosiano independence movement. He had lung cancer and had recently taken a fall, she said.

"Puerto Rico has lost a man who deeply loved his country," said Jose Luis Dalmau Santiago, the minority leader in the island's Senate.

A writer and law professor, Mari Bras was deeply involved in the independence cause from his days as a teenage student activist in the 1940s. He founded the Puerto Rican Socialist Party and was a co-founder of the small but influential Independence Party.

He dedicated his later years to seeking unity among the varied pro-independence factions in Puerto Rico, a U.S. Caribbean territory whose 4 million residents are American citizens but cannot vote for president.

Gov. Luis Fortuno, who represents the opposite end of Puerto Rico's political spectrum as leader of the pro-statehood party, issued a statement praising Mari Bras as a legendary leader who fought for his ideals.

In an effort to establish Puerto Ricans' separate national identity, Mari Bras traveled to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1994 and renounced his American citizenship while claiming the right to continue living in Puerto Rico. His actions inspired other "independentistas" to do the same.

The State Department initially approved Mari Bras' petition, but reversed its decision in 1998, the centennial year of the U.S. invasion that resulted in the seizure of Puerto Rico from Spain. U.S. officials told Mari Bras he was again a U.S. citizen because he hadn't registered as a resident alien.

As the result of legal challenges stemming from that case, the island government in 2007 issued its first certificate of Puerto Rican citizenship to Mari Bras. Some other islanders have also requested the document, which is valid as an ID on the island but not recognized as a travel document outside the island given that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.

Mari Bras also became the first Puerto Rican to lobby the United Nations for the island's independence in 1973, kicking off what has become a tradition at the U.N.'s special committee on decolonization.

The Independence Party typically receives less than 5 percent of the vote, with most islanders split between supporting statehood for Puerto Rico and the status quo as a U.S. commonwealth.

Mari Bras was born in the west-coast city of Mayaguez on Dec. 2, 1927, and graduated from American University Law School in Washington.

He is survived by his wife and five children. Another child, Santiago Mari Pesquera, was murdered in 1976 while Mari Bras was campaigning for governor on a Socialist Party ticket. The family has expressed suspicions that he was slain in reprisal for his father's political activism but the case was never solved.

AP Photo/Gregory Bull, file

Goldberg analyzes his visit with Fidel Castro

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 08:46:00 +0000

After Fidel Castro stirred up some controversy last week with an offhand comment made to The Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg about ineffectiveness of Cuba's socialist "model," Goldberg says the former Cuban president may have sought to alleviate some controversy within Cuba's governing institutions by "walking back" his comment.

In explaining further his take on Fidel's remarks, Goldberg ended up describing Castro positively, declaring some of his comments as "sane" and "moral."

During a several hours-long interview over the course of three days in Havana, Goldberg asked Castro about Cuba's economy in the context of a larger discussion of Latin America and trade. In a manner that Goldberg described as almost a "throw away remark" Castro said, "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore."

Interpreting the remark literally, and borrowing insights about the context of the comment from his friend Julia Sweig, an expert on Cuba with the Council on Foreign Relations, who traveled with him and listened to the conversation, Goldberg wrote that the former president's comments suggested the need for big changes in Cuba's political and economic system, changes that have been underway for several years now, including in the final years of Fidel's presidency.

In his original post, Goldberg went on to describe some of those changes and even hinted that the ongoing U.S. policy toward Cuba is "hypocritical" and "stupidly self-defeating."

After Goldberg's reporting was published at The Atlantic's website late last week, President Castro delivered a talk Friday, Sept. 10, at the University of Havana promoting his new book, "The Strategic Counteroffensive," in which he said Goldberg had misinterpreted his comment.

Though insisting Goldberg had quoted him accurately and praising Goldberg's skills and professionalism, Castro said, "the truth is that the meaning of my response was exactly the opposite of the interpretation made by both American journalists of the Cuban model."

"My idea, as everybody knows," Castro explained, "is that the capitalist system does not work anymore either for the United States or the world, which jumps from one crisis into the next, and these are ever more serious, global and frequent and there is no way the world could escape from them. How could such a system work for a socialist country like Cuba?"

This clarification of the comment didn't sit well with Goldberg. In a teleconference with reporters Sept. 13, in which both Goldberg and Sweig sought to clarify their perspective on the situation, Goldberg expressed some doubts about Castro's response. "I don't know how you can interpret [the quote] as its opposite," Goldberg said in defense of his reporting.

Julia Sweig, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, added that Castro's "clarification was intended to signal to certain domestic constituents." She said "it's common knowledge" and "widely discussed" in Cuba that they are going to "fix the model" the questions are how and "where they're going to go in terms of economic liberalization."

But Sweig acknowledged this did not mean throwing socialism overboard. She said, "What he wanted to say is that although we're changing our model, that doesn't mean that we're importing U.S.-style capitalism."

Sweig added she believes both Fidel and Cuban President Raul Castro are of a single mind on the need for these changes to Cuba's economic system.

Cuba's leading institutions of governance have set the stage for a number of important systemic changes toward a market-oriented economy, Sweig explained. New proposals include private ownership of land, the shift from collective farming to cooperative farming with private ownership rights, the licensing of the 250,000 to 500,000 small businesses with non-family employees (as long as social security taxes are paid), and introduction of limited foreign investments in real estate.

Just this week, the Cuban government announced a plan to shift 500,000 government workers into the private sector in order to cut unsustainable budget expenditures.

Sweig said Cuba's internal changes and other global realities show that U.S. attempts at economic isolation of Cuba have failed and are unnecessary.

The embargo is not a foreign policy; it is a domestic policy aimed at nothing more than addressing "a perception of the Cuban American vote" in Florida, she said. "I think it's time for the United States to recognize that 50 years of one policy haven't achieved the intention which was to block the revolution, stop them from exporting it, and overthrow etc.," she noted. "I think it is time to take 'yes' for an answer."

"To be fair," she continued, "this administration, the Obama administration, while moving very slowly, recognizes that this is an obsolete policy."

Right now, other major foreign policy considerations have pushed Cuba policy to the back burner and the Florida issue remains a stumbling block in terms of domestic U.S. elections, she said, describing as positive President Obama's lifting of harsh Bush era travel bans on Cuban Americans and recent considerations in Congress to change the rules governing trade and travel with Cuba.

"I think it is just a matter of time," she indicated, referring to the likelihood of lifting the embargo.

For his part, Goldberg initially insisted that Castro's motives for opening this discussion were personal rather than part of a strategic Cuban foreign policy initiative. "I think it's Fidel wanting to insert himself on the international stage a little bit," he said.

Goldberg revisited Castro's original remarks to him on anti-Semitism. In the original interview Castro said Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism from some quarters, especially in the Iranian government, were an anathema and especially harmful to pursuing peace.

To reporters, Goldberg said, "I have no way of judging this for sure, I can't look into a man's heart, but I think that the idea of Holocaust denial in particular seems to genuinely offend him, as it should offend any sane moral person. And I think he had a very specific strong feeling to what Ahmadinejad has been saying."

Goldberg described his experience with Castro as "very spontaneous."

"In other words," he added, "I don't think this was a Foreign Ministry derived plan."

"Fidel's Fidel," Goldberg explained. "It's good to be in essence the retired king, and I think a lot of it has been spontaneous. I have no doubt that the Council of State, the Foreign Ministry, and various other people would like to harness his new energy ... in ways they thought were productive."

"He wants to talk about Iran one day, and go to the Aquarium the next, and that's what he's going to do," Goldberg insisted.

Sweig took a different tack and suggested Fidel's actions may not be an official act but were by no means "in contradiction" to Raul Castro's agenda.

When pressed further on whether or not the trip and the comments may have originated as an unofficial signal in favor of resetting U.S.-Cuba relations, Goldberg backed away a bit.

"It is very hard to see the deliberateness of what we experienced when we were there. It might be true that there might be a deliberateness, or that, that Fidel certainly didn't do what he did and say what he said without Raul's knowledge and approval. Those things are all possibilities. We have no way of discerning that."

"Functionally," Goldberg went on, "I would have to say yes, some of the things he is doing could set the stage for a slightly different relationship between the U.S. and Cuba."

Sweig agreed, but emphasized that changes in U.S. policy toward Cuba will happen only after domestic political dynamics within the U.S. change in favor of opening friendlier relations with the island country.

Photo: Fidel Castro, left, stands with U.S. journalist of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, second from right, and Cuban Jewish Community President Adela Dworin, third from right, at the National Aquarium in Havana, Cuba, Aug. 30. (Estudios Revolucion, Cubadebate)

World Notes: France, UK, DR Congo, Iraq, China, Cuba

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 08:31:00 +0000

France: Roma deportations are condemned

"Socialists, liberals, ecologists, and communists," provided a 337 to 245 majority enabling the European Parliament on September 9, according to AFP news, to pass a non-binding resolution calling upon France to stop expulsions of Roma people to countries of origin, mainly Bulgaria and Romania. Roma people make up ten percent of the population of Romania, the EU's second poorest country. France Immigration Minister Eric Besson rejected the entreaty, claiming the legislative body had violated EU regulations. Italy is also planning decrees leading to massive deportations. Observers cited by the Financial Times say French and Italian expulsions, condemned by the United Nations and the Vatican, violate an EU "directive that sets out the conditional rights of citizens to freedom of movement and residence."

United Kingdom: Full employment a distant dream

Three days before its annual assembly on September 13, the Trade Union Congress reported the loss of 1,351,000 private sector jobs since early 2008 when jobs peaked at 31 million and the recession began. Ten percent of public sector jobs will also be cut. At the job creation rate that prevailed formerly, 14 years will be required, more in some regions, to create 2.2 million private sector jobs needed to regain the former peak. The mining and quarrying sector lost 15 percent of its workers; the manufacturing sector, 12 percent; construction, 11 percent; and retail, seven percent. Quoted by the Guardian, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said, "[Government] spending cuts will condemn us to high unemployment for the foreseeable future." (See the full TUC report at www.tuc.org.uk/extras/workforcejobsSeptember2010.xls)

Democratic Republic of Congo: President bans illegal mining

On September 8, President Joseph Kabila ordered a suspension on mining in North Kivu, South Kivu and Maniema, eastern provinces where armed rebel groups have carried out massive killings and abuse of civilians. To maintain control of the region, perpetrators extract cassiterite and coltan, minerals used worldwide in the manufacture of electronic equipment, notably cell phones and computers. Rwandan Hutu rebels head the list of groups the government labels as "a kind of mafia," among them Congolese army officers, Aljazeera reported. Beginning in December 2008 the UN Security Council has repeatedly called for sanctions against armed combatants, arms trafficking, and illegal exploitation of natural resources. Fighting over a decade has killed millions in the affected region.

Iraq: Devastating toll continues in Fallujah

Anecdotal evidence suggests a health disaster in Fallujah. The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health on September 8 published a study based on family interviews demonstrating five years of increased cancer and infant mortality rates and altered gender patterns at birth. Infant mortality appears to have spiked to 80 first - year deaths per 1000 births -136 deaths in 2009 - a fourfold hike over rates in Jordan and Egypt. Male births are down 18 percent. "Alarming [cancer] rates" are "significantly higher for all malignancy [especially] leukemia, lymphoma, brain tumors and female breast cancer." The U.K. investigators suggest "some mutagenic agent at some time in the past." They ask: "Could this have been around 2004 when the fighting occurred? See the full report at http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/7/2828/pdf

China: Unions on the upswing

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) indicated recently that collective bargaining will be implemented within two years and that 90 percent of Chinese workers will be represented by "effective trade unions." An ACFTU spokesperson called for safeguards against collusion between union leaders and companies, specifically that the ACFTU rather than the government pay union chairpersons' salaries. Implementation must wait until late 2011 when, according to www.internationallawoffice.com, amendments will be attached to a new Labor Union Law. The government has taken steps to increase minimum wages and promote union recruitment. Unions have established a presence in 87 percent of the 500 top U.S. corporations operating in China. Workers have demonstrated increased militancy manifested by strikes this year against transnational corporations.

Cuba: Victim's father tells Obama to free the Five

Giustino Di Celmo wrote President Obama from Havana. The 82- year old father of Fabio Di Celmo, killed in a 1997 Havana bomb attack engineered by Luis Posada, demanded that Obama release the five Cuban anti-terrorist prisoners held in U.S. jails. Di Celmo addressed Obama "as a man," according to AIN news on September 9, not as president, because he represents "powerful financiers" seeking world control. The Italian citizen vows he will remain in Cuba until those responsible for Fabio's murder are tried. Speaking to Prensa Latina, Di Celmo welcomed Venezuela's deportation to Cuba in July of Francisco Chavez Abarca, one of Posada's fellow plotters in the bomb attacks 13 years ago. Posada lives under U.S. government protection in Miami.

Photo: Logo for the five anti-terrorist Cuban political prisoners, known as the Cuban Five. (CC)

Fidel is back!

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:02:00 +0000

On September 3 as drizzle gave way to early morning sun, ex- President Fidel Castro, "Commander of the Cuban Revolution," discussed the threat of worldwide war. His mostly student audience heard him speaking from the top of stairs leading to the University of Havana where Castro himself enrolled 65 years ago on September 4, 1945.

Castro had not spoken publically for four years, except for remarks August 7 before the National Assembly. Receiving the occasional visitor, Castro remained in seclusion following his illness and leaving the presidency in July 2006. From March 28, 2007 on, however, he has written 346 "Reflections of Fidel." for Cuba's press and for worldwide Internet dissemination. Two months ago he began reappearing in public.

This time, Castro, dressed in olive green military attire, marshaled evidence pointing to imminent threat to human survival. Prensa Latina reported on his "unleashing the battle for life, against war and for peace, against imperial designs and for ideals of generosity and solidarity and above all, for protecting humankind from a nuclear catastrophe with unforeseen consequences."

Elaborating on a theme he's pursued in writing over three months, Castro warned of conflict between Iran, intent upon developing nuclear power capabilities, and nations headed by the United States that on June 9 induced the UN Security Council to pass a resolution requiring Iran to curtail uranium enrichment and reprocessing. Sanctions would take effect once the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency signals Iranian noncompliance, on September 9 or later. Castro predicted searches of ships carrying banned materials would provoke Iran into blocking the Strait of Hormuz thereby choking off 45 percent of the world's oil supply. Israeli bombing raids against Iranian nuclear facilities might follow.

"Iranian capabilities of conventional [military] response would provoke a ferocious war, Castro asserted, "whose control would escape from the hands of the warring parties, a situation that would turn inexorably into a global nuclear conflict." The time is short, he warned: "I am forced, modestly, to reveal to an unsuspecting world the terrible dangers that threaten human life on our planet."

Castro quoted from technical experts, news reports, government communiqués, and a "citizen of Our America" commenting on the CubaDebate web site. The latter observed: "We need to live in peace and security on a planet that each day becomes less habitable...Nuclear arms must disappear, no country ought to possess them, atomic energy must be used for what is good. The only true victory is in winning peace."

The electronic correspondent cited the twin challenges of world peace - "no violence against any human being, country or nation" - and of climate change; "We can not turn our back on nature." Kyoto signifies hope, he wrote.

Castro quoted, "We must eliminate all that which makes man [and women] see the other as his or her enemy. Without any possibility of error I say peace will be achieved with peace, and if you want peace, prepare to change your consciousness."

Castro himself concluded that, "This reality is deliberately hidden from the world and the hard task of warning humankind of real danger falls upon Cuba." He confessed to amazement that "a tiny country like Cuba sees itself obliged to carry the weight of struggle against those that have globalized and subjected the world to inconceivable plunder and has imposed a system that today threatens the very survival of humankind."

Earlier Castro had recounted Spanish soldiers' slaughter of university students on the steps from which he spoke. He recalled colonizers' "brute force" manifested during the independence wars and lamented U. S. "plundering of our people." We are here today, he explained, because "the revolution put an end to these horrors."

He praised today's students as "incomparably more cultured, freer, and more conscious" than his own student contemporaries. He commended "the moral support you are offering in this struggle for peace" "Victory is possible!" he declared. Afterwards, students speaking to a reporter welcomed inclusion in the struggle, admired his passion, and were gratified at his speaking to them.

The episode elicited recall by the present writer of picking up a New York Times in 1957 reverberating with the headline, "Castro is still alive and still fighting in the mountains." Reporter Herbert Matthews had trekked into the Sierra Maestra mountains, interviewed Castro (advertised as dead by the Batista dictatorship), and fashioned a three-part series on an insurgency capturing the imagination of young people all over. His story began with words fit for recycling: "Fidel Castro, the rebel leader of Cuba's youth, is alive and fighting hard..."

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peamasher/383511007/sizes/o/

French support union strike vs. Sarkozy’s pension plan

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:14:00 +0000

PARIS (l'Humanité) -- A majority of French people (70%) approve of the Sept. 7 trade union day of mobilization against the bill on retirement, according to an IFOP opinion poll done for Dimanche Ouest-France newspaper.

The slim majority that considers it "acceptable" to raise the legal retirement age from 60 to 62, the key measure in the reform, declined further in September (53% as against 58% in June).

Questioned on the progressive raising of the legal retirement age to 62 by 2018 desired by the government, 53% said it was "totally acceptable" or "acceptable enough," compared with 47% who described it as "totally unacceptable" or "rather unacceptable."

The proportion of those who consider it "totally unacceptable" has risen to 30%, a 7-percent gain since last June. On the other hand, the proportion saying it is "totally acceptable" has fallen by 7 percent, to 21%

The opinion poll indicates there are big differences on the bill to raise the retirement age depending on the age of the person questioned. A majority of those aged 25-34 (52% say it is unacceptable), and those aged 35-49 (53%) oppose the bill.

In addition, a very large majority of French people (70%) approve of the September 7 strikes and demonstrations against the retirement reform, an approval that is highest among those aged 18-24 (87%), white-collar workers (82%) and blue-collar workers (79%).

When the same question was asked regarding the strikes and demonstrations against the retirement reform in May, 2008, 43% of the French people thought the day of action was justified, the opinion poll points out.

This is a "contradictory and evenly split picture: The French think the government project is necessary and courageous, but unfair, and a majority backs the movement that opposes it," Jérôme Fourquet of IFOP commented.

While a very high proportion of those questioned agree that the government "is not very open to dialogue" (69%), "rather unfair in its choices" (67%) and "not attentive enough to questions linked to the difficulty of certain jobs" (62%), a smaller majority recognizes that it is "courageous in its choices (53%) and "determined to maintain the French contributory pension scheme" (57%).

According to 70% of those polled, the government is "acting responsibly with respect to coming generations."

Finally, 76% of workers polled find that the government is "rather inattentive to questions involving the hardship involved in certain types of work."

This poll was taken by the IFOP by telephone on 2-3 September, with a sampling of 957 persons, representative of the French population aged 18 or over, using a method of quotas.

Photo: Commuters are seen in a crowded train of the Paris subway, Sept. 7. French unions launched a major strike Tuesday over unpopular conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, with walkouts. (Thibault Camus/AP)

Solving the problem of Cuban agriculture

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 20:54:00 +0000

Revolutionary Cuba, no stranger to big problems, now faces another major challenge. Introducing major economic reforms in June 2008, President Raul Castro centered his government's proposals on changing agriculture. The results are anemic so far, reports Rebel Youth (Juventud Rebelde) correspondent Ricardo Ronquillo Bello.

Agricultural production fell 7.5 percent during the first half of 2010 compared to the first six months of 2009. Cuba's sugar harvest was the lowest since 1905. Of 4.2 million acres of idle state land offered to individuals and cooperatives for long term private use - the centerpiece of Castro's proposed reforms - only 2.5 million acres have been transferred, of which 46 percent are not yet in production.

The necessity for reform stemmed from arable land lying idle, 50 percent of the total, and the burden, which continues, of importing 80 percent of food consumed in Cuba. Annual food import costs approach $2.4 billion. Fallow land resulted largely from the government's 2002 decision to downgrade the sugar industry.

Agricultural ministers have been replaced and food imports reduced. Food purchases in the United States fell from $710 million in 2008, to $528 million in 2009 and to $220 million during the first half of 2010.

Half the land put into new production is dedicated to cattle raising, 27 percent to food crops, and 7.7 percent to rice production. Removal of the tenacious marabu plant from fallow lands has proved time consuming. Transportation resources, seeds, credit, and technical advice are only available irregularly, despite efforts to remove bureaucratic impediments. Private farmers occupying 41 percent of Cuba's arable land account now for 70 percent of the island's domestic food production.

News reports suggest that hundreds of thousands of state workers programmed to lose jobs in the coming years will be directed toward agricultural work. Half of those taking over newly available lands are under 35 years of age.

Agriculture looms large in Cuba, even though 80 percent of the 11.3 million Cubans live in cities. But with expanded urban agriculture, farm workers and family members number four million. Twenty years ago, agriculture - the sugar industry included - provided 83 percent of Cuba's export income. That figure is down now to 15 percent. In 2008 agriculture accounted for 20 percent of the island's GDP.

The residue of a tormented past, including colonial dependency, slavery, and dependence upon monoculture exports, still impinge upon reform efforts. The present attempts follow struggle beginning 20 years ago to overcome disaster caused by the Soviet Union's collapse when imports and GDP fell 80 percent and 35 percent respectively. Agriculture wilted for ten years. Organic farming, urban and sub-urban food production, release of state land to cooperatives, and institution of private farmer markets led to partial restoration

New difficulties include continuing drought and hurricanes in 2008 that destroyed farming infrastructure and wrought damage costing $10 billion. Reduced prices for nickel exports, diminishing yield from tourism, and falling remittances from Cubans living abroad have hit state and personal incomes. The U.S. economic blockade limits access to credit and hampers food sales to Cuba. Foreign vendors, many tied to U.S. corporations and subjected thereby to blockade restrictions, hold back on sales of new agricultural technologies, machinery, replacement parts, tools, and manufactured animal feed. Oxen, used as draft animals during the 1990's, are returning now to Cuban farms.

Other nations besides Cuba have wrestled with agriculture. Tension often prevails between proponents of industrialized agriculture and advocates of small, often family- operated farms over issues of efficiency, profitability, and cultural and ethical values. In socialist countries, planning and implementation must encompass equitable food distribution and agriculture's contribution to the larger national economy.

There is the cautionary tale of the Soviet Union whose last president noted that food production was "the most serious problem facing our nation today." Soon thereafter U. S. economist Joseph Medley suggested, however, that legitimate criticism, "tells us nothing of the magnitude of the goals set, nor of the results achieved.

Paraphrasing U.S. writer and farmer Wendell Berry, Ronquillo Bello concludes: "No matter that our lives are so urban, our bodies live because of agriculture. We come from the land and will return there ... We exist through farming as much as we exist in our own bodies." "Our country [too] comes from the land," he explains. "We have to exist from agriculture as much as we exist in our own bodies."

German pol conducts anti-Muslim campaign

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:36:00 +0000

BERLIN -- The "mosque menace" is not confined to lower Manhattan or the United States. In many European countries similar alarms are sounded.

Although, according to Sarkozy in France, Berlusconi in Italy and the militarized neo-fascist Jobbik party in Hungary, the danger is more from the Roma people (also called Gypsies), more often than not it's Muslims who are targeted as a "menacing threat."
Switzerland had its referendum against minarets, bleached-blond rabble-rouser; Wilders won third place for his "Hate Islam" party in the Netherlands; now bar-room battlers in Germany are being called to struggle against the Turks and any or all of their Islamic fellow-religionists.

The best-known crusader for Germanic purity at the moment is Thilo Sarrazin, no typical rabble-rouser but a finely dressed, proper looking Prussian-type banker, with bristly mustache and a slightly drooping right eye. To the embarrassment of some of its leaders he has long been a member of the Social Democratic Party, and for years was minister of Finance in the city-state of Berlin.

In those days, his righteous anger was not focused against immigrant groups but against "lower castes" in general, and he wielded sharp scissors against social programs. Since Berlin has been heavily in debt for years, this was long accepted as unpleasant necessity. His notoriety began with comments that the jobless should be satisfied with the dole money they got, or even less; a sausage and some sauerkraut made a good, inexpensive dinner, he pointed out, and as for heating, he found "...people should consider whether they can't get along at home quite sensibly with 15-16 degrees (c. 60 degrees Fahrenheit) by putting on a heavy sweater."

He insisted that pensions should really be cut not raised, and people should take care of pension problems privately, with as little government aid as possible.

As for families he inquired: "How can I arrange things so that only those people get children who can manage with them. Some women get two, three or more children even though they lack the where-with-all" or the "personal characteristics" to see to their education. That means that the social system must be altered "so people are not able to improve their standard of living simply by having children, as is the case today."

All too gradually, Sarrazin became impossible as a Social Democratic minister in a city-state government, especially when the Left Party joined to form a coalition. Therefore he was kicked upstairs into an extremely remunerative job on the top floor of the Federal Bank, a cousin of the American Federal Reserve bank. Before leaving, he fired off a final salvo indicating his new field of endeavor. In an interview targeting especially the three to four million people in Germany with a Turkish background, he asserted: "I don't have to recognize anyone who lives off this state, but rejects this state, and who doesn't properly care for the education of his children while constantly producing more little girls to wear headscarves."

Quite understandably, the Turkish population, citizens and non-citizens, of first, second or third generation, pointed out indignantly that it was they who had done much of the heavy, dirty work in rebuilding West Germany, often at low pay, and who now, in countless cases, were moving into a wide variety of trades and professions. The fact that all too many were still caught in semi-slums, received only second or third class education and were rejected when job hunting, with all the consequences, was not completely their fault. And many were making real contributions to society.

But Sarrazin stepped up his attacks: "The Turks are conquering Germany, just like the Kosovars conquered Kosovo, with a higher birthrate."

He extended his attacks to the many more recent Arab immigrants: "Since Arab boys can't make out with their Arab girls they use easier-to-get lower-class German girls whom they then despise for being so easy to make out with."

At the same time he attacked Turkish men for not marrying in Germany but instead importing "illiterate Turkish women." He insisted that Muslims were less intelligent, and their increase a threat to the general intelligence level in Germany. All of this clearly aimed at building on and increasing existing prejudices and getting groups to look down upon or hate each other.

The unions opposed him, his Social Democratic Party also picked up the criticisms, though an attempt to expel him from his Berlin party group was unsuccessful. His new institution, the Federal Bank, cautiously criticized him for engaging in political statements which had nothing to do with banking, but kept him on in his high managerial position.

Now Sarrazin has published a book, "Deutschland schafft sich ab" (Germany Does Away with Itself), which warns in dire terms that unless German women hurry up and have more children, the country will be overrun and ruled by Muslims in a number of decades. He claims that there are such things as Jewish genes, which he praises, and Turkish genes, which are responsible for the lower intelligence rates. Most leaders of the Jewish Congregation objected to any such references to "Jewish genes" and were highly critical, but some members joined in attacks against the Muslims.

The book was publicized in the entire media with talk shows, reprints, debates. Some, as in the Springer press (similar to Murdoch's media empire), were highly appreciative and reprinted long excerpts, others were highly critical. But the result was that the first edition sold out immediately.

The Social Democratic Party is still thinking over what to do about him (while one of its most prominent "wise men", former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, expressed barely-disguised affirmation: "If he had expressed himself a little less crudely I could have agreed with much of what he said.")

Therein lay the true danger connected with Thilo Sarrazin: Not in any imagined Muslim rule some day, a totally ridiculous idea when confronted by the facts, but rather that so very many Germans have been infected by the bacteria of nationalism and xenophobia, fearing or hating anything new or strange to them. Such feelings, all too common all over Europe, but have an especially sinister tradition in Germany, especially in times of eonomic depression, which can occur or re-occur almost anytime.

Seventy years ago the menace was supposedly the "Jewish danger". Now it's Muslims.

Two very different reactions should not be overlooked. Gesine Lötzsch, co-president of the Left party, insisted that a man with such views was "intolerable in such a public position." The same party's delegate in the Bundestag, Sevim Dagdelen, herself from an immigrant background, denounced Sarrazin's "racist tirades."

"It is unacceptable that a managing member of the Federal Bank spreads such poison which splits society," she said and called on the Social Democrats to "do something at last and expel Sarrazin from their party" while comparing his views with those of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party.

Sure enough, the neo-Nazi Internet bloggers were quick to voice support for Sarrazin. With an anti-Muslim group called PRO Berlin making plans to enter next year's elections in the capital city, and with growing ties between racist, anti-Muslim groups in many countries, the call for opposition to Thilo Sarrazin and his propaganda gained dramatic urgency.

Photo: A mosque in Rhein-Neckar-Kreis, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany ( Martin Haesemeyer/CC)

Immigrant bashing in France

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:05:00 +0000

What do France's right wing President Nicolas Sarkozy and Arizona's Republican governor Janet Brewer have in common? They both think they have found a "novel" solution to falling poll numbers: Go after the dark skinned outsiders.

In Sarkozy's case, his government is battling corruption scandals that sharply reduced his polling numbers. The next election is not until 2012, but Sarkozy and his right wing UMP (Union for a Popular Mobilization) party are taking no chances.

Sarkozy is the son of a Hungarian nobleman whose estates were confiscated under socialism and woman whose originally Sephardic family came from Thessaloniki, Greece. He associates himself with a French right wing which, since the Dreyfus scandal of a century ago, has been notably prone to extreme cultural nationalism and disdain for foreign influences. For demagogic electoral purposes, he seems to want to project himself as the most French of all.

Sarkozy has distinguished himself by his insulting statements about youth of African and Middle Eastern origin. Starting in July, he went after a new target: Itinerant foreign born Roma people (sometimes still called Gypsies).

Today, there are between a half million and a million and a half Roma in France, most of them settled down. But a minority still travels around in caravans and lives on the margins. These include a few thousand who moved to France from Eastern Europe after the collapse of socialism.

It would not be honest to say that the Roma had no grievances under the socialist governments. But after the collapse, virulent anti-Roma prejudices gained ground, leading to violent attacks. This has led to emigration, which in turn has been met with bigotry in Western European countries such as France. These more visibly foreign Roma, who for want of other possibilities end up living in shabby illegal camps, are frequently scapegoated by local political demagogues.

On July 28, after a couple of incidents between police and Roma, Sarkozy and his Minister of the Interior Brice Hortefeux began a series of raids on Roma camps, continuing, with more fanfare, an existing policy of eliminating illegal camps and rounding up foreign born Roma for deportation. So far this year 8,313 Roma have been deported, mainly to Romania and Bulgaria.

Sarkozy may be violating the rules of the European Union on the right of people of one Union country to travel to another, and Roma deported under this program can probably simply and legally return to France. This raises suspicions that all this is being done for the TV cameras.

Sarkozy has now upped the ante by threatening to institute a policy whereby the French born children of immigrants may be stripped of their citizenship if they commit serious crimes. This too will be difficult to implement, but if the purpose is to consolidate the nationalistic and populist right behind Sarkozy and the UMP, it does not matter. In the U.S., Republican politicians are doing the same with the plan to strip U.S. born children of undocumented immigrants of their citizenship. That's probably not going to happen either, but it plays well with the base.

The Romanian and Bulgarian governments have objected. To the Romanians, France pointed out correctly that their recent governments have done little to provide for their own large and needy Roma populations, according to an article by Steve Castle in the New York Times.

The European Commission is investigating the matter.

Within France, the crudity of the Sarkozy-Hortefeux policy led to protests by the Roman Catholic Church, civil and immigrants' rights organizations, most of the left and even some people in Sarkozy's own government.

The French Communist Party (PCF) denounced Sarkozy's anti-Roma campaign.

"The Roma are European citizens since 2007. These are rights which have to be respected..... Their sanitary and social situation can't be regularized by means of a "coup" of spectacular expulsions, of dismantling of camps for the benefit of the evening TV news programs. These practices [belonging to] another era have to stop.

"The situation of the Roma is well known. Chased from town to town, from country to country, they are weakened, made vulnerable, and .... the target of all sorts of trafficking. The degree of civilization of a society is measured by its treatment of its weakest members." The statement calls for France and Europe to stop this mistreatment, and to provide Roma, rather, with means to become settled with full access to all rights and services.

World Notes: India, Iraq, Kenya, Spain, Venezuela, Cuba

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:05:00 +0000

India: David beats Goliath

In rejecting Vedanta Corporation plans to extract bauxite from the Niyamgiri Hills in Orissa state, an environmental ministry spokesperson on August 24 cited ecosystem threats and disregard for tribal rights. For the Dongria Kondh people, 8,000 in all, the proposed mine site is sacred. Church and human rights groups worldwide, plus the Norwegian and British governments, had opposed the project of Vedanta owner Anil Agarwal, allegedly worth $ 6 billion. According to Survival International director Stephen Corry, "Companies simply cannot be trusted voluntarily to abide by human rights standards." The Financial Times suggested that approval for a Vedanta offshore oil project is now uncertain, and that the government took the action to blunt the appeal to tribal groups of Maoist guerrillas who are trying to make inroads into areas burdened by large industrial projects.

Iraq: Government intensifies union repression

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka last month communicated to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki his rejection of a government ban on unionization in the state owned electrical industry, accompanied by closure of union offices and seizure of assets. Officials also threatened to arrest oil union leaders, while transferring officers to distant worksites and removing unions from oil fields, ports and refineries. Analyst David Bacon writing on Truthout.org quotes a U.S. embassy official: "We hope that everybody resolves their differences in an amicable way." Bacon indicates that U.S. soldiers and private contractors will remain in the oil-rich Basra area to protect "labor peace" and provide security. He likens the current trials of Iraqi unionists to anti-labor assaults taken under the British, royal, and Saddam Hussein governments.

Kenya: Controversy over guest dampens celebration

President Mwai Kibaki described Kenya's new constitution, which he signed on August 27, as the greatest day since independence in 1963. Festivities were marred, however, by the presence of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with crimes against humanity. Some observers, represented by Prime Minister Raila Odinga, suggested Kenya should have arrested Bashir, or not have invited him. Others like Foreign Ministry official Richard Onyonka maintained that to avoid perceptions of partiality the government invited both Bashir and his adversary, Southern Sudan President Salva Kiir. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who mediated Kenya's 2008 post-election conflict, urged the government to "clarify its position" and reaffirm commitment to the ICC.

Spain: Workers take brunt in government cutbacks

Senate committee approval August 25 of the Socialist Party's labor reform package, modified to fit demands of the rightist Popular Party and certain to be passed by Congress, met union hostility as labor federations prepared for a September 29 general strike. A spokesperson cited by rebelion.org predicted the "anti-social and anti-union" measures would lead to "indiscriminate firings" of workers, reduced unemployment subsidies, and shortened temporary labor contracts. Workers' rights "have never been so systematically eliminated in a single legislative act." Quoted on www.lne.es, Economics Minister Elena Salgado indicated that to comply with EU mandates, the public debt will be reduced 6 percent, taxes will be raised, government expenses cut by 16 percent next year, pensions reduced, and the retirement age delayed.

Venezuela: Education on fast track

In a recent public discussion of UNESCO's 2010 update of its Education for All program, Minister of University Education Edgardo Ramírez predicted Venezuela will surpass the UN's Millennium Development Goals on education long before the 2015 deadline. Data over 10 years indicate the country is about to reach all six Education for All objectives. Specifically, 1.5 million children attend pre-school; 4 million are in primary schools, and adult literacy is 95 percent. That almost half of the 28 million Venezuelans attend schools manifests commitment to lifelong learning. The two remaining objectives, equality between the sexes and high quality schooling, are close to realization. "Socialism signifies inclusion and quality education with social relevance," Ramirez said, quoted by vtv.gob.ve.

Cuba: Foreign companies begin offshore oil exploration

The state oil company Cubapetroleo indicated recently that by late 2011 seven exploration wells will have been established in Cuban waters by several international companies. The fact that a Spanish oil company has had to hire an Italian corporation to build an oil rig in China to be ferried later to Cuba - all to avoid U.S.-imposed restrictions on use of its technology - testifies, according to the Reuters report, to the momentous impact of the U.S. blockade on Cuba's oil venture. In Washington, blockade supporters desirous of tightening present restrictions are facing off against congresspersons working to liberalize regulations and open up Cuban oil exploration to U.S. corporations. Russian and Chinese companies are presently negotiating for oil development opportunities.

Photo: Oil field in Guanabo, along Cuba's north coast. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hisgett/3196068587/ cc 2.0