>that violated every treaty with Native people and the
>Pentagon's actions against Iraq and Yugoslavia.
>
>After holding the bridge throughout the rally, demonstrators
>then adjourned to a traditional Native feast in Fort Erie,
>Ontario.
>
>The demonstration was organized by the Native American
>Warriors, Workers World Party, Food Not Bombs, Concerned
>Citizens Against Police Abuse, the WNY Coalition for Global
>Economic Justice, Brock University's Free Mumia Committee
>and the Canadian Auto Workers, Local 199.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <004801bf77b7$d9de7aa0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Native delegation from U.S. arrives in Havana
>Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 08:23:29 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Feb. 17, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>NATIVE DELEGATION FROM U.S. ARRIVES IN HAVANA
>
>Special to Workers World
>San Francisco
>
>The first-ever Native-Cuba Cultural Exchange arrived in
>Havana on Feb. 5.
>
>The project was initiated by the International Peace for
>Cuba Appeal. The delegation is led by Native leader Dennis
>Banks and includes representatives and activists from many
>Native nations from around the country, many of them dancers
>and drummers.
>
>The trip is the realization of an invitation made by
>President Fidel Castro to Dennis Banks in 1993. Banks--along
>with former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, African
>American author Alice Walker and others--had been delivering
>$2 million worth of insulin to the Cuban people.
>
>This trip will focus on Native culture and history, both
>in the U.S. and Cuba. Features of the trip will include a
>shared performance with the National Folkloric Dance Group,
>visits to historical sites in Mantanzas and Pinar del Rio
>associated with the Native peoples of Cuba, meetings at the
>University of Ministries of Culture and Justice, and visits
>to schools, daycare centers and Committees in Defense of the
>Revolution.
>
>The delegation will also deliver several thousand dollars
>worth of medicines and dental supplies.
>
>The delegation left for Cuba after a grand send-off
>celebration in San Francisco with Native dancing and
>drumming, speakers and music from well-known activist Floyd
>Red Crow Westerman. The send-off was attended by 150 people
>and raised over $1,500 for the trip.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <004e01bf77b7$ef1b7da0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Media silence cloaks U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine
>Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 08:24:05 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Feb. 17, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>MEDIA SILENCE CLOAKS U.S.-BACKED COUP IN UKRAINE
>
>By Bill Wayland
>
>Washington is deeply involved in a full-scale coup d'etat
>in the second-biggest former Soviet republic.
>
>It is part of a dangerous plan to expand NATO deep into
>the former Soviet Union. But not a word of these events has
>appeared in any major U.S. news outlet.
>
>Early in the morning of Feb. 8, right-wing deputies and
>state-security forces seized the main hall of the parliament
>(Verkhovnye Rada) as armed police commandos surrounded the
>building. Opposition deputies, led by Progressive Socialist
>Party leader Natalia Vitrenko, resisted the takeover but
>were overwhelmed. Vitrenko is now on hunger strike.
>
>The struggle began Jan. 21 when deputies loyal to U.S.-
>backed President Leonid Kuchma illegally constituted
>themselves a new parliament. They voted to remove elected
>parliament Speaker Oleksandr Tkachenko, who had charged
>Kuchma with falsifying the results of last year's
>presidential election.
>
>Tkachenko was evicted from his office Feb. 3.
>
>KUCHMA MET WITH GORE
>
>Before organizing the coup in the Rada, Kuchma met
>privately with U.S. Vice President Al Gore in Washington.
>Lest anyone doubt Washington's role, U.S. Gen. Wesley Clark
>was expected in Kiev, Ukraine's capital, on Feb. 8, the day
>the parliament was seized.
>
>Clark, the commander of U.S. forces in Europe, directed
>the terror bombing of Yugoslavia last spring. He also
>ordered British Gen. Michael Jackson to attack Russian
>troops at Pristina airport in Kosovo last June. Jackson
>refused, saying, "I'm not going to start World War III for
>you."
>
>What's at stake for the U.S. ruling class in all this?
>
>The opposition legislators from the Communist, Socialist,
>Progressive Socialist, Peasant and Slavic parties all oppose
>Kuchma's plan to bring Ukraine into NATO. They have also
>blocked Kuchma's budget, which was designed to please U.S.
>banks and the International Monetary Fund. It calls for
>major price increases for food, gas, heat and electricity on
>a schedule dictated by the IMF.
>
>It also orders privatization of land--overwhelmingly
>opposed by Ukraine's farmers--and further shutdowns of
>Ukrainian industry. The PSP's Vitrenko and Communist Party
>leader Petro Symonenko want Ukraine to leave the IMF.
>
>A Feb. 4 report on the CIA-linked Radio Liberty beamed to
>East Europe threatened: "Whether the parliament is
>controlled by the pro-reformers or leftists is of vital
>importance for Ukraine, which must pay $3 billion in
>interest on debt this year. The country has to convince its
>creditors, principally the IMF, that it is serious about
>economic reform if it hopes to get more loans to avoid a
>financial meltdown. The budget for this year, prepared by
>Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko, has the necessary elements
>to please the IMF but stands no chance of being approved by
>the leftists."
>
>The report didn't mention that any new loans would go to
>pay interest on old loans. Nor did it say that Yuschenko was
>appointed by Kuchma on Al Gore's recommendation.
>
>Kuchma himself was re-elected president in November in a
>campaign marked by vote buying, ballot-box stuffing and
>terrorist attacks on his opponents. In one such attack,
>Natalia Vitrenko was wounded by a hand grenade.
>
>Since the fall of the Soviet Union, IMF-imposed budget
>cuts have shut down major industries across Ukraine, causing
>widespread hunger, especially in the Donbass coal-mining
>region. The republic's population has dropped from 52
>million to less than 50 million in less than two years.
>
>Old-age pensions are under $13 a month.
>
>In Soviet times, Ukraine was considered the breadbasket of
>the USSR. A report from Ukraine in the Feb. 24 New York
>Review of Books says most people there feel "it is a great
>misfortune that the Soviet Union no longer exists."
>
>TALBOTT ENCOURAGES RIGHT-WING IN BELARUS
>
>The coup in Ukraine coincides with other bellicose moves
>by the United States in Eastern Europe. On Feb. 3, three
>opponents of Belarus President Aleksander Luka shenko met
>with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott in
>Washington.
>
>A Reuter dispatch reported ominously: "The United States
>has poor relations with Belarus, which it sees as the least
>reformed of the newly independent states to emerge after the
>collapse of the Soviet Union. Talbott encouraged the three
>Belarussians to continue working with the international
>community for an independent and democratic Belarus, the
>State Department said."
>
>Ukrainian opposition leaders have warned that a NATO
>Ukraine would become a base for war against Belarus. Such a
>confrontation would inevitably involve Russia as well.
>
>A leaflet distributed in the United States by the
>International Action Center said, "The U.S.-backed
>presidential coup in Ukraine is of a piece with the bloody
>war against Yugoslavia and the occupation of Kosovo."
>
>It is part of NATO's drive to the east, a dangerous step
>toward a new and larger war.
>
>The corporate media's curtain of silence about events in
>Ukraine must be seen as complicity in this criminal plan.
>
>"We must not allow another Chile in Ukraine, with Kuchma
>as Pinochet," said the IAC. "The democratic forces in
>Ukraine are fighting the same forces of corporate tyranny
>that workers and students were fighting last year in
>Seattle. They urgently need the support and solidarity of
>labor, anti-war and pro-justice forces here and around the
>world."
>
>[This article is based on telephone and fax communication
>with deputies inside the Rada in Kiev, articles from the
>Ukrainian press and information provided by International
>Action Center representatives who have just returned from
>Ukraine. The only U.S. establishment media source known to
>have mentioned these events is the U.S. government-backed
>Radio Liberty, which broadcasts to the former Soviet Union.]
>
>
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <005401bf77b8$072fbc80$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] U.S. in the Gulf: Return of the pirates
>Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 08:24:45 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Feb. 17, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>U.S. SEIZES RUSSIAN OIL TANKER IN THE GULF:
>RETURN OF THE PIRATES
>
>By Brian Becker and Sarah Sloan
>
>Just imagine this scenario 15 years ago:
>
>Masked U.S. commandos, armed with machine guns, descending
>down rope ladders from attack helicopters and seizing
>control of a Soviet vessel on the high seas. Such a scene
>was the thing for movie buffs, James Bond techno-spy flicks
>and Tom Clancy novels.
>
>Fifteen years ago, the Pentagon would be well aware that
>boarding and seizing a Soviet vessel on the high seas could
>lead to a major world confrontation. The Soviet Union, under
>the leadership of the Communist Party, would likely have put
>the country onto a military alert, even possibly a nuclear
>alert, in response to such a U.S. provocation.
>
>But the Soviet Union has collapsed. The socialist
>government has been replaced by a U.S.-supported regime of
>bankers and emerging capitalists. Today, Russia has been
>reduced to semi-colonial status. The images once relegated
>to fantasy spy movies have become the reality.
>
>On Feb. 2, of this year U.S. SEAL commandos seized control
>of a Russian oil tanker in the Persian/Arabian Gulf. These
>commandos came from the guided missile cruiser USS Monterey.
>
>The machine-gun-toting masked U.S. commandos did indeed
>drop from rope ladders onto the deck of the Volga-Neft-147.
>
>The U.S. Navy commandeered the vessel to a port in Oman.
>Under instructions from Washington the Navy is draining the
>tanker of its 4,000 tons of oil and other refined petroleum
>products.
>
>This now-pirated oil will be sold and the revenues will be
>used, according to U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen, to
>pay for the costs of U.S. Navy and Air Force surveillance in
>the Persian/Arabian Gulf.
>
>What possible legal justification do U.S. officials invoke
>to seize Russian ships? They assert that the Russian tanker
>was being used to transport oil from Iraq.
>
>"The president made very clear we're going to vigorously
>enforce the sanctions [against Iraq]," said David Leavy,
>spokesperson for the White House National Security Council.
>"It is a top priority to us to continue to deny smuggling
>opportunities to the Iraqi regime."
>
>According to U.S. officials, the U.S. Navy stopped at
>least five ships from other countries from carrying cargo to
>Iraq. Since the U.S. and British governments forced the
>United Nations to impose economic sanctions on Iraq a decade
>ago, the Pentagon and British naval forces have boarded over
>12,000 ships from other countries that were passing through
>the Persian/Arabian Gulf.
>
>U.S. imperialism has reverted to using economic sanctions
>as a weapon of choice against developing countries that do
>not follow the political and economic dictates of the
>Washington and Wall Street establishment. Iraq is just one
>of many countries that have been subjected to this form of
>economic warfare.
>
>The human consequences of sanctions are staggering.
>According to the United Nations' own statistics, more than a
>million Iraqis have perished from disease, malnutrition and
>hunger-related illnesses since sanctions were imposed in
>1990.
>
>Sanctions could not be maintained without the presence of
>U.S. and British military forces. U.S. taxpayers cough up
>$50 billion per year to finance the military operations in
>the Persian/Arabian Gulf alone. Tens of thousands of U.S.
>troops, warships, carrier groups and military aircraft are
>stationed in the Gulf to enforce sanctions.
>
>The strategy of economic sanctions has existed for many
>years. Cuba, for instance, has been sanctioned with an
>economic blockade since 1961.
>
>But as long as the Soviet Union and the socialist
>governments existed as a global economic and military bloc,
>they could soften the impact of sanctions. If imperialism
>cut off trade and commerce, there was another economic
>system with which to trade and from which aid and assistance
>could be received.
>
>Cuba, again, is a good example of how the impact of
>imperialist economic sanctions was offset. In spite of the
>U.S. blockade, Cuba's socialist government was able to
>provide the working class with a relatively affluent (by
>Latin American standards) quality of life. Workers were
>guaranteed a job. Housing was affordable. Health care and
>child care were universal and free. Cuba was isolated from
>the United States but integrated into the global socialist
>economic bloc.
>
>SANCTIONS AND THE GLOBAL CLASS WAR
>
>During the years between World War II and 1990, more than
>two-fifths of the world's population lived in countries that
>had socialist governments. These countries were admittedly
>poorer than the handful of imperialist countries like the
>United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. In
>fact, they were using the methods of socialist planning to
>try to catch up with the advanced capitalist countries.
>
>In spite of its economic backwardness, not to mention its
>political problems, the existence of a socialist camp
>provided breathing space for all the developing countries.
>Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, Iran, Syria and other countries
>in the Middle East had extensive diplomatic, economic and
>military relationships with the USSR and the other socialist
>governments.
>
>Today, Each of these countries--and others not only in the
>Middle East but throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and
>Eastern Europe--can be isolated by imperialism and subjected
>to economic strangulation coupled with CIA subversion and
>military attacks.
>
>The existence of the socialist camp, led by the USSR,
>provided a global shield under which colonized peoples could
>more successfully struggle for national independence and
>begin the process of economic development.
>
>How ironic it is that the bourgeois Russian government of
>Vladimir Putin, which wants to demonstrate its "toughness"
>against Chechen guerrillas, has answered the U.S. seizure of
>the Russian oil tanker with only a verbal protest.
>
>Having embarked on its campaign to be integrated into the
>world capitalist economy, with its attendant IMF and World
>Bank loans, the Russian bourgeoisie is prostrate before the
>piracy of U.S. imperialism.
>
>Workers and young people in the United States must build a
>movement against U.S. colonial-style domination over much of
>the earth. When the U.S. government seizes the vessels of
>other countries on the high seas, when it routinely bombs
>the Iraqi people and murders their children with economic
>sanctions, it acts only on behalf of U.S. oil monopolies and
>banks.
>
>People in the United States must counter this new
>colonialism by building a militant movement against
>imperialism.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <005a01bf77b8$1937fa50$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Luddites & Web zapping
>Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 08:25:16 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Feb. 17, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>EDITORIAL: LUDDITES & WEB ZAPPING
>
>There's no word yet on who shut down a number of businesses
>on the Internet starting Feb. 7, or whether they think of
>themselves as Luddites.
>
>The first site they hit, on Feb. 7, was the search engine
>Yahoo. Then the computers at Amazon.com, eBay, Buy.com and
>CNN's website were overwhelmed with terrabytes of random
>data. By Feb. 9, the attack had spread to Internet brokerage
>firms E*Trade Group and Datek Online Holdings as well as
>tech-info site ZDNet.
>
>While these attacks don't leave behind shards of smoking
>metal, they do shut down business for a few hours. And on
>the Internet, as elsewhere in capitalist society, time is
>money.
>
>They also raise fears that commercial transactions via the
>Internet may not be secure. Security is a big issue to these
>new entrepreneurs as more and more payments are made
>electronically.
>
>The Luddites were English weavers at the beginning of the
>Industrial Revolution who rebelled against the atrocious
>conditions in the new factories by breaking the looms. In
>1811 and 1812, the British government sent 14,000 troops to
>put down the Luddite rebellion--the largest battle until
>then in the new class wars.
>
>There have been other attempts by angry and frustrated
>workers to fight their exploitation by attacking the
>machinery that either replaced them or degraded their
>conditions of work. The word sabotage comes from the French
>word for wooden shoe--the object of choice to wedge between
>the gears of a machine.
>
>The new computer technology has interconnected the
>processes of production as never before. When the Luddites
>were attacking the weaving machines, hoping to gain better
>conditions from their masters, capitalism was in the early
>stages of tying together all the local markets developed
>under feudalism--first on a level that coincided with the
>development of the nation state, then transcending even
>these wider boundaries to create a world market.
>
>Today industrialization and the information revolution
>have transformed the world. Goods move rapidly to all
>corners of the globe, and the information needed to organize
>production and distribution precedes them at almost the
>speed of light. But alas, this explosion of production has
>not brought the world of peace and prosperity that 19th
>century bourgeois economists anticipated.
>
>Karl Marx wrote in the middle of that century that
>capitalism would make the rich richer and the poor poorer,
>irrespective of the will of the individual capitalists. It
>has happened beyond the worst nightmares of social thinkers,
>so that today the 200 richest people in the world own more
>than the bottom 2 billion.
>
>The growth of technology in the hands of privately owned
>corporations and banks is only intensifying, not solving,
>humanity's problems. But technology itself is not the
>problem. Even a simple hoe or wheel is technology--the
>technology of an earlier age. Computers are the technology
>of this age.
>
>The Luddites couldn't stop capitalist expansion with their
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