>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 9, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>"VIEQUES IS OURS":
>WOMEN SAY DECISION TO EVICT U.S. NAVY HAS UNITED PEOPLE
>
>By Monica Somocurcio
>
>[On Feb. 17, nine representatives of the Women's Alliance
>of Vieques participated in a meeting hosted by Local 1199
>in New York City. This was part of a weeklong visit by the
>women focused on their struggle to free Vieques from U.S.
>Navy occupation.
>
>The struggle to keep the Navy out of Vieques was rekindled
>after a civilian, David Sanes, was killed by a stray bomb on
>April 19, 1999. The sister of David Sanes--Mirta Sanes--was
>part of this delegation.
>
>The representatives of the Women's Allience in New York were
>Judith Conde, Gladys Rivera, Carmen Valencia, Luz Maldonado,
>Mirta Sanes, Miriam Soba, Helen Navarro, Aleida Encarnacion
>and Pastor Lucy Rosario.
>
>The women of the Women's Alliance have become leaders in
>their own right in the struggle in Vieques, becoming the most
>militant, as was the case in the blocking of Camp Garcia.
>
>Camp Garcia is a U.S. military base in Vieques that the
>Women's Alliance closed and continues to keep closed through
>civil disobedience. They have set up a camp in front of the
>base and they keep it staffed and ready to block any and all
>traffic that may attempt to enter the base.
>
>The following is an interview with Gladys Rivera and Judith
>Conde, co-founders of the Woman's Alliance.]
>
>
>
>WHAT IS THE WOMEN'S ALLIANCE AND HOW WAS IT FORMED?
>
>GR: Judith Conde and I called for the formation of this
>organization last May to increase the participation of women
>in the Vieques struggle. There didn't seem to be much room for
>us before. We work on educating women on the U.S. occupation
>of Vieques and on women's issues in general, supporting each
>other and strengthening ourselves in terms of our health and
>our social life. We are in charge of Camp Justicia y Paz (Camp
>Justice and Peace).
>
>JC: We really wanted to do more about this and so we called
>a meeting only expecting a few women to come. Then we saw a
>group of 25 women join us, and later 40 women came all tired
>of the abuse. We talked to each other about our questions, our
>fears, our concerns as women. At first, some women would only
>come to the meetings but would not want to participate in
>civil disobedience. We gave them the space to do what they
>could do and never expected more than what they were ready and
>willing to give. But when we locked Camp Garcia, I remember
>hearing someone banging a pot with a spoon making noise and
>when I looked around it was this lady who never wanted to come
>out to rallies. We have reactivated our whole community.
>
>WHAT IS THE REACTION OF THE PEOPLE TO THE RECENT
>ROSSELLO/CLINTON AGREEMENT ALLOWING THE U.S. NAVY TO RETURN TO
>VIEQUES?
>
>GR: I know that all of Puerto Rico and all of Vieques is
>against this. It is unjust, it is abusive, and they didn't
>even consult with us or with our representatives.
>
>WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE UPCOMING MARCH CALLED BY THE
>CHURCHES?
>
>GR: This will be a cry for justice. Everyone is going, even
>the Popular Democratic Party (pro-commonwealth party), the
>unions, the churches, everyone. Rossell¢ will be surprised.
>The government is afraid of the people. But their attacks have
>united the people more.
>
>HOW IS THE UNITY IN THE MOVEMENT SINCE THE AGREEMENT?
>
>GR: Unity has been fortified. The decision to evict the Navy
>from our island, to not have one more bomb, has been
>maintained.
>
>JC: The people have come together in the ones and twos,
>little by little. But conscience has been raised and now they
>have the strength to fight this.
>
>WHAT DO YOU HAVE PLANNED FOR THE NEXT WEEKS?
>
>GR: We will continue fortifying the camps, orienting the
>women of Vieques toward greater participation, setting up
>health workshops with specialists on cancer and the other
>ailments our people now suffer from, etc. To go to the
>community is our priority, to get more involved in peaceful
>civil disobedience.
>
>JC: Around International Women's Day we will be travelling
>to many towns and communities bringing the message. We will
>be attending many different activities all week.
>
>WHAT WOULD YOU WANT TO SEE FROM GROUPS IN THE U.S. THAT
>SUPPORT THE VIEQUES STRUGGLE?
>
>GR: Community work is basic. The struggle against militarism
>is basic too, so that the people in the U.S. realize that it's
>not against them, but against their government and military.
>We will not give up our human rights. All the millions the
>Navy brings don't go to our people. Our people are not
>prosperous or rich. All the millions go to destruction and
>death.
>
>HOW HAS ALL THE STRUGGLE IN VIEQUES AFFECTED THE REST OF
>PUERTO RICO?
>
>GR: Everything has helped to reaffirm our Puerto Ricanhood
>and the love for our people. The longer we remain in the
>occupied territories, the more people realize "this is
>ours." A greater sense of ownership and pride develops the
>longer we remain there. Vieques is ours.
>
> - 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: <00a301bf88a5$6d60b920$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Is U.S./NATO preparing new attack on Yugoslavia?
>Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 21:24:27 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 9, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>IS U.S. /NATO PREPARING NEW ATTACK ON YUGOSLAVIA?
>
>By John Catalinotto
>
>A careful analysis of recent events in northern Kosovo
>indicates that the U.S.-NATO command, known as KFOR, is
>preparing a new aggression against Yugoslavia.
>
>Death squads made up of reconstituted units from the so-
>called Kosovo Liberation Army have been attacking and killing
>Serbs not only in northern Kosovo, but in towns over the
>provincial border in Serbia. On Feb. 28, Susan Manuel, a
>spokesperson for the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, said,
>"Over the weekend, UNMIK police reported an increased level of
>violence against Serbs around Kosovo."
>
>A march of thousands of right-wing Kosovo Albanians tried to
>invade the Serbian sector of the town of Mitrovica in the
>northern part of Kosovo on Feb. 21. This amounted to an
>attempt to drive most of the remaining 50,000 Serbs out of
>Kosovo. About 250,000 Serbs, Roma, Turks and other minorities
>have already been driven out of the NATO "protectorate."
>
>U.S. forces that intervened against the Serb population of
>Mitrovica were first driven back by stones. U.S. paratroopers
>then jumped in to enforce searches of Serb households,
>allegedly for weapons.
>
>U.S. forces have now broken the rule that stopped them from
>coming within a mile of the border with the rest of Serbia.
>They are constructing a new military base in a muddy field
>just 100 yards from the border, near the Serbian village of
>Dobrosin, according to the Washington Post of Feb. 28.
>
>The same Washington Post story reports that ex-KLA fighters
>are turning up with new insignias. They now call themselves
>the "Liberation Amy of Presevo, Medveda and Bujenovac," three
>towns in southern Serbia near the Kosovo border.
>
>All media reports admit that KLA-type forces are behind the
>conflicts in the north of Kosovo.
>
>Yet this didn't stop U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
>Richard Holbrooke, U.S.-NATO Gen. Wesley Clark and Secretary-
>General George Robertson from blaming Yugoslav President
>Slobodan Milosevic for the problems there. NATO asked for more
>troops in Kosovo. And KFOR occupation chief Henning Philipp
>said NATO forces in Kosovo were "watching closely" Yugoslav
>Army maneuvers along the border.
>
>Yugoslav sources denied the army was making any moves. Gen.
>Vladimir Lazarevic, commander of the Yugoslav Third Army, said
>that "the adverse political and security situation in Kosovo
>is spreading to municipalities bordering Kosovo." He added
>that KFOR wanted to provide a pretext for more drastic
>measures--diplomatic, political and perhaps military.
>
>Overall, the situation was similar to that leading up to the
>U.S./NATO 78-day air assault on Yugoslavia last spring. During
>all of 1998 the U.S.- and German-backed KLA--that even U.S.
>officials had described as "terrorists"--had been encouraged
>to provoke Yugoslav retaliation, which was then distorted by
>the capitalist media to justify the massive bombardments.
>
>That bombardment ended with the NATO occupation of Kosovo,
>now divided into U.S., Italian, German, British and French
>zones--and a Russian enclave. The rich Western countries had
>divided up Kosovo in 1999 much as they divided up Africa at
>the 1885 Berlin Conference, except this time Washington had
>the leading role.
>
>The war was sold to the public as a "humanitarian" effort to
>bring peace to Kosovo and to stop the alleged "ethnic
>cleansing" of Kosovo Albanians. It ended with a NATO
>protectorate over Kosovo with the KLA forces becoming the
>local cops. These forces brutally pushed Serbs, Roma and
>others out of the province, except for the northern area
>around Mitrovica, and did it under NATO's protection.
>
>The region around Mitrovica is not just another piece of
>territory. It contains the Trepca mines.
>
>CONTROL OF RICH MINES
>
>In an article written for Workers World long before NATO's
>assault on Yugoslavia, International Action Center coordinator
>Sara Flounders pointed out the value of these mines--the
>Yugoslav state-owned Trepca mines, including Stari Trg and the
>Zvecan smelterthe economy not only of Kosovo but of all
>Yugoslavia.
>
>They are the richest lead and zinc mines in all of Europe
>and have been fought over in every major war in the region.
>Flounders' article is expected to receive an award by the
>"Project Censored" group for uncovering one of the best-hidden
>stories of the buildup toward the war.
>
>An article by Paris-based journalist Diana Johnstone
>circulated Feb. 28 on the Internet relates how billionaire
>George Soros's think tank--the International Crisis Group--
>called for a quick takeover of the state-owned Trepca mines.
>The group urged UNMIK to seize the mines, using the excuse
>that the Zvecan smelter harmed the environment.
>
>The Soros group wanted the takeover of the Kosovo mines
>before any new elections in Serbia, so that the loss of Trepca
>could be blamed on Milosevic.
>
>The mistaken idea that imperialist corporations are helping
>clean up the environment in Eastern Europe was exploded
>recently when cyanide-laced water from a gold mine in Romania
>spilled into a river flowing into the Danube, creating a
>monumental ecological disaster. For the last five years an
>Australian company has owned the mine, and ignored warnings
>from its own engineers.
>
>Anyone who doubts the Western occupiers of Kosovo have
>plunder in their sights need only read the outspoken comments
>of Italian Gen. Silvio Mazzaroli, who, until he gave an
>interview published Feb. 25 in the Italian newspaper Corriere
>della Sera, was the number two person in KFOR. He complained
>that the Italian government's diplomacy was too weak. The
>Italian troops were "doing the dirty work, which in the end
>meant we left to the others the possibility of a real economic
>penetration of Kosovo," said Mazzoli.
>
>Benjamin Ward, director of Human Rights Watch, in an
>interview in the Feb. 25 Italian daily newspaper Il Manifesto
>said that "Mitrovica is the symbol of the ambiguity of NATO's
>humanitarian war, and those responsible for the current
>violence were the Western leaders, not Milosevic."
>
>Ward, who is no friend of the Belgrade government,
>criticized the NATO leaders for not bringing KLA commanders
>before the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague and for allowing
>their crimes to go unpunished.
>
>These two sources hostile to Belgrade both testified that
>NATO's intentions and actions are anything but humanitarian.
>
>RESISTANCE TO A NEW WAR
>
>The developing threats against Yugoslavia have given new
>impetus to plans to protest NATO's continuing occupation of
>Kosovo and sanctions against Yugoslavia. Such protests have
>been announced in Vienna, Berlin, Stockholm, Brussels and
>other European cities to take place around March 24, the one-
>year anniversary of the beginning of the bombing war.
>
>In the United States, the International Action Center has
>called for nationwide demonstrations on March 24. The IAC had
>taken the initiative last summer of launching an investigation
>of U.S./NATO war crimes against Yugoslavia and will be holding
>an International War Crimes Tribunal on June 10 to hear the
>final case.
>
>Tribunal hearings have been held in many countries, with
>more scheduled to take place this spring in Germany, the Czech
>Republic and Yugoslavia before the June 10 tribunal.
>
>For more information on the March 24 protests, readers can
>call the IAC at (212) 633-6646 or look at the IAC Web site at
>www.iacenter.org.
>
>
>
> - 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: <00a901bf88a5$81b9ebd0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Europe in uproar over massive U.S. industrial spying
>Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 21:25:01 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 9, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>EUROPE IN UPROAR OVER MASSIVE U.S. INDUSTRIAL SPYING
>
>By John Catalinotto
>
>If you thought the 45-year era of imperialist Cold-War
>aggression was sliding quietly into retirement, then you
>probably haven't heard yet about Echelon.
>
>A spy system started in the early 1970s, Echelon was a
>cooperative effort of the highly secret National Security
>Agency here in the U.S. with its counterparts in Britain,
>Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
>
>By applying artificial intelligence to information
>gathered from satellites and from the ground--obtained by
>intercepting foreign phone calls, faxes and email messages-
>-Echelon was supposedly aimed at protecting the "security"
>of the four English-dominant countries in the imperialist
>world.
>
>Echelon is now a major issue in Europe because all that
>technical expertise developed to bring down socialist
>countries is now being poured into inter-imperialist
>rivalry--when it isn't being used to undermine oppressed
>peoples trying to exert some independence.
>
>A report issued by the European Parliament on Feb. 23
>complained that Echelon had been turned to a new use. The
>system has been used to collect trade information to give
>big businesses based in these four countries an advantage
>over their rivals in Europe.
>
>According to this report, the system "enables the
>countries using it to obtain significant economic
>information and, hence, to secure a leading position on the
>commercial markets."
>
>The system intercepts "billions of messages per hour,"
>said Duncan Campbell, the report's principal author, in
>Brussels. "We are not talking about a trivial thing here."
>
>U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary James Rubin,
>denied any wrongdoing. He even refused to admit Echeolon
>existed. But European politicians complained that Echelon
>was neither trivial nor benign.
>
>Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel accused the U.S.,
>Britain and their partners of organizing "large-scale
>espionage operations in order to reinforce their economic
>interests to the detriment of Belgium and other European
>countries."
>
>The European Parliament report claims that in two cases
>Echelon intercepts helped U.S.-based companies competing
>with European rivals to get the deals.
>
>"The Anglo-Saxon Echelon eavesdropping network constitutes
>a serious infringement on national security and on the
>freedoms of all French people," said Rene Galy-Dejean, a
>French legislator.
>
>The capitalists' idea of peace in the post-Soviet world is
>to feel freer to use the weapons of the Cold War against
>each other. That war was supposed to have had noble aims--
>freedom, democracy, personal liberty. But in fact it was a
>war of a predatory ruling class against countries that had
>broken away from capitalism. Now the U.S. bourgeoisie wants
>to use its military edge developed during the Cold War to
>do what capitalists do best: beat down the competition and
>squeeze the most profits out of the workers, wherever they
>may be.
>
> - 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: <00af01bf88a5$93b5f4a0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Truckers blockade eastern Canada
>Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 21:25:31 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 9, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>TRUCKERS BLOCKADE EASTERN CANADA
>
>By G. Dunkel
>Halifax, Nova Scotia
>
>Starting Feb. 21, independent truckers in Canada blockaded
>Amherst in New Brunswick. Their action shut off all
>deliveries from the rest of North America to Nova Scotia,
>Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.
>
>They were protesting the cost of diesel fuel, which in
>Canada has doubled in the last three months. Half of the
>Canadian pump price is taxes.
>
>These truckers own their own rigs and are called
>independent, but they work for huge firms that set their
>hours, pay scale and working conditions.
>
>The impact of this blockade was felt immediately,
>particularly in remote parts of Atlantic Canada, which
>didn't get their deliveries of gasoline and fresh food.
>
>A large independent trucker protest also took place on
>Feb. 22 in Washington, D.C., over the same issues.
>
>There is basically no rail service in Canada's maritime
>provinces, so they faced a shutdown of their economies. The
>politicians immediately started blaming each other. The
>provincial premiers said the federal government, headed by
>Prime Minister Jean ChrÇtien, was responsible. ChrÇtien
>said the provinces were to blame.
>
>Finally, after some meetings with provincial cabinet
>ministers and some vague promises about relief, the
>truckers lifted their blockade.
>
>But then independent truckers in Newfoundland, an island
>with very high unemployment and a seriously depressed
>economy, started pulling their rigs off the highway that
>connects the ferry port to the main city, St. John's. They
>felt they weren't covered by the agreement reached with New
>Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Deliveries of home heating oil
>and medical supplies were allowed through.
>
>The provincial government refused to meet with them and
>tried to whip up public opinion.
>
>But a car driver who had waited for 20 minutes for gas had
>this to say: "I'm with the truckers 100 percent. I think it's
>time for something to happen. ... We're hardy Newfoundlanders.
>If we stay by the truckers, we'll pull through and it will be
>to the advantage of the people." (Halifax Mail-Star, Feb. 23.)
>
> - 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)
>
>
>
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